Team Obama Is Courting Everybody But the Press – washingtonpost.com, By Howard Kurtz, Washington Post Staff Writer

GREENVILLE, S.C. — When reporters filed onto Barack Obama’s press plane after his acrimonious debate with Hillary Rodham Clinton last week, one thing was noticeably missing amid the wine and snacks on the Boeing 737.

There was no high-level campaign spinner to argue that Obama had gotten the better of the exchanges or that the verbal fisticuffs were part of some precisely calculated strategy. On the press bus the next day, mid-level aides dealt with travel logistics but made no attempt to shape the coverage. [mjh: gasp!]

In an age of all-out political warfare, the Obama campaign is a bit of an odd duck: It is not obsessed with winning each news cycle. The Illinois senator remains a remote figure to those covering him, and his team, while competent and professional, makes only spotty attempts to drive its preferred story lines in the press.

McCain Warns: “There Will Be Other Wars” – Politics on The Huffington Post, by Sam Stein

The presidential candidate who sang “Bomb bomb Iran” is already looking towards the war after the war in Iraq.

Sen. John McCain told a crowd of supporters on Sunday, “It’s a tough war we’re in. It’s not going to be over right away. There’s going to be other wars.” Offering more of his increasingly bleak “straight talk,” he repeated the claim: “I’m sorry to tell you, there’s going to be other wars. We will never surrender but there will be other wars.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/27/mccain-warns-there-will_n_83459.html

One thing that *sickened* me during DUHbya’s first speech after 9/11 was him saying we had entered the *first* war of the 21st Century. Republicans may call that realistic, but it didn’t have to become a war and human beings NEVER, EVER need to WAR again. (Sigh, though we will, idiots that we are.) mjh

Breaking down the caucus by Damian Garde, Daily Lobo

The state has 38 delegates – 26 who are pledged to vote for specific candidates and 12 “super delegates” who vote on their own accord, said Laura E. Sanchez, executive director of the New Mexico Democratic Party.

The pledged delegates are divided up by what percentage of the popular vote a candidate receives. For example, if Sen. Hillary Clinton gets 27 percent of the popular vote, she will earn seven delegates.

However, candidates must garner at least 15 percent of voters in order to get any delegates.

The “super delegates” are high-ranking Democrats from around the state, including Gov. Bill Richardson, Sen. Jeff Bingaman and Rep. Tom Udall. They can vote for any candidate they choose.

Voting in the caucus will be done privately, unlike in Iowa and Nevada, where supporters gather in a public place for a head count.

“The New Mexico Caucus is more of a primary,” Sanchez said. “It’s called a firehouse caucus – voters will go in, get a ballot and mark it in a booth.”

On the ballot will be Sens. Clinton and Barack Obama and former Sens. John Edwards and Mike Gravel.

Voters can also choose Richardson, Rep. Dennis Kucinich and Sens. Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd, all of whom dropped out of the race before the ballot was finalized.

In August, delegates from around the country will gather in Denver for the Democratic National Convention to name the party’s presidential nominee.

For information on absentee ballots and polling locations, visit NmDemocrats.org.

New Mexico is hardly the only state going to the polls Feb. 5.

On Super Tuesday, there will be 24 elections – 19 two-party primaries, three Democratic caucuses and two Republican caucuses.

A Margin That Will Be Hard To Marginalize – washingtonpost.com, By Alec MacGillis, Washington Post Staff Writer

“I did not travel around this state and see a white South Carolina or a black South Carolina. I saw South Carolina,” he said. The election, he said, “is not about rich versus poor or young versus old, and it’s not about black versus white. This election is about the past versus the future.” …

“Don’t let people make you afraid,” he said in Kingstree. [mjh: Obama is the anti-Republicans. Republicans preach constant fear.]

This Time, McCain Defused Conservative Attacks – washingtonpost.com, By Juliet Eilperin and Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post Staff Writers

[Notorious gasbag Lush] Limbaugh led the way with a verbal blitz, not just against McCain but against his closest rival in South Carolina, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.

“I’m here to tell you, if either of these two guys get the nomination, it’s going to destroy the Republican Party. It’s going to change it forever, be the end of it,” Limbaugh fumed on his radio show Tuesday. It was a line of argument that he kept up all week long.

DeLay resurfaced on Fox News Friday to excoriate McCain for working with “the most liberal Democrats in the Senate,” for passing an overhaul of campaign finance laws that “completely neutered the Republican Party,” and single-handedly thwarted oil drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

“McCain has done more to hurt the Republican Party than any elected official I know of,” said DeLay, the former House majority leader, who was personally damaged by McCain’s Senate probe of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a probe that implicated numerous DeLay associates.

Conservative blogger Patrick Ruffini, on the Web site of popular radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt, implored South Carolina Republicans on Friday to vote for Huckabee, simply to extend the nomination fight in hopes that another candidate could derail McCain.

And Jim DeMint, South Carolina’s ardently conservative senator who is backing Mitt Romney, issued a message Friday to “fellow conservatives,” warning that “Washington experience is the problem, not the solution. We cannot afford to have a President who has fought for amnesty for illegal immigrants, voted against the Bush Tax Cuts, and curtailed our First Amendment rights in the ill-conceived campaign finance legislation.” He never mentioned McCain’s name, but his meaning was clear.

The assault may well have narrowed McCain’s lead over Huckabee, but it was not enough to revive the ghosts of 2000, when an insurgent McCain campaign slammed into a wall in South Carolina, and Bush, the establishment’s candidate, cruised to the White House.”

What’s Wrong With This Picture?: ACLU Is On the Loose by M.G. Bralley

Sheriff White doesn’t get it, or doesn’t care. The violation of the Constitutional rights comes from allowing the group of supporters to be closer than other citizens based on their message.

Sheriff White fails to understand the rationale behind the legal exception that allows for restricting parts of the First Amendment, specifically: speech, peaceable assembly and the right to petition government for a redress of grievances. Both protesters and supporters have equal rights. …

Sheriff White cannot get past the first criteria, content neutrality. He tries to use security as an excuse, but to do so, he has to judge the nature of the messages, pro and con.

Sheriff White was the 2004 Bush Bernalillo County re-election coordinator, when Vice President Cheney came to Rio Rancho High School to speak at a public gathering. Apparently, using “Section V. Crowd Raising and Ticket Distribution” of the Advance Manual, “Proper ticket distribution is vital to creating a well-balanced crowd and deterring potential protesters from attending events.” Sheriff White required citizens, wanting to attend, to sign a loyalty oath to the Republican Party to obtain tickets for the event.

http://mgbralley-whatswrongwiththispicture.blogspot.com/2008/01/aclu-is-on-loose.html

Ruth Marcus – Whose Stimulus Makes the Grade? – washingtonpost.com

One of the benefits of an extended presidential campaign is that it presents real-world tests for candidates. Some take the form of pop quizzes assessing contenders’ instincts in a crisis. Others are more like take-home exams — the latest, and perhaps most revealing, being competing plans for an economic stimulus.

In practical terms, this is irrelevant: The moment for stimulus will be long past by Inauguration Day. But as a way of judging how candidates view government’s role, how they balance politics and policy, and how sound their thinking is on economic policy, the proposals offer a revealing report card.

My grading starts with President Bush, because he sets the curve.

George W. Bush: B-minus. …

Barack Obama: A-minus. I criticized his previous tax plan, but Obama is at the head of the class with an intelligently designed, $120 billion stimulus plan. He would speed a $250 tax credit to most workers, followed by another $250, triggered automatically, if the economy continues on its sour path. Obama would direct a similar rebate to low- and middle-income seniors, who are also apt to spend and could get checks quickly. One demerit: Obama omits any increase in food stamp benefits, which Moody’s estimates would have the greatest bang for the buck, $1.73 for every dollar spent.

John Edwards: B-minus. …

Hillary Clinton: C-plus. Clinton, too, raised the issue early, then turned in a faulty first draft with a $70 billion stimulus plan that didn’t provide much immediate stimulation. It included a $25 billion increase in the program to help low-income Americans with heating costs — an excessive amount (the current program is under $3 billion) that probably wouldn’t kick in until next winter. Even worse was her housing plan, including a five-year freeze on subprime mortgage rates that could produce higher interest rates and reduce liquidity.

Four days later, Clinton said she would immediately implement a $40 billion tax rebate plan she had put in reserve in her first draft. Fine, but overall, the Obama plan devotes a far greater percentage to spending that is more likely to jump-start the economy.

John McCain: D-plus. …

Mitt Romney: D. …

Mike Huckabee: D-minus. …

Rudy Giuliani: Incomplete. …

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/22/AR2008012202614.html