ABC News' Sarah Amos reports that former President Bill Clinton -- despite myriad promises he would stop assailing his wife's opponent given how it has backfired on her -- upped his harsh attacks today in Tyler, Texas.Read More......
"There are two competing moods in America today," Clinton said. "People who want something fresh and new -- and they find it inspiring that we might elect a president who literally was not part of any of the good things that happened or any of the bad things that were stopped before. The explicit argument of the campaign against Hillary is that 'No one who was involved in the 1990s or this decade can possibly be an effective president because they had fights. We're not going to have any of those anymore.' Well, if you believe that, I got some land I wanna sell you."
ABC News' Sarah Amos is traveling with the former president and transcribed his comments.
For the record, in the 1990s, Obama was a civil rights attorney, community organizer, and was in the Illinois state senate.
Presumably, by "any of the good things that happened" in the 1990s, Clinton is referring to the things he did as president (except for the ones his wife now distances herself from, such as NAFTA).
Sometimes, it sure feels like the former president's defense of his legacy gets in the way of his campaigning for his wife.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency will provide mobile homes to victims of last week's tornadoes in Arkansas and Tennessee, despite a health warning about high formaldehyde levels in trailers used by the victims of the 2005 hurricanes.Read More......
MATTHEWS: What she has to do is get rid of the kneecapers that work for her, these press people whose main job seems to be punishing Obama or going after the press, to building a positive case for her. The kneecapping hasn't worked. Her press relations are lousy. I think if all you do is intimidate and punish and claim you'll get even relentlessly, people of all kinds of politicians -- and in all fairness, the press -- human reaction to intimidation is screw you. That's the human reaction. Don't tell me what to say, and that has been their whole policy. We're going to win this thing. Get out of the way."Don't even get me started on how right Chris Matthews is. The man deserves a medal for publicly saying what so many have been saying privately for so long. When her campaign walks around with a self-annointed crown on their head (and a stick elsewhere) eventually people are going to tell them to take a hike. There's a reason the media and the blogs aren't so happy with Hillary. And Matthews nailed it.
But the most immediate and significant import is Lewis's signal that whatever the basis of his original endorsement he is unwilling to join Clinton in carving a path to the nomination through the heart of the Democratic party. The tell in Lewis's announcement is that he is not technically withdrawing his endorsement from Hillary, at least not yet. He is saying that as a super delegate (which is by virtue of being a member of Congress) he plans to vote for Obama at the convention. On Wednesday the Clinton camp started pushing hard on the idea that a delegate is a delegate and if they need to pack on super delegates to overwhelm Obama's edge with elected delegates then so be it. A win is a win is a win. I take this as Lewis saying he just won't sign on for that.After the jump, Josh weighs in about top Clinton adviser Mark Penn, and it ain't pretty...
You've seen my continuous barbs at Mark Penn, Clinton's 'chief strategist'. The last couple days have shown very clearly I think that Clinton could do nothing better for her campaign than to throttle this clown and let her get down to the business of making a case to voters for her candidacy. Perhaps good spin is an oxymoron, moral if not linguistic. But good spin is clever and forward-leaning pitches of actual realities, facts. The word in the sense we use it today actually came into being in the early 90s and to a great degree around the '92 Clinton campaign, which had such mastery in its practice. But this Clinton campaign has been doing it in a weird parody mode. Not sharp 'spins' on favorable realities, but aggressive pitches of complete nonsense. So now you have Penn successively saying caucus wins don't really count, small state wins don't really count, medium state wins don't really count, states with large African-American populations don't really count, all building up to yesterday's gem: "Could we possibly have a nominee who hasn't won any of the significant states -- outside of Illinois? That raises some serious questions about Sen. Obama."...I would go on step farther and suggest that Hillary's campaign apparatus expected to win from the beginning and, more importantly, expected to be treated from the beginning as if they deserved to win, were owed a win, and had already won. The cockiness didn't go over well with the blogs, the media, or the public. People want to be told why they should support a candidate rather than why they'd better support a candidate, or else. Read More......
Clinton is ultimately responsible for putting her political fate in this fool's hands. But this is a guy who has basically one big political win under his belt and whose record in seriously contested races, particularly Democratic primary races is one of almost constant defeats. Much of Clinton's current predicament stems from Penn's disastrous, glass-jaw 'inevitability' strategy and the mind-boggling decision not even to contest a slew of states where Obama racked up huge victories and many delegates.
Campaigns are about winning votes not making excuses. There are plenty of delegates still out there for Clinton to win -- over a thousand left in the remaining primaries. But her efforts are being stymied by a campaign apparatus rooted in the belief that any new reality can be overturned by pretending it away.
The poll was commissioned by the Texas Credit Union League, conducted Feb 11-13, with a MOE of +/- 4.9%.Burnt Orange dissects the numbers to show that, in fact, Obama could come out of Texas with more delegates based on the existing numbers. Worth a read. The complicated Texas delegate selection process is in a league of its own.
DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY (Latest IVR Poll 1/31)
Hillary Clinton: 49 (48)
Barack Obama: 41 (38)
Undecided: 8 (10)
REPUBLICAN PRIMARY
John McCain: 45 (43)
Mike Huckabee: 41 (33)
Undecided: 5 (13)
And now for the interesting sub-groups and my analysis. It's here that we find something very surprising!
Even though Clinton leads by 8 points in polling statewide, based upon the following sub-samples, Obama would still come out with a delegate lead.
Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, who is also officially neutral, predicts that McCain would at least act less rebellious in dealing with members of his own party. “When you’re president, it’s a different thing,” said Roberts. “You’re not Crusader Rabbit. You’re the president.”Can McCain keep his cool when the pressure is really on? McCain's own colleagues, again his GOP colleagues, make him sound unbalanced. And, they know him and his temper. Read More......
And John Cornyn , the other Texas senator, laughed and offered only this: “It’ll be interesting, won’t it?” He knows that much from experience. During last year’s debate over an immigration policy overhaul, which McCain was pushing and Cornyn opposed, the two got into a heated argument in which McCain shouted obscenities at him. The incident encapsulates the well-known darker aspects of McCain’s style that — as much as his maverick streak on policy — have distanced him from so many in the normally collegial Senate. Many of his colleagues find him self-righteous, dogmatic, unpredictable and hot-tempered — especially when he’s crossed, and even with the Republicans who are usually his allies.
Saudi Arabia's rulers threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless corruption investigations into their arms deals were halted, according to court documents revealed yesterday.Read More......
Previously secret files describe how investigators were told they faced "another 7/7" and the loss of "British lives on British streets" if they pressed on with their inquiries and the Saudis carried out their threat to cut off intelligence.
Prince Bandar, the head of the Saudi national security council, and son of the crown prince, was alleged in court to be the man behind the threats to hold back information about suicide bombers and terrorists. He faces accusations that he himself took more than £1bn in secret payments from the arms company BAE.
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