Tag: DC Life

Surge along the Potomac.

And now, 8-for-8. Sen. Obama sweeps the Chesapeake primaries, taking Virginia by 29 (64%-35%), Maryland by 23 (currently 60%-37%), and the District by 51 (75%-24%). Best of all, he won across the board and made clear and undeniable in-roads into Clinton’s demographic base. Next stop, Wisconsin and Hawaii, which Sen. Clinton seems to be ceding for her Giulianiesque firewall of Ohio and Texas. (I’m not sure why — both could feasibly play to her strengths.) Update: Clinton’s going to Wisconsin after all.

Capping the night of victories was another splendid speech by Obama, one that clearly and organically weaved some Edwardsian bread-and-butter populism into the existing stump speech. Sen. Obama also spent some time going after John McCain, and, after ekeing out Virginia on his end, McCain returned fire. We still have a ways to go on the Democratic side, of course, and I’m definitely not counting the Clintons out yet. (If anything, they’re more dangerous than ever.) But, Obama’s definitely got the Big Mo. And, at least during the speeches tonight, it was starting to look and sound like a general election…

Update: The target for the Clinton campaign right now appears to be 56% — that’s the percentage of remaining delegates Senator Clinton need to win to defeat Senator Obama in the overall pledged delegate count. But, according to media poobah Howard Fineman, at least, even the Clinton campaign concedes that’s not going to happen, despite all the talk about the firewall strategy in Ohio and Texas. Instead, barring a monumental collapse by the Obama campaign, the Clintons are basically looking for they closest they can get to a photo finish, followed by the superdelegates breaking against the will of the pledged delegates. I seriously doubt that dog will hunt.

Last Stand in Texas and Ohio?

“Several Clinton superdelegates, whose votes could help decide the nomination, also said Monday that they were wavering in the face of Mr. Obama’s momentum after victories in Washington, Nebraska, Louisiana and Maine last weekend. Some of them said that they, like the hundreds of uncommitted superdelegates still at stake, may ultimately ‘go with the flow,’ in the words of one, and support the candidate who appears to show the most strength in the primaries to come.” The NYT reports on the general shakiness in the Clinton campaign at the moment, and reemphasizes the importance of Ohio and Texas on March 4. (Jon Chait disagrees.)”‘She has to win both Ohio and Texas comfortably, or she’s out,’ said one Democratic superdelegate who has endorsed Mrs. Clinton, and who spoke on condition of anonymity to share a candid assessment. ‘The campaign is starting to come to terms with that.’ Campaign advisers, also speaking privately in order to speak plainly, confirmed this view.“

All well and good, but really: Let’s not put the cart before the horse here. We have the Chesapeake primaries tomorrow, and while the polls clearly favor Sen. Obama, they favored him before New Hampshire as well. Let’s see how those critical primaries shake out first before presuming the Clinton campaign is in full rout. As we should all know by now, there’s nothing more politically dangerous than a Clinton with his or her back to the wall. (And, being as oblique as possible for Wire fans behind the curve, Norman Wilson‘s recent advice to Tommy Carcetti about Clay Davis also comes to mind.)

Firth’s Legion | Woody’s Walker.

Among today’s trailers: Mr. Darcy goes sword-and-sandal to protect King Arthur’s ancestor (I think) in the new teaser for Doug Lefler’s The Last Legion, with Colin Firth, Aishwarya Rai, and Sir Ben Kingsley. (Looks like Dungeons & Dragons…the chances of me seeing this are slim.) And Woody Harrelson’s high-society Washington life (paging Ward Just) is disrupted by a murder in the trailer for Paul Schrader’s The Walker (click on “Watch”), also starring Kristin Scott Thomas, Lauren Bacall, Lily Tomlin, Ned Beatty, and Willem DeFoe.

DC-9 (to 1).

The people of Washington D.C. take another step toward full citizenship after the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee votes 9-1 in favor of voting rights for the District. “Virginia’s Sen. John Warner (R), cast the dissenting vote, but in an encouraging sign for advocates, three Republicans voted in favor of giving the District a full voting member in the House: Susan Collins of Maine, George Voinovich of Ohio and Norm Coleman of Minnesota.”

Taxation With Representation?

By a vote of 241 to 177, the House votes to give DC a full (voting) seat in Congress. But, Eleanor Holmes Norton shouldn’t practice her ayes and nays just yet — the bill still has to make it through a recalcitrant Senate, where a Republican filibuster is likely, as well as past a White House inclined to veto the bill. Nevertheless, said DC mayor Adrian Fenty, “This was a statement about our country’s principles, values and morals. That we would no longer be the only democratic-represented country in the world where the citizens of the nation’s capital did not have a vote in the national legislature.”

A Kingly Tribute.

“This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning.” Ground is broken on the new MLK memorial, to be “built along the edge of the Tidal Basin, midway between monuments to Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. It will be the first on the Mall honoring an African American and the first that does not memorialize a president or a war hero.” Great! As I’ve said before in this space, I’m all in favor of adding more historically-themed monuments to the Mall, and a tribute to Dr. King seems a particularly worthy addition to our nation’s central gathering place.

Imposing Firepower.

So much for local control. GOP gun-nuts — led by Senator Larry Craig of Idaho — try to force the District of Columbia to rescind its gun ban and “roll back registration requirements.” Republicans, argues DC Mayor Anthony Williams, are ‘using our District as a pawn. It’s an incredible assault on home rule.’”