Michigan Congressman Offers Compromise
Michigan Representative Bart Stupak (D) has proposed an interesting compromise. This is at least a step towards not telling a few million (both Florida and Michigan) people their vote doesn’t count.
WASHINGTON - A Michigan congressman proposed an alternate plan Monday for seating the state’s delegates at the Democratic National Convention, awarding delegates based partly on Michigan’s Jan. 15 primary results and partly on the popular vote in all the nation’s presidential primaries.
Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., in a letter to DNC Chairman Howard Dean, proposed that Michigan’s 83 pledged delegates be chosen at congressional district conventions according to the results of the state’s primary.
The party stripped both Michigan and Florida of their national convention delegates because they moved their primaries to January dates that were earlier than party rules allowed.
Under Stupak’s formula, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who received 55 percent of the primary vote, would receive 47 delegates.
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who pulled his name from Michigan’s ballot, would receive 36 delegates. Many Obama supporters in Michigan voted for “uncommitted,” which received 40 percent in the primary.
The remaining 73 delegates would be awarded based on the percentage of the popular vote garnered nationwide by Clinton and Obama after the last Democratic presidential primary is completed.
“The last thing we want to do as Democrats is to disenfranchise voters,” Stupak wrote in the letter to Dean. “I have heard from countless Democratic and independent voters who are frustrated and angry to think that their votes are being ignored.”
Source: MSNBC
Sphere: Related ContentObama Gains Minnesota Superdelegate
Fox News reported Sunday that Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar has given her endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama.
Sphere: Related ContentWASHINGTON — Barack Obama has gained another superdelegate. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar endorsed her Illinois colleague Sunday night, saying in a statement that Obama “has inspired an enthusiasm and idealism that we have not seen in this country in a long time.”
It is the latest development among many that have been putting Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign on its heels. On Monday, Obama was poised to receive the endorsement of the seven Democrats on North Carolina’s congressional delegation, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Hillary Campaign Needs to Pay Its Bills
Politico is reporting that the Hillary Clinton campaign hasn’t been paying its bill on time. These businesses that she owes money may want her to answer the phone at 3 A.M., but it will not do anyone any good to dial her then if her phone has been “temporarily” disconnected. It doesn’t matter who the candidate is, not paying your bills shows bad leadership, especially if you happen to be running for President.
Hillary Rodham Clinton’s cash-strapped presidential campaign has been putting off paying hundreds of bills for months — freeing up cash for critical media buys but also earning the campaign a reputation as something of a deadbeat in some small-business circles.
A pair of Ohio companies owed more than $25,000 by Clinton for staging events for her campaign are warning others in the tight-knit event production community — and anyone else who will listen — to get their cash upfront when doing business with her. Her campaign, say representatives of the two companies, has stopped returning phone calls and e-mails seeking payment of outstanding invoices. One even got no response from a certified letter.
Sphere: Related ContentTheir cautionary tales, combined with published reports about similar difficulties faced by a New Hampshire landlord, an Iowa office cleaner and a New York caterer, highlight a less-obvious impact of Clinton’s inability to keep up with the staggering fundraising pace set by her opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.
Clinton’s campaign did not respond to recent, specific questions about its transactions with vendors. But Clinton spokesman Jay Carson pointed on Saturday to an earlier statement the campaign issued to Politico, asserting: “The campaign pays its bills regularly and in the normal course of business, and pays all of its bills.”
Just like with other businesses, it’s common for campaigns to carry unpaid bills from month to month, but in Clinton’s case, it also could serve a strategic purpose.
Jewish Superdelegates Favor Clinton Thus Far
According to MSNBC First Read, Sen. Hillary Clinton is leading Three to One(Clinton has 36, Obama has 12) to Sen. Barack Obama with Jewish Superdelegates, that really isn’t that much of a surprise after Obama association with Jeremiah Wright (and his Pro- Palestinian stance). It would be surprising if the remaining undecideds lean more towards Obama, which is very unlikely, unless the Superdelegates hands are forced.
Sphere: Related ContentClinton leads Obama 36-12 among the Jewish superdelegates, according to a survey by the Forward, a Jewish newspaper. Twenty-six Jewish supers are undecided.
Here’s the Forward’s list of who’s fallen behind whom and who’s undecided:
CLINTON
Patti Higgins (AK-Chairwoman of Alaska Democratic Party)
Rachel Binah (CA-DNC)
Maria Echeveste (CA-DNC)
Diane Feinstein (CA)
Jane Harman (CA)
Brad Sherman (CA)
Rosalind Wyman (CA-DNC)
Ellen Camhi (CT-DNC)
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (FL)
Debra DeLee (MA DNC chair)
Barney Frank (MA)
Steve Grossman (MA-DNC)
Diane Saxe (MA-Clinton)
Nancy Kopp (MD-DNC)
Carol Pensky (MD-DNC)
Sander Levin (MI)
Anita Freedman (NH-DNC)
June Fischer (NJ-DNC)
Shelley Berkley (NV)
Gary Ackerman (NY)
Eliot Engel (NY)
Emily Giske (NY-DNC)
Steve Israel (NY)
Nita Lowey (NY)
Jerrold Nadler (NY)
Chuck Schumer (NY-Sen)
Sheldon Silver (NY)
Anthony Weiner (NY)
Randi Weingarten (NY-DNC)
Robert Zimmerman (NY-DNC)
Marcel Groen (PA-DNC)
Gov. Ed Rendell (PA)
Allyson Schwartz (PA)
Mark Weiner (RI-DNC)
Eric Kleinfeld (DC-DNC)
Robert Bell (Democrats Abroad-DNC)OBAMA
Eric Garcetti (CA)
Adam Schiff (CA)
Robert Wexler (FL)
Jan Schakowsky (IL)
John Yarmuth (KY)
Paul Hodes (NH)
Steve Rothman (NJ)
Steve Cohen (TN)
Russ Feingold (WI-Sen)
Paul Strauss (DC-DNC)
Allan Katz (FL-DNC)
Alan Solomont (MA-DNC)UNDECIDED
Gabrielle Giffords (AZ)
Howard Berman (CA)
Barbara Boxer (CA)
Henry Waxman (CA)
Bob Filner (CA)
Susan Davis (CA)
Mitchell Ceasar (FL-DNC)
Diane Glasser (FL-DNC)
Ron Klein (FL)
Andrew Tobias (FL-DNC)
Rahm Emanuel (IL)
Carol Ronen (IL-DNC)
Ben Cardin (MD-Sen)
Susan Turbull (MD-DNC)
Carl Levin (MI-Sen)
Richard Wiener (MI-DNC)
Muriel Offerman (NC-DNC)
Frank Lautenberg (NJ-Sen)
Sam Lieberman (NV-DNC)
Irene Stein (NY-DNC)
Ron Wyden (OR-Sen)
Sophie Masloff (PA-DNC)
Bob Strauss (TX)
Herb Kohl (WI)
Alice Travis Germond (WV-DNC)
Larry Cohen (DC-DNC)
Howard Dean Wants the Nomination by July 1st
Howard Dean DNC chairman wants the Superdelegates to decide the race by July 1st, or he warns that the Democrats will lose the election in November. At this point, it might take a miracle to pull that off. What if all the Delegates and Superdelegates fall 50/50 will that be enough for Obama to secure the nomination, probably not, which means they might have to count Florida and Michigan, would that be enough to push one candidate over the edge?
In a Friday interview on “Good Morning America,” Dean cited record turnout but noted “some personal criticism” between the candidates.
“We have to keep our mind focused on the idea that at the end of the day we really need change in these country,” Dean told ABC’s Diane Sawyer. “One of these two candidates needs to win. We’re going to win unless we divide ourselves and that, we cannot do.”
Dean Suggests Super Deadline
Intense back-and-forth on the campaign trail have left the two Democratic candidates with a narrow margin between them.
In a race that could be left to the party’s nearly 800 leaders who have independent votes in choosing the Democratic nominee on the convention floor, Dean says he’d like the superdelegates to announce who they’re supporting by July 1.
“We don’t want this to degenerate to a big fight at the convention,” Dean said, “This is an evenly divided party with two great potential nominees. I need to make sure that we all play by the rules that we all agreed to a year ago that the person who loses will be just as strong a supporter of the person who wins.”
Source: ABC News
Sphere: Related ContentObama on The View
Barack Obama on the View
Obama Gains Casey Endorsement
Senator Bob Casey Jr. has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama. Sen. Casey and Gov. Ed Rendell (a Clinton supporter) both have ties to the Governor of Puerto Rico Anibal Acevedo-Vila that was indicted Thursday. Acevedo-Vila was a Superdelegate that was for Obama, one has to wonder if Casey cast his lot for Obama now, to replace Acevedo- Vila Superdelegate that was or will be striped. Here is what MSNBC: First Read has on the Casey endorsement.
Sphere: Related ContentObama called Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey’s endorsement one of the most meaningful endorsements he’s received on the campaign trail.
“You know, I did not press him on this endorsement, you know there were some people that I was nagging all the time,” Obama said of reaching out to Casey. “Bob I thought to myself, there’s great reason for me to press him; I told him I’d love to have his support, but I understood that you know we’re behind in the Pennsylvania polls. I just want to say it would have been easy for Bob just to stay out of it, just to stay neutral. I think everybody would have accepted that.
“But when he called me and said, ‘I think this is the right thing to do,’ it meant as much to me as any endorsement that I’ve received on the campaign trail,” Obama added.
Casey introduced Obama and spoke to the potential of his leadership.
“This campaign is a chance for America, a chance for America to chart a new course, to go down a different path,” Casey said of his endorsement. “A path, first of all, of change, a path of a new kind of politics, a path — and finally a path of hope and healing.”
Governor Anibal Acevedo-Vila the Superdelegate
Just for those keeping count, the Puerto Rican Governor Acevedo-Vila, is/was a Super Delegate, that is a supporter of Obama. So it looks like Obama is winning the Superdelegate race, in the sense that Obama has lost two in the last two weeks, last two weeks because of scandals (Acevedo-Vila and Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick) with indictments and Clinton has only lost one (NY Governor Eliot Spitzer) because of scandal and no indictment as of yet. Score one for the Obama camp.
Sphere: Related ContentPuerto Rican Democratic Governor Indicted
Puerto Rico’s Governor Anibal Acevedo-Vila has been indicted along with twelve others. The indictment is a result of a campaign finance probe.
Puerto Rico’s governor and four Philadelphians, including prominent fund-raiser Robert M. Feldman, were charged this morning in San Juan with federal campaign-finance related crimes.
The investigation of Gov. Anibal Acevedo-Vila, a Democrat who faces re-election this year, was triggered by the FBI’s Philadelphia City Hall corruption probe in 2003.
Feldman, who raised more than $1 million for Democrats, including U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr. and Gov. Rendell, was a former business partner of Ronald A. White, the late power-broker who was the lead defendant in the Philadelphia corruption case.
Feldman was investigated but not charged in the Philadelphia case. In San Juan, he was charged with one count of conspiracy to violate federal election laws.
The governor was charged with conspiracy to violate federal campaign laws, wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud the IRS and filing a false tax return.
Feldman and others from Philadelphia were charged with conspiring to help Acevedo-Vila evade federal election rules to raise more than $100,000 in campaign funds as a way of gaining access and “to further their business interests” in Puerto Rico.
The indictment says that shortly after Feldman helped with a fund-raiser in Philadelphia in 2002, Acevedo-Vila contacted a Puerto Rico government agency to request a meeting on behalf of a company associated with Feldman. Authorities also say Acevedo-Vila set up a second meeting with an island housing agency on Feldman’s behalf in 2003.
The indictment says that it was Feldman who came up with the idea of skirting campaign-finance laws by funneling cash to Avecedo-Vila through others in Philadelphia and South Jersey.
Feldman’s lawyer, Henry Hockeimer, said this morning in a statement: “Mr. Feldman did nothing wrong. We are shocked and disappointed that the U.S. Attorney in Puerto Rico included Mr. Feldman in one count of this 27 count, 13 defendant, politically-inspired indictment. We are very confident Mr. Feldman will be vindicated at trial.”
The case could have political ramifications beyond Philadelphia and San Juan. Acevedo-Vila has endorsed Sen. Barack Obama in the Puerto Rico primary, which holds the nation’s last primary on June 6.
In addition, some of the governor’s allies in Congress have tried to link it to the national U.S. attorneys scandal, alleging a partisan investigation. The Justice Department has said it prosecutes crime where it finds it.
The federal indictment of Acevedo-Vila, Feldman and others was unsealed in San Juan this morning. A morning press conference is scheduled in San Juan.
Acevedo-Vila, who has called the investigation politically inspired, was expected to surrender to federal authorities and appear before a federal magistrate in San Juan later today.
Among the four Philadelphians charged, in addition to Feldman, is Feldman’s fellow-fundraiser, Candido Negron of Glen Mills, Delaware County. Also charged were Philadelphians Marvin Block and Salvatore Avanzato Sr. All three are charged with conspiracy to violate federal election laws.
The FBI’s investigation of Acevedo-Vila began during its Philadelphia City Hall corruption probe in 2003, which focused on White and then-Mayor John Street and his top aides.
In 2003, FBI wiretaps recorded Feldman and Negron working closely with powerbroker Ronald A. White on deals.
White became the lead defendant in the City Hall case, charged with corrupting former City Treasurer Kemp and conspiring with Commerce Bank executives to win sweetheart deals for his clients. Kemp and the bankers were convicted, and Kemp was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
White died of cancer before trial, but wiretaps and other evidence in the case spawned other investigations, including the one bursting into the limelight today in Puerto Rico.
Feldman, who was not charged in the Philadelphia case, was White’s partner and superstar fund-raiser for many Democrats. In addition to Rendell and Casey, Feldman raised nearly $500,000 for Street. He was the second-most proficient fund-raiser for former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey.
Negron considered Feldman a mentor, and together they raised at least $50,000 for Acevedo-Vila at two Philadelphia campaign events. At the time, Acevedo-Vila was seeking re-election as Puerto Rico’s non-voting delegate to Congress.
Of the $800,000 Acevedo-Vila raised during that campaign, $180,000 of it came from donors in Philadelphia and South Jersey, a percentage that authorities found suspicious.
In 2006, three contributors to that campaign told The Inquirer that Negron gave them money to make the contributions.
The 55-page indictment charges 13 people; four in Philadelphia and nine in Puerto Rico, including the governor.
The charges are related to Acevedo-Vila’s 2000 and 2002 campaign for Resident Commissioner, which is Puerto Rico’s non-voting delegate to the U.S. Congress.
According to the indictment, Acevedo-Vila carried a $545,000 debt following the 2000 campaign and Feldman was Acevedo-Vila’s “United States finance chairman.” Negron was deputy finance chairman.
“It was an object of the conspiracy to knowingly and willfully solicit and receive illegal contributions for the candidacy of Acevedo-Vila,” the indictment said.
“It was a further object of the conspiracy to conceal from the Federal Election Commission and the public the illegal nature of the contributions and the true extent and nature of the relationship between defendants Feldman, Negron and Avanzato and their associates and Acevedo-Vila, including the access and influence that Acevedo-Vila afforded and exercised on their behalf in Puerto Rico.”
Negron and Avanzato “directed their employees, friends and family members to give campaign contributions” and then “reimbursed” them for the donations, according to the indictment.
Negron and Avanzato allegedly used corporate bank accounts and credit cards to disguise the payments, and, the indictment said, paid for “lavish dinners” for Acevedo-Vila.
The indictment says the governor “personally participated in the solicitation, receipt and recording of campaign contributions from Feldman, Negron and Avanzato.”
After the FEC raised concerns that some Philadelphia donors had contributed amounts higher than the $2,000 federal limit, Acevedo-Vila’s campaign refunded the money directly to Negron–and not the contributors, according to the indictment.
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
Sphere: Related ContentGallup Says Higher Percentage Of Clinton Supporters Will Defect
Gallup reports that a higher percentage of Clinton supporters (28%) would vote for McCain if Clinton does not get the Democratic Nomination. 19% of Obama supporters stated they would vote for McCain is Obama didn’t get the Democratic Nomination. This poses an interesting question, which candidate would have the best chance of winning, if these numbers are true, and the vote really is close to being split down the middle for the democratic nomination. Of course, if you take all that into account and it is true, then Clinton would have the best opportunity for winning the Presidency within Democratic voters.
Sphere: Related ContentPRINCETON, NJ — A sizable proportion of Democrats would vote for John McCain next November if he is matched against the candidate they do not support for the Democratic nomination. This is particularly true for Hillary Clinton supporters, more than a quarter of whom currently say they would vote for McCain if Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee.
These conclusions are based on an analysis of Democratic voters’ responses to separate voting questions in March 7-22 Gallup Poll Daily election tracking. In each day’s survey, respondents are asked for their general election preferences in McCain-Clinton and McCain-Obama pairings. Democratic voters are then asked whom they support for their party’s nomination.
Condi Rice Vice-President?
Secretary Of State Condoleezza Rice is supposedly trying to garner herself a future in the Republican Party and possibly a Vice Presidential bid, according to The Washington Note.
Sphere: Related ContentSecretary of State Condoleezza Rice is speaking this morning to Grover Norquist’s weekly powerhouse gathering at Americans for Tax Reform of conservative associations, think tanks, and political operations.
At the semi-secret gatherings which Republican political hopefuls migrate to to get the blessing of not only Norquist but the diverse parts of the nation’s conservative money and political machinery, Norquist gives everyone in the room 3 minutes to pitch their cause or issue. I have attended before, but if one wants to attend again — no one may write or speak about the internal discussion or who attended.
In this case, however, I am not attending — but a source other than Norquist has leaked this information to The Washington Note and Huffington Post.
As one major Republican operative told me yesterday:
Someone like Condi Rice doesn’t go to Grover Norquist’s den to talk about the Annapolis Middle East peace process. She’s going to secure her future in Republican politics and to position herself as a ‘potential’ VP candidate on the McCain ticket.
Grover Norquist is author of the new book, Leave Us Alone: Getting the Government’s Hands Off Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives. It would be interesting to know which pages of the book Condi has dog-eared.
22% of Democrats Say Clinton or Obama Should Bow Out
On Rasmussen Reports (via Instapundit) they showthat Obama and Clinton are in a statistical dead heat, 22% of Democrats say that Clinton should dropout and 22% say Obama should do the same. Granted,it isn’t the same 22%, though it is the same percentage which is somewhat strange. There also seems to be a push by some to put Al Gore in the nominee position at the DNC convention in Denver. Could any of this be related, who knows? Either way the Democratic Party is in a big pickle.
Sphere: Related ContentTwenty-two percent (22%) of Democratic voters nationwide say that Hillary Clinton should drop out of the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination. However, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that an identical number—22%–say that Barack Obama should drop out.
A solid majority of Democrats, 62%, aren’t ready for either candidate to leave the race. Nationally, Clinton and Obama are running essentially even among Likely Democratic Primary Voters in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.
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