We are rapidly approaching the moment at which Washington reevaluates the Obama campaign’s reputation for competence and expertise. Every week, one or several of Obama’s surrogates trip over their own words; every day, Jim Messina and David Plouffe and David Axelrod must scratch their heads in wonder at the mess they are creating. One gaffe is an isolated event. Two is an embarrassment. But three or more form a pattern, one that is damaging not only Obama’s precarious chances for reelection but also the fortunes of the Democratic Party.
This morning on CNN, Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz was asked, "Why is it not hypocrisy for the president to take campaign donations from private equity when he's attacking private equity making that an essential part of his campaign?"
President Obama was in Denver this afternoon for a fundraiser. But the event does not appear to have been quite the success the campaign was hoping for.
Yesterday, President Obama sent out a fundraising email to supporters that likened himself to former President Bill Clinton. “I ran for president because we lost our way as a country after President Clinton left the White House,” Obama said in the email.
On the Senate floor this morning, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell took exception to the Obama administration’s propensity to spend taxpayer money on pro-Obama propaganda. McConnell said, “There’s a pattern here that I, and I’m sure many other Americans, find pretty outrageous.”
Barack Obama has defeated John Wolfe Jr. in the Democratic primary in Arkansas. With 81 percent of precincts reporting, Obama, the president of the United States, has 59.5 percent of the vote while Wolfe, a lawyer from Tennessee, has 40.5 percent.
If Barack Obama experiences an upset in Arkansas’s Democratic primary today, it won’t be for lack of trying. The Obama campaign and the Democratic party have spent significant resources in Arkansas, while an unknown primary challenger has threatened the president's ability to win the support of the state's Democrats.
“We’ve had some small contributions, but the largest was, I think, maybe a hundred dollars,” says presidential candidate John Wolfe Jr., speaking to THE WEEKLY STANDARD. “I’m basically paying for this myself, dipping into my retirement account.”
In his latest fundraising pitch, President Barack Obama tries to piggy back on the legacy of former President Bill Clinton. "When Bill Clinton ran for president in 1992, I had just started a job registering voters in Chicago," Obama writes in an email to supporters. "I remember watching his campaign and thinking, wow, I've never seen a candidate like him."
I really enjoyed the boss's argument for dumping Joe Biden from the ticket in favor of Hillary Clinton:
Hillary Clinton received nearly 18 million votes in the race for the 2008 Democratic nomination. Her rating in a Washington Post survey a couple of weeks ago was 65 percent favorable, 27 percent unfavorable. Biden hurts Obama. She would help him.
For some reason, the ABC News/Washington Post poll really gets the tongues wagging. I'm not exactly sure why; as polls go, it is one of my least favorite, in part because it often has a ridiculous tilt toward the Democrats. I suppose because it is the Post poll, and that's the newspaper of record in the government town.
Hillary Clinton's favorability with the American people remains near an all-time high, according to Gallup. Sixty-six percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of the Secretary of State, while only 23 percent view Clinton unfavorably, tied for a record low.
The New York Times gushingly describes how President Obama’s unique background — he’s “a man from many worlds,” “a transcender of tribes,” and, yes, “a former constitutional law professor” — has allowed him to unearth a creative “middle way” on the question of redefining marriage. That “middle way,” according to the Times’s account, is to come o