Posted on Sunday, 8th June 2008 by Keith Almli
149 Days until Election Day
June 8, 2008
MORNING UPDATE:
CAMPAIGN SCHOOL…ends, after over 50 managers for various State Representative campaigns finished a 3-day, intensive campaign strategy and tactics seminar. We feel we have recruited one of the strongest classes of candidates from across the state and are helping provide them with the tools to prepare for the fall campaign.
STATE COMMITTEE…ended with the adoption of the rules for the August state convention, which will be going out to all State Committee and County Chairs. We also passed a resolution to consider Newt Gingrich’s Platform for the American People at our state convention, encouraging the national Platform Committee to consider adopting as many of those planks as possible.
STATEWIDE CANDIDATES…attending this weekend’s meetings included University of Michigan Regent candidates Carl Meyers and John LaFond…Wayne State Board of Governors candidates Torion Bridges and Danialle Karmanos and State Board of Education candidate Scott Jenkins.
McCAIN CAMPAIGN….coming to Michigan. Scott Greenlee, Holly Hughes and Matt Hall updated us on the progress of the various campaign efforts. We hope to have operations open and on the ground sometime next week. There was a lot of excitement and commitment to take Michigan on behalf of Senator McCain.
WEST MICHIGAN FOR WALBERG… Doug DeVos, J.C. Huizenga, Mike Jandernoa and Steve Van Andel are hosting a luncheon fundraiser June 16th at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel from 12:00pm to 1:30pm. For more information and RSVP contact Sandra Baxter at (616) 803-0496 or email her at SandraBaxterE@aol.com.
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THE REST OF THE STORY:
No further commentary today.
TODAY’S TOP STORIES
The following stories and more are available at my Articles of Interest online.
Clinton throws ‘full support’ to Obama
By BEN SMITH | 6/7/08 2:37 PM EST
In the final speech of her bid for the White House, Hillary Rodham Clinton said things that she couldn’t, and wouldn’t, say during the 16 months she spent running for president.
She offered an unstinting, repeated endorsement of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, putting to rest any suggestion that she would play coy after a bruising primary campaign.
And she broke what had been a disciplined silence on women’s rights and women’s grievances, expressing an open feminism that she’d deliberately understated during the campaign.
How choosing Hillary would reflect on Obama
An axiom. When voters watch a presumptive presidential nominee considering this or that running mate, they think: What if the president dies? When the presumptive nominee considers this or that running mate, he thinks: What if I live?
Which brings us to the dotty idea that Barack Obama should choose to have Hillary Clinton down the hall in the West Wing, nursing her disappointments, her grievances and her future presidential ambitions while her excitable husband wanders in the wings of America’s political theater with his increasingly Vesuvian temper, his proclivity for verbal fender benders and his interesting business associates. That this idea survived her off-putting speech Tuesday night, after Obama won the right to choose a running mate, is evidence that many Democrats do not fathom the gratitude that less-blinkered Americans feel for Obama because he has closed the Clinton parenthesis in our presidential history.
After some of the boilerplate geographic pitter-patter that today’s candidates consider Periclean eloquence (" … from the hills of New Hampshire to the hollows of West Virginia … "), she obliquely but clearly identified herself as the person who would be "the strongest candidate and the strongest president" and, pointedly, the person most ready to "take charge as commander in chief." There is a fine line between admirable tenacity and delusional denial, and Clinton tiptoed across it.
For Clintons, an old dream finally fades
By JOHN F. HARRIS | 6/7/08 12:29 PM EST
This is not the end of the Clinton story. If we know anything about Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton it is that there is always another chapter, and it will not fail to be interesting.
But her departure from the presidential race Saturday almost certainly does mark the end of the longest and most important thread of the Clinton story.
For nearly 40 years, the presidency has been the organizing principle of their lives together. Her appearance at the National Building Museum to thank supporters and endorse Barack Obama represents the final, fading light of a shared dream.
Granholm, four other Michigan superdelegates endorse Obama
Gordon Trowbridge / Detroit News Washington Bureau
The core of Sen. Hillary Clinton’s support in Michigan threw its support to Sen. Barack Obama today, releasing a list of endorsements as Clinton suspended her campaign and gave her full-throated support to Obama as the presumptive Democratic nominee.
Saturday’s endorsements came from Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Lt. Gov. John Cherry and U.S. Reps. John Dingell, Sander Levin and Dale Kildee.
"More than any other state in the nation, Michigan needs a president who will fight for Michigan and our working families," Granholm and Cherry said in a statement released just after Clinton completed her concession speech in Washington.
Some Clinton supporters refuse to back Obama
by Kyla King | The Grand Rapids Press
Saturday June 07, 2008, 7:22 AM
GRAND RAPIDS — Sen. Hillary Clinton may be ending her campaign Saturday and endorsing Sen. Barack Obama as the democratic presidential nominee, but don’t expect the same from Judy Hackett, one of Clinton’s Grand Rapids supporters.
The 67-year-old will not be voting for Obama and wishes her preferred candidate would start a "third independent party."
"I would never vote for him even if she’s on the ticket," said Hackett, a retired social worker. "There would be a lot of Republicans I would not vote for; I would just stay home.
More states go into play for presidency
Almost precisely at the midpoint between the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3 and the general election on Nov. 4, the general election campaign is on. Neither party’s nominee swept the primaries. John McCain’s narrow popular vote margins in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida and most of the Super Tuesday states, combined with the Republicans’ winner-take-all delegate allocation rules, effectively gave him the Republican nomination on Feb. 6. Mike Huckabee made it official by withdrawing after the March 4 Texas and Ohio primaries.
Barack Obama’s big delegate margins in caucus states, combined with Democrats’ proportionate representation rules, gave him what proved to be an insurmountable lead in February, when he won 11 straight contests. Hillary Clinton carried the popular vote (unless you allocate all the "uncommitted" votes in Michigan to Obama), but could not overtake Obama’s delegate lead. The super-delegates gave Obama a delegate majority by the evening of the last primaries on June 3. It took Clinton another 24 hours to decide to end her candidacy, after it became clear that Obama wouldn’t be stampeded into making her his vice presidential nominee.
State House hoists anti-business flag
CEO Magazine asked the top executives of 605 American companies to rank the states based on the best and worst places to do business. Michigan finished third from the bottom.
But don’t worry — House Democrats are working for all their worth to claim the No. 1 worst state title for Michigan.
Since the start of the year, the Democratic-controlled House has moved a flurry of bills that, if adopted, would make Michigan even less competitive for jobs and investment. Among them:
- An identity theft package that would require businesses to notify individuals each time their personal information is transferred outside the company’s data base. The result would be a costly paperwork nightmare for nearly every business and organization in the state that maintains computer files on customers, members or employees.
State House fuss over Ford Airport funds may be misguided
Posted by Ken Kolker | The Grand Rapids Press June 07, 2008 23:12PM
GRAND RAPIDS — State House Republicans are expressing outrage over what they call political games by Democrats that could cost Gerald R. Ford International Airport millions of dollars and leave two projects on the drawing board.
But airport officials say the situation is not as dire as it is being portrayed locally, and some of the critics concede they are fuzzy on facts.
"I don’t know the details of what the projects are, but I know they’re crucial," said state Rep. Kevin Green, R-Wyoming, who is quoted in a Republican press release slamming Democrats and describing the potential loss of $9 million in federal funds to Ford airport.
Case won’t faze campaign finance law, experts say
BY DAWSON BELL • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • June 8, 2008
Geoffrey Fieger’s acquittal in federal court last week — cleared of campaign finance crimes after admitting to reimbursing friends and employees for their campaign donations –might make some people believe such practices are kosher.
But don’t count on it.
Campaign finance experts contacted by the Free Press last week were unanimous in their view about what Fieger’s acquittal means for the future of campaign finance law enforcement: next to nothing.
Newt Gingrich
Sunday, June 8, 2008
total spending must be less than total revenue. Of course, just because this model is simple doesn’t mean it is easy to achieve. However, it is possible.
I know because from 1995 to 1997, John Kasich, Budget Committee Chairman; Bill Archer, Ways and Means Committee Chairman; Bob Livingston, Appropriations Committee Chairman; Majority Leader Dick Armey and I worked to balance the federal budget. We applied a set of common-sense principles that worked, leading to budget surpluses from 1997 to 2000.
First, we were prepared to reduce discretionary spending, eliminate waste, challenge traditional inefficiencies and take on fraud. We also were ready to tell stubborn bureaucracies they had to achieve more with less, just like the private sector had been doing for years.
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June 8th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
[...] Laugh Lines wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptIf we know anything about Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton it is that there is always another chapter, and it will not fail to be interesting. But her departure from the presidential race Saturday almost certainly does mark the end of … [...]
June 8th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
[...] of Interest 6-8-08 Posted in June 8th, 2008 by in Uncategorized Articles of Interest 6-8-08 And she broke what had been a disciplined silence on women’s rights and women’s grievances, [...]
June 8th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
[...] Read the rest of this great post here [...]
June 8th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
[...] of Interest 6-8-08 Tahman Bradley wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptHillary Clinton may be ending her [...]
June 8th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
[...] Mark W. Rutherford wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptSaturday June 07, 2008, 7:22 AM. GRAND RAPIDS — Sen. Hillary Clinton may be ending her campaign Saturday and endorsing Sen. Barack Obama as the democratic presidential nominee, but don’t expect the same from Judy Hackett, … Read the rest of this great post here [...]
June 8th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
[...] Articles of Interest 6-8-08 CAMPAIGN SCHOOL…ends, after over 50 managers for various State Representative campaigns finished a 3-day, intensive campaign strategy and tactics seminar. We feel we have recruited one of the strongest classes of candidates from across … [...]
June 14th, 2008 at 8:11 am
[...] Articles of Interest 6-8-08 Case won’t faze campaign finance law, experts say BY DAWSON BELL • FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER • June 8, 2008. Geoffrey Fieger’s acquittal in federal court last week — cleared of campaign finance crimes after admitting to reimbursing … [...]