Tag: Ed Rendell

PUMA: Don’t Believe the Hype | Bill & Ed, Sssh.

Looking over the coverage from afar, it seems much is being made at Salon — naturally — of the PUMA crowd (particularly given that tonight is Clinton night.) Well, don’t believe a word of it. I happened to catch this exact same “protest” yesterday afternoon, and there couldn’t have been more than fifty people involved. Frankly, I’ve seen bigger protests by the third party and no party types than I have the stark raving Clintonites, and they don’t seem to be getting any coverage. As far as overt protests by the ex-Clintoners go, Salon, and related media outlets, are trying to make a mountain out of a very feeble-looking and tenuous molehill.

That being said, over in his corner Bill Clinton still seems to be keeping up with his protest of one. “Suppose you’re a voter, and you’ve got candidate X and candidate Y. Candidate X agrees with you on everything, but you don’t think that candidate can deliver on anything at all. Candidate Y you agree with on about half the issues, but he can deliver. Which candidate are you going to vote for?” Honestly, Mr. President, get a grip.

Update: Rendell’s off the reservation too. “Barack Obama is handsome. He’s incredibly bright. He’s incredibly well spoken, and he’s incredibly successful — not exactly the easiest guy in the world to identify with…He is a little like Adlai Stevenson.”

Stepping Back for the Big Picture.

With a six-week lull between now and the next contest, during which I hope to spend more time focusing on Harold Ickes than on Harold Ickes (sorry, dissertation humor), now’s a good chance to buck Mark Penn and refocus on the macrotrends in the primary race right now:

For one, superdelegates are clearly trending towards Obama. “Among the 313 of 796 superdelegates who are members of Congress or governors, Clinton has commitments from 103 and Obama is backed by 96, according to lists supplied by the campaigns. Fifty-three of Obama’s endorsements have come since he won the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, compared with 12 who have aligned with Clinton since then…[Since Ohio/Texas] the Illinois senator has won backing from nine superdelegates and Clinton one, according to the campaigns and interviews.” (Speaking of which, he picked up another one today in Wisconsin’s Melissa Schroeder. As you probably know, you can keep track of the supers over at DemConWatch.)

For another, whatever sound and fury Mark Penn tries to kick up about Pennsylvania and electability, it’s a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing. In the most recent general election poll of the state, Obama still does better than Clinton against McCain there (although, thanks to all the recent negative press, McCain has moved ahead of both since this poll.) To his credit, Clinton supporter and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, off-message once again, today conceded Obama can take PA over McCain. (And in any case, as Michael Dukakis can tell you, past primary performance is often not a valid predictor of future outcomes.)

Otherwise, Obama is up in the daily trackers, although those tend to be volatile. Most importantly, obviously, Sen. Obama enjoys a sizable, if not insurmountable, lead in pledged delegates, votes, and states, so we’re in very good shape, despite what ever sad butchering of reality emanates from Camp Clinton these days. So keep your chin up, y’all. If you got money, donate. If you got time, phonebank, write your supers, and/or get the message out. Let’s press this thing home.

By the way, while looking for a good Penn-Microtrends link above, I found this NYT book review that begins with an anecdote about the TV show Numb3rs: “‘There’s no way the bad guys can win,’ my son assures me each time we watch the show together. ‘They can’t do the math, Dad.’” Truer words have never been spoken.

Penn no better in Penn.

More signs of post-Feb. 5 incompetence from the Clinton camp. Just as they only recently “discovered” the rules in Texas, they somehow didn’t manage to file a full slate of delegates in Pennsylvania, despite having the backing of the state’s Democratic machine and despite Clinton supporter Gov. Ed Rendell giving the campaign an extension to do so. “It appears Clinton came up 10 or 11 candidates short across a number of congressional districts, including two in Philadelphia. That’s close to 10 percent of the 103 delegates to be decided by voters. It appears the shortage would’ve been double that if Rendell hadn’t extended last week’s candidate filing deadline by a day and a half, ostensibly due to bad weather.”

Stuck in the Middle With You.

“If establishment Democrats still fear Howard Dean, they ought to elect him chairman of the Democratic National Committee…” Following in the footsteps of such insightful political blogs as Value Judgment, Slate‘s Chris Suellentrop warns Dean to stay away from the DNC. “Ed Rendell was so frustrated with his job as DNC chairman during Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign that he complained to the New Republic, ‘I basically take orders from 27-year-old guys in Nashville who have virtually no real-life experience. All they’ve done is been political consultants living in an artificial world, and basically their opinion counts more than mine.’” Heh.