NDN Blog

Here's a quick overview of some coverage NDN has received in the past few weeks:

Issue of Illegal Immigration Is Quandary for Democrats, 11/2/2007, Washington Post

Illegal immigrant licensing drives debate, 11/1/2007, Los Angeles Times

Candidates Weigh Illegal Immigrants' Driving Rights, 10/31/2007, NPR

Obama faces dilemma in chasing Clinton, 10/26/2007, Reuters

Richardson pitches Latin American plan, 10/25/2007, Los Angeles Times

The Money Trail: Presidential Candidates Dole Out Their Ad Dollars, 10/15/2007, AdWeek

Stephen Colbert's presidential candidacy was denied this morning by a 13-3 vote. The executive committee of the South Carolina Democratic party cited his legitimacy as a candidate, as well as his time spent campaigning in the state as grounds for denial. (Vowing to "crush Georgia" at the University of South Carolina doesn't fulfill that requirement?)

Gilda Cobb-Hunter, who voted for Colbert, described the executive committee's debate over Colbert as:

"Vigorous," spearheaded by a "well-organized" group of 13 that she said seemed determined to keep Colbert off the ballot. "I would love to see that kind of energy put toward party building — they were ginned up," she said, adding jokingly, "[Like,] 'We have to save the state from Stephen Colbert!' Which I think is hilarious."

Because of his place in the polls, one may wonder whether citing legitimacy was the right angle. Either way, tonight should be interesting.

For more information on NDN's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election, click here.

The video below is of Mark Penn, Chief Strategist to the Clinton campaign, in the spin room at Drexel University after last night's debate. Watch how he discusses comprehensive immigration reform with Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times:

For more information on NDN's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election, click here.

- Chris Cillizza from The Fix offered up his usual winners and losers from last night's debate. (Sadly, the candidates didn't touch on the PA state fossil. Nor did they touch on the offensive strategy of the Philadelphia Eagles, which is clearly a concern for the City of Brotherly Love.)

- At a news conference today, Sen. Pete Domenici defended Hillary Clinton's debate performance last night, saying that "it was all against you and you looked terrific."

- Former Mexican President Vicente Fox responded to a typically harsh quote from Congressman Tom Tancredo's website by saying, "He should not have a Spanish name."

- Today, AFSCME endorsed Senator Clinton and the New Hampshire affiliate of the SEIU endorsed John Edwards.

- The State offers a look at how many candidates will be spending time in South Carolina over the next few days.

- During an appearance on "The Tonight Show," Ron Paul told host Jay Leno that his campaign's been doing so well "that there's probably a risk I could win." Congressman Paul may be doing well, but apparently not well enough to best Stephen Colbert.

- In last night's debate, Governor Bill Richardson made a point to recognize Bill Barloon, one of two men whose release he negotiated with Saddam Hussein in 1995 when he was a Congressman. That hostage situation is the focus of a recent ad by Richardson - entitled "Only One" - that is definitely worth checking out.

- Greg Sargent from TPM Election Central highlights a direct mail piece from Sen. McCain's campaign. The heading: McCain: the only Conservative that can beat Senator Clinton. Not so says the Giuliani campaign, referring to a new Quinnipiac poll.

- Speaking of Senator McCain, check out his new ads - "Guts" and "Woodstock" - which touts his opposition to wasteful spending.

- The Huffington Post reports that the GOP candidates are rescheduling yet another minority debate. This time, they cite scheduling conflicts for why they won't be able to attend the Congressional Black Caucus Institute's debate that was slated for November 4th.

- Why CNN chose to analyze the dance moves of Barack Obama, Rudy Giuliani, and Hillary Clinton is beyond me. But it's Halloween so anything goes.

- As evidence for the aforementioned sentiment, here's a picture of Sen. Chuck Hagel dressed up as Joe Biden for President at this morning's Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.

For more information on NDN's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election, click here.

Just a reminder: Remember to set your DVR to record tomorrow night's Democratic Presidential Debate. It will begin at 9 PM EST and will occur at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA. Tim Russert and Brian Williams will moderate. (I can only hope they ask each candidate to name the Pennsylvania State Fossil. Head's up: it's the Phacops rana.)

Two filmmakers in Virginia have documented the immigration debate as it played out in Prince William County, Virginia. They created a YouTube account where they posted their videos as part of what they call an "interactive documentary." Check out the video below for an example:

The AP/CNN is saying that Senator Sam Brownback will be ending his bid for the presidency.

This post is a follow-up to a prior post from April covering online advertisements in the 2008 campaign.

To show how new technologies are playing a role in the political process, Nielsen recently analyzed the web traffic of the presidential campaigns. A noteworthy part of its analysis is the McCain campaign's impressive online advertising campaign. From PC World:

While he only pulled in 58,000 unique Web visitors in August, Sen. John McCain's (R.-Ariz.) online advertising effort topped all other candidates. McCain had 4.3 million sponsored link impressions in August, followed by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D.-Ohio) with 1.8 million sponsored links, Romney with 1.7 million and Clinton with 522,000, Nielsen/NetRatings reported.

4.3 million sponsored links?! That just goes to show the power of technology in maximizing your reach for a reasonable price. Of course, this is something we at the New Politics Institute have been discussing for quite some time.

The Washington Post looks at how states have responded to the federal government's inability to enact comprehensive immigration reform. As the piece lays out, not only are the intent and motivation behind these laws varied, but also the potential effect on future comprehensive legislation:

As the Bush administration and Congress sit gridlocked on an immigration overhaul, states are jumping into the debate as never before. In the process, they are creating a national patchwork of incongruous immigration laws that some observers fear will make it far more difficult to enact any comprehensive, federally mandated bill down the line.

Governor Eliot Spitzer of New York cites the failure of the federal government and the necessity of addressing immigration reform to explain his actions:

"The federal government has failed to establish a coherent or rational policy, and as a consequence, we are left to deal with this on a state level. We're left dealing with the reality of up to 1 million [illegal] immigrants in New York. . . . I would prefer to have [them] carrying a legitimate form of identification, a driver's license that allows them to get insurance, allows our law enforcement to track their driving records and brings these drivers out of the shadows."

Unfortunately, not all states have the best interests of immigrants at heart, which is why NDN will continue to fight for comprehensive immigration reform.

It's official: Former Vice President Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize along with the United Nation's Intergovernmental Climate Change Panel. From the Nobel press release:

Al Gore has for a long time been one of the world's leading environmentalist politicians. He became aware at an early stage of the climatic challenges the world is facing. His strong commitment, reflected in political activity, lectures, films and books, has strengthened the struggle against climate change. He is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted.

I guess the British Court's ruling on the errors of Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" wasn't a factor after all.