Democratic Candidates Square Off in First Debate

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written April 27, 2007

The eight democratic contenders participated in their first major debate last night on the campus of South Carolina State University. Sadly, I missed the entire event, but not surprisingly there’s no shortage of print coverage of the debate in the blogosphere and mainstream print media to fill me in on what I missed. Based on the reports I've read, foreign policy topics (notably Iraq and Iran) produced several testy exchanges originating on the left-wing side of the party from Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich . Overall, the pundits appear to agree that overall the debate was a rather tame affair that produced neither any regrettable emotional outbursts on the part of the candidates nor a shakeup of the current front-runners -- Clinton, Edwards, and Obama.

In the hope of finding a video replay of the event I went to MSNBC’s website, but all they are offering is a measly 13 minute 50 second segment from the full 90 minute debate. What about the other 75 minutes? Oh, I should point out the network is offering a full length transcript if you have the time, patience, and will power to click through 20 web pages of text. So the network is providing a full transcription, but not the full video. If this were year 2004, I would cut MSNBC some slack for this omission. Offering 90 minutes of video in the form of multiple shorter segments is not an unreasonable expectation.

The next major debate features the Republican candidates on May 3 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, CA. MSNBC will again televise the debate, but in a very creative and interactive twist the Politico.com will stream the event over the Internet and provide viewers an opportunity to question the candidates in real-time. Finally, the debate forum meets Web 2.0. And hopefully, this time, MSNBC will make the full length video replay available afterwards on its website!!!

Technorati Tags: giant podium, music, politics,debate,MSNBC,Democratic,Republican

Geekalicious Political Website

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Teenacide Records

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written April 24, 2007

GEEKALICIOUS! Perhaps that should replace the delicious tag for marking creative and unexpected new uses of youtube. The fine folks at Expertvoter.org have created a website that organizes youtube videos of the presidential candidates by policy issue. Want to know what a candidate’s thoughts are on the war in Iraq, immigration, energy policy, health care, or some other not so trivial policy issue? The Expertvoter website seems to me to be a fun if not quick and dirty way of discovering where the candidates stand on a variety of policy topics. At the very least, the website makes for a nifty digital photomontage of Brooks Bros suits.

Romney Discusses Biggest Issues Facing America

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written April 23, 2007

I finally tore myself away from the Yankees-Red Sox series to indulge my fix of You Choose ’08 videos. First up: Mitt Romney describing the “biggest issue that America faces” – a lofty enough subject for any serious presidential contender. In the span of 1 minute, 48 seconds, Romney goes on to identify not just one, but eight whopper issues facing the country:
1) The spread of radical Jihad
2) Nuclear proliferation
3) The emergence of Asia as an economic competitor
4) A deteriorating family structure (is this code for Romney’s opposition to same sex marriage?)
5) Better schools
6) Better health care
7) The environment
8) Energy independence

Shouldn't Iraq be at the top of the list? Other hot button issues left out of the great eight: global climate change, free trade, and immigration.

Top Six Presidential Fundraisers Suckle on Large Donors

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written on April 17, 2007

More news on the fundraising prowess of the presidential candidates in Q1 – 79% of the total funds raised by the candidates came from large donations ($1,000 or more per donation). Small contributions of $200 or less accounted for only 14% of total candidate fundraising in Q1. The Campaign Finance Institute out of the George Washington University provides a break down of the relative contribution of donations of various size for each candidate. Looking at the top three Republican fundraisers, Romney pulled in 88% of total funds from large donors. Giuliani wasn’t far behind with 87% and McCain with 74%. The top three Democratic fundraising also relied heavily on big donors. Clinton’s share from the $1,000+ donation set was 86%. For Edwards it was 77%. Obama, however, seems to have broken away from the pack with respect to leveraging small donors. Though large donations filled the bulk of his campaign chest, he did manage to pull in the largest share of small donations of the top six fundraisers at 22%. This fact bodes well for the Obama campaign as it indicates that he is building a strong and economically diverse base of support. The percentage share of donations of $200 or less were as follows for the other top fundraisers:

Clinton – 9%
Edwards – 15%
Romney – 6%
Giuliani – 7%
McCain – 19%

Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani Lead All Candidates According to Latest Gallup Poll

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written April 10, 2007

The survey-obsessed folks at the Gallup Poll released results of their latest round of polling of the Presidential candidates. Hillary Clinton leads the democratic field by a wide margin -- 38% versus 19% for second place Obama and 15% for third place Edwards. On the Republican side, Rudy Giuliani enjoys a comfortable first place lead with 38% support compared to 16% for McCain and 10% for Fred Thompson. Mitt Romney trails far behind with just 6% support among those polled.

Does money matter in predicting who leads in the polls at this early stage? These Gallup results point to mixed results. Hillary Clinton raised about $1M more than Obama, but her commanding lead in this Gallup Poll suggests she’s getting more bang for the dollar. “The survey results suggest that while Obama may have had a great deal of financial momentum in the past quarter, it was not matched by any increase in voter support,” says Frank Newport of Gallup. Romney raked in $23M (almost $10M more than Giuliani) yet he’s trailing far behind in the Republican field. What’s not clear is how much the candidates actually spent in Q1. That data will be reported April 15. Check out the graphs below for the Gallup results.

$106 Million Flows into Candidates’ Campaign Coffers in Q1

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written April 2, 2007

Senator Hilary Clinton and Mitt Romney crushed their respective party foes in fundraising for the first quarter ending March 31. Clinton’s campaign pulled in an impressive $26 million while Romney raised an equally impressive $23 million. Both figures far exceed Q1 presidential campaign fundraising levels from previous years. The other big fundraising news of the day was Senator McCain’s lackluster yield of $12.5 million.

How successful was Barack Obama? That question remains to be answered. His campaign has until April 15 to disclose Q1 figures. All told, the candidates raked in nearly $106 million though it’s not clear how much of the tally for each candidate is earmarked for the general campaign versus the primary campaign. With more states, including populous California and New York, proposing to move up their primaries to February 5, 2008, it’s even more important for the candidates to shore up their financial base early on. How much will a seat in the White House cost? With nine months still remaining before the first round of primaries it’s scary to think how much more money the candidates will inhale. Below are the tallies as of today.

Clinton $26M
Edwards $14M
Richardson $6M
Dodd $4M
Biden $3M
Total $53M

Romney $23M
Giuliani $15M
McCain $12.5M
Brownback $2M
Total $53M

Tommy Thompson Enters Fight for Republican Nomination

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written April 1, 2007


Tommy Thompson threw his hat into the ring today, becoming the latest entry in a growing field of Republican Presidential candidates. The former four-term Governor of Wisconsin and former Secretary of Health & Human Services during George W’s first term announced his candidacy on ABC’s “This Week” program. You can watch the video replay here.

During the show, George Stephanopoulis politely questions Thompson on his views concerning Iraq, health care, and the Gonzales scandal. On Iraq policy, Thompson said he would have a “completely different Iraq strategy” than President Bush. If elected, he would put the matter of whether US troops should stay in the country up to a vote by the Maliki government.

Certainly it’s a good policy to know whether the Iraqi government officially wants U.S. troops on the ground, but if Thompson was President today would he favor the sentiment of the Iraqi government over the sentiment of a majority of both chambers of the U.S. Congress in deciding whether and when to yank out the troops? On the subject of health care, Thompson believes every American should have health insurance. His idea is to aggregate uninsured individuals into a large group and then let health care providers bid on serving the group -- an auction of sorts. Thompson calls himself the “reliable conservative” in the Republican field. He doesn’t have an official website up yet and will no doubt be pressed to kick his fundraising activities into high gear.