DebateGate

This is rich...
Bill: "We Just Have to Slow Down Our Economy" to Fight Global WarmingJanuary 31, 2008 9:26 AM

Former President Bill Clinton was in Denver, Colorado, stumping for his wife yesterday.

In a long, and interesting speech, he characterized what the U.S. and other industrialized nations need to do to combat global warming this way: "We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions 'cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren."

At a time that the nation is worried about a recession is that really the characterization his wife would want him making? "Slow down our economy"?

I don't really think there's much debate that, at least initially, a full commitment to reduce greenhouse gases would slow down the economy?.So was this a moment of candor?

He went on to say that his the U.S. -- and those countries that have committed to reducing greenhouse gases -- could ultimately increase jobs and raise wages with a good energy plan..

So there was something of a contradiction there.

Or perhaps he mis-spoke.

Or perhaps this characterization was a description of what would happen if there isn't a worldwide effort?I'm not quite certain.

You can watch that one clip HERE )http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4221285) or you can watch the whole speech at the website of ABC News' great Denver affiliate KMGH by clicking HERE http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/15182805/detail.html).

It's worth watching -- he also pushed back against a 9/11 conspiracy theorist heckling him.

"Everybody knows that global warming is real," Mr. Clinton said, giving a shout-out to Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize, "but we cannot solve it alone."

"And maybe America, and Europe, and Japan, and Canada -- the rich counties -- would say, 'OK, we just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions 'cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.' We could do that.

"But if we did that, you know as well as I do, China and India and Indonesia and Vietnam and Mexico and Brazil and the Ukraine, and all the other countries will never agree to stay poor to save the planet for our grandchildren. The only way we can do this is if we get back in the world's fight against global warming and prove it is good economics that we will create more jobs to build a sustainable economy that saves the planet for our children and grandchildren. It is the only way it will work.

"And guess what? The only places in the world today in rich countries where you have rising wages and declining inequality are places that have generated more jobs than rich countries because they made a commitment we didn't. They got serious about a clean, efficient, green, independent energy future? If you want that in America, if you want the millions of jobs that will come from it, if you would like to see a new energy trust fund to finance solar energy and wind energy and biomass and responsible bio-fuels and electric hybrid plug-in vehicles that will soon get 100 miles a gallon, if you want every facility in this country to be made maximally energy efficient that will create millions and millions and millions of jobs, vote for her. She'll give it to you. She's got the right energy plan."

In other Bubba News (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=4217682&page=1), Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, told the spectacular Kate Snow yesterday that this is her campaign, not Bill's, and told Nightline anchor Cynthia McFadden last night that she can control him.

(Which begs the question -- does she want to slow down the economy?)

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/01/bill-we-just-ha.html

Schwarzenegger To Endorse McCain: Reports

Wednesday, January 30, 2008 7:21 PM

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is poised to give his endorsement to Republican presidential front-runner John McCain, US media reported on Wednesday.


CNN television network cited two Republican sources as saying that discussions with Schwarzenegger were ongoing about securing the popular former Hollywood action hero's endorsement.


Later Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times reported on its website that Schwarzenegger was set to give his endorsement, possibly on Thursday, citing sources close to both men.


Schwarzenegger played down the reports in an interview with CNN, appearing to rule out the possibility of an endorsement any time before the "Super Tuesday" California primary on February 5.


"I've always said that I would stay out of the whole thing of endorsing anybody until our, you know, primaries are over, so I think that's exactly what I'm going to do," Schwarzenegger told CNN.


An endorsement from Schwarzenegger, who was re-elected California's leader in a landslide 2006 victory and who remains popular, would be a major coup for McCain heading into the delegate-rich state's primary contest.


CNN reported earlier that conversations with Schwarzenegger were ongoing with a view to a possible announcement on Thursday.


"You can safely describe the conversations as progressing and productive," an unidentified Republican source told the broadcaster.


The second source described the endorsement as "more than expected."


The Times meanwhile reported that former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani's withdrawal from the Republican race earlier Wednesday had cleared the way for Schwarzenegger to endorse McCain.


The paper quoted a senior Schwarzenegger administration official as saying that the state leader had been reluctant to give an endorsement while McCain and Giuliani, both described as friends, remained in the race.


"He's good friends with both and thought they were both strong candidates," said the official. "With Giuliani dropping out, that cleared the way for the governor's decision."

 
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/Schwarzenegger_To_Endorse/2008/01/30/68837.html?s=al&promo_code=441E-1

Edwards quitting presidential race

Story Highlights
NEW: Sen. Barack Obama praises former Sen. John Edwards
Edwards set to announce decision Wednesday, sources say
Edwards has trailed Sens. Hillary Clinton, Obama in early primaries
Edwards won't give immediate endorsement to Clinton or Obama, sources say

(CNN) -- Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina is dropping out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, two sources inside his campaign said Wednesday.

Edwards has told top advisers about his decision. It is expected he will announce it in a speech at 1 p.m. ET Wednesday in New Orleans, Louisiana.

An Edwards aide said the candidate was not getting the media attention he needed to get his message out and win delegates, especially with races coming up in 22 states next Tuesday.

Edwards has amassed 26 delegates for the Democratic nomination.

Campaign money was not an issue, the aide said.

New Orleans is the same city in which Edwards declared his run to be the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee.

Edwards' campaign Web site said he was to deliver an address on poverty and work on a Habitat for Humanity project Wednesday in New Orleans.

Edwards has trailed Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois in the early contests, including a third-place finish in Tuesday's Florida primary with 14 percent of the votes. He also came in third in key races in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

An aide said Edwards does not plan to endorse either Clinton or Obama at this time but he may do so in the future.

A top Edwards aide said the former senator contacted Obama and Clinton on Tuesday, telling them he was considering dropping out of the race and asking them to make poverty a top issue of their campaigns and -- if either reaches the White House -- a central part of their administration.

Both candidates agreed, the aide said.

Reacting to the expected announcement, Obama praised Edwards.

"At a time when our politics is too focused on who's up and who's down, he made a nation focus again on who matters -- the New Orleans child without a home, the West Virginia miner without a job, the families who live in that other America that is not seen or heard or talked about by our leaders in Washington," Obama said Wednesday.

Some political pundits predict Edwards' supporters are more likely to lean in Obama's direction.

"The conventional wisdom is that Barack Obama will pick up maybe 60 percent of them, and in some places, that makes a huge difference," former presidential adviser David Gergen said.

Time magazine journalist Joe Klein said, "I don't think he endorses Hillary Clinton. The question is whether or not he endorses Barack Obama."

Klein contends that Clinton "represents a lot of the things that [Edwards] campaigned against, you know, the old Washington Democratic establishment that he believes got too close to the corporations in the '90s."

Edwards had campaigned on the message that he was standing up for the little guy, the people who are not traditionally given a voice in Washington, and that he would do more to fight special interests.

Commenting on his New Orleans trip, Edwards said Tuesday the city symbolized why he chose to run for president.

"It's a living, breathing example of the heart of my message, what I'm talking about," Edwards said. "I mean it's the failure of government to be there when people need it. It's a perfect indication of the conditions of poverty that exist in America."

In a reaction to President Bush's State of the Union address Monday, Edwards said, "The truth is that Washington is out of touch with what's happening across the country. Between now and January of 2009, Democrats must stand up to this president, stand up for what's right, so he does not continue to forget about the middle class in this country."

Klein said Edwards played a positive role in spurring his competitors during the early part of the campaign.

"On a lot of substantive issues like health insurance, he was the first one out of the box with a very ambitious universal plan, and I think he forced the others to become bolder in a lot of their policy prescriptions, energy dependence and so on," Klein said.

The remaining Democratic contenders face off in a debate at 8 p.m. ET Thursday on CNN.

One Edwards aide said he is not dropping out of the race due to his wife's health. Elizabeth Edwards announced last year that her breast cancer had returned.

She was first diagnosed with breast cancer during her husband's 2004 vice presidential campaign as John Kerry's running mate.

Edwards is a South Carolina native with an undergraduate degree from North Carolina State University and law degree from the University of North Carolina.

Before entering politics, winning a Senate seat from North Carolina in 1998, Edwards was a lawyer representing families "being victimized by powerful interests" and gaining "a national reputation as a forceful and tireless champion for regular, hard-working people," according to his campaign Web site.

CNN's Suzanne Malveaux, John King and Jessica Yellin contributed to this report.

All AboutJohn Edwards (Politician) ? Democratic Party ? Elizabeth Edwards
 

 
 
 
 

 
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/30/edwards/index.html 
 

Washington libs lead backlash against Bill
By: John F. Harris
January 29, 2008 06:56 AM EST
 
In September 1998, Greg Craig, a lion of the Washington legal community, left a top job at the State Department to go to the White House to help Bill Clinton fight impeachment during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

One of his first stops was to an old Democratic friend, Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, who warned him what he was stepping into: ?You?re about three days away from a delegation of senior Democrats coming up there to ask the president to resign.?

That anecdote, recounted in Peter Baker?s history of the impeachment saga, came echoing back to mind in recent days.

Washington?s liberal establishment ? members of Congress, fundraisers and commentators ? has coalesced around the view that Bill Clinton is soiling his legacy and wounding Hillary Rodham Clinton?s prospects as he rambles around the country in a peevish, piece-of-my-mind monologue ostensibly devoted to helping her win the Democratic nomination.

Conrad was one of the first Democratic senators to endorse Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). Craig, who once worked for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), is now a senior adviser to Obama. Over the past week, he played an important behind-the-scenes role in facilitating the Democratic race?s latest thunderclap: Kennedy?s endorsement of Obama for president.


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Kennedy has been supportive of both Clintons in the past. But, according to advisers who have spoken with him, Kennedy was motivated to publicly bless Obama in part because he was offended by what he regarded as Clinton?s divisive and distorted arguments against his wife?s chief rival.

Bill Clinton, in other words, botched a big one ? at a moment when Hillary Clinton can afford it least.

It is striking how many people around town seem to be loving it. But it should not really be surprising.

Clinton spent so long as the dominant personality in the Democratic Party that it is easy to forget: Lots of elite Democrats never liked the guy that much. Or, perhaps more precisely, their feelings of admiration were constantly at war with feelings of disdain.

The ferocity of anti-Clinton sentiments heard around Washington in recent days ? as even some former Clinton White House aides say they are enjoying the Kennedy endorsement and the implicit rebuke of the Clintons ? has reached levels that haven?t been seen for seven years. Clinton?s pardons in the closing hours of his presidency prompted a similar backlash.

One of the party?s most experienced fundraisers, a former Clinton administration appointee who is close to the Democratic leadership in Congress and both leading presidential campaigns, said that several top Democratic contributors have told him they are furious with what they perceive as Bill Clinton?s campaign of complaints, mini-tirades and smart-alecky talking points.

It was enough to send this Democrat?s wife off the fence and to Obama over the weekend.

The toxic relationship between the Clintons and Washington was always one of the main paradoxes of the Clinton administration ? and one of its main mysteries.

Here was a couple who devoted their lives to making establishment connections and scaling establishment institutions (the Clintons first met Greg Craig at Yale law school). Clinton?s policies embraced elite assumptions favored by Wall Street and Washington think tanks ? against budget deficits, for instance, and for free trade.

But there was never love at the personal level.

There are two questions. The larger one is: What explains the Clinton-Washington animus?

The more immediate issue is, does it really make any difference to Hillary Clinton?s campaign? The first of these is easier to ponder.

From Bill Clinton?s perspective, Washington is a city of cynics. His critics may think he is a brazen phony. But Bill and Hillary Clinton both believe devoutly in their own pure motives.

As one who has covered them for 13 years, I can say that he does not see himself ? and certainly not Hillary ? as calculating or insincere, even when pursuing tactics that look transparently political to outsiders. (For what it?s worth, my own take on his presidency was that however irresponsible Clinton was in his personal life, at the end of the day he usually made responsible choices in his public life.)


It enrages him to see his own motives dissected or taken at anything less than face value. The dissection of motives and tactics, needless to say, is Washington?s main industry.

Did you see the video of Bill Clinton dressing down the reporter in South Carolina? (?This is what you live for. ? Shame on you. Shame on you.?)

Here is the authentic Clinton ? nothing slick, nothing contrived ? in a performance that any White House reporter in the 1990s witnessed many times.

In some moods, the Clintons also like to imagine that they are victims of Eastern snobbery against Arkansans. There is probably a whiff of truth to that.  But nearly everyone in Washington is from somewhere else, and Arkansas roots hardly hurt Clinton?s mentor, William Fulbright, with the Washington elite.

From Washington?s perspective, to judge by the most common criticism heard over the years and again in recent days, the problem is not that Bill Clinton is Bubba but that he is Eddie Haskell ? smug, smarmy, self-absorbed.

When he first arrived in Washington (I did not start covering him until a couple years later), many journalists seemed to be hoping for another JFK, a politician detached and ironic about his own performance, who shared reporters? love of gossip and process and style.  They hoped for too much.

The obvious question, still relevant all these years later, is: Who cares?

I have learned to be impervious to journalistic predictions of Clinton?s demise.  While still working at The Washington Post, I recall a top newsroom editor predicting early in the 1992 campaign that Clinton would never be the Democratic nominee. (?He?s got too many scandals.?)

Nine years later, the legendary Watergate editor Ben Bradlee confidently told me that Clinton?s reputation and relevance were permanently shattered by the pardon scandal. (?This is the coup de grace,? he rasped.)

The starkest examples of the disconnect between Clinton?s political standing and Washington?s appraisals of the same came during the year of Lewinsky and impeachment. When Clinton finally admitted his affair, Washington?s political class expected a statement of abject contrition. Instead, after a brief and cool confession, he delivered an angry and self-righteous blast at his Republican tormentors.

It was at this time that Kent Conrad warned Greg Craig about demands for resignation. They never came. But Democrats on Capitol Hill stood with Clinton only when polls made clear that their constituents around the country stood with him.

There is one difference this time. During his presidency, Clinton was buoyed by the overwhelming support of African-Americans, who were indignant at what was being done to someone they regarded as a friend. Now, their support is going overwhelmingly to someone Clinton is trying to beat, and many blacks are indignant at Clinton himself.

Who can say what Clinton?s effect on the campaign trail really is? However much journalistic critics and Obama supporters cringed at Bill Clinton?s performances, they seemed to help Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire and Nevada.

But those experiences seemed to unleash something more antic and unruly in Clinton?s attacks on Obama and the media, making the Clinton campaign even more about him and less about her. The effect was a bit like a dieter who reads on the Internet that doughnuts are actually good for you.

But the gluttony strategy backfired in the South Carolina primary, and it backfired again in the Kennedy endorsement primary.

In his own career, Clinton?s errors have always been followed by recovery, self-indulgence by self-correction. The next several weeks will determine whether he can follow the same pattern on behalf of his spouse.
 
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=C2DDFA95-3048-5C12-00D52425F636BE0B

McCain Presidency Would Be a Disaster
Sunday, January 27, 2008 8:59 PM

By: Ronald Kessler


John McCain?s false charge that Mitt Romney favored a set timetable for withdrawing from Iraq underscores how disastrous a McCain presidency would be.


Any candidate can make a slight misstatement while talking extemporaneously. Hillary Clinton constantly rewrites her own record and has been caught fabricating, as when she made up the story that on 9/11, her daughter Chelsea was going to jog at Battery Park near the towers, where she heard and saw the catastrophe unfold.


But no candidate in this race has gone so far as to baldly fabricate what another candidate has said, as McCain did over the weekend. That same kind of recklessness is evident in McCain?s explosions of temper, which are meant to intimidate those who do not agree with him or do not support him.


Not naming him at first, McCain said in Fort Myers, Fla., ?Now, one of my opponents wanted to set a date for withdrawal that would have meant disaster.?


Talking to reporters minutes later, the Arizona senator was more direct: ?'If we surrender and wave a white flag, like Senator Clinton wants to do, and withdraw, as Gov. Romney wanted to do, then there will be chaos, genocide, and the cost of American blood and treasure would be dramatically higher.?


Asked about the comment, Romney said, ?That?s dishonest, to say that I have a specific date. That?s simply wrong,? he said. ?That is not the case. We?ve never said that.?


Romney asked for an apology. Having moved on to Sun City, Fla., McCain said: ?The apology is owed to the young men and women serving this nation in uniform.?


A look at what Romney actually said in an interview on ABC?s Good Morning America on April 3, 2007 makes it clear that Romney said the opposite of what McCain claimed he said.


Robin Roberts said to Romney, ?You have also been very vocal in supporting the president and the troop surge. Yet, the American public has lost faith in this war. Do you believe that there should be a timetable in withdrawing the troops??


?Well, there?s no question but that? the president and Prime Minister al-Maliki have to have a series of timetables and milestones that they speak about,? Romney replied. ?But those shouldn?t be for public pronouncement. You don?t want the enemy to understand how long they have to wait in the weeds until you?re going to be gone. You want to have a series of things you want to see accomplished in terms of the strength of the Iraqi military and the Iraqi police, and the leadership of the Iraqi government.?


?So, private,? Robins said. ?You wouldn?t do it publicly? Because the president has said flat out that he will veto anything the Congress passes about a timetable for troop withdrawals. As president, would you do the same??


?Well, of course,? Romney said. ?Can you imagine a setting where during the Second World War we said to the Germans, gee, if we haven't reached the Rhine by this date, why, we?ll go home, or if we haven?t gotten this accomplished we?ll pull up and leave? You don?t publish that to your enemy, or they just simply lie in wait until that time. So, of course, you have to work together to create timetables and milestones, but you don?t do that with the opposition.?


With the exception of Sean Hannity on Fox News, no news outlet fully quoted what Romney actually said on GMA. That?s no surprise. As the New York Times? recent endorsement of McCain suggests, the liberal media love him. As a former McCain aide told me, that?s because the senator gives reporters total access to him and because he is as liberal as a Democrat on many issues.


On almost ?every turn on domestic policy, John McCain was not only against us, but leading the charge on the other side,? former Sen. Rick Santorum, the Pennsylvania Republican, has said.


In a stunning example of the media?s slant, the AP?s Ron Fournier wrote after Romney won in Michigan, ?The former Massachusetts governor pandered to voters, distorted his opponents? record, and continued to show why he?s the most malleable?and least credible?major presidential candidate,? Fournier wrote. ?And it worked.?


As for McCain, ?The man who spoke hard truths to Michigan lost,? Fournier said. ?Of all the reasons John McCain deserved a better result Tuesday night, his gamble on the economy stands out?


Not to be outdone, the New York Times ran a story on Jan. 24 headlined, ?Romney Leads in Ill Will Among GOP Candidates.? The story said, ?In stark contrast to Mr. Romney, Mr. McCain seems to be universally liked and respected by the other Republican contenders, even if they disagree with him.?


The evidence to support that claim came entirely from quotes from present or former McCain aides.


While McCain clearly has formidable supporters, and his stand on the Iraq war was admirable, those who have dealt with him over the years have been appalled by his outbursts of temper, a character trait the media have largely ignored.


In endorsing Romney, Republican Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, who has known McCain for more than three decades, said his choice was prompted partly by his fear of how McCain might behave in the Oval Office.


?The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine,? Cochran said about McCain. ?He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper, and he worries me.?


?He [McCain] would disagree about something and then explode,? said former Sen. Bob Smith, a fellow Republican who served with McCain on various committees. ?[There were] incidents of irrational behavior. We?ve all had incidents where we have gotten angry, but I?ve never seen anyone act like that.?


Defending his bill to give amnesty to illegal aliens, McCain unleashed a tirade on Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who had voiced concerns about the number of judicial appeals illegal immigrants could file under the proposed legislation.


?F*** you!? McCain said to his fellow senator. ?I know more about this than anybody else in the room!? McCain shouted.


?People who disagree with him get the f*** you,? said former Rep. John LeBoutillier, a New York Republican who had an encounter with McCain when he was on a POW task force in the House. ?I think he is mentally unstable and not fit to be president.?


Andrew H. ?Andy? Card Jr., President Bush?s former chief of staff, told me he has observed McCain?s outbursts.


?Sometimes he was pretty angry, but I felt as if he was putting on a show,? Card said. ?I don?t know if it was an emotional eruption or it was for effect," Card said.


Democrat Paul Johnson, the former mayor of Phoenix, saw McCain?s temper up close. ?His volatility borders in the area of being unstable,? Johnson has said. ?Before I let this guy put his finger on the button, I would have to give considerable pause.?


When I appeared on Tucker Carlson's MSNBC show to discuss Newsmax?s disclosures about McCain?s temper, Carlson said on the air, ?We got a call earlier tonight from McCain?s Senate office suggesting that we not do this story. [They were] annoyed about it.?


That hint at intimidation is another reason why major media outlets may think twice about revealing what they know of McCain?s temper, which is widely whispered about in Washington. Yet along with track record, such clues to character are a compass to how a president will conduct his presidency.


Over and over, voters have ignored warning signs of poor character and have overlooked track records, only to regret it once a president enters the White House and becomes corrupted by the power of the office.


When he was a candidate for vice president, Richard Nixon became embroiled in an ethics issue when the New York Post revealed he had secretly accepted $18,000 from private contributors to defray his expenses. It should have come as no surprise that he would end up being driven from office by the scandal known as Watergate.


If we elect a candidate with McCain?s monumental character flaws, we can expect to suffer the consequences.

January 28, 2008
Clinton?s Camp Seeks Gentler Role for Ex-President
By PATRICK HEALY

Democrats inside and outside the Clinton campaign on Sunday bemoaned the degree to which former President Bill Clinton?s criticism of Senator Barack Obama last week had inflicted lasting damage on his wife?s presidential candidacy.

?I think his harsh style hurt Senator Clinton ? it polarized the campaign and polarized the electorate, and it also made it harder for Senator Clinton?s positive message to break through,? said Celinda Lake, a Democratic strategist and pollster who is not affiliated with any of the candidates.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton?s campaign team, seeking to readjust after her lopsided defeat in South Carolina and amid a sense among many Democrats that Mr. Clinton had injected himself clumsily into the race, will try to shift the former president back into the sunnier, supportive-spouse role that he played before Mrs. Clinton?s loss in the Iowa caucuses, Clinton advisers said.

But Democrats said it was not clear whether the effects of Mr. Clinton?s high profile could be brushed away by having him modulate his campaign style. They said Mr. Clinton had upset some of the central themes of Mrs. Clinton?s campaign, including her appeal to women and her assertions that her time in the White House during the 1990s amounted to vital experience rather than a link to a presidency defined as much by scandal and partisan divisions as by its successes on fronts like the economy.

Despite Mrs. Clinton?s months-long efforts to build a base of support among women, Clinton advisers said they were concerned that her husband?s recent prominence may have dampened her appeal as a strong female leader. Some advisers said they feared as much after Mr. Obama won 54 percent of the vote from women in South Carolina, including 22 percent of white women and 78 percent of black women, according to polls.

Echoing private remarks by some Clinton advisers, Linda L. Fowler, a professor of government at Dartmouth College, said in an interview that she believed Mr. Clinton?s attacks on Mr. Obama had hurt Mrs. Clinton.

?Voters don?t like the idea of a co-presidency, and he became so high profile that he made people begin to see this as a possible co-presidency,? Ms. Fowler said. ?It?s even more problematic because she?s a woman. It looks like she either needs him to fight the big battles for her, or she can?t keep the big dog on the porch.?

After a week of all-out campaigning by Mr. Clinton in South Carolina, where Mrs. Clinton came in a distant second to Mr. Obama, there is also fresh concern among some advisers that Mr. Clinton?s visibility has dented her argument that she has the best experience for the job.

These advisers expressed concern that the specter of a co-candidacy and co-presidency could bring back elements of the Clinton history that many Democrats would just as soon leave behind.

Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York, a leading supporter of Mrs. Clinton, said on Sunday that Mr. Clinton was going to pull back. ?He?s got to,? Mr. Rangel said. ?The focus has got to get back on Hillary. For all that he cares about his wife, this has to be her election to win, and it?s become too much about his role.?

Yet some advisers expressed concern that Mr. Clinton might prove difficult to rein in, citing the latest furor over the weekend after he compared Mr. Obama?s victories to Jesse Jackson?s in 1984 and 1988 on Saturday, though Mr. Jackson did not approach the wide margin of Mr. Obama?s win.

Advisers said Mr. Clinton?s remark was an off-the-cuff reference, but it was debated on the Sunday news shows and in the blogosphere as a possible effort by the Clinton camp to diminish Mr. Obama?s success in South Carolina as simply the result of a black candidate drawing support from a heavily black electorate.

Mr. Obama, asked about the remark on the ABC program ?This Week With George Stephanopoulos,? mostly sought to praise Mr. Jackson ? a supporter of his ? while decrying the injection of race into the campaign.

?Jesse Jackson ran historic races in 1984 and 1988, and there?s no doubt that that set a precedent for African-Americans running for the highest office in the land,? Mr. Obama said. ?I think people want change. I think they want to get beyond some of the racial politics that, you know, has been so dominant in the past.?

Mr. Clinton?s ability to be a distraction was evident on Sunday as reporters repeatedly asked Mrs. Clinton about her husband?s role in the campaign and his comments about Mr. Jackson, which she characterized as benign.

?I think everyone who knows Bill knows that he?s both a great student of politics and history, but he?s also somebody who brought our country together,? Mrs. Clinton told reporters in Memphis.

Clinton advisers said that Mr. Clinton would continue to campaign nearly full time for his wife in the days leading up to the Feb. 5 primaries and caucuses in 22 states, yet they added that he would take a more positive tone.

They said his role would be akin to his effort before the Iowa caucuses, when he highlighted Mrs. Clinton?s record and her policy ideas, and was used in part to build huge crowds on college campuses rather than attack Mr. Obama. (It was after her third-place finish in Iowa that Mr. Clinton turned much more aggressive.) The campaign announced Sunday night that Mr. Clinton would speak on Tuesday at a college in New Jersey, which has a Feb. 5 primary.

?Bill Clinton is going to continue to campaign on behalf of his wife and tell her story and make his case about why she should be president,? said Howard Wolfson, Mrs. Clinton?s communications director.

Mr. Wolfson said the campaign would turn its focus to the Florida primary, which is Tuesday, although that primary is considered little more than a beauty contest.

And Mrs. Clinton will not campaign in Florida ? honoring a pledge that the Democratic candidates took after the state moved up its primary date against the national party?s wishes ? though her campaign said she would hold an event in Florida on Tuesday night as the primary results come in.

The New York Times @ http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/28/us/politics/28dems.html?ei=5099&en=79a4160be45da25d&ex=1202101200&partner=TOPIXNEWS&pagewanted=print

January 27, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
The Billary Road to Republican Victory
By FRANK RICH

IN the wake of George W. Bush, even a miracle might not be enough for the Republicans to hold on to the White House in 2008. But what about two miracles? The new year?s twin resurrections of Bill Clinton and John McCain, should they not evaporate, at last give the G.O.P. a highly plausible route to victory.

Amazingly, neither party seems to fully recognize the contours of the road map. In the Democrats? case, the full-throttle emergence of Billary, the joint Clinton candidacy, is measured mainly within the narrow confines of the short-term horse race: Do Bill Clinton?s red-faced eruptions and fact-challenged rants enhance or diminish his wife as a woman and a candidate?

Absent from this debate is any sober recognition that a Hillary Clinton nomination, if it happens, will send the Democrats into the general election with a new and huge peril that may well dwarf the current wars over race, gender and who said what about Ronald Reagan.

What has gone unspoken is this: Up until this moment, Hillary has successfully deflected rough questions about Bill by saying, ?I?m running on my own? or, as she snapped at Barack Obama in the last debate, ?Well, I?m here; he?s not.? This sleight of hand became officially inoperative once her husband became a co-candidate, even to the point of taking over entirely when she vacated South Carolina last week. With ?two for the price of one? back as the unabashed modus operandi, both Clintons are in play.

For the Republicans, that means not just a double dose of the one steroid, Clinton hatred, that might yet restore their party?s unity but also two fat targets. Mrs. Clinton repeatedly talks of how she?s been ?vetted? and that ?there are no surprises? left to be mined by her opponents. On the ?Today? show Friday, she joked that the Republican attacks ?are just so old.? So far. Now that Mr. Clinton is ubiquitous, not only is his past back on the table but his post-presidency must be vetted as well. To get a taste of what surprises may be in store, you need merely revisit the Bill Clinton questions that Hillary Clinton has avoided to date.

Asked by Tim Russert at a September debate whether the Clinton presidential library and foundation would disclose the identities of its donors during the campaign, Mrs. Clinton said it wasn?t up to her. ?What?s your recommendation?? Mr. Russert countered. Mrs. Clinton replied: ?Well, I don?t talk about my private conversations with my husband, but I?m sure he?d be happy to consider that.?

Not so happy, as it turns out. The names still have not been made public.

Just before the holidays, investigative reporters at both The Washington Post and The New York Times tried to find out why, with no help from the Clintons. The Post uncovered a plethora of foreign contributors, led by Saudi Arabia. The Times found an overlap between library benefactors and Hillary Clinton campaign donors, some of whom might have an agenda with a new Clinton administration. (Much as one early library supporter, Marc Rich?s ex-wife, Denise, had an agenda with the last one.) ?The vast scale of these secret fund-raising operations presents enormous opportunities for abuse,? said Representative Henry Waxman, the California Democrat whose legislation to force disclosure passed overwhelmingly in the House but remains stalled in the Senate.

The Post and Times reporters couldn?t unlock all the secrets. The unanswered questions could keep them and their competitors busy until Nov. 4. Mr. Clinton?s increased centrality to the campaign will also give The Wall Street Journal a greater news peg to continue its reportorial forays into the unraveling financial partnership between Mr. Clinton and the swashbuckling billionaire Ron Burkle.

At ?Little Rock?s Fort Knox,? as the Clinton library has been nicknamed by frustrated researchers, it?s not merely the heavy-hitting contributors who are under wraps. Even by the glacial processing standards of the National Archives, the Clintons? White House papers have emerged slowly, in part because Bill Clinton exercised his right to insist that all communications between him and his wife be ?considered for withholding? until 2012.

When Mrs. Clinton was asked by Mr. Russert at an October debate if she would lift that restriction, she again escaped by passing the buck to her husband: ?Well, that?s not my decision to make.? Well, if her candidacy is to be as completely vetted as she guarantees, the time for the other half of Billary to make that decision is here.

The credibility of a major Clinton campaign plank, health care, depends on it. In that same debate, Mrs. Clinton told Mr. Russert that ?all of the records, as far as I know, about what we did with health care? are ?already available.? As Michael Isikoff of Newsweek reported weeks later, this is a bit off; he found that 3,022,030 health care documents were still held hostage. Whatever the pace of the processing, the gatekeeper charged with approving each document?s release is the longtime Clinton loyalist Bruce Lindsey.

People don?t change. Bill Clinton, having always lived on the edge, is back on the precipice. When he repeatedly complains that the press has given Mr. Obama a free ride and over-investigated the Clintons, he seems to be tempting the fates, given all the reporting still to be done on his post-presidential business. When he says, as he did on Monday, that ?whatever I do should be totally transparent,? it?s almost as if he?s setting himself up for a fall. There?s little more transparency at ?Little Rock?s Fort Knox? than there is at Giuliani Partners.

?The Republicans are not going to have any compunctions about asking anybody anything,? Mrs. Clinton lectured Mr. Obama. Maybe so, but Republicans are smart enough not to start asking until after she has secured the nomination.

Not all Republicans are smart enough, however, to recognize the value of John McCain should Mrs. Clinton emerge as the nominee. He?s a bazooka aimed at most every rationale she?s offered for her candidacy.

In a McCain vs. Billary race, the Democrats will sacrifice the most highly desired commodity by the entire electorate, change; the party will be mired in d?j? 1990s all over again. Mrs. Clinton?s spiel about being ?tested? by her ?35 years of experience? won?t fly either. The moment she attempts it, Mr. McCain will run an ad about how he was being tested when those 35 years began, in 1973. It was that spring when he emerged from five-plus years of incarceration at the Hanoi Hilton while Billary was still bivouacked at Yale Law School. And can Mrs. Clinton presume to sell herself as best equipped to be commander in chief ?on Day One? when opposing an actual commander and war hero? I don?t think so.

Foreign policy issue No. 1, withdrawal from Iraq, should be a slam-dunk for any Democrat. Even the audience at Thursday?s G.O.P. debate in Boca Raton cheered Ron Paul?s antiwar sentiments. But Mrs. Clinton?s case is undermined by her record. She voted for the war, just as Mr. McCain did, in 2002 and was still defending it in February 2005, when she announced from the Green Zone that much of Iraq was ?functioning quite well. ? Only in November 2005 did she express the serious misgivings long pervasive in her own party. When Mr. McCain accuses her of now advocating ?surrender? out of political expediency, her flip-flopping will back him up.

Billary can?t even run against the vast right-wing conspiracy if Mr. McCain is the opponent. Rush Limbaugh and Tom DeLay hate Mr. McCain as much as they hate the Clintons. And they hate him for the same reasons Mr. McCain wins over independents and occasional Democrats: his sporadic (and often mild) departures from conservative orthodoxy on immigration and campaign finance reform, torture, tax cuts, climate change and the godliness of Pat Robertson. Since Mr. McCain doesn?t kick reporters like dogs, as the Clintons do, he will no doubt continue to enjoy an advantage, however unfair, with the press pack on the Straight Talk Express.

Even so, Mr. McCain hasn?t yet won a clear majority of Republican voters in any G.O.P. contest. He?s depended on the kindness of independent voters. Tuesday?s Florida primary, which is open exclusively to Republicans, is his crucial test. If he fails, his party remains in chaos and Mitt Romney could still inherit the earth.

That would be a miracle for the Democrats, but they can hardly count on it. If Mr. Obama has not met an unexpected Waterloo in South Carolina ? this column went to press before Saturday?s vote ? the party needs him to stop whining about the Clintons? attacks, regain his wit and return to playing offense. Unlike Mrs. Clinton, he would unambiguously represent change in a race with any Republican. If he vanquishes Billary, he?ll have an even stronger argument to take into battle against a warrior like Mr. McCain.

If Mr. Obama doesn?t fight, no one else will. Few national Democratic leaders have the courage to stand up to the Clintons. Even in defeat, Mr. Obama may at least help wake up a party slipping into denial. Any Democrat who seriously thinks that Bill will fade away if Hillary wins the nomination ? let alone that the Clintons will escape being fully vetted ? is a Democrat who, as the man said, believes in fairy tales.

The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/opinion/27rich.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

What affect might this endorsement from a Dem Senior Statesman have?

WASHINGTON -- Senator Edward M. Kennedy will endorse Barack Obama for president tomorrow, breaking his year-long neutrality to send a powerful signal of where the legendary Massachusetts Democrat sees the party going -- and who he thinks is best to lead it.

Kennedy confidantes told the Globe today that the Bay State's senior senator will appear with Obama and Kennedy's niece, Caroline Kennedy, at a morning rally at American University in Washington tomorrow to announce his support...

That will be a potentially significant boost for Obama as he heads into a series of critical primaries on Super Tuesday, Feb. 5.

Kennedy believes Obama can ``transcend race'' and bring unity to the country, a Kennedy associate told the Globe. Kennedy was also impressed by Obama's deep involvement last year in the bipartisan effort to craft legislation on immigration reform, a politically touchy subject the other presidential candidates avoided, the associate said.

The coveted endorsement is a huge blow to New York Senator Hillary Clinton, who is both a senatorial colleague and a friend of the Kennedy family. In a campaign where Clinton has trumpeted her experience over Obama's call for hope and change, the endorsement by one of the most experienced and respected Democrats in the Senate is a particularly dramatic coup for Obama.

see http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/01/ted_kennedy_end.html