Hillary Clinton Earmark Queen
Hillary Clinton has been amazingly effective in bringing home the pork to New York, Alexander Bolton reports for The Hill. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) has won tens of millions of dollars more in federal earmarks this year than her rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, even though two of them have significantly more Senate seniority. A review of the first three ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on November 9, 2007 11:28
Mukasey Confirmed as Attorney General, 53-40
Michael Mukasey was confirmed as Attorney General in a late-night vote despite the vehement opposition of key Democrats over his refusal to state unequivocally that waterboarding is a form of torture. Six Democrats plus Joe Lieberman joined all 46 Republicans in the vote. Notably absent were each and every one of the Democratic senators running for president: Hillary ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on November 9, 2007 08:50
Colbert Files for South Carolina Primary
Stephen Colbert has filed for the South Carolina Democratic primary. Stephen Colbert's fanciful White House bid took a real step Thursday. It's up to South Carolina Democrats to decide whether to take him seriously. Colbert, who poses as a conservative talk-show host on the Comedy Central cable network, filed to get on the ballot as a Democratic candidate in his native South ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on November 1, 2007 14:59
Chris Dodd to Put Hold On FISA Reform
Greg Sargent reports that, "Senator Chris Dodd plans to put a hold on the Senate FISA renewal bill because it reportedly grants retroactive immunity to telephone companies for any role they played in the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping program." Doesn't this just mean the administration will continue what it's now doing and which provided impetus for the legislation? I'm sure ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on October 18, 2007 15:55
Chris Dodd’s Flawless Web Campaign
This blurb in a roundup at techPresident caught my eye: The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder picks up on something we at techPresident have long acknowledged: in addition to running a “near flawless” campaign, Chris Dodd has “used emerging technologies more fruitfully than just about everyone else.” Ambinder points to the campaign’s use of Ustream, live-blogging from the spin room, the “Talk Clock,” ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on October 3, 2007 16:11
Real Debates with Real Candidates
William Bradley is already bored with the presidential debates. It’s time for fewer presidential debates with fewer candidates. And real debates, not these freeze-dried forums in which candidates give sound-bite answers that are overly parsed by a media settling for the trivial pursuit of degrees of difference. It’s time to drill down into the big issues with the candidates, the ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on August 9, 2007 09:42
Candidate Face Time on News Networks
The NYT has compiled an interesting graphic, tracking the amount of time the news networks have devoted to interviewing each of the 2008 presidential candidates: The rationale behind the graphic was to demonstrate that Fox News gives an inordinate amount of time to Rudy Giuliani and to argue that this is owing to his relationship with CEO Roger Ailes. As ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on August 2, 2007 10:50
Edwards’ Butt Hurts – RAGBRAI
Drudge has a headline Edwards bikes with Lance Armstrong: ‘The biggest problem is my butt hurts.’ This is an occasion where context is necessary, and as a multi-year veteran of the annual craziness of crossing the non-flat state of Iowa (AKA northern end of the Ozarks, and this year is relatively flat) on a bicycle at roughly 80 miles ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on July 26, 2007 02:48
Presidential Experience
Steve Benen challenges Matt Bai's assertion that Barack Obama "would set a new precedent for inexperience in the White House." In fact, he believes Obama "fares quite well when compared to his 2008 rivals" and provides this table for years in elected office by next November: * Obama: 11 years (7 state Senate, 4 U.S. Senate) * Clinton: 8 years (8 U.S. Senate) * ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on July 16, 2007 11:32
Kucinich: Edwards Trying to Rig Election
Dennis Kucinich is mad as hell and he's not going to take it any more. An angry Dennis Kucinich lashed out at John Edwards on Friday, saying his Democratic rival showed "a consistent lack of integrity" by suggesting fewer candidates should participate in presidential forums and then trying to explain his remark to reporters. "This is a serious matter and ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on July 14, 2007 09:55
