This just in: Florida governor is straight

First of call, congratulations to Florida Gov. Charlie Crist on his engagement to single mother Carole Rome.  Sure, there are skeptics are wondering why all of the sudden Crist, who was married briefly in 1979, has found his true love.  I am sure it has nothing to do with the fact that the Republican is on the short list of potential running-mates for John McCain.

Rumors of his interest or lack thereof in women have dogged Crist for years. As the Orlando Weekly noted in 2006, every reporter in Florida heard the rumors. One staffer even admitted having sex with him which Crist denied.

Sure, Charlie’s a hot 50-year-old bachelor with well-coiffed silver hair and a fondness for nicely tailored suits. But he just survived a primary against a fundie who premised his whole campaign on the notion that Charlie doesn’t hate gay people (or abortion) enough. You’d think if Tom Gallagher had something to say, he would have said it. Instead, a week before the primary Crist denied that he had fathered a love child… We’d guess that every reporter in the state has heard them, but as yet no one’s produced any proof, much less a picture of Crist having a Brokeback encounter with the pool boy.

The same rumors dogged the former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey who even  had rumors spread about him that he liked to go to strip clubs with his buddies to look at …women. I don’t know whether these rumors at Crist are true or enough but they would sure make another great example of Republican hypocracy if they were. ..Not there is anything wrong with that.

Dear Lord when is the Hillary-Obama saga going to end.

I thought I was a political junkie. When I was a kid, I used to collect presidential campaign memorabilia. I watched the Iran Contra hearings when I was a teenager. My favorite movie is “All the President’s Men.” Ladies and gentlemen, I have had it with the never ending contest for the Democratic presidential nomination.

When I heard that Hillary Clinton won Indiana and that Barack Obama won North Carolina, I wanted to scream. Now, I understand what it feels like to be water-boarded. Can’t we decide this with a flip of a coin or an alligator wrestling contest.

Let’s briefly review the history of the campaign.

First, Hillary Clinton was going to get crowned the nominee. When that didn’t happen, the pundits questioned whether Bill Clinton was helping or hurting his wife’s campaign. Then the media swooned over every utterance from Barack Obama until the Jeremiah Wright video was played endlessly on YouTube. Feisty Hillary then stole the show in Pennsylvania and told people who wanted her to quit to buzz off. Along the way, people learned about important stuff such as flag lapel pins.

Confused? You aren’t alone.

Hillary Clinton shouldn’t pop the champagne corks in PA yet

As expected, Hillary Clinton won the Pennsylvania primary.  It’s hardly a shock since she had the support of the state’s popular Gov. Ed Rendell and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter.

But Clinton supporters shouldn’t be rejoicing yet. As of 9:43 p.m., results from the suburbs of Philadelphia weren’t available. Obama should do well there, picking up plenty of supporters including my father whose vote was canceled out by my mother who backed Clinton.

Regardless, it certainly was a lively day in my home state.

“Throughout the day, turnout has appeared strong in most sections of Philadelphia and the suburbs,” according to the The Philadelphia Inquirer: “Election judges in many precincts said more voters had turned out to vote by noon than have normally shown up all day during a typical primary.”

Obama has been gaining ground in the Keystone State for weeks, chipping away at Clinton’s once-insurmountable 20-point lead. The Illinois senator surely didn’t help himself with the so-called “bitter” comment and the hoopla over his former pastor Jeremiah Wright.  Media pundits also criticized his performance in the recent televised debate in Philadelphia though I thought he held his own against a barrage of gotcha questions from the moderators.

From MSNBC:

Obama said Tuesday that he still expected to lose, but only narrowly, and his staff painted Clinton as an opponent on the ropes.

“They were so confident that their own Pennsylvania spokesman said Clinton would be ‘unbeatable’ in Pennsylvania,” the campaign said in a memo to reporters. “The Clinton campaign needs a blowout victory in Pennsylvania to get any closer to winning the nomination.”

Howard Wolfson, Clinton’s chief spokesman, maintained that the size of Clinton’s victory was immaterial. Targeting his pitch to the Democratic officeholders and other superdelegates who hold the balance of power at the party convention in Denver in August, he said a win was a win.

Not quite. Clinton needed an overwhelming victory in my home state in order for her campaign to have enough gas to last until the convention.  Even under the best of circumstances, winning in Pennsylvania gives her tank a few more gallons but is hardly a fill-up. Obama’s lead in pledged delegates is too large for New York senator to overcome.

Barack Obama easily wins Pennsylvania debate

My home state of Pennsylvania is turning into the political equivalent of the Shoot Out at the OK Corral. Lots of ink has been spilled, video shot and cyberspace occupied with talk of the importance of the Keystone state and tonight’s debate televised on ABC.

A couple of observations:

• Moderators Charlie GIbson and George Stephanopoulos tried mightily to zing Obama on every ridiculous controversy from the “bitter” remark to his lack of enthusiasm for wearing flag lapel pins.  Obama generally handled himself well.
• Hillary Clinton continues to whine about everything. Her remarks about her grandfather the factory worker were a bit much. I doubt that she changed the minds of many Pennsylvania voters with her attempts to smear Obama.
• Neither candidate was particularly convincing about Iraq. Will Hillary Clinton really pull out of Iraq if the generals on the ground tell her that the results would be disastrous?
• Are either of them really not interested in being vice president?
• I still don’t understand Clinton’s explanation for “misremembering” about being under gun fire in Bosnia. How can you forget something like that?

Obama won the debate and may squeak out a victory in

Hillary Clinton fails to pay her bills

Vendors beware: Hillary Clinton is behind in her bills. The situation, as Politico.com notes is pretty serious.

A pair of Ohio companies owed more than $25,000 by Clinton for staging events for her campaign are warning others in the tight-knit event production community — and anyone else who will listen — to get their cash upfront when doing business with her. Her campaign, say representatives of the two companies, has stopped returning phone calls and e-mails seeking payment of outstanding invoices. One even got no response from a certified letter.

Shafting vendors is about as low you can get. How can Hillary ask people to make her CEO of the country when she can’t even manage the finances of her own campaign?

Vendors will probably have to wait months to get paid from the Clintons. Maybe they’ll have time to pay their bills when she drops out of the presidential race and before she runs for governor of New York.

Meanwhile, the Barack Obama fund-raising machine continues to roll over Clinton raising $40 million in March, more than twice as much as the New York senator.

Barack Obama may pull out a surprise in Pennsylvania

Hillary Clinton’s lead in Pennsylvania over Barack Obama is shrinking.

The latest poll from Rasmussen Reports shows Clinton leading Obama by a mere five percentage points 47 percent to 42 percent. A week ago, she lead by 10 points and a month ago she was ahead by 15 points.

This is unbelievable. Clinton has the support of Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter. The state’s large blue collar base supposedly makes it Clinton country. What happened? Did Obama’s bus tour and horrible bowling charm the voters of my home state? Apparently so.

From Rasmussen:

“If Obama is able to pull off an upset in the Keystone State, it would effectively end the race for the Democratic Presidential Nomination.

Tensions clearly remain in the contest. If Obama is nominated, just 56% of Clinton supporters say they are likely to vote for him against John McCain. Forty percent (40%) of Clinton voters in Pennsylvania say they are not likely to vote for Obama.

On the other hand, if Clinton is nominated, just 67% of Obama supporters say they are likely to vote for her against McCain. Twenty-nine percent (29%) are not.

Just 21% of Pennsylvania’s Primary Voters say that Clinton should drop out of the race while 18% would like Obama to leave. Those figures are similar to results from a recent national survey. Fifty-one percent (51%) in Pennsylvania say it’s very likely the contest will not be resolved until the convention in Denver. That figure includes 61% of Clinton voters and 38% of those who support Obama. Overall, another 33% say a convention decision is Somewhat Likely.

If Clinton loses Pennsylvania, the party is over. Then again, she may be laying the groundwork for running for governor of New York.  Those Clintons are crafty that way.

Hillary Clinton should make way for Barack Obama

In the coming weeks, Hillary Clinton needs to figure out how to get out of the race while the getting is good. She simply cannot win unless the party’s super delegates ignore the will of the people in a mass political suicide. Last week Politico, argued that she has “virtually”  no chance of winning and chastised the media for hyping the political horse race and not the political reality.

 “Journalists have become partners with the Clinton campaign in pretending that the contest is closer than it really is. Most coverage breathlessly portrays the race as a down-to-the-wire sprint between two well-matched candidates, one only slightly better situated than the other to win in August at the national convention in Denver.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, whose endorsement of Barack Obama was a slap in the face to his longtime political mentors the Clintons, became the latest party bigwig to state the obvious that the New York senator is on a Quixotic quest for the presidency even if she wins the Pennsylvania primary.  The likeable Richardson even took a few shots at Clinton in an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.”

The problem with the Clintons is that it’s always about them first. By the way, it’s a pity that Richardson’s campaign failed to catch on with the public. On paper, he was the most qualified of any of the Democratic presidential candidates. I would have voted for him.

Will Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama join forces?

from TVCrazy.netHillary Clinton has been coyly hinting that she might be interested in joining forces with Barack Obama, proving that she knows which way the wind blows.

The former first lady has been gaining ground since winning the closely watched contests in Texas and Ohio. She is in good shape to win the next big battleground in Pennsylvania where the state’s Gov. Ed Rendell and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter are supporting her. A poll from  bears this out.

The survey found that Clinton has erased the once-commanding lead that Obama held in most national polls following his 11 straight victories in February’s primaries and caucuses. Obama is the favored nominee among 45 percent of Democrats, compared with 44 percent for Clinton, according to the poll, which was based on telephone interviews with 1,215 registered voters March 5-6.

Of course, polls aren’t worth much a bucket of warm spit in this election. Time and time again, they’ve shown that people either lie to pollsters or that the survey takers ask the wrong questions at the wrong time.  People seem to like both Clinton and Obama for different reasons at different times. That sort of changing feeling is difficult to measure.

Democrats are deeply divided. Republicans are divided too but they have managed to coalesce around John McCain. But continuing to battle one another, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama only benefit the Republicans. It’s time for them to put their egos in neutral and do what’s best for the party and join forces.

Why the Republicans should be thankful for John McCain

(Via Flickr) Hatch 1921As John McCain clinched the Republican nomination for president, the Arizona senator said he “never believed I was destined to be president.” Neither did many Republicans,but the party faithful should be thankful.

McCain is the best hope for the GOP to win the White House. Granted, that hope is fairly remote and odds are pretty good that the one-time Vietnam POW will get a whopping not seen since Barry Goldwater got creamed by Lyndon Johnson in 1964. But he is the only Republican that stands to a party to bring victory to a party lead by an extremely unpopular president who brought America into an extremely unpopular war.

The word “maverick” often is used to describe him. He is a very likable guy and has bucked his party from time to time. But Paul Krugman of the New York Times argues that’s a myth.

Mr. McCain’s reputation as a moderate may be based on his former opposition to the Bush tax cuts. In 2001 he declared, “I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us.”

But now — at a time of huge budget deficits and an expensive war, when the case against tax cuts for the rich is even stronger — Mr. McCain is happy to shower benefits on the most fortunate. He recently voted to extend tax cuts on dividends and capital gains, an action that will worsen the budget deficit while mainly benefiting people with very high incomes.

When it comes to foreign policy, Mr. McCain was never moderate. During the 2000 campaign he called for a policy of “rogue state rollback,” anticipating the “Bush doctrine” of pre-emptive war unveiled two years later. Mr. McCain called for a systematic effort to overthrow nasty regimes even if they posed no imminent threat to the United States; he singled out Iraq, Libya and North Korea. Mr. McCain’s aggressive views on foreign policy, and his expressed willingness, almost eagerness, to commit U.S. ground forces overseas, explain why he, not George W. Bush, was the favored candidate of neoconservative pundits such as William Kristol of The Weekly Standard.

The Democrats are going to tie together McCain and Bush in ways the two rivals would never tolerate.  Bush is due to endorse him tomorrow. McCain isn’t hiding from Bush entirely telling his supporters that he didn’t need to “defend the decision to destroy Saddam Hussein’s regime.” He also spoke of looking forward and not back but you have to wonder how long that talk will last.

Barack Obama trumps Hillary Clinton’s fundraising news

Leave it to Barack Obama to rain on Hillary Clinton’s parade.

The New York senator’s faltering campaign thought it would get some positive press when it “announced one of the best fundraising months of American political history, and the best of her campaign,” according to Politico. While the $35 million figure is indeed impressive, it pales in comparison with the more than $50 million that Obama reportedly raised.

Clinton is even trying to spin the fact the she had to lend her campaign $5 million of her own money.

From the Wall Street Journal:

“When people found out that we didn’t have the resources to compete, and I did put my own money in, it just set off a chain reaction across the country. Hundreds of thousands of people saying, ‘Wait a minute, we want this campaign to go on,'” Sen. Clinton said.

The 200,000 new donors in February is “nothing short of astounding,” said the campaign’s Internet chief, Peter Daou, on a conference call with the Sen. Clinton’s fund-raisers in which journalists were allowed to listen in but not to ask questions.

Imagine if Obama and Clinton joined forces.  These fund-raising figures would seem like chicken feed.  I don’t see how John McCain could compete.