Politics

At a press event held by Hillary Clinton about FEMA trailers out on Long Island today, I asked her about the campaigning she planned to do for Barack Obama between now and Election Day.

She said, "During the month of August, they've asked me to go to several states. But I'm going to leave it to them to announce. I don't want to in any way get ahead of them. But, you know, I'm doing whatever I'm asked and whatever I can."

Joshua Mitnick reports that Israelis "were swept up and away" by Barack Obama's visit.

Nicolas Sarkozy "all but endorsed Obama."

At a press conference in France, Obama urged Iran to accept the deal offered by Western leaders.

Obama may be seeing a bounce in the daily tracking polls.

The McCain's old house is on the market for $12 million, and the owner is hoping to capitalize on his fame.

The audacity of hopelessness? Oh, dear.

Obama phoned wounded soldiers in Germany instead of visiting them.

The head of the Public Integrity Commission defends not charging Eliot Spitzer.  read more »

Last night at the Bronx Democratic County Dinner, I ran into Ezra Friedlander, an Orthodox Jew who lives in Brooklyn and does political PR. He said he thought Barack Obama’s recent trip to the Middle East was good, but that John McCain “has a clearer understanding of the history and the players.”

Friedlander goes on to say he's "leaning towards" voting for McCain.

The trip did win over a once-skeptical Assemblyman Rory Lancman of Queens, who had offered his unsolicited advice to Obama before the trip.

This afternoon, Lancman put out a rather supportive statement, saying in part:

“For those of us whose familiarity with Senator Obama comes almost entirely from his twenty months as a presidential candidate, this closely scrutinized trip to the Middle East has been an opportunity to see him not as a mere candidate but as a potential president in a president's most important and challenging role - as commander in chief and leader of the free world.  read more »

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Kevin Powell gathered reporters at Junior’s Restaurant in Brooklyn this morning to respond to what he called unfair reminders of his admittedly violent past in recent columns by Daily News columnist Errol Louis.

Powell, who is running for Congress against Representative Ed Towns of Brooklyn and has admitted to and apologized for past incidents of violence against women, said that he would never to do it again, and added that recent events related to Eliot Spitzer, David Paterson and others have made it clear that public officials all need to be transparent about their shortcomings.

He noted he has Gloria Steinem's support. (Along with others, she is helping to organize a "Women for Powell" event in September.  read more »

From the Obama campaign's flickr page.

(So much for the "tightly wrapped message?")

UPDATE: As seen in this other picture, she's also wearing a Hillary Clinton T-shirt with two Hillary Clinton buttons pinned to it.

Pedro Espada, the head of the nonprofit Soundview HealthCare Network, is sending campaign-like mailings (“From the Desk of Pedro Espada, Jr.”) from the organization's office offering things like "free mammography mobile screenings" and "free fruits and vegetables."

These mailings were handed over by a reader who lives in the Bronx. Three of the mailings were sent out in May and June and a fourth had no date stamped on the envelope.

By advertising the group’s legitimate work, Espada, who served in the State Senate representing the neighboring district, can reap the political benefit of raising his profile and being in contact with the public in a favorable way.  read more »

Theodore Sorensen, who was John F. Kennedy's speechwriter and one of his closest advisers, approves of the speech Barack Obama delivered yesterday to 200,000 Germans in front of the Victory Column in Tiergarten.

"I thought it was a magnificent, historic speech," said Sorensen, who helped draft Kennedy's famous 1963 "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech. "It was a comprehensive declaration of new American foreign policy which will close the chapter on the nightmares of the last seven and a half years and hold out hope for sensible Europeans that America will once again be a collaborator."

Asked how Obama's speech echoed Kennedy's decades earlier, with its tone and repetitive references to freedom and Berlin, Sorensen said, "Of course there are parallels between two, young, aggressive internationalist-minded Democrats speaking in that historic place.  read more »

The prayer Barack Obama left at the Western Wall has been published. [AP] 

"It's a tough national environment," Rudy Giuliani tells new lawmakers. [The Washington Post] 

An upstate blogger praises the likely passage of the Great Lakes Compact, hoping that as water become more precious, people will need to turn to the Great Lakes more often. [Strike Slip]

Nicholas Wapshott wonders if Obama can maintain his popularity with Europeans if he's elected. [City Journal]

Congressional Quarterly has changed the rating for John Hall's district from "Leans Democrat" to "Democrat Favored." [C.Q. via The Albany Project]

Here’s Sheldon Silver playfully introducing Democratic County Leader Jose Rivera, also an assemblyman, at the Bronx Democratic County Dinner last night.

Silver told the crowd that Rivera was “in the Assembly for five years and he went to Albany Medical Center and the doctor told him to go on light duty. So, he went to the City Council for 13 years. And then he was all cured and he came back. Now he’s working again real hard.”

“I say that in jest,” said Silver to Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

Guests also included Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, City Comptroller Bill Thompson, Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, likely Republican mayoral candidate John Catisimatidis (who had brief chats with Silver and Cuomo); City Council members Eric Gioia, John Liu, and David Weprin; Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV; and former county leader Roberto Ramirez.

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One D.C.-based reporter who covers Obama said that, even contrasted with the oft-bemoaned Clinton campaign, “the [Obama] press shop is unresponsive, unorganized and less accessible - taking a few questions on infrequent conference calls and bristling when you ask about something not on their agenda or talking points list of the day.”

“That said,” added the reporter, “If it was not so infuriating from a reporter's standpoint, I would almost admire their discipline and ability to rapid respond and the like in a way that controls the news cycle better than their opponents.”

Steve Kornacki explains both why Ralph Nader's minimal success in the 2000 election was the result of "a truly extraordinary circumstance," and why it's not going to happen again this year.

Sheldon Silver tells Azi, in response to the Public Integrity Commission report, that the lesson to learn is that "you have to get along with people."

A state commission said there was not enough evidence to accuse Eliot Spitzer of wrongdoing after the Troopergate investigate, even though four of his aides were found to have acted improperly.

A Spitzer spokesman said the report makes it clear that the former governor didn’t do anything wrong.

The New York Post editorial board said, “[I]t is inconceivable, given Spitzer's manic ways and his compulsive attention to detail, that he wasn't up to his eyeballs in Troopergate.”

David Grandeau, former lobbying commission chair, agrees.

Tom Precious notes, “The ethics panel is dominated by appointees of the former governor.”

The new report, which took over a year, did not substantially differ from Andrew Cuomo’s, which took three weeks, according to Jacob Gershman.  read more »

10 a.m. State Insurance Department and the Attorney General's Office hold hearing on broker compensation; New York University, Eisner and Lubin auditorium, 4th floor, Helen and Martin Kimmel Center for University Life, 60 Washington Square South.

10:30 a.m. Betsy Gotbaum calls for playground warning signs to be in English and Spanish; Mil Brook Playground, 135th Street between St. Ann's and Cypress avenues, Bronx.

12:30 p.m. Autism United and State Senator Craig Johnson announce companies that are pulling their advertising off radio host Michael Savage's program over autism comments; in front of the Wall Street bull, between Broadway and Whitehall Street.

7 p.m. Black Veterans for Social Justice holds benefit gala; The Grand Prospect Hall, 263 Prospect Ave.

There were an estimated 200,000 people at Barack Obama's speech in Germany.

Greg Sargent writes of the speech,"[T]he discussion of terror was more extensive than you might have expected."

Michael Crowley wonders about Obama's phrase "people of the world."

Ben notes that while the German press has gone nuts for Obama, the French press may not be following.

Rudy Giuliani's son is suing Duke because they kicked him off the golf team and "interfered with Giuliani's efforts toward becoming a professional golfer." 

Apparently absolutely no one can find Obama's senior thesis.

Obama will be on Capitol Hill Tuesda .  read more »

The McCain campaign just released another statement taking issue with what they argue is the presumptuousness of Obama's speech in Berlin today:

"While Barack Obama took a premature victory lap today in the heart of Berlin, proclaiming himself a 'citizen of the world,' John McCain continued to make his case to the American citizens who will decide this election," McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said in a statement. "Barack Obama offered eloquent praise for this country, but the contrast is clear. John McCain has dedicated his life to serving, improving and protecting America. Barack Obama spent an afternoon talking about it."  read more »

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