The Nimble Books Blog

Hillary’s Math Problem | Newsweek Politics: Campaign 2008 | Newsweek.com

Hillary Clinton may be poised for a big night tonight, with wins in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island. Clinton aides say this will be the beginning of her comeback against Barack Obama. There’s only one problem with this analysis: they can’t count.

I’m no good at math either, but with the help of Slate’s Delegate Calculator I’ve scoped out the rest of the primaries, and even if you assume huge Hillary wins from here on out, the numbers don’t look good for Clinton. In order to show how deep a hole she’s in, I’ve given her the benefit of the doubt every week for the rest of the primaries.

I love definitive articles like this one. Tip of the hat to Jonathan Alter.

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Official Google Blog: Presidential campaign trail winds through the Googleplex

… we’ve invited all the presidential candidates to come visit our headquarters in California and share their ideas in town hall-style meetings with our employees.

In February we were honored to host Sen. Hillary Clinton on campus for the first candidate visit, and last Friday we welcomed Sen. John McCain as our second visitor. We’re flattered that the other candidates have responded positively to our invitations, and we’re working to schedule their visits over the next few months.

Just as the Internet poses interesting policy questions, it also helps empower citizens with more information. So, to help potential voters learn more about the candidates and their views on the issues, we’ve posted the complete, unedited videos of these candidate talks on YouTube. Take some time to check out Sen. Clinton’s talk and Sen. McCain’s (as well as a special interview that Sen. McCain did with YouTube’s CitizenTube).


GoOgle
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What? Obama hasn’t been to Google yet? That’s one of those events that seems so inevitable that it’s surprising it hasn’t happened yet.

Obama’s instinctive cautious progressivism will play well at the GooglePlex.

Here’s a hypothetical question for Google employees to pose at the confab: if Larry Page and Sergey Brin offer to let Obama use their 767, will he renounce his “no private jets” pledge?

Technorati Tags: Google, Obama, Google Obama

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I was a day late on this, but in this case, at least, better late than never.

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Obama seeks to settle racial doubts - Tom Curry - MSNBC.com

WASHINGTON - If the Democrats choose Sen. Barack Obama to be their presidential nominee in 2008, will his skin color and his name cost him enough votes to lose the election? Signaling that he knows this worry is on some Democrats’ minds, Obama addressed the issues of skin color and identity during his tour of New Hampshire last weekend.

The terrible thing is that he’ll never know if race was an issue unless he wins.

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Major announcement: Obama backs Bears - NFL - MSNBC.com

WASHINGTON - Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, a potential presidential candidate, planned to end weeks of speculation Monday and tell a national audience … he supports his hometown Chicago Bears.

Having some fun with all the political hype, Obama mocked the frenzied interest by taping the introduction to ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” game between his hometown Chicago Bears and the St. Louis Rams.

“So tonight I’d like to put all the doubts to rest. And tonight, after a lot of thought and a good deal of soul-searching, I would like to announce to my hometown of Chicago and all of America that I’m ready …”

And to top it all of he’s got a sense of humor!

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Fearless Voices | Bella DePaulo: Barack Obama for President? Who’s the Decider? | The Huffington Post

Colin Powell, had he run in 2000, was poised to be the ultimate uniter. He was a Republican embraced by Democrats, and an African-American adored across the lines of color and creed. In a nation never quite at peace with issues of race, the mere presence of an African American atop the Republican ticket could have offered hope for a better and less fractious country. Instead, the 2000 election split the electorate nearly down the middle, and the candidate with the short end of the popular vote took the White House. Four years later, even more Americans were passionate about politics, but as many seemed driven to the polls by scorn for the opposing candidate as by unmitigated devotion to their own.

When I hear scholars and pundits claim that single men lead “warped lives” until they marry and become magically transformed, and when I read that bachelors “eat poorly, carouse too much, drive too fast,” and when I am treated to the thousandth rendition of the morality tale of how a young and foolish George W. Bush was saved from a life of alcoholism and recklessness by the firm admonitions of wife Laura, I remember Colin and Alma Powell. I think about what might have been, had it not been for the restraint of a spouse.”

This is absolutely ridiculous. So it’s Alma Powell’s fault? Because she asserted herself in an eminently sane and humane way?

Technorati Tags: obama, colin powell, alma powell

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From Pew Research:

Though some of this year's congressional elections are not yet decided, attention is already beginning to shift to the 2008 presidential race. Sen. Barack Obama has emerged as the leading rival to Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party's nomination.

Among registered Democrats, Sen. Clinton continues to lead by a wide margin ­ 39% of party voters back her, compared with 23% for Obama. But the margin narrows among independent voters; 27% say they would like to see Clinton win the Democratic nomination, while 21% favor Obama.

A classic "argue it both ways" factoid: on the one hand, twenty-three percent is twenty-seven-point-oh-oh-one percentage points short of a popular majority; O has a long way to go.  On the other hand, being #2 this early in the race is not bad at all.

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 Incoming!

They may be leaders for the next few decades simply due to inertia, but it's very clear that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are liars who think nothing of insulting Democratic primary voters who play by the rules.

The American people know this.  They know that Democratic Senators are moral lepers, weaklings, and that is the only reason we aren't further ahead when the Republicans screw everything up.\

Democrats crack me up.  Thanks to The Political Pit Bull for spotting this.

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From Monsters And Critics:

Obama addressed a crowd of more than 800 at the California African-American Museum on Friday.  Then actor Ben Affleck joined him to promote a state proposition at a news conference at the University of Southern California....

"It was nice to have Ben Affleck there," said Alexander Shams, a 16-year-old freshman, "but Barack Obama was the star."

Wow, what a backhanded compliment.

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White voters have a discouraging tendency to say they will vote for black candidates, then do another thing when the poll curtains close.  Apparently, about five percent of poll respondents do this. This pattern has been seen over and over again in state-wide elections in the last twenty years: Tom Bradley in California, Doug Wilder in Virginia.  According to Earl Ofari Hutchinson on HuffPo,

"a 2006 study in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, a Yale political economist found that white Republicans are 25 percentage points more likely to cross over and vote for a white Democratic senatorial candidate against a black Republican foe."

The proverb says white people can't jump: the question for 2008 is will they pump fake Barack Obama into thinking he has more support than he really does?

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He’s not all that humble.

I saw him on Larry King Live when Audacity of Hope was released.  Larry King asked him whether he would consider running for President.

Obama wasn’t very coy.  He told a funny story about how every U.S. Senator wakes up in the morning and sees a future President in the mirror.

It was the non-verbals that really struck me.   His grin got bigger, and I thought to myself, “there is someone whose head has been turned.”

Pro: humble people don’t usually become President.

Con:  he might as well have painted a bulls-eye on his back.  How long does he think it will take for Bill and Hillary Clinton to figure out a way to take Obama down a peg?

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Jill Zuckman, writing in the Chicago Tribune, neatly summarized the evolution of his thinking about running for President:

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Last January, on "Meet the Press," Obama told Russert, "I will serve out my full six-year term," adding that his thinking had not changed since he took office.

"So you will not run for president or vice president in 2008?" Russert asked.

"I will not," Obama said.

In May, he told the Tribune that "there are people who think I should make an announcement tomorrow that I'm running for the presidency.”

"I tell them," he said, "that I'm focusing on my job as a senator from Illinois."

Now, however, he has told Time that he will revisit the question in November.

"When the election is over and my book tour is done, I will think about how I can be most useful to the country and how I can reconcile that with being a good dad and a good husband," Obama said. "I haven't completely decided or unraveled that puzzle yet."

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Pro: a successful President must be flexible enough to reconsider policy in light of changing events.  (Are you listening, George W. Bush?)

Con:  the guy’s a standard-issue politico, just like McCain said in the ethics flap in 2005.

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