How the Bush Administration ignored the plain meaning of “exclusive” to launch its warrantless wiretapping program.
Rarely do the two chief campaign flacks, Howard Wolfson and Bill Burton, agree. But they both tell TPM Election Central that CNN’s report this morning that there are formal talks between the Clinton and Obama campaigns over her dropping out of the race and getting the VP nod are “100% false.”
Now that doesn’t necessarily mean there aren’t some sort of back-channel communications going on. I’d be surprised if there weren’t. These people aren’t strangers to each other. They’ve all been involved together in Democratic politics for a long time. They talk. But as I said before, I’m skeptical that these discussion amount to anything approaching “formal talks.”
At the same time, I don’t doubt that CNN had what it considered to be well-placed Clinton sources feeding them these various scenarios for how the VP selection will play out and what her role might be. As I said before, it’s noteworthy in itself that some elements of Clinton’s supporters are making these kinds of noises.
In fact, Hillary’s top fundraiser, Hassan Nemazee, in an interview with TPM Election Central today, may have gone as far anyone in the Clinton camp thus far in essentially demanding she get the vice presidential nomination — or else:
“[T]here’s a risk that if she isn’t invited on the ticket, Hillary’s political and financial supporters may not feel compelled to be as integrated and involved in the Obama campaign in order to provide the maximum support that he’ll need to prevail in November.”
If she does get out of the race before the convention — which I think is still the most plausible scenario — it will be only after extensive negotiations over all manner of issues, political as well as personal. Today’s rumblings may just be the start to those negotiations. And as any good negotiator knows, your opening position better be as favorable to you as possible and then some.
SurveyUSA has another vice presidential choice run-down, this time of Ohio. The baseline number — McCain vs. Obama without any veep name attached — has Obama up by nine points. Obama 48%, McCain 39%.
CNN seems to be walking back its report about those “formal talks” between the Obama and Clinton campaigns, supposedly involving her withdrawing and him naming her as VP. Formal talks have devolved to “Clinton insiders and close friends are actively floating three scenarios which they believe will influence whether or how the two teams merge.”
Here’s how CNN describes it now:
Several close friends and supporters of Hillary Clinton tell CNN they are pushing for a “graceful exit strategy” that would allow the Clinton and Obama camps to come together, and for the New York senator to save face should she fail to become the nominee. The discussions are not taking place between the campaigns, but rather among informal campaign advisers on both sides who are trying to actively influence and shape the debate as the competition nears a close June 3.
Meanwhile, Hillary claims it was the Obama camp that planted the CNN story; and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), a prominent Hillary supporter, is pushing Obama-Hillary as “the strongest ticket” (assuming Obama gets the nomination, of course).
Everybody’s talking about Hillary’s RFK remark. So without getting into what it means, since we’re getting inundated by all sorts of interpretations, we wanted to share the actual video with you, to draw your own conclusions …
Late Update: Here is Sen. Clinton’s statement clarifying her earlier remarks a few hours later …
Latest from Newsweek.
Clinton (48%) vs. McCain (44%)
Obama (46%) vs. McCain (46%)
Newsweek’s article, linked above, breaks down the numbers to look at the role race is playing in the contest.
If you’re wondering what that boomlet about ‘formal veep’ talks between Clinton and Obama was all about, I direct you to this snippet from a piece in tonight’s Post …
A report in Time magazine said that former president Bill Clinton is driving the effort to secure a slot for his wife on the ticket, and Clinton campaign aides said it would not be the first time that he has ventured out on his own.
I’m intrigued by the series of veep selection polls SurveyUSA released last week, putting Obama up against McCain with different vice presidential possibilities in a few key states. As noted previously, I’m skeptical about the significance of the veep matchings because I think much of the variance is simply a matter of name recognition. But each poll also has a straight head-to-head match without other names attached.
In Ohio, SUSA has Obama beating McCain by 9 points.
In Pennsylvania, SUSA has Obama beating McCain by 8 points.
In New Mexico, SUSA has Obama tied with McCain.
In Virginia, SUSA has Obama beating McCain by 7 points.
Ohio and Pennsylvania are at the center of arguments that Obama runs weak with non-college educated and rural whites in Appalachia and surrounding regions. I’m cautiously optimistic that Obama can win both, especially Pennsylvania. But is he really that far ahead? Other recent polls of Ohio have shown it consistently within the margin of error but with McCain slightly ahead. Pennsylvania meanwhile has been trending in the direction of an 8 point. And the most recent poll, by Quinnipiac, has Obama up by 6.
Each of these results are consistent with the trend from other polls. But they’re definitely on the high end of Obama’s leads. SUSA has had a pretty respectable record this year. So I’ll be curious to see if leads of that size firm up. If McCain lost Ohio and Pennsylvania, he’d be toast.
Late Update: TPM Reader DE follows up …
My uneducated opinion is that we’re now seeing a “post-primary” Obama bounce. I expected it to be between 10-15 points, and that looks about right. Some Clinton supporters, who’d previously picked McCain over Obama in these polls, are now switching over to Obama.
I think the gap tightens over the summer until the media really does some vetting of McCain. They’ve started, but it’s only in first gear so far. Whereas with Obama, they’ve already run the Indie 500……..
The first point especially is a shrewd one. Remember that both Obama and Clinton were at least even with McCain even as substantial numbers of each Democrats’ supporters were saying they wouldn’t vote for the other Dem if he or she were nominee. How much headway Obama makes with these hardcore Hillary supporters remains an open questions. But certainly some of that animus from the heat of the primaries will dissipate. So in addition to the bounce any nominee gets after the securing the nomination, I think we will see that both Democrats’ numbers were artificially depressed vis a vis McCain as long as the nomination battle continued.