2008

 As Ralph Nader becomes the Harold Stassen of the 21st century and a running joke to everyone except Al Gore, we sometimes forget that a generation ago (When Stassen was our perennial candidate for President), Nader was a founder of the consumer and environmental movement. How does someone evolve from one of the most credible policy advocates in the country, to a punch line on late night television?

When you buckle your seatbelts and when your air bag deploys—saving your life—you should thank Ralph Nader. The Clean Air Act, the Federal Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act are at least partially due to Nader’s skill as an advocate in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.

I mention the history because Nader did not build his reputation as a consumer and environmental advocate by pushing symbolism at the expense of results. He must know that his popularity is trending down.  read more »

Imagine that you’ve somehow found yourself on trial, mistakenly accused of some criminal act that you would never even think about committing. A guilty verdict will destroy your good name and send you away to a very bad place.

When the trial opens, the eager prosecutor lays out the case, an avalanche of seemingly damning—but, in actuality, entirely circumstantial—evidence. You stew at the defense table, aching for a chance to respond.

But before your moment arrives, the 12 jurors decide they’ve heard enough. With the trial still ongoing, they each cast early “guilty” verdicts. When you finally take the stand and prove—like a scene out of Matlock—that you’ve been wrongly accused, the jurors are all far away from the courtroom, back at their jobs or maybe just lounging around at home. You lose.  read more »

“What’s gone wrong is very simple,” said Hassan Nemazee, a national finance chair for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.  read more »

COLUMBIA, S.C.—We've just been informed that John Edwards did not actually win the South Carolina Democratic Primary! Some other people (who are not at the Edwards not-victory party) may have heard about this by now from Wolf Blitzer. From the front of Jillian's restaurant, a plaintive wail went up: "Joe, please come to the host, your dining table is ready." This is a very sad moment here, for those who are not actually at the Edwards party but instead are here to celebrate birthdays or, you know, to just eat. Wait—we're just hearing that John Edwards will not place second either. Worse, John Edwards is not here—he is with his family, we hear, but campaign adviser (and internet visionary!) Joe Trippi is now with us in the dim press room. (Apparently he was not the Joe being seated for chicken wings.) Edwards himself will speak circa 9:30 p.m. EST.  read more »

COLUMBIA, S.C.—Yes, can you hear me? Hello? It's just BEDLAM here at John Edwards VICTORY PARTY HEADQUARTERS 2008, as a number of people casually dine on what look like chicken wings in Jillian's. We are in this large watering hole not far from downtown—and from the parking lot you can hear Barack Obama's fans yelling, awaiting his concession speech. (Right? I can't quite see the numbers under Wolf Blitzer on the T.V.!) Oddly enough—Curtis Mayfield's "Move On Up" is playing here inside Jillian's. That is the song that Barack Obama often plays after he has concluded a speech.  read more »

From the AP:

Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson quit the Republican presidential race on Tuesday, after a string of poor finishes in early primary and caucus states.

"Today, I have withdrawn my candidacy for president of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort," Thompson said in a statement.

John McCain has not only usurped Rudy Giuliani as the national Republican front-runner, but also has risen through the polls in the former mayor's "firewall" state. Florida, where Giuliani until recently held a commanding lead, is now a four-way statistical tie between McCain, Giuliani, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, according to a Quinnipiac poll released this morning,

Note, however, that McCain's support in the state is less committed to him--they expressed a greater likelihood of changing their minds before the primary--than the supporters of any other top candidate.

Among Democrats, who aren't competing in the state because it sends no delegates this year, Hilllary Clinton maintains a significant lead of very committed support.

Release after the jump.  read more »

Earlier today, Space.com founder and noted (illegal) alien-phobe Lou Dobbs sat down with Constitutional scholar Floyd Abrams in front of an audience of journalists and immigration advocates as part of Columbia Journalism School’s “First Amendment Breakfast Series.”

Viewers of Mr. Dobb’s CNN show, Lou Dobbs Tonight, would not have been surprised by his populist-tinged tirades against the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, Big Media, the National Council of La Raza, and the political leadership of both the Republican and Democratic parties.  read more »

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson will hold a press conference this afternoon at 1 p.m. Mountain Time to officially announce his departure from the Democratic presidential race—but he won't be endorsing another Democratic candidate at this time.

"He wants to make a considered choice," said Martha Burk, his senior advisor for women's issues.

Burk, a syndicated columnist and an editor at Ms. magazine, has made an endorsement, however. She said that "I expect I'll be going to work for Hillary Clinton. She is by far, by far, the most qualified candidate viable in the race right now."

Why not John Edwards or Barack Obama? "I would guess if you ask particularly Obama, but Edwards as well, to talk about the nuances of social security or whether we need a caregiver credit or we need paid leave. i doubt they'd have the depth," she said.

"I was so turned off by what Mr. Edwards said after the emotional moment that Mrs. Clinton had: What few female voters he had would have left him at that point. Making cracks about how being commander in chief is tough?" she said. "That was so sexist. Did he ever tear up? I imagine that he has. He's had some very emotional things happen in his life, not least when his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. I thought it was a big disservice to Mrs. Clinton when he did it."

More from John Koblin:

In the press pen, among those who are not rewriting their already-filed "Obama Wins!" stories, we found James Montgomery, a reporter for MTV News who's been following two teenage Obama volunteers. He said they were writhing in pain and biting their nails.

"This is why we're here," he said.

Down the pen a bit, Sam Stein, of HuffPo, was supposed to cover the Clinton event tonight. He abandoned that idea in favor of the more dramatic story here.

And the AP calls it for Clinton.

The Associated Press is projecting that Hillary Clinton has won the primary in New Hampshire.

We're here at Nashua South High School at the Barack Obama maybe-not victory party. The crowd just went wild--and we have no idea why! A quarter of the room is a press pen of sad angry people, who've been harassed by quite aggressive Obama campaign staffers. In short, we are a lot of people all watching MSNBC together in a gym.

BUT I will say this: there is a stage in the middle of the room, which gives hope (hope!) of a speech by Obama later--win or lose.

It took the networks about 11 minutes to call New Hampshire for John McCain, silencing the speculation that Mitt Romney would score a last-minute victory in his neighboring state.

The margin--it appears that McCain's margin will approach double-digits--means that Romney has suffered debilitating setbacks in the first two states, but his campaign will press on to Michigan, which will vote next week. That state, where Romney grew up and where his father served as Governor in the 1960's, now becomes a must-win for Romney, whose strategy calls for parlaying early primary and caucus wins into consolidated establishment support.

More here.   read more »

John McCain leads Mitt Romney approximately 37 percent to 28 percent, while Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are locked in a very close race, according to early New Hampshire primary returns.

Approximately 11 percent of precincts have reported.

UPDATE: CNN is projecting McCain.

UPDATE: McCain has been declared the winner with approximately 12 percent of precincts reporting. Obama and Hillary are still within points of one another.

Republicans

John McCain

Anything short of a victory is a lethal setback for his campaign. If he wins, he'll immediately seek to parlay his momentum into Michigan next week--a state he won in the 2000 primaries. New Hampshire and Michigan wins would establish McCain as the sole alternative to Mike Huckabee, potentially infusing his campaign with badly needed cash and positioning him to make a serious push in the February 5 mega-primary.

Mitt Romney

A decisive loss could eliminate Romney on the spot. If he loses narrowly, he will claim a moral victory, arguing that he's exceeded expectations and pointing out that he finished in second in the first two contests. With his money, he can hang in the race, but Michigan--where he grew up and where his father served as governor in the 1960s--would then become a do-or-die battle between Romney and McCain. A Romney win tonight would flush McCain from the race, establish Romney as the near-certain winner in Michigan, and position him to corral the party establishment (which fears Mike Huckabee) in advance of February 5.

Mike Huckabee

His expectations are low to non-existent. New Hampshire is not really about how Huckabee will do; it's about determining who his competition will be in later states.

More after the jump.  read more »

New Hampshire traffic update!

On my way back from picking up a cell phone charger and a cup of coffee from Dunkin' Donuts, a caller to the radio station that was playing in my car alerted listeners to a backup near the Dunkin' Donuts on South Willow Street. (Not the one I had come from--New Hampshire runs on Dunkin.)

"I think there's a candidate in there," said the caller, being broadcast over one of the state's many rock stations, 96.5 FM. (New Hampshire drives to Pearl Jam.) "There's all these secret secret service agents."

"Oh, then my guess is it's Hillary," said the D.J., who counseled patience. "They'll all be gone tomorrow."

UPDATE: It was Obama.

Niall Stanage just checked in from the Broken Ground Elementary School in Concord, where Hillary Clinton visited and then left shortly after noon.

The school is host to a polling station, and one of the supervisors described turnout as "a little slow" for what's normal at this time of day, with 940 people out of an eligible electorate of around 3000 having voted by the time Clinton left.

During her visit to Nashua North High School here in New Hampshire earlier this afternoon, Hillary Clinton did her second presser in three days and got into a testy exchange with Chris Matthews.

He asked her to distinguish her platform on returning troops from Iraq versus Barack Obama. Mrs. Clinton said a few words, not particularly in season; she said she'd be very responsible about it. Matthews asked a follow-up and she said, "Well you guys can figure out the difference."

"No, you tell us the difference!" he barked.  read more »

NASHUA, N.H.—The rushed primary schedule gives reporters only five days in New Hampshire, with virtually no sleep since they finished up in Iowa late last night. This morning in New Hampshire, they were feeling it.  read more »

Hillary Clinton has been talking in packed cafeterias and gyms around Iowa this week.

But her campaign, like that of every other candidate, is practiced in the art of reducing a room's size to make the crowd look bigger.

Hence the positioning of the curtains at this event yesterday in Fort Madison.

New Hampshire is a toss-up between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Romney still leads Republicans. [Concord Monitor/Research 2000]

Since July, once-frontrunner Rudy Giuliani has plummeted from 30 to 16 percent in South Carolina--Mike Huckabee now leads with 24 percent. Among Democrats, Clinton’s lead narrows. [CNN/Opinion Research]

African Americans in South Carolina are now evenly split between Clinton and Obama. [CNN/Opinion Research]

Clinton and Obama are tied at 27 percent in Iowa. John Edwards is in third place with 22 percent. [Diageo/Hotline]

Clinton and Giuliani lead their fields in Wisconsin. [Strategic Vision]

And both have a commanding lead in New Jersey. [Quinnipiac]  read more »

At last night’s 10th Annual Walter Cronkite Faith & Freedom Award Gala, held 64 stories above the street in Rockefeller Center’s Rainbow Room, Mr. Cronkite was talking about the role of religion in the upcoming presidential election. (It was also the eve of televangelist Pat Robertson’s no-doubt influential endorsement of “America’s mayor,” Rudy Giuliani.) “With all honesty, I don’t think we can expect it to be much greater than it has been in past years,” said the newsman, who is now 91. “I don’t see any great movement, unfortunately.”  read more »

Leon Simmons was sitting outside City Hall Park, selling Poland Spring bottled water ($1), reading the Staten Island Advance, and wearing an "I Heart BX" shirt. A one-man focus group!

In honor of the holiday, I asked Simmons who he thought Columbus would vote for if he were alive today.

“Honestly, one of the white guys.”

Why?

“Because he’s a white man” and “this country has been run by old white men since day one.”



“Old white men, old good old boys club has run this country in the fucking ground. Period. Time for a change. Either a woman or somebody else. It’s time for a change.”

The dream of a Bloomberg-Hagel presidential ticket next year, as far as the Senator is concerned, is very much alive.  read more »

In case you missed it, Chuck Schumer had a pretty easy time of it Sunday, facing off on This Week against John Ensign to talk about electoral prospects for 2008.

The still-hypothetical Thompson candidacy is likely to prove a lot more vulnerable to attack than it seems on paper.  read more »

Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign debuts its first commercial in Iowa today: a 60-second spot titled "Invisible."  read more »

Barack Obama’s entry into the presidential race is working out just fine for Hillary Clinton.

Since he unexpectedly stepped forward to run late last year, Illinois’ junior senator has helped curtail John Edwards’ early momentum, starved the other six Democratic candidates of badly-needed oxygen, and kept Al Gore at bay – each a significant boon to Mrs. Clinton’s efforts.  read more »

If Mr. Lieberman were to flip to the Senate G.O.P. now, he’d probably still be surrounded by colleagues intent on ending the war.  read more »

On Meet the Press this Sunday, David Broder, the supposed “dean” of the Washington press corps, demonstrated that on at least one topic he’s well ahead of his fellow journalists.  read more »

Pressed by reporters today during his trip to Mexico about his top aides meeting with the NYS Independence Party, Mayor Bloomberg explained that his administration meets with lots of people.

"We’ll meet with Republicans and Democrats, Conservatives, Independents, Communists. We’ll meet with everybody."  read more »