Many of you wrote in last night to say that John Kerry's speech was actually the sleeper hit of last night's festivities -- and many of you wanted a thread for it.
Well, ask and ye shall receive...
Where was this man in 2004?
Here's about as clear a sign of GOP desperation as you could wish for: GOP Senator Gordon Smith, who's locked in a brutal re-election battle in Oregon, has a new ad out hailing his work with not one but two Democratic nominees for president: Barack Obama and John Kerry, whom he routinely insulted back in 2004.
And Kerry is now taking a hard whack at Smith over it. First, here's the ad:
"Gordon Smith is my friend but the problem is that when it's come time to vote in the Senate he's been a much better friend of George Bush. Voting with George Bush ninety percent of the time just isn't good for the people and issues I've fought for over a lifetime," Kerry said in a statement.
Of course, Smith didn't always cozy up to Kerry. During the 2004 campaign he regularly bashed the Dem nominee for president. "It's not John Kerry's fault that he looks French," Smith said. "But it is his fault that he wants to pursue policies that have us act like the French."
Smith also said at the time: "So John Kerry to me represents socialism."
Obama Camp Gives Donors Fundraising Goal For Hillary's Debts
The Obama campaign has put some teeth in its request to donors to help Hillary Clinton's campaign retire its debts, assigning them an official goal. "Barack has asked each of us to collect five or six checks to help Senator Clinton repay the people who provided goods and services to her campaign," wrote Obama national finance chair Penny Pritzker in an e-mail to top fundraiser.
Obama To Appear In Pennsylvania, Then Raise Money With Clinton In DC
Barack Obama will hold an economic summit today with various national business leaders in Pittsburgh, an area that was not particularly kind to him in the primary and where he'll need a strong general election showing. He will then head to DC tonight for a fundraiser with Hillary Clinton -- a show of party unity in front of a crowd of her own donors.
McCain Campaigning In Ohio
John McCain will be holding a town hall event today in Cincinnati, a Republican-leaning area in a state where a loss would make it very difficult for him to win the White House. Expect McCain to stick with some of his standard themes from the last few days: That he's serious on energy policy, that Barack Obama isn't offering any solutions, and that Obama has broken his promises on campaign finance.
Obama Campaign To Deploy "Persuasion Army"
In its strategy for the general election, the Obama campaign plans to rely on what it calls a "persuasion army," confirmed supporters who will talk to their friends and neighbors about the campaign. Campaign manager David Plouffe favorably cited the Bush campaign in 2004, which employed the same tactic.
Swift Boat Financier Doesn't Pay Reward To Kerry Allies
T. Boone Pickens, the chief financier of the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth, has unsurprisingly declined to pay his offered $1 million reward to anyone who can disprove the group's 2004 allegations against John Kerry's war record. A group of veterans who served with Kerry submitted a total of 54 pages meant to prove that ten specific charges had been lies.
Cash-Strapped Dem Convention Cutting Volunteer Field Trip
The Democratic National Convention's organizing committee, which is currently $11 million short of its fundraising goals, is scrapping its plan to reward the over 12,000 volunteers with a post-convention trip to the Denver Zoo. No doubt they'll meet enough goofy animals at the convention center, anyway.
On a conference call with reporters just now, Hillary pollster Mark Penn sought to make the case for her electability by dredging up bad memories of the GOP and right-wing media's successful efforts to redefine Al Gore and John Kerry, arguing that Hillary wouldn't succumb to such tactics.
The "GOP attack machine," Penn suggested, "skewed the perceptions of such distinguished public servants as Al Gore and John Kerry" in a way that left perceptions of them "out of touch with reality."
Penn said that Hillary has "withstood" this process, while Obama would find that his independent support "would evaporate relatively quickly once he faced the Republicans." Penn added that the GOP "is already playing the national security card against Obama."
In addition to a straightforward electability argument, it's worth noting that Penn's appeal is an emotional one, too -- the obvious tactic being that he's raising fears of Kerry and Gore redux. Penn's implicit goal here seems to be to make Democrats worry -- without saying so outright -- that Obama will prove too weak to fight back effectively against the GOP slime machine, just as Kerry and Gore did.
Hillary Clinton's campaign announced some big endorsements today, one from retired Army General and former presidential candidate Wesley Clark, the other from Michigan U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow.
"Never before have so many Americans had our well-being so closely tied to world events," Clark said in a statement on his PAC's Web site. "Our economic and national security has become more complicated than ever before, and we deserve a leader who draws on wisdom, compassion, intelligence and moral courage — in short, we need Hillary Clinton."
"Hillary Clinton has the experience required to walk into the Oval Office on day one and start delivering the type of change our country needs," Stabenow said in a Clinton campaign press release. "She understands the challenges facing our working families, and she has fought her entire life to make sure they have the tools they need to achieve the American Dream."
As we previously reported, Oliver North has a new column vigorously opposing a proposed "surge" or escalation of troops in Iraq. North was very blunt, saying, "Sending more U.S. combat troops is simply sending more targets."
But check out what North had to say in his September 17, 2004 syndicated column: He blasted John Kerry for describing the troops in Iraq as "targets" — exactly the same language as North is using now. North quoted Kerry, then laid into him:
"President Bush has failed to '... take the target off American troops ...' Kerry should take a few minutes on Sunday evening to listen to some of the scores of 'American troops' I interviewed in Iraq just a few weeks ago. They tell a much better story than Dan Rather — and it would give the Massachusetts senator an idea of what combat is really like. Not one of them complains about being a 'target.' Instead, they all believe that the terrorists are the 'targets' — and explain that they would rather fight them in Iraq than here."
There are worse positions to be in when contemplating a run for President than the one Rudy Giuliani finds himself in: It just so happens that he is the most popular political figure in America, a new Quinnipiac Poll out today finds. His second-place rival? Barack Obama. The survey asked voters to rate their feelings about different national political figures on a scale of 0 to 100, with the released figures giving the average score for each politician. Some key results:
Rudy Giuliani: An average popularity rating of 64.2, with only 9% not knowing enough to form an opinion.Barack Obama: 58.8, though a whopping 41% of Americans are not yet even able to form an opinion about him.
John McCain: 57.7, with 12% unable to form an opinion.
Condoleeza Rice: 56.1, with 7% unable to form an opinion.
Bill Clinton: 55.8, with a mere 1% unable to form an opinion.
John Kerry: 39.6, with 5% having no opinion.
