Category Archives: Politics: US: 2008 Elections

TPMtv: I'm Rudy Giuliani and I Approve This Message:

Ron Paul, the anarcho-libertarian running for President as a Republican, has two TV ads running in New Hampshire. One of them is really stilted and awful:

But the other ad isn't bad:

Given that Ron Paul's supporters raised over $3 million for him yesterday — apparently without much help from the campaign — it looks like he'll be able to buy some serious air time in New Hampshire.

Quirky, ultra-right-wing anti-state and anti-tax New Hampshire one of the few states where Rep. Paul might actually do quite well. Let's hear it for a brokered Republican convention!

For the past week or two I've been musing about writing something about why John Edwards's organizational imperfections were going to keep him — despite his good ideas and good speeches — from winning the race to be the “ABC” candidate, that is the person around whom all the “anyone but Clinton” factions would coalesce. My hypothesis was that things were getting to the point where, even though stately, boring, Senator Dodd had somehow turned into a fire-breather, the timing of early primaries and the need for serious campaign cash, all meant that Senator Barack Obama had become the only realistic contender for the ABC title. And even for him, time was running short.

Seems like the folks in the Obama camp were thinking something similar. But their reaction to that tactical observation has been so incredibly, well, stupid, that you have to wonder if there will even be an ABC candidate at all. Among the silly things were Obama's speech in which he promised to attack Senator Clinton, rather than actually doing much of it, and the inept 'gospel tour' of South Carolina.

Could it be, however, that these are not errors of execution, but the inevitable results of a fundamental strategic error on Obama's part? That's the surprisingly convincing argument of the observant Chris Bowers in his provocatively titled Obama Campaign Post-Mortem.

So here's my question, if Obama isn't going to be the ABC candidate, is there anyone who can grab the mantle and make this a horse race, or is it over already?

When candidates asked about an important issue find themselves unwilling or unable to give a shorter and clearer answer than Joe Biden, they have a problem.

Both Senators Clinton and Obama have a problem this week.

Senator Dodd has drawn a line in the sand and promised to filibuster any bill that gives retroactive immunity to telecoms companies who conspired with government agents to spy on us illegally. (Leave aside the question of whether the sloppy language also retrospectively immunizes illegal black bag jobs.)

Asked if he would support Dodd's filibuster, Joe Biden, a notoriously long-winded speaker, gave the following extended answer, which I quote in full:

Yes.

Compare that to Clinton and Obama's game playing, per Glenn Greenwald.

Update: Sen. Obama has come up with a clear statement:

“To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.”

Ian Welsh at The Agonist has the best questions I've seen about HilaryCare 2.0.

They're at Questioning the Hillary Health Care Plan.

I will say this: I think Ezra Klein is exactly right: if we get any sort of national health care plan of any value out of the next administration, whoever is running it, a good chunk of the credit belongs to the man who forced people to talk about it in a meaningful, detailed way: John Edwards.