Bill Clinton Visits Penn State, Obama Set To Speak On Sunday

Former President Bill Clinton spoke to a crowd of 8,000 in Rec Hall on Thursday night. I did not attend the event but I was driving downtown last night when it was letting out and there were people everywhere, the former President sure can draw a crowd. Of course Clinton was there to campaign for his wife Senator Hillary Clinton who will be trying to win the key state of Pennsylvania on April 22nd. Clinton knew how to get the crowd going when he mentioned some alumni related to the senator.

I'm here to represent the only candidate for president who had a father and a brother who played football for Penn State

Knowing my fellow PSU students they were definitely charged up to hear that. He went on to mention the Creamery too. Clinton spoke on economic topics through out the hour-long speech, in a part I viewed on the Internet he mentioned helping college students graduate with less debt.

This marks the beginning of the campaigning in my little town of State College, Senator Barack Obama is set to speak on the lawn of Old Main Sunday where the attendance is expected to exceed 10,000 and up to 20,000 according to some university officials.

This should be quite the spectacle indeed on Sunday; hopefully weather will permit this historic occasion, according to a Collegian article

The last time a presidential candidate visited Penn State and spoke on Old Main's lawn was former President George H. W. Bush during his second campaign, Mahon said, adding that 9,000 to 10,000 people attended the event.

It will be very cool to see that many people on the lawn listening to someone talk about politics, this year the younger people really do seem to be very interested in the campaign, a great sign of things to come hopefully. I'll be at the Obama address and hopefully I'll have a post about it Sunday night or Monday morning, I'll be sure to bring my camera to capture this historic event.

The Price We Pay When No One Votes For 7 Weeks

*****UPDATE*****
This just in on the mud-slinging wire: Obama supporter references Monica's Blue Dress in a tirade. Gordon Fischer, a former chair of the Iowa Democratic Party, wrote on his blog. “Bill Clinton cannot possibly seriously believe Obama is not a patriot, and cannot possibly be said to be helping — instead he is hurting — his own party. B. Clinton should never be forgiven. Period. This is a stain on his legacy, much worse, much deeper, than the one on Monica's blue dress."

ZING.... yea he's gonna be fired.


As I watched the cable news channels this afternoon I started to notice something, all of the talk about the Democratic presidential race has become about things that have nothing to do with the actual race. It is as if we have zipped through the period of time when we look at the candidates based on the issues. First there was Rev. Wright, then there was Hillary's schedule as 1st lady, and now it appears all that’s left is for the surrogates of these two candidates to sling mud at each other.

There has been a little dust up between people of both campaigns over some comments President Bill Clinton made over the weekend to some military people. Here is a part of the report from the Huffington Post

MSNBC is reporting that on the campaign trail today in Charlotte, North Carolina, the former president said a general election matchup between his wife, Sen. Clinton, and Sen. John McCain would be between "two people who love this country" without "all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics."

Now Obama supporters in particular Tony McPeak, a retired Air Force general and current co-chair of Obama's presidential campaign, were indignant with Clinton's comments and McPeak went on to say this

"It sounds more like McCarthy," McPeak said. "I grew up, I was going to college when Joe McCarthy was accusing good Americans of being traitors, so I've had enough of it."

Some fiery rhetoric to say the least. This is what happens in politics and its news cycle when there is a static lull in actual voting or real news. It continued yesterday and today after renowned Democratic strategist and Clinton supporter James Carville compared Bill Richardson's endorsement of Barack Obama to a Judas-like betrayal of the Clintons. Richardson was appointed the US ambassador to the U.N. by Bill Clinton and served as Clinton's Secretary of Energy.

Bill Richardson responded by saying this

I'm not going to get in the gutter like that - and you know that’s typical of many of the people around Senator Clinton. They think they have a sense of entitlement to the presidency.”

This is like a back and forth volley at a tennis match, one player fires up a serve and the other returns it with just as much fervor.


One more thing that is on my mind today is a new tactic the Clinton campaign seems to be using, several journalists and Clinton people are now coming up with an argument that Senator Clinton has won more electoral votes than Senator Obama. That’s right, I said electoral votes; you know the things that only matter when you’re pulling the lever in November? Well it seems that the Clinton camp is proud to announce that they have received more electoral votes than Obama. This from the New York Times.

Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, who backs Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for president, proposed another gauge Sunday by which superdelegates might judge whether to support Mrs. Clinton or Senator Barack Obama. He suggested that they consider the electoral votes of the states that each of them has won.

“So who carried the states with the most Electoral College votes is an important factor to consider because ultimately, that’s how we choose the president of the United States,” Mr. Bayh said on CNN’s “Late Edition.”

As of now Clinton would have 219 electoral votes to Obama's 202. This appears to be a poorly played attempt to sway the minds of undecided voters and undecided superdelegates. The problem with this tactic is that many people would argue that Obama would win many of the same states Clinton won including the hugely important California and New York which are the bluest of blue states. This also does not take into account that Clinton has won Texas, the reddest of red states. That analysis could go on forever, you could argue that Clinton would have trouble carrying states like John McCain's own Arizona and New Mexico and Tennessee, states that she has won primaries in.

This argument also ties into the debate of Florida and Michigan re-votes and such of the likeness. But that is a whole other post.

Obama Is "Ken Starr", Hillary Is A "Monster"

No Love Lost

After the March 4th Primaries concluded everyone thought that the race would get a little bit more aggressive, and it did not take long for that to happen. The day after, Wednesday, the Obama Camp immediately sent out a memo asking why Hillary Clinton has yet to release her tax returns. Hillary and Bill Clinton file a joint return because they are married and there have been some interest in Bill's dealings since he left the Oval Office. For example there is one report that Bill went over to Kazakhstan (jagshemash!) and signed some deal with their King and he Clinton gave MAD money for some investment with a guy who runs a coal plant in Canada... some really weird stuff and Obama's whole deal is that he is for transparency in government, one of the biggest things he as done in D.C. is ethics reform. So the Obama Camp is trying to put pressure on Hillary to release it soon. Clinton responded by comparing Obama if Ken Starr... known most for his investigations in the Whitewater Scandal and the Monica Lewinsky Scandal. Chief Clinton Spokesman Howard Wolfson said this on a conference call with reporters:

"After a campaign in which many of the questions that voters had in the closing days centered on concerns that they had over his state of preparedness to be commander in chief and steward of the economy, he has chosen instead of addressing those issues to attack Senator Clinton," Wolfson told reporters in a conference call. "I for one do not believe that imitating Ken Starr is the way to win a Democratic primary election for president."

I give Wolfson a hand pound for his statement, it was a very nice tie in, especially considering what I just said about Obama wanting Clinton to release her taxes, that has no real reasoning for actually being involved in this campaign... exactly what Wolfson just said.

On the other side of the fight they are also throwing insults out, an aide to Obama who was giving an interview to The Scotsman, a Scottish Newspaper if you were wondering, her tongue a bit more forked:

"Ms. Power told The Scotsman Mrs. Clinton was stopping at nothing to try to seize the lead from Mr. Obama. 'We f***** up in Ohio,' she admitted. 'In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it, because she knows Ohio's the only place they can win.

" 'She is a monster, too - that is off the record - she is stooping to anything," Ms. Power said, hastily trying to withdraw her remark. 'Interestingly, the people in her innermost circle seem to not mind her; I think they really love her.' But she added: 'There is this middle circle - they are really on the warpath. But the truth is she has proved herself really willing to stoop.' "

I also give Samantha Power, an Obama foreign policy aide, because its hard to argue with that, Clinton threw the kitchen sink at Obama in the last 3 days, from the ads to mocking him to running with all his bad stories. (Rezko, NAFTA snafu) That could get you labeled a monster, no? Powers apologized earlier this morning saying that that’s now how she personally felt... even though SHE said it. Clinton supporters are pushing for Powers to be fired. (UPDATE Samantha Powers has resigned)

So the campaigns are getting pretty heavy in this post March 4th world and I wouldn't be surprised to see it go on for a long time.

Virginia Is For Lovers But Pennsylvania Has Intercourse... And Long Campaigning

A quick look at the polls shows that Hillary is still ahead in PA, the newest Rasmussen poll shows Clinton with a 15-point advantage. It appears that Clinton has received a "bump" due to her success in Texas and Ohio. A poll taken at the end of February had Obama within 6 points. The Clinton people see Pennsylvania as an Ohio twin. Lots of blue-collar workers, as Chris Matthews always likes to say "meat and potatoes Democrats" that is Clinton's wheelhouse. Obama will have to work here in order to win this state, the demographics aren't in his favor that much except that there are not that many Hispanics here, who vote basically 2-1 for Clinton everywhere. Obama will get his time though, the Keystone State votes on April 22nd 46 days away.

What everyone is really concerned about is the length of this race; no one wants to see this campaign last all the way to August 25th, the 1st day of the Democratic Convention. Robert Novak speaks on this subject in his latest column, here’s an excerpt:

Clinton's decisive victory in Ohio and unexpected narrow win in Texas coincided with Obama facing adversity for the first time in his magical candidacy, and not handling it well. The result is not only the prospect of seven weeks of fierce campaigning stretching out to the next primary showdown April 22 in Pennsylvania, but also perhaps what Democratic leaders feared but never really thought possible until now: a contested national convention in August.

As of right now Obama still has the delegate lead, has won more states, and has the popular vote. All of those are good to have when going into the convention; the only question is whether he can hold on to any of those things. It looks like it will be very hard for Hillary to take the delegate lead but she can certainly close the gap to within 10 or 20. The popular vote could also swing the other way and if both of those things happen it would probably be because Hillary beat Obama in the last few big delegate rich states: PA, NC, even Puerto Rico has 55, that’s more that RI, VT, MS. Etc. On top of that Howard Dean, chairman of the DNC, has said he would be for Michigan and Florida having “do-overs” whether by primary or caucus which puts those 156 delegates in Michigan and 210 in Florida back into play and would put the magic number from 2025 to 2208 or some odd number like that, now if they are caucuses held that would seem to favor Obama since he as won all but 1 of those so far, a plus for the states and the DNC is that caucuses are free, primaries on the other hand could cost as much as $25 Million dollars. The states and the DNC will definitely argue about who would pay for a primary.

Bill Clinton Was The Comeback Kid Well Before New Hampshire In 1992

Back in 1992 Bill Clinton was not the assumed front-runner leading up to Primary Season, in fact he was one of the lesser candidates and when it came to New Hampshire he was way down with about a week to go but he closed the gap and even though he still came in 2nd to Senator Paul Tsongas Clinton has all of the momentum and wound up as the democratic nominee that year. However this was not the 1st time Bill Clinton made a political comeback. Back in 1972 Senator George McGovern was running against the incumbent President Richard Nixon, McGovern was a candidate that the people of the Democratic party wanted to believe in, they were sick of Nixon and his croneyism and the Vietnam War (sound familiar?) well McGovern was suppose to be the guy to take back America from the evil Dick Nixon. Well something went terribly wrong, McGovern got his ass handed to him, losing by 22 points. The late, and great, Hunter S. Thompson wrote about this in his book Better Than Sex, a book about the 1992 presidential election, here is an excerpt from it about our buddy Bill.

Another thing I still remember from that horrible day in November of '72 was that some dingbat named Clinton was said to be almost single-handedly responsible for losing 222 counties in Texas--including Waco, where he was McGovern's regional coordinator--and was "terminated without pay, with prejudice," and sent back home to Arkansas "with his tail between his legs" as an aide put it. "We'll never see that stupid bastard again," one aide muttered. "Clinton--Bill Clinton. Yeah. Let's remember that name. He'll never work again, not in Washington"

Hunter started the next page with the words "O Ye of little faith", you can't make that stuff up. So Bill Clinton was in the middle of it back in 1972, with Hillary if I remember correctly because 35 years of experience would put Hillary back into 1972 where she also was involved in McGovern's candidacy. Politics is a strange and cruel entity where one day you are riding high and the next day you are slumming it, or in this case the other way around.