Ohio

In a poll just released by Quinnipiac University, Hillary Clinton is running ahead of John McCain in Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio—three swing states that, according to electoral lore, are necessary to win the presidency.

The poll also shows McCain would beat Barack Obama in both Florida and Ohio:  read more »

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 »

Meet Todd Appelbaum, a 46-year-old from Columbus, who wore a shirt that says “Osama for Obama” to the Clinton campaign’s election-night event in Ohio last night.

The white t-shirt, with an image of Barack Obama dressed in traditional Somali garb, is adorned with a blue Hillary Clinton button, although Appelbaum is not what one would call a real Hillary Clinton supporter.

“I voted for Hillary today,” he said, “because I’m concerned that, God forbid, Barack Obama will beat McCain. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

A couple of observations about one of the big Clinton talking points after yesterday’s Ohio win: the notion that you can't win in the fall without winning the big swing states that Hillary Clinton is winning in the primaries.

("We need a Democratic candidate who can win battleground states like Ohio!" she said last night.)  read more »

Hillary Clinton had a very good night on Tuesday, the first time in a while that can be said.

But for her to emerge as her party’s nominee, it will take Democrats deciding that their standard-bearer should be the candidate who won fewer pledged delegates, fewer popular votes and fewer states in the primary and caucus season.

The March 4 results weren’t nearly decisive enough for her to make headway in the race for delegates, where she still lags about 100 behind Obama. And she still trails Obama by hundreds of thousands of votes in the cumulative national popular vote.  read more »

A few short minutes after Ohio was called for Hillary Clinton, the candidate took the stage in a blizzard of confetti, next to her daughter, Chelsea, and key Ohio supporters.

“Thank you, Ohio,” said Clinton when the applause finally died down.

Clinton wasted no time in making the case that her convincing win in Ohio again brought her back from the brink and justified the continuation of her campaign.  read more »

It's been called, guaranteeing at the very least that tomorrow's stories won't be about whether or not Hillary Clinton should drop out of the race.

The official count may not be in, but Terry McAuliffe is ready to call it.

“Let me be crystal clear: Hillary Clinton is not going anywhere,” he told reporters just now at the Clinton watch party here in Columbus. “She’s going to Denver as the nominee.”

“We are going to win three states tonight,” he said.

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 »

Now, according to the Clinton campaign, it’s “NAFTAgate.”

That’s what Howard Wolfson just called the controversy about Barack Obama’s senior economic advisor, Austan Goolsbee, allegedly telling Canadian officials that Mr. Obama’s sharp attacks on NAFTA were only “political positioning.”  read more »

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio—A good portion of the coverage of the Democratic primary contest has been marked, some might say marred, by boxing metaphors. It’s a constant struggle, apparently, to resist words like knockout, jab, punch and ring.

But today Hillary Clinton gave the press no choice.

Speaking on a stage with Youngstown, Ohio native and Middleweight boxing champion Kelly Pavlik (“I’m not just a fighter I’m a father”), Clinton laid it on thick.

Clinton said she was inspired “after seeing the way that Kelly came back, when people were ready to count him out,” and said that Bill Clinton said of Kelly’s rematch victory against Arkansas native Jermain Taylor, “I think I just saw another Comeback Kid and his name is Kelly.”  read more »

PARMA HEIGHTS, Ohio—The crowd at the Valley Forge high school last night was itching to clap.

But Barack Obama was not in bring-down-the-house mode. He was in boring mode. He was in talking about energy and gas prices and “You see it all across Ohio, people are working for less” mode. As Hillary Clinton’s closing argument more sharply criticizes him as a government neophyte with a knack for inspiring speeches, but without the appropriate seriousness or experience to be commander in chief, Obama is turning on the policy, answering questions at town-hall-style meetings, and seeking to assure voters of his governing chops and stop Clinton in her must-win of must-win states.

They had come to applaud. The Obama aide who performed the microphone check before Obama arrived had promised they could clap. “We’ll get the show started pretty soon,” he had said. And when Obama did arrive and speak, they rewarded even the smallest applause line with eager clapping.  read more »

LAKEWOOD, Ohio—Governor Ted Strickland of Ohio thinks Hillary Clinton should keep pursuing the Democratic nomination even if she emerges from Tuesday’s voting with a victory only in his state.

“In my judgment and if I’m asked, I’ll say to her that if she wins Ohio, I think she should continue this because Pennsylvania is another sizable state,” Strickland said in an interview with The Observer after a campaign event here with Bill Clinton. “We need to be thinking about what is going to happen in November. It will do no good to come up with a Democratic nominee if we don’t win in November. We’ve been through that before.”

When asked if there wouldn’t be overwhelming pressure from senior Democratic Party officials on Hillary Clinton to withdraw from the race if she were to lose Texas—no less a supporter than her husband has intimated that she wouldn’t be the nominee if she didn’t win both major states on March 4—Strickland grew adamant.  read more »

HOUSTON—Hillary Clinton contrasted herself with Barack Obama last night in a new way: she claimed to be more progressive on space exploration.

Houston is home to the Johnson Space Center, where NASA's manned spaceflight programs are based. And Clinton urged a large, fervent crowd at Delmar Fieldhouse to "be sure we have a president who wants to keep sending Americans into space so that we can continue to map the heavens."

"One of the differences" between her and Obama, Clinton said, is that she "want[s] Houston to remain the capital of the space race.”  read more »

HANGING ROCK, Ohio—At a campaign event this afternoon on Ohio’s southern-Appalachian border with West Virginia, Governor Ted Strickland introduced Hillary Clinton as a "person of substance.”

“I think she is a pretty good talker herself," he said, tacitly comparing her to Barack Obama. "But I like what she says, not just how she says it.”

So the campaign and its surrogates are definitely sticking with the talk-over-action theme, and Clinton herself argued that Barack Obama’s lack of experience was revealed by his failure to actually chair any meetings of the senate subcommittee on European affairs because he was too busy running for president. (“I don’t think he should be touting that as experience since he never did anything.”)  read more »

Hillary Clinton would beat Rudy Giuliani in a head to head match up in Ohio, according to a new Quinnipiac poll of registered voters there.

The poll also shows that Barack Obama has narrowed Hillary's lead over him in the last poll from 38-13 to 32-22.

Also, in a hypothetical Democratic primary, Al Gore is slightly ahead of John Edwards.

-- Azi Paybarah

If pragmatism prevails in the Republican primaries and caucuses next winter—a questionable pro  read more »

10 a.m. Quinnipiac University will release the results of a recent poll asking Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania voters about candidates for the 2008 presidential race.

10 a.m. Children bake matzas for U.S. troops serving abroad at the Jewish Children's Museum, 792 Eastern Parkway, in Brooklyn.  read more »

10:30 a.m. Melanie Bloom and ESPN sportscaster Bonnie Bernstein launch a DVT (deep vein thrombosis) awareness campaign at Weill Cornell Medical College, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, 525 East 68th Street at York Avenue.

Tina Balazs and Michael Ferreter   Met: December 2000 Engaged: Aug. 15, 2006  read more »

Tina Balazs and Michael Ferreter   Met: December 2000 Engaged: Aug. 15, 2006  read more »

Tina Balazs and Michael Ferreter   Met: December 2000 Engaged: Aug. 15, 2006  read more »

The City Council will hold a hearing on the City's failure to implement its emergency subway communication plan.

Activists are set to protest what they call a landlord's harassment of two lesbian tenants in Brooklyn.

The New Black Panther Party will rally against the police shooting of Sean Bell at the Queens Courthouse.

New York University will hold a panel discussion on "Global Warming and Human Health: Moving Beyond Rhetoric and Toward Solutions" in the Woolworth Building.

Harper's Magazine will host a lecture on "Reporting On Religion: How Faith Gets Covered" at the Small Press Center.

Rent-stabilized tenants will file a lawsuit against Nassau County landlords to stop them from collecting what they call "invalid rent hikes" at the Nassau County Supreme Court Building.

Quinnipiac University releases its latest poll of Ohio voters, asking their opinions about 2008 presidential hopefuls.

Brooklyn's Deputy Borough President, Yvonne Graham, will host city religious leaders and disaster-readiness professionals to announce a new tool in the campaign to ensure New York City's emergency preparedness.

—Nicole Brydson

With the Democrats now in control of Congress, Dennis Kucinich, one of Washington's most committed opponents to the war in Iraq, plans to unveil sometime over the next few days what he calls a "comprehensive plan" to withdraw American troops and bring an immediate end to the war.

The Ohio congressman, who is mounting another presidential bid, has been on the fringes of Congress' war critics, going so far to call for immediately cutting off funds for the war. He estimates that the war costs about eight billion dollars a month, and that of the $70 billion appropriated for the war in October, roughly $46 billion is left over. "The next question is what do you use that money for," Kucinich said. "Do you use it to dig a deeper hole or to get out. What I am advocating is to use the existing funds to brings the troops home."

Kucinich's plan depends, somewhat fantastically, on the cooperation and active involvement of an international community that to say the least seems extremely reluctant to help stabilize and rebuild Iraq.

"That money can also be used to set in place a security transition an international security force organized with the help of the UN," he said. "If you want a new direction you have to reach out. And that includes Iran and Syria. The money is there to help fund an international force. The money can also be used for reconstruction, and reparations for Iraqis who have lost family members."

That plan is unlikely to go anywhere, but the question of what to do with the next emergency supplemental funding request sent by the President, now expected to be as much as $160 billion, is very much up for discussion among Democrats.

--Jason Horowitz

DR. SELMAN: How have you been?  read more »

Do the Republicans really want to run against Hillary Clinton in 2008?

Bob Shrum thinks not. Here's what he told an audience of NYU graduate school students at a panel discussion last night:

"By the way, the Republican Party will do everything they can, if they want to run against her like they say they do, not to damage her between now and the time the nominating process begins."

Republican consultant and fellow panelist Kieran Mahoney, whose business partner is working on John McCain's campaign, still says the GOP would welcome her with open arms.

"Hillary Clinton's perceived ideology is more liberal than Mario Cuomo's, more liberal than Bella Abzug's in statewide surveys," he said. "I just think you can't sell that you can sell that in Ohio. I don't think I can sell that in Ohio."

Shrum's response:

"You've just seen a preview of the McCain candidacy played out in the course of a couple hours. 'I'm a centrist. I'm in the mainstream. Hillary's extreme. Vote for me.'"

-- Azi Paybarah

The 2006 election was a tough one for the New York Republicans: John Faso, who never had much of a s  read more »

Here are some email headlines from State Democratic Party spokesman Blake Zeff, who seems to be enjoying the attorney general debate between Andrew Cuomo and Jeanine Pirro.

"10:11: MS. PIRRO TOUTS UPSTATE KNOWLEDGE -- BUT THOUGHT OHIO BORDERED UPSTATE NY"

"10:18: PIRRO’S OWN PARTY’S SENATE NOMINEE SAID SHE PROTECTS THE CORRUPT"

It's going to be a long hour.

-- Azi Paybarah

UPDATE: After two more emails from the state Democrats, Team Pirro sent out a post-debate email hitting Cuomo for taking a job with a company that did business with HUD while he was in charge -- an act that could arguably run afoul of the reforms that Cuomo is now proposing.

"Pirro to Cuomo: If It Should be Illegal Now, What Made You Think It Was Ethical Then?"

O.K., here’s a quick Choose Your Own Adventure to test your political savvy.  read more »

O.K., here’s a quick Choose Your Own Adventure to test your political savvy.    read more »

Does American Democracy Still Work? by Alan Wolfe. Yale University Press, 216 pages, $22.    read more »

From: Tom Scocca To: Choire Sicha Subject: Um...

From the NYT Mag ARTICLE with those pics:  read more »

"When the mayor came for a post-Katrina visit, Ranatza had the students draw their wishes for the city. They do not lack for colored crayons, yet they rendered New Orleans in sepulchral black and white."

“Why, oh why, oh why, oh—why did I ever leave Ohio?”  read more »

Election Day 2008 is still two-and-a-half years away, but that doesn't mean it's too soon to begin polling for presidential front-runners, particularly in everyone's favorite swing state, Ohio.

The Columbus Dispatch took a poll (you decide on the reliability) of Buckeye State residents and found that Democratic and Republican Party favorites are ... Hillary Clinton and John McCain.

The poll didn't measure how the two potential opponents would fare against each other -- the real question, as far as we're concerned -- but it did offer a few interesting insights, including conservative insider (and columnist) Robert Novack's assessment of Rudy Giuliani's chances of getting past the primaries:

"You think he's going to win the Republican nomination?" Novack told the Dispatch. "I don't think so."

-- Lizzy Ratner

In the great piano concertos of Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Ravel and Bartók, the driving  read more »

The American painter Charles Burchfield (1893-1967), whose work is the subject of a splendid exhibit  read more »

Henry Adams lobbied for the Spanish-American War for years, ghosting speeches for key Senators, plot  read more »

There's a time and a place for everything and 5:30 p.m. outside H. and M.  read more »

I was ambling across St.  read more »

It's one of the functions of anniversary celebrations to evoke happy memories, and on the occasion o  read more »

Here is the speech John Kerry should have delivered at 10 o'clock on the morning after Election Day.  read more »

In the first wartime election in a generation, President George W.  read more »

Tom Bernard, the co-president of Sony Pictures Classics, the studio behind such sophisticated fare a  read more »

It’s Jan. 20, 2005. Inauguration Day.  read more »

Agnes Gund, the president of the Museum of Modern Art and an elegant lady about town, sounded nervou  read more »

Of the 2,509 delegates filling the floor of Madison Square Garden for the Republican convention, few  read more »

Shopper's Bed Test ProvesNot So Comfy After All  read more »

"Send my regards to Daisy Mae!" In the beginning, when our relationship was still fresh and young, m  read more »

We don't yet know the precise cause of the blackout, and perhaps we never will.  read more »

It was a fine, sunny day at the ballpark, one of those days when everything seems right with the wor  read more »

I'd hurt the most decent man I'd ever known over a guest list to a hypothetical marriage to a nonexi  read more »