Edwards is now saying that he won’t use public financing in the general if the Republican does not too.
My guess is that a bunch of his supporters just told him how stupid it was, but he is still disarming in the primary. My assessment stands, put a fork in him, Edwards is done.
From the article, I also realize that Joe Trippi is on his team…he is so doomed.
Newt is Out. It’s a pity, if just because the progression of the Republican Presidential primaries into the absurd is slowed.
Edwards will be using public financing.
This is because he has no money left.
He was the presidential candidate I most liked, but it’s over, so I can say that now and not “jinx” him.
He is credible on the war, and on issues of social justice, more credible than the alternatives, and it’s over.
Damn.
The Republicans were attempting to allocate California electoral votes by congressinal districts, handing 20 votes to the Republicans. They just flamed out. No support, no money.
Good.
In the debate last night, Edwards said the following about troops in Iraq:
I cannot make that commitment. But I — well, I can tell you what i would do as president. When I’m sworn into office, come January of 2009, if there are, in fact, as General Petraeus suggests, 100,000 American troops on the ground in Iraq, I will immediately draw down 40,000 to 50,000 troops; and over the course of the next several months, continue to bring our combat out of Iraq until all of our combat are, in fact, out of Iraq.
I think the problem is — and it’s what you just heard discussed — is we will maintain an embassy in Baghdad. That embassy has to be protected. We will probably have humanitarian workers in Iraq. Those humanitarian workers have to be protected.
I think somewhere in the neighborhood of a brigade of troops will be necessary to accomplish that, 3,500 to 5,000 troops.
I like John Edwards, but he is wrong.
We do not need the forced labor built monstrosity of an diplomatic compound that we currently have in Iraq. It’s not an embassy, it’s an imperial outpost.
It can be moved to a more secure location, and it should be, and if there is none, then it should be closed, like the US Embassy in Somalia.
In yesterday’s debate, he had the money quote, “Rudy Giuliani doesn’t know what the heck he’s talking about. He’s the most uninformed person in American foreign policy that’s now running for president.“
Some git by the name of Abraham Sofaer is holding a $9.11 For Rudy” Fundraiser for the Guiliani campaign.
Allow me to say ewwwww!
No really. An anonymous senior Bush administration official has called Barack Obama “intellectually lazy”.
The author of the article is right wing hack Bill Sammon, but still, the idea that someone working for George W. Bush would call anyone intellectually lazy is un f$%#ing believable.
George W. Bush has Terri Schiavo beat in the intellectual laziness department.
This time, our good Freddie Dalton Thompson* is calling for oil drilling in the Everglades.
In response to a question about drilling there, he said, “Gosh, no one has told me there is any major reserves in the Everglades,” and “No one prefers to drill at all anywhere”.
Way to go Freddie. The clown show continues.
That being said, this is in the tradition of Ronald Reagan, who spent an awful lot of time claiming that trees cause pollution.
*Yes, his birth certificate says “Freddie”, not Fred or Fredrick”.
What is happening to the Jena Six in Louisiana is a racist bigoted miscarriage of justice. There Jesse Jackson and I agree.
The Democratic party should be doing more about this. There Jesse Jackson and I agree.
The presidential candidates should be doing more about this. There Jesse Jackson and I agree.
That being said, when Jesse Jackson critics Barack Obama for “acting like he’s white” , he’s jumped the shark.
I’m not in a position to discuss whether or not Senator Obama has a special obligation to address this issue, but I am saying that ALL the presidential candidates should address this, and come out against the bigoted, vindictive, and (conveniently) Republican political establishment in Jena, Louisiana.
This isn’t “acting white”. This is simply being timid, and it can be addressed to all the presidential candidates, and to the Democratic party establishment in Louisiana too.
Chris Dodd, chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, has put forth interesting proposals on the current housing/mortgatge* mess.
These are good policies, and they would have been much better had they been implemented, or at least proposed, 2 or 3 years ago. to the degree that these can be made retroactive, they should be (you could make prepayment penalties immediately illegal, for example).
More importantly, it places much of the onus upon those who profited through their highly leveraged, and ruinous, financial products.
It’s taken him up a notch in my view of the presidential candidates.
*To all but the blind, this horse has left the subprime stables, and is roaming the prairie.
Alan Keyes announces for President, or as Josh Marshall put it, “Alan Keyes throws his straitjacket into the ring.“
Needless to say, he makes the Fred Thompson clown show look like John Houseman, though I imagine for close relatives, it’s not so funny.
John McCain is now saying that he has been a baptist for years:
Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who has long identified himself as an Episcopalian, said this weekend that he is a Baptist and has been for years.
He’s not going to get the nomination. He needs to accept that, absent some major upheaval not of his own making, he will not get the nod.
I’d say that he should try to take all of this with a bit of class, but really and truly, he’s never shown any, he’s just convinced the press that he has some by keeping their glasses filled, both literally and figuratively.
Yes, his given legal name is Freddie Dalton Thompson, and not it has been revealed that the Fredster did legal and lobbying work for the Libyan bombers of the Pan Am 103, Jean Bertrand Aristide, and the abortion counseling group.
The Republicans have no bloody bench this year, do they.
When McCain Attacked Guiliani’s foreign policy and anti-terrorism experience in the Republican debates, he got it.
Seeing Rudy as an expert in counter-terrism is like seeing the captain pf the Titanic as an expert on ice bergs.
Truth be told, the real source of Republican voters affection for “Hizzoner” is not his anti-terror cred. It is his reputation as someone who keeps non-white people in their place.
The Louima and Diallo affairs are something that appeals to core Republican voters.
In the past few weeks a number of senior Thompson campaign staffers have left. Just a few weeks before a formal announcement.
This churn has been going on for some time.
This campaign is looking to be more of a fiasco than John McCain’s.
Needless to say, the Washington DC Journamalist press corps will use this to claim that Edwards is too far out there*, but in reality the fact that that congress should not fund the war without a withdrawal timetable is actually pretty safe.
More than 90% of the primary voters, and more than 70% of those folks who are not Republican Dead Enders™ support this. It’s a natural vote getter.
My recommendation to any Democratic presidential candidate is to state loudly and clearly that escalation by attacking Iran is a bad thing. It would destabilize the region, provide popular support to the Iranian theocracy, and put more American lives at risk.
In fact, I would suggest that a candidate should suggest that this is a reason to initiate immediate impeachment proceedings.
Once again, I am wrong in a prediction. Huckabee is surging in polls.
I had kind of written him off as being too Arkansas, and too formerly fat.
My early prediction was for Brownback, who I think is rather more telegenic, but is going nowhere.
By way of lame excuse, I did not realize that Brownback was Catholic, which is a big strike against him in the Republican primary.
Additionally, I think that Huckabee’s life story has a redemption element, specifically his dropping over 100 pounds and getting in shape.
People love a redemption element, and being morbidly obese is pretty mild as a problem to recover from, compared to something like, bribes, diapers, or men’s room pickups.
Of course, the fact that I was wrong about this is one more reason why my making predictions scares me.
When Nixon was nominated in 1968, my father said, “Those idiot Republicans, there is no way we can lose now”.
My dad still has a few hundred sheets of McGovern stationary in the house.
I supported Howard Dean, and went to the meetups, and worked on a campaign for state house where the candidate finished 6th.
While I do have a preference on who gets the Democratic nomination, I have this feeling that my explicitly endorsing a candidate would jinx that individual.
So, for right now, I’m being held hostage to these superstitions, and I am quite well aware that this is stupid.
Va. Senator Warner is out for 2008, and Fred Thompson is in for 2008.
Neither big surprises. Warner raised something like 12 cents in the past few quarters, and Thompson has been under investigation by the FEC for “exploring” too enthusiastically.
*No, I mean not running for re-election, not Senator Craig out.