Tag: 2008 (page 7)

It's game on. 59 days until the election. I don't think this week's polls are indicative of much since both sides will be rallied by their respective conventions. I think we need two weeks before polls become reliable indicators of voters' intentions in November.

Today, I'm wondering, what were Barack Obama's biggest mistakes in the campaign to date and how many can he rectify in the time remaining?

Since we now have fewer opponents to the Democratic ticket on the site, I'm going to ask readers who intend to vote for the Dems in November to weigh in.

Here's my list: [More...]

John McCain, More of the Same.

Is anybody watching the Republican National Convention? John McCain speaks at 10 p.m. ET. We'll have a new thread up for that, but if anyone has anything to say before then, here's a place and an open thread.

Gallup's daily poll today:

Barack Obama leading the race for president with his highest share of support to date. Fully half of national registered voters now favor Obama for president, while 42% back John McCain.

Amy Goodman of Democracy Now was arrested in Minneapolis today. According to the description of the video, she and two others are charged with conspiracy to riot. According to Coldsnaplegal, she was pepper-sprayed while handcuffed.

Cindy McCain and Laura Bush spoke at the Republican National Convention today, urging support for victims of Hurricane Gustav.

Originally, President Bush and Dick Cheney had been scheduled to speak but the storm caused them to cancel those plans.

This letter was written by a friend of mine, whose letters I have published several times over the years on TalkLeft. When I first met him, he was a criminal defense lawyer with a very high profile Washington, DC law firm. (I served as local counsel for one of his clients.)

He then became a high ranking official in the Clinton Justice Department. We were on opposing sides then but remained in touch. He's been back in private practice in D.C. for several years since then. During four of those years, we both served on a prominent national legal board that met every three months in various cities. While he's never going to agree with all of my positions on crime issues, I still have tremendous respect for him. He's really one of the good guys -- and a true Democrat.

We've been corresponding throughout this election campaign as he was a strong supporter of Sen. Barack Obama from the beginning. He was unable to convince me that Obama would be a better President or nominee than Hillary. Of course, I agree with him that Obama would be a better President than John McCain.

His letter to Hillary Clinton supporters, sent to me for TalkLeft this morning, is below:

The Associated Press' analysis of Sen. Barack Obama's pick of Joe Biden to be his VP: It shows a lack of confidence on Obama's part:

The candidate of change went with the status quo. In picking Sen. Joe Biden to be his running mate, Barack Obama sought to shore up his weakness — inexperience in office and on foreign policy — rather than underscore his strength as a new-generation candidate defying political conventions.

The AP lists the non-status quo choices available to Obama, all of whom got glossed over. [More...]

CNN just read a statement from John McCain. Completely predictable. He points out that Joe Biden said Barack Obama is not qualified to be President. I guess we can expect that video to be replayed ad nauseum.

Joe Biden to the New Hampshire Leader in 2007:

Biden was generally critical of the far left wing of his party and of the strategies the frontrunners are using to win the nomination.

He said Democrats would do better if they stopped dividing the electorate by playing to their base and instead brought people together. He criticized the left wing of his party for demonizing the rich and Republicans.

“Rich folks are as patriotic as poor folks, but we don’t talk that way,” he said.

Biden also talked about his electoral strategy:[More...]

Bump and Update: CNN confirms at 12:43 am ET that it is Joe Biden. So the world didn't find out by text message after all. The mainstream media learned it from highly placed sources. Nothing new here.

It's a love-fest on CNN. Their reporters are probably all hoping for the first one-on-one interview. I'm sure the law enforcement community is also clapping. What a disappointing choice.

(B.B.King, The Thrill is Gone)

Looks like it's a done deal. CNN confirms it's not Kaine, Bayh or Clinton. The Secret Service has been dispatched to Casa Biden and a Netjets plane left Chicago Midway for Delaware.

The text message will go out tomorrow morning. As I wrote here:

For all the change that Obama promised to bring to politics in Washington, how's Obama going to explain driving up with Joe Biden in his father's Oldsmobile?

Big Tent Democrat called it correctly. Is anyone besides me extremely unhappy with Joe Biden, the ultimate crime warrior, on the ticket?

One of my favorite Joe Biden gaffes below:

I've been offline running around doing convention things all day and all they say on TV is "any moment now." What's the hold-up?

And, it may or may not be Joe Biden. There are other serious contenders and until it's announced, keep in mind that everything you are reading is opinion only.

Update: Via radio: The Obama campaign says no events are planned in Indianapolis on Saturday.

Adding another layer to the Veepstakes, the Nashville Post reports today that signs are pointing to Evan Bayh as Sen. Barack Obama's veep choice:

NashvillePost.com has learned that senior campaign officials from the Barack Obama Presidential campaign are being dispatched from various locations around the country and are converging in Indianapolis for a “major event” to take place on Saturday.

...Sources in Denver, the site of next week's Democratic National Convention, say that individuals responsible for Obama's major public appearances have been pulled out of the city and are heading east towards Indiana.

More...