"She is not seeking the vice presidency, and no one speaks for her but her," communications director Howard Wolfson said. "The choice here is Senator Obama's and his alone."
She is also encouraging her donors to get behind Obama. Clinton's a pro, she's going to come out of this race stronger and more powerful.
The morning after Senator Barack Obama became the presumptive Democratic nominee, he didn't speak to Wall Street. Instead he spoke to more than 4,000 SEIU members, guests and delegates in San Juan, Puerto Rico at the SEIU 2008 Convention.
McCain now thinks warrantless wiretaps are legal. Six months ago, he didn't.
The American Conservative Union is threatening legal action against a supporter who started a facebook group to promote CPAC, the preeminent conservative conference in the country. The Next Right has his letter.
It is with a genuine sense of concern that I ask whether you threatened the same against unofficial CPAC 2008, 2007, and 2006 groups? Perhaps the reason you are threatening me is because this group has had more members than yours for several months now.
I don't know.
But what I do know is that I find it doubtful that ACU members and donors would be pleased that you and Mr. Keene are so quick to spend their well-meaning contributions on what would be an expensive DC lawyer for such a sue-happy endeavor.
Speaking of frivolity, your demands do illustrate a much larger point.
What are you doing when you are not threatening legal actions against fellow conservatives?
Certainly not spending that time in trying to get a real conservative as the Republican nominee for President of the United States. Perhaps if you had done more of that then there would be less of a chance we would be stuck with a nominee who led the Amnesty for Illegal Aliens effort on the floor of the United States Senate.
Myers was struck by how closely Obama had studied the two campaigns of George W. Bush. "He said he wanted to run our campaign like a business," says Myers. And in a good business, the customer is king. Early on, before it had the resources to do much else, the campaign outsourced a "customer-service center" so that anyone who called, at any hour of the day or night, would find a human voice on the other end of the line.
The campaign is well-run. What I don't know is if this is a charismatic dude floating on a larger trend of internet fueled change hunger, or a smart and efficient campaign strategy. Or both. Amy Sullivan wrote about consultants a few years ago.
Republicans, of course, don't have any natural monopoly on strategic talent--they just give their best young strategists chances to run the biggest national races. In all likelihood, there is another Karl Rove or James Carville out in the Democratic hinterlands, who ought to be playing essential roles in the most important races. It might be David Axelrod in Chicago, who developed the media strategy for the then-unknown Sen. Barack Obama's (D-Ill.) primary campaign; West Coast strategists Paul Goodwin and Amy Simon, who helped Democrats regain the legislature in Washington state; or even unconventional D.C.-based consultants like Anna Bennett, the pollster who engineered Melissa Bean's upset of veteran Rep. Phil Crane (R-Ill.) in November. But any new talent will likely remain on the national margins--running races for Congress and judgeships--until someone breaks up the consultant oligarchy.
Judging from what I've seen, consultants are much weaker than they were, competing heavily with bloggers and activists for influence. They aren't done, but their guru-like wisdom is heavily constrained by other forces. Shrum, for instance, held his power through his connections to politicians and large dollar donors. The personal link to politicians remains, but the donor link has been partially severed. Small dollar donors can now make a candidate 'viable' and win open seat primaries, and there's actually micro-press focusing on the ads and campaign activities of candidates (and consultants). They are still making a bundle with flawed pricing models (15%), and they are still keeping good talent out, but it's not as bad as it once was.
Most people don't want to go to war with Iran. This makes Obama's bad statements on Israel significant. More on this soon from Karl, our intrepid researcher.
And we're taking off, next stop Detroit layover, so I'll see you then. Meantime, what are you reading?
