Rhode Island
Night Shift: Super Tuesday II in the Fox News Studio
Tuesday, March 4, around 8 p.m., Bill O’Reilly bounded across a chilly studio on the first floor of the News Corp. building on Sixth Avenue toward the desk at the back of the room.
There, the members of the Fox News Super Tuesday II political team—Brit Hume, Juan Williams, Bill Kristol, Nina Easton and Fred Barnes—were wrapping up another back-and-forth session, chewing over the night’s early returns. Mr. Kristol made an observation about the rationality of voters. A producer announced a break. read more »
The March 4 Stakes for Hillary
Two things are obvious: If Hillary Clinton can somehow win both Texas and Ohio, she stays; if she loses both states, she’s tuna fish.
A third possibility—a split decision—will present Clinton the justification to push on if she wishes to, but without any clear way to win.
Let’s say Hillary wins Ohio (as the latest polls suggest she will) and falls just short in Texas (as polls also indicate). For the sake of it, let’s also say she wins Rhode Island, where the lower-income white Catholic voters among whom she has done so well elsewhere predominate, and fails in Vermont, a state rich with the reform-minded progressives who are so taken with Obama. In other words, let’s say Tuesday produces a tie—in states won, total popular votes, and delegates accrued. read more »
Never Mind the Politics, Here’s Ted Leo!
Chafee chatter
The idea of Chafee changing parties is not new and in some ways makes an awful lot of sense. He's often called a moderate Republican, but he's really a liberal - to the left of many Senate Democrats - and was the lone GOP vote against the Iraq war. He also publicly refused to vote for George W. Bush's re-election in 2004 and, more recently, opposed the Supreme Court nomination of Samuel Alito. Last week, he won the endorsement of Myrth York - a big-name Rhode Island Democrat who has thrice been her party's gubernatorial nominee. Needless to say, if had switched parties a year or two ago, Chafee would probably have had a much easier path to re-election in blue state Rhode Island.
But the timing on this is off. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has poured millions of dollars into Little Rhody this year, fortifying Chafee first from a life-and-death challenge from the right in the GOP primary and now against his Democratic foe, Sheldon Whitehouse. For Chafee now to stick it to the Republican Party - which has cheerfully brooked every one of his apostasies so that he will vote to give them control of the Senate - would take the term 'ingrate' to a new level.
Still, if Chafee hangs on tonight and the chamber ends up split at 50/50, who knows what inducements Democrats might offer Chafee? Actually, the scenario feels a little like the spring of 2001, when Democrats flipped another very liberal New England Republican, Vermonter James Jeffords, to break a 50/50 tie.
(By the way - wouldn't it have saved everyone considerable trouble if at this time last year Chafee and Joe Lieberman struck a deal to trade parties for one year?)
The New Navy Secretary: An Internationalist With Heart
Donald Winter
Then he spoke. Winter is charming, fast on his feet and extremely impressive. He would seem to represent a new spirit in the Bush Administration, of do-good internationalism. For he stressed that a central function of the Navy is humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.
Bringing a white ship even into a Muslim area, it is recognized as a peaceful mission. And bringing in NGOs only heightens that understanding...Public opinion about the US in particular but also about the western world in general is materially affected as these people see us for what we really are....There's a natural shaping of hearts and minds in favor of the U.S....
At a subsequent press conference, a reporter asked why we should be using the Navy "for the new Peace Corps and new Red Cross around the world."
Winter responded with ease and vigor. "I would not tend to characterize it that way. We have a new set of responsibilities around the world. And this is a win/win. We're helping, and I think the sailors love doing this."
Navy people, he said, get a lot more satisfaction from bailing people out after the tsunami than from more traditional functions. Aye-aye, sir. read more »
Can a Shlemiel Play The Prince of Providence?
Ladies v. Dems
The ostensible purpose of last night's event was to raise money for Rhode Island's boyish Secretary of State, Matt Brown. (Yes, we said "Rhode Island," that small blip of a state between Connecticut and Massachusetts.) Brown is running for U.S. Senate in 2006, and until last week, he was considered the main alternative to Congressman Jim Langevin, the candidate who had been favored by the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee (i.e., Chuck Schumer & Co.). The difference between the two candidates? Brown is pro-choice. Langevin is anti-choice.
(Langevin, it should be noted, is not the only anti-choice candidate who was recruited to challenge a Republican incumbent. Robert Casey, Jr., Pennsylvania's state treasurer and the son of the state's former Governor Robert Casey, Sr., has been recruited to run against the scary Rick Santorum.)
Brown's pro-choice stance has made him something of a cause celebre among well-heeled reproductive rights advocates. Angry that the DSCC was backing Langevin - against the pro-choice Republican senator Lincoln Chafee, no less - they began actively bolstering Brown's campaign, raising money for him at events in Boston, Los Angeles, and points in between.
On March 8th - International Women's Day - Gloria Steinem spoke at an event at the home of Melissa Bomes and Adam Winkler (the son of movie producer Irving Winkler) in Los Angeles. Kate Michelman, former head of NARAL Pro-Choice America, recently held her own fund-raiser in DC. Meanwhile, Victoria Hopper, wife of actor Dennis Hopper, recruited 16 actors, producers and philanthropists to sign a letter urging Democratic women to donate to Brown's campaign - or call the DSCC to "object to their support for radically anti-choice candidate Rep. Langevin."
Robin Duke, a former ambassador to Norway and one of the doyennes of the reproductive rights movement, decided to do both. "I called Chuck [Schumer] on the phone - and I've supported him ever since he ran the first time for the senate," Ms. Duke told The Observer. "Then I called Ted Kennedy. I did not speak to Ted. I spoke to his administrative assistant and told her what I thought."
Last Wednesday, Jim Langevin announced that he would not be running for Senate in 2006. The reason, according to his spokesperson, Mike Guilfoyle, was that "he thinks he can do a better job for Rhode Island in the House." Guilfoyle stressed that Langevin's decision had nothing to do with Matt Brown's growing piggy-bank, and several other political insiders suggested that Langevin would have knocked Brown out in the primary. But that has not stopped women's rights advocates from claiming victory.
"I don't think there was any question that that was a factor in Langevin's decision not to run, that the pressure and the message and the money and the organized effort had an impact," said Kate Michelman, the former head of NARAL Pro-Choice America. read more »
Meanwhile, some 45 big-spending pro-choicers gathered at The Century Club last night to celebrate. Other sponsors of the event included Hearst Entertainment president Bruce Paisner and almost-First Daughter Rebecca Lieberman. Tickets cost $500.
