Political Buzz

We’ll be back on Monday after a weekend off. Feel free to use this post as an open thread to write what’s on your mind…

Until we’re back, you can enjoy the following:

• A new Political Buzz poll asking for your opinion on Obama’s palpable shift to the center on a host of issues. Does it pay off, or is it a flip-flopping mistake? Vote in the box on the right side of the page.

• Results of the last poll:
  • Is John McCain’s reversal of position on offshore oil drilling…: ...An opportunistic flip-flop? 69%  …A clean and necessary political move? 22%  …No big deal. And Obama (hearts) terrorists! 9%

• Check out our two most recent “Political Dispatch” podcasts: Jonathan Allen of CQ Politics on June 27th, and Mark Murray of NBC News on June 30. You can also listen below…

 

 Podcast - Mark Murray: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (42)

 

 Podcast - Jonathan Allen: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (57)

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In a week full of distractions like shifty comments on Iraq, liberal dissent over warrantless wiretaps and a series of speeches on “patriotism,” the Obama campaign is finally moving back to the issue most able to beat McCain and fire up support from struggling moderates: The economy.

The end of the week brought more horrid jobs numbers and new jumps in the price of oil that have placed economic woes again at the forefront of what voters are paying attention to in the campaign and have McCain wondering how wise his Colombian publicity tour really was. It bought him a few days of prestige and TV coverage, but at what cost? How much will the lasting image of McCain jetting off to Canada and South America to tout policies that Middle Americans believe have crippled them economically hurt his campaign?

Anyhow, the Obama released a statement laying out the details of Obama’s renewed economy tour, hitting swing states like North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia next week.

At each stop, Senator Obama will continue talking to Americans about how the economy affects their everyday lives. At the events, he’ll discuss with Americans the challenges we face and his plans to turn the economy around. The choice in this election is a choice between more of the same policies that have widened inequality, added to our debt, and shaken the foundation of our economy, or change that will reward hard work with a decent living; that will invest in the ingenuity and innovation of our people; that will fuel a bottom-up prosperity to keep America strong and competitive in the 21st century.

Filed under: Economy, 2008, Barack Obama, The Blog | No Comments »

• For the second time in a year McCain has ordered a major shake-up of his campaign structure with the intent of shifting the overall direction and strategy of the campaign during a time of quasi-crisis for the GOP nominee. The current situation is obviously nowhere near as dire as it was exactly one year ago when McCain cleaned house and rotated in a completely new staff as his Republican primary run seemed on the verge of collapse. But yesterday’s decision to promote former Bush/Cheney ‘04 strategist and Rove disciple Steve Schmidt to day-to-day control while moving Rick Davis to handle “broad” operations (i.e; he got canned) does signal that JMac is aware of the dissatisfaction that many GOPers have expressed with the way the campaign has been run lately and that he sees certain aspects where he has rapidly fallen behind in the fight with Obama. It also is an indication that the McCain campaign has decided to fully embrace vestiges of the Bush administration and the current president into McCain’s run as a way of both pooling resources and having Pres. Bush be a background sniper to take on Obama with well-placed anonymous contrasts between the two candidates. It also helps boost confidence in the conservative ranks.

• The campaign and McCain himself are doing their best to downplay the internal move as less of a “shake-up” and more of a “mild” shift that shouldn’t get any press. McCain bristled when asked today about how “big” he believes the changes to be. - “I don’t think the changes are big,” McCain said. “The changes are a better division of some of the responsibilities as our campaign has grown from a very small staff to a much larger one.” 

• Marc Ambinder has some excellent inside info on the McCain campaign changes and how it all went down.

• Obama’s shift to the center on a host of issues since securing the nomination has been aimed at aiding his electability and opening up some very red states to a more even contest with McCain in November. But has his flip-flops on gun control, wiretaps and his embrace of Bush’s faith-based governmental initiatives (a major thorn in the sides of liberals) turned the Left Wing base of the Democratic Party against Obama? Or, at the very least, is the enthusiasm for the Dem nominee toned down to the point that grass roots efforts and even voter turnout could be hampered? The instant animosity towards Obama is especially fierce in the liberal blogosphere, where fiery youngsters are starting web campaigns to bash Obama and force him back to the party’s base.So far, loyalty to liberal ideology is winning out over a desire to simply win back the White House among most liberals.

• An interesting face has turned out to be a crucial member of Obama’s Veep search team: Caroline Kennedy. Kennedy is vetting the candidates and grilling the contenders in D.C. meetings, lining up names for the final few lists of running mate possibilities. This increased role could be one more effort to woo women voters still stung over Hillary’s loss and the very real fact that HRC won’t be on the ticket. Kennedy has strong support among Hillary’s crowd, even is she did reject Hillary from the start.

• Speaking of that impressive Obama Veep list: John Edwards was on the trail and introducing Obama as he appeared via satellite feed at a steelworkers conference in Vegas yesterday. Edwards was given the task of warming up the union crowd with Obama talking points. The campaign realizes the popularity Edwards retains with labor, and appearances like this could be a common sight even if Edwards isn’t picked for the ticket. It’s all meant to keep the egos of the contenders soothed while the long VP process works itself out.

Filed under: 2008, Veepstakes, The Buzz - Latest political headlines, Republicans, Democrats, John McCain, Barack Obama | No Comments »

This is the nuts-and-bolts campaign story of the day. The $3 million first wave of GOP attack ads against Obama is to be launched this weekend in four key battleground states. They are: Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

Energy security is to be the first target of the ads, which are being done by independent units outside of the RNC’s direct control and will mainly be contrast-compare pieces. No outright assaults on Obama yet.

NBC’s Mark Murray has the rest of the story… (Check out our recent podcast with Mark)

This first ad will be on the topic on energy security, and it will contrast McCain’s and Obama’s positions on the issue. The actual content of the ad, however, has yet to be released.

The vendor of this new ad against Obama – GOP ad-maker Brad Todd – has issued this statement: “Following Barack Obama’s decision to become the only major party presidential candidate in history to not adhere to campaign spending caps, the Republican National Committee has begun an independent expenditure campaign in accordance with FEC regulations. The RNC will first advertise this weekend in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, highlighting the issue of energy security, which is emerging as a defining difference in the race for president.”

In response to this ad, the Obama campaign issued this press release: “It has been reported that the Republican National Committee will begin running television ads in a number of battleground states this weekend. As John McCain’s own advisors have noted, the RNC and the McCain campaign operate as one unit. And since these ads will likely be attack ads that contradict McCain’s pledge to run a respectful campaign, he can, and should, immediately reverse his plan to air them. In fact, a few months ago, McCain urged GOP state party committees to run a respectful campaign, stating, ‘I have pledged to conduct a respectful campaign. And I have urged, time after time, various entities within the Republican Party to also do that.’ Clearly, the RNC should adhere to the same standard.”

An important (yet inside-baseball) note: While the RNC is paying for this advertising blitz, it is coming from its independent expenditure unit. What that means is that the RNC has nothing to do with the ad’s message or content; a vendor — in this case, Brad Todd — is responsible for that.

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This is a high-profile “tour” from the Obama campaign that has sent the Dem nominee to several November hot spots to deliver various speeches touching on “patriotism” and service to America, trying to dually deflect criticism away from himself concerning questions of loyalty and whether he is “patriotic” enough (stemming from the Muslim rumors, the flag pin controversy, etc.) but also to shift his message again towards the coveted center. The chatter about patriotism is meant to blatantly copy with a Democratic twist what Republicans like Bush and other candidates and strategists have used against “out of touch” Dems like John Kerry for years now. It’s all about regaining the high ground - or at least angrily sharing it with the right - on matters of duty and service to country.

But is this really necessary? How much does Obama gain with moderates and swing state independents that he doesn’t lose by either appearing to be straining to cover all of his bases or using the “patriot” question against his opponent - as Wes Clark tried to smear McCain with recently. Doesn’t he then just become a bad imitation of what Democrats have been railing against since at least 2004, and even since Al Gore’s loss to a certain extent?

Looking at excerpts of today’s speech Obama delivered in the battleground state (and very red state) of Colorado, one will find  a startlingly bold move from Obama to tie in his own past and his own “service” to his country (community organizer, advocate for the underprivileged - all a bit of a stretch) with what he sees as the kind of patriotic feelings are stirred in the hearts of Middle Americans.

Barack Obama will call on Americans to serve their country and their communities in a speech scheduled here this afternoon.

“This will not be a call issued in one speech or one program – this will be a central cause of my presidency. We will ask Americans to serve. We will create new opportunities for Americans to serve. And we will direct that service to our most pressing national challenges,” Obama will say, according to his prepared remarks.

Obama plans to dedicate much of his Colorado Spring speech to talking about his own life and how he turned down more profitable jobs to be a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago. The Democrat has spent most of the week trying to relay his biography to skeptical voters in key swing states, first with a speech on Monday on patriotism and on Tuesday by proposing to boost funding for faith-based groups.

“I spent much of my childhood adrift. My father left my mother and me when I was two. My mother remarried, and we lived in Indonesia for a time. But I was mostly raised in Hawaii by my mom and my grandparents from Kansas. Growing up, I wasn’t always sure who I was, or where I was going,” he says, according to the prepared speech.

“But during my first two years of college, perhaps because the values my mother had taught me –hard work, honesty, empathy – had resurfaced after a long hibernation; or perhaps because of the example of wonderful teachers and lasting friends, I began to notice a world beyond myself. And by the time I graduated from college, I was possessed with a crazy idea – that I would work at a grassroots level to bring about change.”

No question that it’s a great story that needs to get out to the public so Obama is seen as less of a “threat” and n unknown figure. But did he have to tie his own bio in with a theme of patriotic service to America? No one is paying attention to the trail this early, but it would a speech that cuts to the root of why voters still don’t trust Obama. They see him as a harbinger of change and a new direction for the country, but they also get a hint of shadiness and that he isn’t being on the level with the common folk. Part of that is related to race - for sure. But there’s another facet that comes from speeches and campaign decisions like his “patriotism tour.”

As a final note, why does anyone need to do a sappy tour like this anyhow? Americans are fed up with government and reeling with rising prices on nearly everything coupled with looming job losses.  Does anyone feel very patriotic right about now?

Filed under: Barack Obama, The Blog | 7 Comments »

And again it’s Mississippi GOP Senator Thad Cochran who brings up JMac’s infamous…er…”aggressive” streak. You’ll remember that it was the conservative Cochran who tried to thwart McCain’s primary bid by regaling an eager press (and GOP competitors) with tales of JMac’s blue streaked rants in the Senate and his “disturbing” temper that “concerned” Cochran.

Now, even though Cochran is supposedly on the same side, he is bringing up some old stories of McCain’s rage once more.

Cochran brought up one such tale from a 1987 “diplomatic” trip to Nicaragua to meet with members of the Sandinista regime.

“McCain was down at the end of the table and we were talking to the head of the guerilla group here at this end of the table and I don’t know what attracted my attention,” Cochran said. “But I saw some kind of quick movement at the bottom of the table and I looked down there and John had reached over and grabbed this guy by the shirt collar and had snatched him up like he was throwing him up out of the chair to tell him what he thought about him or whatever. I don’t know what he was telling him but I thought, good grief, everybody around here has got guns and we were there on a diplomatic mission. I don’t know what had happened to provoke John but he obviously got mad at the guy and he just reached over there and snatched him.”

This is really just a laugher, but it has its place in the campaign dialogue as much as talk over Obama’s inexperience does. It’s all related to questions of character and ability to soundly lead the country both domestically and during especially tense foreign crises.

No doubt the Dems will play this story up for the next few days. And if more anecdotes come out, will McCain’s temper become a serious fall issue?

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 Don’t forget to listen to our latest “Political Dispatch” podcasts with Jonathan Allen of CQ Politics and Mark Murray of NBC News.

• Early concern from Republican strategists and organizers over the ability of McCain’s campaign to find its operating niche and present a solid message against Obama has turned into near-panic as July comes along and McCain is still seen as lacking a core message for the race and even a general “game plan” for the rest of the campaign. Not tapping into the GOP’s usual deep-pocketed donor list also has some worried that summer cash flow will be a problem. Simply put, GOP insiders view McCain’s campaign as an organizational disaster who will only pull out a November win based on luck and outside circumstances. - “McCain’s campaign seems not to have a game plan. I don’t see a consistent message,” said Ed Rollins, a veteran of Republican presidential campaigns. “As someone who has run campaigns, this campaign is not running smoothly. But none of this matters if they get their act together.”

• McCain landed in Colombia overnight our time and has already launched into a vigorous defense of his pro-free trade stance - and blasted Obama for “protectionist” ideology and not “cutting loose” Wes Clark from the campaign surrogate list. But NAFTA and free trade are the hot topics for McCain on his South American jaunt, as he tries to balance scathing criticism of Obama with overseas decorum; tries to balance support of free trade with the reality that it has irreparably hurt the people and economies of battleground states he needs to win in November. McCain admitted as much in a morning interview on ABC, where he said that “Americans are hurting very badly” in the current economic conditions. Yet he’s still touting free trade in Colombia.

• More bad news for McCain on the free trade front. A new CNN poll shows a majority of Americans - 51% - think free trade has hurt the U.S. economy and is a dangerous policy. This is up by 15-points since 2000.

• Joe Lieberman’s vocal and seemingly incessant stumping for McCain has pushed his Veep stock way up - but has killed him back home in Connecticut and in favorable ratings nationwide as folks begin to question his personal integrity. Lieberman had always been a popular figure in CT, but new polls have those numbers around a 50-50 split since he endorsed McCain. Similar national numbers mean Lieberman is about as unlikely a VP pick for McCain as there can be.

• The Washington Post reports today details of a potentially sketchy loan deal Barack Obama received immediately after joining the U.S. Senate. Initial reports seem to paint the deal as basically harmless, but it’s worth watching to see if this thing blows up further or festers as a mark against Obama.  - Shortly after joining the U.S. Senate and while enjoying a surge in income, Barack Obama bought a $1.65 million restored Georgian mansion in an upscale Chicago neighborhood. To finance the purchase, he secured a $1.32 million loan from Northern Trust in Illinois. The freshman Democratic senator received a discount. He locked in an interest rate of 5.625 percent on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, below the average for such loans at the time in Chicago. The loan was unusually large, known in banker lingo as a “super super jumbo.” Obama paid no origination fee or discount points, as some consumers do to reduce their interest rates.

Filed under: 2008, Economy, The Buzz - Latest political headlines, Republicans, John McCain, Barack Obama | 1 Comment »

The following piece  - excellently done by WaPo’s Alec MacGillis - from today shows just how much ground level resistance, aided by anonymous lies, Obama’s candidacy is facing in the towns and hamlets of the working class regions of this country. This particular story is from West Virginia and has a lot to do with both race and Hillary’s strong support there, but no doubt that a similar scenario is being played out privately every day in plenty of small towns and blue collar neighborhoods.

But the bright spot is the minister who manages to stand up for Obama despite some differences with the Dems.

I was in the town (Grafton, WV ), a former Baltimore & Ohio railroad junction in north-central West Virginia, to report an article about West Virginia’s shift into the Republican column in presidential elections, contrasted with the Democratic turn of next door Virginia. Among the Grafton residents I interviewed was Sandra Murray, the 61-year-old wife of a railroad retiree, who was sweeping the steps of the Blueville Church of Christ, an evangelical Christian church in a modest brick building on the edge of town near a Wal-Mart, when I stopped to chat with her.

We talked a bit about the changing political climate in West Virginia before the conversation turned to Obama. Murray said that she had voted Republican in recent years but that her husband was a loyal Democrat. This year, though, he was not sure how he would vote, she said. Both of them, she said, had talked at length about Obama’s relationship to Islam, and how, she asserted, “he was a Muslim when he was a child and lived in that country.”

Murray said she realized that Obama had joined a church in Chicago, but she said she still worried that he remained a Muslim at heart, just the way “Catholics are always Catholics — it’s instilled in them. I’m afraid that in his mind he’s going to go back to being Muslim.”

(Again: Obama has repeatedly made clear that he was never a Muslim.)

Murray and her husband and others in her family had discussed, she said, whether Obama might “help the terrorists” once he’s in the White House. On the one hand, she said, they realized that there were checks and balances in the U.S. government that meant that you “can’t do that alone.” On the other hand, they worried that a president could “do things undercover.”

A moment later, the church door opened and out came Jeff Johnson, the 45-year-old minister. An Army brat from Georgia who moved to Grafton when the church was looking for a new minister, Johnson considers himself a true swing voter, put off both by the Democrats’ stance on abortion and the Republicans’ close ties with the coal industry, which he thinks is spoiling the state, and their role in starting the war in Iraq, which he thinks has needlessly cost thousands of lives

 Most of all, Johnson said, he could not understand how anyone could lambaste Obama for his association with Wright at the same time they call Obama a Muslim. “I’ve done everything I can to tell people that if he’s a Muslim then he wouldn’t be having such a problem with his church,” he said.

Filed under: Barack Obama, The Blog | 1 Comment »

While outlier polls like Newsweek had Obama surging to a 15-point lead over McCain days ago, the Gallup Daily Tracking Poll had remained steady with Obama and McCain in a virtual tie. Polls like this were pointed to as areas of concern for Obama at a time when a large bounce should have been evident as McCain stumbled out of the gate and Obama finally clinched the Dem nomination.

But Gallup’s latest polls have Obama out in front by 5 points over McCain. Today’s poll has Obama at 47% and McCain at 42%.

So the questions about where Obama’s bounce went are now moot. He has built solid leads in nearly all of the national polls and has squeked ahead of or alongside of McCain in many battleground states. It’s a good position to be in before the long summer lull. Not an indication of November success, but still an advantageous position for the campaign to build on.

But will this turn into a summer of outrage over flip-flops that sap the integrity from Obama’s campaign? And what of Wes Clark’s foot-in-mouth disease?

………………………………………………..

Don’t forget to check out the latest edition of our “Political Dispatch” podcast with Mark Murray of NBC News.

Filed under: 2008, John McCain, Barack Obama, The Blog | No Comments »

• The snafu over Obama surrogate Wes Clark’s decision to publicly downplay John McCain’s Vietnam War service and then stand behind that statement in the face of withering outrage from McCain’s camp has become a central issue of the campaign lately. What was initially an eyebrow-raising quip that pulled a potential Veep out of the mix has been used by the McCain campaign and the GOP in general to portray Clark as a typical raving Obama supporter (think a white Jeremiah Wright) and Obama as silently approving of Clark’s message. No facts can back up the McCain spin, but the subject matter alone gives them a boost as voters could potentially recoil against shots being taken at what most Americans (even Democrats) believe is a certifiable war hero. And most Americans think that dramatic military service does matter in a presidential campaign - no matter how shallow that seems. Obama needs to be extra thankful that this controversy has popped up in late June/early July and not October. High gas prices or no, voters are thinking only of vacations (staycations?) and July 4th grilling fests. Wes Clark is not even a blip. Yet…

• The intended strategy from the Obama campaign to actively court evangelical voters fed up with inept Republicans, political divisiveness and inspired by the Dem nominee’s focus on such topics as AIDS and poverty is indeed a reality. Leaving his liberal language behind in the Dem primary, Obama and his staff have worked hard to make a subtle shift to the center on key moderate issues like gun control and have built bridges with religious voters in an attempt to woo them away from the GOP. This has been easier than you might think due to Obama’s long history of involvement in the church (for better or worse), campaign message of an end to bipartisanship and his recent embrace of positive religious impact on parental responsibility and his call for an expansion of Bush administration faith-based initiatives. Obama is in the evangelical hotbed of rural Ohio today to deliver a speech on faith-based services and to stress that he will lead efforts to expand them. It’s a major gamble for a liberal Dem to talk of the importance of religion in government services and to pledge support for anything coming out of George Bush’s two terms. Does his target audience merely dismiss him as a flip-flopper despite his best efforts? The Obama campaign is betting no on that, as evangelical outreach takes on greater importance in their swing state strategy.

• Wall Street an financial industry leaders are not deterred by Obama’s hostile language to wealthy Americans like them and his pledge to raise as many taxes as possible on the top of America’s money heap. Instead of running towards GOPer McCain, who has promised help for the Street and Big Business in a troubled economy, they are donating their piles of cash to Obama at a rate twice that of donations to McCain. The reason is that a trickle-up situation is what money leaders are banking on (ha, ha) to cure what ails the U.S. economy. They need Americans to start spending again. With McCain taking his eye off of domestic concerns in order to talk up his national security advantage, he has lost out on what was a huge base of support for Bush and other Republican candidates 4-8 years ago.

• More cash flow problems for McCain (although that 84 mil will take care of it after MSP): The pool of mega-donors from Bush’s two campaigns are not following their old leader into the McCain camp and have - so far - closed off their checkbooks to the GOP nominee. Less than 50% of Bush’s core group of super-donors have given cash to McCain this time around.

• McCain has started his three-day swing to Colombia and Mexico to voice support for the federal government’s free trade policy and back NAFTA, the biggest elephant in the room when it comes to trade and blue-collar voters. McCain will get hearty applause from leaders in Bogota and Mexico City, but he is treading on dangerous ground when it comes to supporting NAFTA and trying to win in places like Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Attacking “protectionism” won’t help in hard-hit locales like the Rust Belt swing region.

Filed under: 2008, Economy, The Buzz - Latest political headlines, Republicans, Democrats, John McCain, Barack Obama | 1 Comment »