Campaign 2008

[2GOLD 0]

Jimmy Carter?

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Jimmy Carter was on par with Bill Richardson in 1975.

[SuperJerk 0]

Yeah, it was basically a big surprise when Carter won then kept winning primaries.

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Only one I really remembered was Michael Dukakis and I know he wasn't the front runner. He just ended up being the last man standing when Biden, Jesse Jackson and Gary Hart imploded for a list of reasons. Hart's reasons being the most fun.

 

And I think Hart and Mondale ended up being neck and neck at the start with Mondale pulling away late.

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I always thought Mondale was the early favorite, but Hart came out of no where and won New Hampshire. I'm still surprised John Glenn didn't do better.

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You probably are right, although does Mondale count since he was a VP just three years before the 84 election? Who's next after Mondale if you discount him for being a VP? Anyone?

[SuperJerk 0]

You probably are right, although does Mondale count since he was a VP just three years before the 84 election? Who's next after Mondale if you discount him for being a VP? Anyone?

Stevenson in 56? I'm sure he was favored over his main opponent Estes Kefauver.

 

Polls become irrelevant before this point because most states were picking who they'd support through a convention rather than a primary.

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But even before the official polls the early (year or so before primaries, or in older cases, conventions) frontrunner, especially in the Dem Party rarely ever got the nomination.

 

Adlai was the frontrunner for '56 but came out of relative nowhere in '52.

 

FDR won the nomination at a chaotic '32 convention.

 

This stuff makes me feel a bit better about Hilary's current status...but American voters have shown some incredible lapses over the years (64, 72, 02, 04). As much as I would like to believe that American voters wont be duped by "Hussein Osama' stuff or by staggering early poll leads, I wont be surprised when/if we are.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Ouch.

 

The International Association of Firefighters (a rare Republican-friendly union) is hosting a presidential forum hosting almost all of the presidential candidates. Except Rudy.

 

Early on, the IAFF made a decision to invite all serious candidates from both political parties — except one: former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

 

We made this decision after considerable soul-searching and close consultation with our two New York City affiliates, the Uniformed Firefighters Association Local 94 and the Uniformed Fire Officers Association Local 854, as well as our former Local 94 President and current IAFF 1st District Vice President covering New York.

 

The IAFF recognizes that Mayor Giuliani generally enjoys a favorable reputation as a result of his actions immediately after the tragedy of 9/11. As such, we want our affiliates and every one of our members to clearly understand the reason and rationale behind this very serious and sober decision.

 

Many people consider Rudy Giuliani "America's Mayor," and many of our members who don't yet know the real story, may also have a positive view of him. This letter is intended to make all of our members aware of the egregious acts Mayor Giuliani committed against our members, our fallen on 9/11, and our New York City union officers following that horrific day [...]

 

The disrespect that he exhibited to our 343 fallen FDNY brothers, their families and our New York City IAFF leadership in the wake of that tragic day has not been forgiven or forgotten.

 

In November 2001, our members were continuing the painful, but necessary, task of searching Ground Zero for the remains of our fallen brothers and the thousands of innocent citizens that were killed, because precious few of those who died in the terrorist attacks had been recovered at that point.

 

Prior to November 2001, 101 bodies or remains of fire fighters had been recovered. And those on the horrible pile at Ground Zero believed they had just found a spot in the rubble where they would find countless more that could be given proper burial.

 

Nevertheless, Giuliani, with the full support of his Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen, decided on November 2, 2001, to sharply reduce the number of those who could search for remains at any one time. There had been as many as 300 fire fighters at a time involved in search and recovery, but Giuliani cut that number to no more than 25 who could be there at once.

 

In conjunction with the cut in fire fighters allowed to search, Giuliani also made a conscious decision to institute a "scoop-and-dump" operation to expedite the clean-up of Ground Zero in lieu of the more time-consuming, but respectful, process of removing debris piece by piece in hope of uncovering more remains.

 

Mayor Giuliani's actions meant that fire fighters and citizens who perished would either remain buried at Ground Zero forever, with no closure for families, or be removed like garbage and deposited at the Fresh Kills Landfill.

[SuperJerk 0]

I find myself in the rare position of defending Guiliani, but perhap only 25 firefighter were to be at Ground Zero at a time 2 months after the disaster (when it was known no more survivors would be found) because the rest were desperately needed to serve and protect the rest of city?

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I would hope that NYC had/has a sizeable fire dept. If the biggest pile of rubble in America could only take on 25 max I would find it a bit odd. It's a town of millions...I would imagine they have at least a thousand firefighters, though I have no idea on the actual numbers there.

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In a state of national lock-down and heightened security, a city of millions has hundreds of firefighters to spare cleaning up a disaster area? Just because he withdrew the firefighters doesn't mean there weren't other groups cleaning up the area. It was 2 months later. Time for someone else to take over and the firefighters to get back to protecting those left behind.

 

 

In other non-news...

 

Richardson Defense Raises Questions

 

 

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson's 2008 presidential campaign has been burdened by unusually public discussion about his behavior with women.

 

The lieutenant governor of New Mexico, Diane Denish was quoted in the Albuquerque Journal saying she avoids standing or sitting near Richardson because of his physical manner, which she said was not improper but was "annoying." The governor, she said, "pinches my neck. He touches my hip, my thigh, sort of the side of my leg."

 

On repeated occasions, Richardson has been pressed by reporters or Democratic activists on whether his personal conduct can withstand public scrutiny.

 

Richardson, in an interview with The Politico, denied behaving inappropriately, calling the talk "mean-spirited." Still, the concerns have become enough of a headwind for Richardson's campaign that the candidate has a more substantive response -- that his personal conduct was vetted, and effectively given a seal of approval, when he was considered for the vice presidential nomination by John F. Kerry in 2004.

 

"The Kerry people vetted me for vice president," he told The Politico last week. He knew this, he said, because Jim Johnson, the veteran Washington lawyer and Democratic insider, "has said so."

 

But that line of defense may be less effective in shutting down speculation than Richardson hopes. After five days of phone calls and e-mails, and an initial refusal to comment, Johnson released a one-sentence statement saying Richardson had been "vetted" but offering no details about what that entailed.

 

"The Kerry campaign vetted Governor Richardson, and nothing was found that would have prevented him from being chosen as John Kerry's vice presidential candidate," Johnson said.

 

See Also: Ben Smith's Blog on the '08 Democratic Candidates

 

Three other people -- either senior Kerry aides or Democrats involved in the vice presidential search process -- said in interviews that Richardson's past was not subject to a definitive examination* aimed at determining whether his personal conduct with women was a potential political problem.

 

These Democrats, who declined to be quoted by name discussing a sensitive personal matter, said that Richardson withdrew from consideration by Kerry before undergoing a final round of vetting. The final round would have required delivering financial documents and other information to Johnson and his team for an intensive examination of a candidate's fitness for high office. Among those who did go through such a process were then-Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John Edwards (D-N.C.), then-House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.), then-Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack and retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark.

 

"He wanted to be considered because he wanted his name out there," a senior Democrat close to the vice presidential process said of Richardson. "And once his name was out there, he withdrew. So there was never a full vetting."

 

This Democrat said Richardson's citing of the 2004 vetting process as a rejoinder to questions about his personal behavior is "a crazy thing to go around saying."

 

Richardson's campaign manager, Dave Contarino, told The Politico that Johnson told him last fall that Richardson's 2004 vetting had covered allegations of "things with women," and that Johnson told him he'd made two dozen calls on the matter and been convinced "that there was no there there."

 

Johnson declined to discuss details of the process.

 

The willingness of Richardson and top aides to speak directly about speculation over his relations with women is itself an indication of how much the issue may be shaping public perceptions of his presidential prospects.

 

Richardson said the speculation had "no foundation." Even so, many Democrats say gossip about Richardson's personal behavior is an important factor keeping an exceptionally well-credentialed politician -- a former energy secretary and ambassador to the United Nations, who has been elected in a swing state -- from entering the top tier of 2008 candidates.

 

On the day in January that Richardson announced his campaign, Steve Clemons, a former Democratic staffer who is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, asked in an open letter: "Have you behaved inappropriately or not in public settings with female members of your government administration?"

 

The question had already been raised by the Albuquerque Journal, which in December 2005 published a front-page piece about Richardson under the headline "Hands-On Governor." Richardson told the newspaper he has an informal, physical style with both men and women that he employs to lighten the mood and connect with people.

 

Denish -- a Democrat who ran on the same ticket as Richardson -- said that she sometimes finds Richardson's physical style "irritating and annoying" but that he had never touched her in an improper way. Still, she said, his behavior was inappropriate in public because it could be misconstrued.

 

Lanny Davis, a former Clinton aide and spokesman for the White House legal counsel, also called The Politico, on the prompting of the Richardson campaign, to aver that when he vetted Richardson for a Cabinet position in 1992, Richardson passed the detailed scrutiny.

 

"I ended up 100 percent convinced that Bill Richardson was not a womanizer, had not had an affair, had not done anything that had embarrassed him," he said.

 

Richardson subsequently was appointed to high-level jobs in government, including energy secretary, and weathered two races for governor without his relations with women becoming an obstacle. Richardson's resume made him an eminently plausible contender when Kerry began looking for a running mate.

 

On July 15, 2004, a Washington reporter for the Albuquerque Journal reported receiving an "interesting -- and unsolicited -- phone call" from the ordinarily press-shy Johnson, who sang Richardson's praises.

 

"Johnson said the Kerry search team pored over everything they could find about their prospective choices, including Richardson. They looked at speeches the contenders had given, articles and books they had written, academic and public policy groups they were affiliated with, financial and medical records and 'personal issues,'" the Journal reported.

 

"We looked very comprehensively at all of the information available to us," Johnson said at the time.

 

Another Kerry aide, however, said it was inappropriate to use the vetting as a credential. "We never gave anyone a clean bill of health, or not."

 

Richardson chalks the rumors up to his campaign style.

 

"There's nothing I can do except just basically continue," he said. "I've never touched anybody inappropriately. No one's accused me of it. I shake hands a lot. I hold a handshaking record. I believe in the physical side of campaigning. I guess I hug people sometimes. That's me. That's my character."

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0307/3054.html

 

Reasonable to assume that Richardson hasn't done a damn thing wrong, but an interesting look at the inner working of presidential camapigns and the VP "vetting" process.

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But the problem the fireman union seem to have is that Rudy didn't replace them with others to remove the remains of the dead. He just sent in the excavation equipment and shipped the bodies out with the rest of the debris.

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Did he really, though? The union contradicted itself, because in one paragraph they say the number of firefighters searching was reduced from 300 to 25, then 2 paragraphs later they claim the corpses were just going to be scooped up and dumped in a landfill.

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300 people can move deliberately thru the rubble in search of bodies. A 25 person crew cant.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Not to be cold, but the whole WTC site was a public health risk. How many recognizable corpses could've possibly been found? They had to get that mess out of there as quickly as possible.

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cant? is that like a carriable commodity? I'm sorta known for weird expressions, but that 'll take it for it's baroque quality.

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WTF is with this guy and his missing avatar and sig pic?

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He's fast becoming razateca.

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Not to be cold, but the whole WTC site was a public health risk. How many recognizable corpses could've possibly been found? They had to get that mess out of there as quickly as possible.

 

DNA/teeth. Probably how most of the victims were identified.

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Yeah, I know. But it's not like just firefighter bodies weren't recovered. I understand why the firefighters are upset, but that's one of those situations which was a lose-lose...if they had left the rubble there longer, more dust and crap would've gone into the air, and then more people would've complained about being sick, and all that.

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I thought this was pretty good, a Democrat finally showing some spine:

 

Fox Attacks

3/09/2007 at 8:35 PM EST

 

Deputy Campaign Manager Jonathan Prince sent the following email to supporters this evening.

 

You may have heard by now that John Edwards was the first candidate to officially say no to the Fox News debate in Nevada -- and because of the hard work of so many grassroots and netroots Democrats, news is breaking tonight that Fox is out.

 

Fox has already started striking backat John for saying no. (There's a surprise - Fox attacking a Democrat.) Last night, Roger Ailes - the life-long Republican operative who is now Chairman of Fox News Channel - said that any candidate "who believes he can blacklist any news organization is making a terrible mistake" and "is impeding freedom of speech and free press."

 

And John's not their only target. Tonight Fox News Vice President David Rhodes is telling news organizations not to get involved in the Nevada Democratic Caucus because of "radical fringe" groups - meaning grassroots Democrats (that would be you) - who objected to Fox's long history of spreading Republican propaganda at the expense of Democratic leaders.

 

The whole right-wing is getting in on the attack; the Drudge Report is blaring the headline: "War! Dems Pull Out of Fox News Debate."

 

Enough is enough. It's time to send a clear message to Fox News and their allies that their right-wing talking points and temper tantrums won't go unchallenged anymore - when it comes to what Democrats should do in the Democratic primary, we'll decide - no matter what they report:

 

https://johnedwards.com/action/contribut e/fox

 

Fox News has already proven they have no intention of providing "fair and balanced" coverage of any Democrat in this election.

 

In recent weeks they have run blatant lies about Senator Obama's background. And Fox was only too happy to give Ann Coulter a platform to spew more hate a few days after her bigoted attack on Senator Edwards and the gay community.

 

Now it's time for Democrats to stand together and send a clear message to Roger Ailes, Fox News and all the rest of them: bias isn't balance, but turning tables is fair.

 

The truth is, Fox News can "report" whatever they want. And when it works for us, we'll deal with them on our terms. But this campaign is about responsibility and accountability, and we need to send the message to Fox that if they want to be the corporate mouthpiece of the Republican Party more than they want to be an impartial news outlet, they shouldn't expect Democrats to play along.

 

You can send that message by contributing today, and remind Fox News that in this election, Democrats won't take their spin lying down:

 

https://johnedwards.com/action/contribut e/fox

 

Thank you for standing up for what we believe in.

 

Jonathan Prince

Deputy Campaign Manager

Edwards for President

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Its ridiculous that Fox never retracted the Obama story or still continues to treat Coulter like she has any credibility, but I don't really see why Edwards would turn a debate appearance down regardless of who is broadcasting it. This was his big opportunity to show the Fox News audience, unfiltered by slick editting and out-of-context quotes, that he's not the person he's been made out to be.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

I think the FOX News audience probably already has its mind made up about most Democrats. Plus, the post-debate analysis would probably basically be, "which candidate hates America the most?"

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Moderator: "Former Senator/trial lawyer Edwards, why do you hate the troops?"

 

Moderator: "Sen Barack Hussein Obama, at what point did you stop attending the Madrassa?"

 

Moderator: "Bill Richardson, who are you?"

 

etc.

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"Mr. Richardson, why do you want our children high on marijuana?"

 

I do think the whole "FOX News is right wing" is a little overblown, but when it's comes to the election so far, they've been blatantly pro-GOP, it seems.

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They've done a heckuva job with the Libby thing to. They basically ignored the trial to focus on the 'Sandy Burglar' story & since the verdict they've done just as expected.

 

Fox has gotten many exclusive interviews with Bush & Cheney during their terms. I doubt that would continue with a Democrat Administration.

 

And they really like bringing up that trial lawyer bit with Johnboy at every mention of his name.

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"FOX News is right wing" is a little overblown

 

Roger Ailes runs the thing.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

I understand that, and I think that's a valid point to bring up more often.

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What would Bill Oreilly etc say if Terry Mcaullife was in charge of Msnbc or Cnn?