Also see below:
Super Delegates Unswayed by Clinton's Attacks •
Howard Dean: I Need a Decision "Now" •
Go to Original
Robert Reich to Endorse Obama
By John Heilemann
New York Magazine
Friday 18 April 2008
If the Democratic presidential race were a poker game, by now you'd have to
suspect that Barack Obama's campaign is dealing from the bottom of the deck:
Rarely a day goes by when it doesn't slap another ace down on the table. The
aces in this (possibly strained) metaphor are endorsements, and it often seems
as if the Obama operation has an inexhaustible supply at its disposal. In the
past week alone, it has announced the support of congressmen from North Carolina
and Indiana; the Utah state party chair; the Oklahoma state party's chief fundraiser;
25 South Dakota state legislators; the owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers; and,
not least, The Boss. Some of these endorsers are super-delegates, and thus of
no small consequence to the outcome of the race. Others are simply window-dressing,
deployed to create a sense of ineluctable momentum in Obama's direction. But
none have the particular resonance of the endorsement that's coming -
unbeknownst to the campaign - a little later today.
The endorsement in question is that of Robert Reich, Bill Clinton's first Secretary
of Labor and a friend of both the former president and his wife for four decades.
Around 1:00pm EST, Reich informs me, he intends formally to declare his support
for Obama on his blog.
Now, in one sense, the Reich endorsement comes as no great surprise. For some
time, it's been clear to anyone paying attention that Reich favors Obama. Back
in December, in a blog post titled "Why is HRC Stooping So Low?,"
Reich loudly and sharply criticized Clinton's conduct in Iowa and defended Obama's
proposals for health-care and Social Security reform. Two days before the race-charged
South Carolina primary, he assailed Bill Clinton's "ill-tempered and ill-founded
attacks" on Obama, arguing that they were "doing no credit to the
former president, his legacy, or his wife's campaign." And all throughout
the primary season, he has spoken and written of Obama's candidacy with evident
admiration and enthusiasm.
But Reich insists that the endorsement does indeed come as a surprise -
to him. As we chatted in Washington, where Reich had come from Berkeley, where
he teaches, to give a speech and meet with some Democrats on Capitol Hill, he
explained that, despite the criticisms he's made of the Clintons ("I call
it as I see it"), he had planned to refrain from offering an official backing
for Obama out of respect for Hillary. "She's an old friend," Reich
said, "I've known her 40 years. I was absolutely dead set against getting
into the whole endorsement thing. I've struggled with it. I've not wanted to
do it. Out of loyalty to her, I just felt it would be inappropriate."
So what's changed? I asked Reich.
"I saw the ads" - the negative man-on-street commercials that
the Clinton campaign put up in Pennsylvania in the wake of Obama's bitter/cling
comments a week ago - "and I was appalled, frankly. I thought it
represented the nadir of mean-spirited, negative politics. And also of the politics
of distraction, of gotcha politics. It's the worst of all worlds. We have three
terrible traditions that we've developed in American campaigns. One is outright
meanness and negativity. The second is taking out of context something your
opponent said, maybe inartfully, and blowing it up into something your opponent
doesn't possibly believe and doesn't possibly represent. And third is a kind
of tradition of distraction, of getting off the big subject with sideshows that
have nothing to do with what matters. And these three aspects of the old politics
I've seen growing in Hillary's campaign. And I've come to the point, after seeing
those ads, where I can't in good conscience not say out loud what I believe
about who should be president. Those ads are nothing but Republicanism. They're
lending legitimacy to a Republican message that's wrong to begin with, and they
harken back to the past 20 years of demagoguery on guns and religion. It's old
politics at its worst - and old Republican politics, not even old Democratic
politics. It's just so deeply cynical."
The Clinton campaign will, no doubt, shrug off the Reich endorsement of Obama.
(And hey, who knows, maybe James Carville will get into the act and declare
Reich a Benedict Arnold!) They will say that it's unlikely to move any votes,
and that, since Reich is not a super-delegate, it does nothing tangible to move
Obama even one inch closer to the nomination.
All of which is true enough, as far as it goes. But beyond the bald fact of
Reich's support for Obama, the Clinton campaign should pay heed to the reasoning
behind it. In his disgust with Hillary's increasingly harsh tactics, Reich is
hardly alone. Indeed, the feeling seems to be spreading more broadly in the
party with every passing day. It's been clear for some time that Hillary's attacks
on Obama were driving up her negatives. You could certainly argue this might
be a price worth paying if those attacks were amping up doubts about him. But
it's hard to see any logic - or even sanity - in the tactic if the
result is to drive even people who once regarded Hillary dearly into Obama's
arms.
Go to Original
Super Delegates Unswayed by Clinton's Attacks
By Patrick Healy
The New York Times
Friday 18 April 2008
Throughout their contentious debate on Wednesday, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton
tried again and again to put Senator Barack Obama on the defensive in a pointed
attempt, her advisers say, to raise doubts about his electability among a small
but powerful audience: the uncommitted superdelegates who will most likely determine
the nomination.
Yet despite giving it her best shot in what might have been their final debate,
interviews on Thursday with a cross-section of these superdelegates -
members of Congress, elected officials and party leaders - showed that
none had been persuaded much by her attacks on Mr. Obama's strength as a potential
Democratic nominee, his recent gaffes and his relationships with his former
pastor and with a onetime member of the Weather Underground.
In fact, the Obama campaign announced endorsements from two more superdelegates
on Thursday, after rolling out three on Wednesday and two others since late
last week in what appeared to be a carefully orchestrated show of strength before
Tuesday's Pennsylvania primary. Obama advisers said that one of the pickups
on Thursday, Councilman Harry Thomas Jr. of the District of Columbia, had initially
favored Mrs. Clinton, but Clinton advisers denied that, and a Thomas aide said
he had been neutral before Thursday.
In interviews, 15 uncommitted superdelegates said they did not believe that
recent gaffes by both candidates would carry any particular influence over their
final decision. They said they had particularly tired of all the attention,
by the Clinton campaign and the news media, on Mr. Obama's recent comment that
some Americans were "bitter" over the economy and chose to "cling
to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them" as a result.
And if there were some moments of concern reflected in the debate - the
talk of Mrs. Clinton's high unfavorability ratings, Mr. Obama's flashes of annoyance
- they all doubted that those moments would be deal-breakers, either.
Instead, most of the superdelegates said they wanted to wait for the results
of at least the next major primaries - in Pennsylvania on Tuesday and
Indiana and North Carolina two weeks later - before choosing a candidate.
"I feel like we've heard a lot about gaffes as they relate to electability,
but what really matters to people is how to deal with the economy and create
jobs," said John W. Olsen, an uncommitted superdelegate from Connecticut
and president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. there. "I also want to wait and hear
from all of the Democrats in the primaries and caucuses who haven't had a chance
to choose and vote yet."
Clinton advisers acknowledged that they had not seen short-term evidence that
their attacks on Mr. Obama were winning over many superdelegates, and they acknowledged
that he had picked up more in recent weeks - though she maintained a narrowing
overall lead in them. They predicted, however, that the mounting scrutiny of
Mr. Obama would lead superdelegates to cool to his candidacy and come to see
her as more of a known quantity, battle tested, and shrewd about the best ways
to beat the presumptive Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, in the fall.
"When it comes to picking a candidate, automatic delegates don't want
to guess about what lies behind Door No. 2, they want to know," said Phil
Singer, a Clinton spokesman. "The debate raised more questions about Senator
Obama than have been answered, and that means that automatic delegates are likely
to keep their powder dry as the process moves forward."
In response, an Obama spokesman, Hari Sevugan, said Thursday: "Since Feb.
5, Senator Obama has garnered the support of 80 superdelegates to Senator Clinton's
5. We'll let the results of Senator Clinton's 'kitchen sink' strategy speak
for themselves."
Some Clinton advisers also said that the focus on Mr. Obama's "guns or
religion" comment was a way to put him on the spot with so-called values
voters - in part to offset Mrs. Clinton's baggage in this area. According
to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, conducted March 28-April 2 with
1,196 registered voters nationwide, 60 percent of them believe Mrs. Clinton
shared the values that most Americans tried to live by, and 34 percent did not.
Both Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain fared better, with Mr. Obama performing best -
70 percent said he shared those values, and 21 percent said he did not.
Some of the uncommitted superdelegates interviewed said they were concerned
about whether Mr. Obama reflected the values and interests of voters in states
that Democrats aim to carry in November or hope to steal from Republicans, like
some Southern states that they typically do not win in a general election. Yet
they said they had had these concerns for some time - and Wednesday night's
debate had not intensified them.
"Obama argues that he will put more states in play, but I haven't seen
him put the coalitions together as strongly as we need to," said Joe Turnham,
an uncommitted superdelegate who is chairman of the Alabama Democratic Party.
(Mr. Obama won the Alabama primary in February; Mr. Turnham has known the Clintons
for many years.)
"You have to put together blue-collar workers, veterans, seniors and swing
evangelical voters and compete in states like West Virginia, Kentucky, Arkansas,
Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania," he added. "I feel like Hillary has
shown more strength there."
Mr. Obama sought to allay concerns about questions of his electability on Thursday.
At a campaign stop in Raleigh, N.C., a woman told Mr. Obama that he was "really
pummeled during the debate." She continued, "What is your strategy
to beat the Republicans in November?"
"That was the rollout of the Republican campaign against me in November.
It happened just a little bit early, but that is what they will do," Mr.
Obama said. "They will try to focus on all these issues that don't have
anything to do with how you are paying your bills at the end of the month. There's
no doubt that I will have to respond sharply and crisply, then pivot to talk
about what exactly are we going to do for the economy and what are we going
to do about the war in Iraq."
Until the nominating fight ends, Mr. Obama said, he is "trying to show
some restraint." He added, "I won't have as much restraint with the
Republicans."
Supporters of Mr. Obama have expressed concern about the bitter ferocity of
the Democratic race, particularly with Mrs. Clinton and Mr. McCain sounding
similar themes of criticism against Mr. Obama. They used Wednesday's debate
as the latest example to superdelegates that the prolonged nominating fight
could be damaging to the party.
"And I have to say Senator Clinton looked in her element," Mr. Obama
said, speaking to an audience of North Carolina voters. "She was taking
every opportunity to get a dig in there. You know, that's all right. That's
her right. That's her right to kind of twist the knife a little bit."
Indeed, several superdelegates said they had been put off by negative moments
in the debate.
"What I'm hearing from voters in this state who have been uncommitted
or not solidly behind any candidate is that they are increasingly frustrated
with the negativism going on, mostly on her side," said Patricia Waak,
the Colorado state party chairwoman. (Mr. Obama won the Colorado primary in
a landslide.)
"In general what I heard this morning was just negative, negative, negative,"
Ms. Waak said. "As far as Obama's comment on guns and religion, mostly
what I've heard from people in general is, 'it's true.' "
One superdelegate, Reggie Whitten of Oklahoma, endorsed Mr. Obama on Tuesday
because, he said, he believed the candidate needed a new public vote as the
Clinton camp was battering him daily over the bitter remark.
"I don't think all of this divisiveness is helping him, so it was a good
time to send a signal of support from a conservative state like Oklahoma that
we believe in him," said Mr. Whitten, a lawyer from a suburb of Oklahoma
City.
---------
Jeff Zeleny, George A. Sargia and Marina Stefan contributed reporting.
Go to Original
Howard Dean: I Need a Decision "Now"
CNN
Thursday 17 April 2008
An increasingly firm Howard Dean told CNN again Thursday that he needs superdelegates
to say who they're for - and "I need them to say who they're for
starting now."
"We cannot give up two or three months of active campaigning and healing
time," the Democratic National Committee Chairman told CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
"We've got to know who our nominee is."
After facing criticism for a mostly hands-off leadership style during much
of the primary season, Dean has been steadily raising the rhetorical pressure
on superdelegates. He said Thursday that roughly 65 percent of them have made
their preference plain, but that more than 300 have yet to make up their minds.
The national party chair, who has remained neutral throughout the primary process,
said again it's his job to make sure both candidates feel they are treated fairly
- but not to tell either of them when to end their run.
-------
Jump to today's Truthout Features:
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. t r u t h o u t has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is t r u t h o u t endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
"Go to Original" links are provided as a convenience to our readers and allow for verification of authenticity. However, as originating pages are often updated by their originating host sites, the versions posted on TO may not match the versions our readers view when clicking the "Go to Original" links.
Print This Story
E-mail This Story