Brilliant Politics

From Political Wire:

A new Reuters/C-SPAN/Houston Chronicle poll shows Sen. Barack Obama building a lead in Texas but is still just behind Sen. Hillary Clinton in Ohio.

In Texas, Obama has built a six-point lead over Clinton, 48% to 42%, “largely on the strength of support from what has come to be his base – younger voters and men. Evidence of his persuasive powers comes from the fact that most of those who have most recently decided for whom to support, while Clinton won more support from early deciders.”

In Ohio, Clinton holds a slim lead that has diminished steadily in past weeks, 44% to 42%. “Her strength stems from the same demographic groups that carried her to victories earlier in the campaign, but the trend appears to favor Obama, as late deciders are more likely to support him over her, the survey shows, and 9% of Ohio Democrats say they have yet to make up their minds.”

Hillary decides to go with humor rather than whining or hectoring. Good move. This is one of several spots that will play on Letterman on Thursday night, February 28th.

Why would Barack Obama waste valuable time and resources in Rhode Island, three days before the March 4th primaries, where the latest poll there has him 15 points behind Hillary Clinton?

From the Obama website:

Stand for Change Rally with Barack Obama
Rhode Island College
Recreation Center
600 Mount Pleasant Ave.
Providence, RI 02908
Saturday, March 1
Doors open: 12:00 p.m.

The only thing I can think of is that the Obama campaign is going for a knock-out punch, believing that they can win in all four states (Ohio, Texas, Vermont, Rhode Island) on March 4th and end the contest that day. This seems extremely risky, or extremely dumb, to me. Don’t you want to do everything humanly possible, if you are Obama, to win in Texas and Ohio? If Obama wins both, it’s over.  The fat lady sings.  Who cares if you lose Rhode Island if you win the big two???

–Doc Pierson

Hillary Clinton raised $35 million in February. If she wins one or both of the primaries in Ohio and Texas next week, she can afford to stay in the game until the Pennsylvania Primary on April 22 (Mississippi is on March 11th). That six week gap between March 4th and April 22nd is an eternity in politics. If she then wins in Pennsylvania, it will be a completely different contest.

Here is her latest TV ad in Ohio, featuring Governor Ted Strickland:

Andrew Sullivan feels the fear in this comeback from the dead scenario:

We’re at that moment in the campaign that reminds me of a horror movie. There’s a kind of relief that the worst cannot happen, that the Clintons are politically dead, that our long national nightmare is over. The screen falls silent. We look at pleasant images: green grass, or a kitchen table scene, or a calm lovers’ embrace. But you know they have something left. They could come suddenly screaming back, like that hand out of the grave in Carrie or Glenn Close in the bathtub in Fatal Attraction. An Edwards endorsement? A March surprise?

Like Freddy or Jason, they still lurk, ready to pounce again. And the credits are yet to roll. Gulp.

–Doc Pierson

It’s all the Republicans have left, and now they are openly recommending it to Hillary Clinton: Fear.

Reaction from Democrats to Ralph Nader’s announcement today on Meet the Press that he is running for president again in 2008 was not good. Not Good.

–Doc Pierson

Ralph Nader announced today that he is running for president in 2008. I guess he figures that he has not done enough to hurt America. Here is a man that is more self-deluded than even the most ideological conservatives.

Update (2-25-08): Obama’s response to Nader, from the Washington Post:

Next, he was asked about Nader’s comments on “Meet the Press,” in which Nader called Obama a “person of substance” but added that “his better instincts and his knowledge have been censored by himself.”

Obama’s answer was even tougher than one he gave Saturday about Nader. “Ralph Nader’s view is, unless it’s Ralph Nader, then you’re not tough enough on any of these issues,” he said. “He thought there was no difference between Al Gore and George Bush. I think eight years later, people realize Ralph doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

–Doc Pierson

Franni talks with Al at Super Tuesday DFL Party

Al Franken’s new website is up and running.

–Doc Pierson

The Public Editor of the New York Times, Clark Hoyt, rightly criticizes the paper for implying, without proof, that John McCain had an affair with lobbyist, Vicki Iseman.

A newspaper cannot begin a story about the all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee with the suggestion of an extramarital affair with an attractive lobbyist 31 years his junior and expect readers to focus on anything other than what most of them did. And if a newspaper is going to suggest an improper sexual affair, whether editors think that is the central point or not, it owes readers more proof than The Times was able to provide.

The stakes are just too big. As the flamboyant Edwin Edwards of Louisiana once said, “The only way I can lose this election is if I’m caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy.”

The pity of it is that, without the sex, The Times was on to a good story. McCain, who was reprimanded by the Senate Ethics Committee in 1991 for exercising “poor judgment” by intervening with federal regulators on behalf of a corrupt savings and loan executive, recast himself as a crusader against special interests and the corrupting influence of money in politics. Yet he has continued to maintain complex relationships with lobbyists like Iseman, at whose request he wrote to the Federal Communications Commission to urge a speed-up on a decision affecting one of her clients.

–Doc Pierson

The campaign heats up. Hillary Clinton has about had it with those Obama “speeches and big rallies,” and she accuses the Obama campaign of “Karl Rove tactics.” She refers to a flyer mailed by the Obama campaign and says it is “undermining core Democratic principles.” That is what many think about the Clinton camp’s talk of seating Michigan and Florida delegates. You decide: