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Hilary Clinton plays hardball regarding the Michigan and Florida delegations. This from the NYT:”
“Reflecting how tense the situation has become, influential fund-raisers for Senator Hilary Rodham Cllnton have stepped up their behind-the-scenes pressure on national party leaders to resolve the matter, with some even threatening to withhold their donations to the Democratic National Committee unless it seats the delegates from the two states or holds new primaries there.”
Presumably, fundraisers for Clinton are not making such threats without their candidate’s approval.
Ironically, the DNC penalized both Florida and Michigan, refusing to seat their delegates, because, in violation of party rules, they held their primaries early. Both Florida and Michigan did that because party leaders in those states believed they were going to have little or probably no effect on deciding who the nominee would be if their primaries were held too late. That was then. If both states do do-overs, their votes might be actually be pivotal. Of course, Super Tuesday was once long ago going to decide the race… Then Texas, Ohio, and New Hampshire were supposed to…
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If you have a legal problem, lots and lots of money, and enough to have a partner represent you, don’t expect your attorney to be a woman if you have retained Gibson & Dunn.
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Today was undoubtedly one of the worst days for Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy. Obama spent the better part of the day distancing himself from statements made by his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The cable shows then played what appeared to be the same endless loop of videos of Wright’s most offensive comments.
Then Obama sat down with the Chicago Tribune, and provided the newspaper with new details about his dealings with his dealings with Tony Rezko, the Chicago real estate developer currently standing trial on federal criminal charges.
Some obvious questions arise:
Who had put the video compilation together of Wright’s most controversial statements for Youtube and the cable networks? It would be interesting to find out who was behind it. The Wall Street Journal said that the McCain campaign brought a controversial statement to their attention earlier today. And Rush Limbaugh came out with additional material later in the same afternoon. But who was behind the video compilation that the cable networks all had?
Also of interest is wheter this was part of some campaign by an opposition campaign or an interest group of some kind, why did they push the story on a Friday? That’s the last time to break news that is going to damage your opponent. White Houses, both Republican and Democratic, always leak bad news on themselves on Fridays. Political campaigns have also long adopted the tool. Even regular folks will probably get into the act: The “Honey, I was actually playing poker with the guys…” confession is probably best made to one spouse’s on a Friday night. (Personal note: I am neither married or play poker!)
A second interesting thing about the events of today is that Sen. Obama disclosed new information about his dealings with Tony Rezko to the Chicago Tribune. Combined with the issue of his minister’s past sermons, this might seem horrible for Obama. However, the fact that Obama released this information on a Friday is probably the best time to put some distance between himself and Rezko and the candidate and the controversy.
And by putting out the information on the same day as the other controversy, the Obama campaign might have shrewdly lowered the profile of the Rezko disclosures on the very same day of the the other controversy to bury another. If they did that on purpose, it was shrewd politics and adroit political damage control– an improvement over how they have handled other controversies. If all of this, however, was by happenstance, then Sen. Obama might on what feels like one of the worst days of his political career, smile on his good fortune.
I wish someone would do some reporting on this. But alas, I am a reporter, and not an editor of a newspaper…. I am barely even the proprietor of this blog.
What is likely to be the consequence to today’s events? Talking Points Memo has these reader contributions. I try not to do any prognosticating, but TPM’s readers probably have keener insights than those “professional journalists” on all the cable shows.
Update: The Wright and Rezko issues also came one day after the Obama campaign released information about Obama’s earmark requests. So it seems like the Obama campaign got a lot of stuff out quick, at once, and on a day fewer people were paying attention to politics. Maybe the campaign is better at things like this than is the conventional wisdom of the media covering the campaign. On the other hand, if all of this was uncoordinated and largely out of their control, what might have seemed like a hellish day might be a political advantage in the long run.
Second update: Here’s an analysis since posted by Tom Edsall.
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