- Warning: you are reading this correctly. Tomorrow, Joe Biden and Sam Brownback (two Senators AND presidential candidates) will be hosting a forum on Iraq. They will discuss the Biden-Brownback amendment, which calls for a federal system that allows separate Sunni, Shiia and Kurdish states. (Read more about Biden's Iraq stance in the Boston Globe.)
- For conspiracy sake, be sure not to miss DraftGore.com, the group responsible for the full-page ad in the New York Times that asks Gore to run.
- If you haven't yet seen it, Chris Cillizza from The Fix gives a re-cap of the winners and losers of this week's GOP candidate debate in Michigan. Cillizza also ponders whether a main focal point of the debate - Hillary Clinton - will benefit or suffer from her opponents' remarks.
- Hillary Clinton - who recently said some noteworthy things to the Editorial Board of the Boston Globe - unveiled her innovation agenda yesterday. Be sure to check it out.
- Gov. Bill Richardson - who remains eager to move to third place in the Democratic field - delivered a speech in New Hampshire today on education policy, focusing particularly on No Child Left Behind. Before you check out the speech, jog your memory of Richardson's stance on NCLB with this video - one of his finer moments during the CNN-YouTube debate.
- USA Today has an interesting article on the role of the candidates' children in the campaigns. Spinning off directly from that article, the Romney boys show that they are good sports by welcoming Meghan McCain to the Blogosphere.
- Check out this video of Chris Dodd discussing his plans to bring broadband to rural America. (Promotional shout out: Policies like these build off the great work of NDN friends like One Economy.)
- In a live discussion with the Washington Post, Senator Sam Brownback confirmed that he needs to place fourth in Iowa to continue his campaign. (Quick, semi-unrelated question: Why does Brownback need to make sure Tom Tancredo and others know that his mother is not an illegal immigrant?)
- Today in Iowa, John McCain delivered his speech on Health Care. View more of his plan on his website. Note: this is the third speech McCain has given recently. Prior to this, he delivered speeches to the Detroit Economic Club and the Hispanic Business Expo.
- Joe Biden explained why South Carolinians should vote for him in a session with the Editorial Board of The State.
The Obama campaign documents the history of America's Energy Policy in the clever video below. It pits rhetoric against action and ends by saying that Obama will deliver on his energy policy:
For more information on NDN's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election, click here.
As you know, NDN received quite a good deal of press coverage from our trade symposium last week, including a piece from yesterday's Politico (also below). But that's not all. NDN commentary also made its way into numerous articles focusing on a range of topics, some of which I've included below:
An editorial from today's New York Times shows how truly ineffective and unreasonable the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids have been. From the lede:
Armed squads bursting into homes in the dead of night with shotguns and automatic weapons, terrorizing families and taking away anyone who lacks identity papers, even if they have raided the wrong house. It may sound like Baghdad, but it is the suburbs of New York City, the latest among hundreds of communities around the country where federal agents have been invading homes and workplaces in search of immigrants to deport.
Federal officials say the raids are a focused campaign to catch gang members and other fugitives. That would be good if Immigration and Customs Enforcement were carefully extracting the dangerous criminal sliver from a population of 12 million illegal immigrants. But as immigration raids have vastly increased, they have become something murky and ugly.
....
The raids were stunningly ineffective. Nassau says they caught only 6 of 96 fugitives. ICE, using a looser definition of “gang member,” said it got 13 in Nassau and 15 in neighboring Suffolk. There, Peggy De La Rosa-Delgado, an American citizen, said her Huntington Station home was raided by mistake last Thursday at 5:30 a.m. It was the second predawn raid looking for the same man at the same wrong address. Her husband and three teenage sons, legal residents, were terrified, she said.
ICE officials callously shrug off such mistakes as collateral damage, but advocates for immigrants have filed a class-action lawsuit asserting that recent raids in the New York City area were unreasonable searches conducted by agents who did not show warrants and misidentified themselves as police officers.
I know Rudy is trying to prove his toughness on immigration, going back on what he said as Mayor of New York City, but two of his endorsements seem like he might be embracing the wrong people.
Remember Pete Wilson, the former Governor of California? Perhaps you remember Proposition 187 - the 1994 ballot initiative that Gov. Wilson favored and would have denied illegal immigrants social services but was overturned in federal court. (Memories of that ballot initiative galvanize California's Latino electorate, by the way.) Last week, Pete Wilson endorsed Rudy Giuliani at a press conference which Giuliani used as an excuse to skip a debate focusing on minority issues.
Does Joey Vento ring a bell? Perhaps his restaurant, Geno's steaks in Philadelphia, PA? Mr. Vento brought national attention to South Street after putting up an "English-only" sign outside of his restaurant. The sign caused quite a deal of controversy, even earning a place in Philadelphia's Mayoral debate yesterday. Joey Vento also endorses Rudy Giuliani - for reasons you can see in the video below:
I might be over-analyzing, but it just seems like Rudy may be taking it too far. Mike Huckabee, deemed the GOP's dark horse by Newt Gingrich and President Clinton, said it best in the debate Giuliani skipped:
"I want to be President of the United States, not just President of the Republican Party...frankly, I'm embarrassed. I'm embarrassed for our party and I'm embarrassed for those who didn't come, because there's long been a divide in this country and it doesn't get better when we don't show up."
Update:The New Republicweighs in on the Vento endorsement, saying "Giuliani's visit showcased a former mayor willing to pander to the lowest common denominator of immigrant-bashing."
For more information on NDN's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election, click here.
- For those interested in the media landscape, AdAgetakes a look at what the candidates have been doing on air thus far. (Note how cable advertising plays a role in some ad buys - something our New Politics Institute continues to promote.)
- Ron Paul's impressive fundraising (all things considered) gets a nod in the WSJ's Washington Wire.
- Barack Obama continues to travel across Iowa, invoking his opposition to the war, which his campaign creatively re-introduced in a new video. David Yepsen from the Des Moines Register covered one of Obama's speeches on the paper's blog.
- With the recent debut of Ann Romney's website, www.annromney.com, it's clear that the Romney campaign sees Ann as an incredible asset.
- Chris Dodd received praise on his stance on Iraq, specifically about his promise to have all troops out of Iraq by 2013. Dodd's stance, according to David Yepsen, could create an opening.
- Rudy Giuliani is up on radio in New Hampshire with "Tested." Side note: Robert Greenwald says America's Mayor has some explaining to do for skipping a debate focusing on African-American issues.
- Yesterday, Joe Biden clarified his plan for Iraq in a blog post at Huffington Post. Be sure to check it out. Today, Biden joins some of the other candidates at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Forum.
- Tom Tancredo criticized Sam Brownback for his varying stance on immigration.
- In a nod to the netroots, Elizabeth Edwards held a discussion with women from various Mom blogs in California.
- (via PrezVid) Jon Stewart points out yet another debate in which the Republican candidates decided not to participate in the following video:
For more information on NDN's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election, click here.
As you know, Senator Max Baucus delivered a major speech on U.S. Trade Policy to NDN yesterday. In case you missed it, check out some of the press coverage from our event (not including a mention from Inside U.S. Trade) below:
In a new ad, VoteVets.org responds to Rush Limbaugh's claims that American soldiers who support an end to the war in Iraq are "phony" soldiers. (USA Today has more background on Limbaugh's claims and the reaction it has generated.) Check it out below:
- First off, a reminder to watch tonight's Democratic presidential candidate debate at Dartmouth College. The debate will kick off at 9pm and will be moderated by Tim Russert, host of "Meet the Press."
- Mitt Romney announced the finalists in his Create Your Own Ad contest. Check them out on Romney's website.
- John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama addressed the Change to Win coalition yesterday. Edwards, who has courted Unions extensively, drew the most applause. (Related side note: Edwards and Obama have both walked picket lines.)
- I wonder if Duncan Hunter will follow on his promise to cut off Federal Funding to Columbia University for hosting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
- As the third quarter of fundraising comes to a close, campaigns are reaching out to donors in different ways. Take (for example) John McCain, who uses NFL great Roger Staubach to encourage supporters to get in the game. In a different tone, Joe Biden challenged his supporters to stop Republicans from expoliting 9/11, an issue that Chris Dodd has also spoken out on.
- For more on America's Mayor and his $9.11 entry-fee for fundraisers, check out CNN.
- Be sure to note Newt Gingrich's blog post on Mike Huckabee's website. Gingrich was a guest blogger on Huckabee's Vertical Day campaign.
- Barack Obama has been hyping his rally in New York City tomorrow. His campaign put out the teaser video below to get people "fired up:"
For more information on NDN's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election, click here.
The latest issue of The Economist features a flattering profile of Governor Bill Richardson, whose many successes (and few failures) in areas like diplomacy make up what has turned out to be an incredibly impressive resumé. Yet still, he remains among the second-tier of his fellow Democratic candidates. To vault himself to the top, the article suggests one community Richardson could naturally turn to for support: Hispanics. From the Economist:
Mr Richardson's Latino heritage will probably help him. Hispanics make up about 15% of the population. Many are not yet citizens and so cannot vote, but the Hispanic electorate will have nearly doubled between 2000 and 2008, from 7.5m to 14m, by one estimate. Hispanics are both the largest and the fastest-growing minority, and their votes are up for grabs. Whereas African-Americans vote monolithically for the same party (the Democrats), Latinos switch back and forth a bit.
The article then goes in-depth, suggesting that candidates from both parties consider reaching out to the fastest-growing minority and not alienate or demonize it:
George Bush wooed them assiduously and won 40% of the Latino vote in 2004—twice the share his fellow Republican Bob Dole had managed eight years previously. But then nativist Republicans derailed Mr Bush's plan for a more welcoming immigration system. Some of them, such as Congressman Tom Tancredo of Colorado, used alarmist rhetoric that sounded hostile to Hispanics in general. Hispanics duly dumped the Republicans—the Democrats' 19 percentage point lead in 2004 swelled to 39 points in 2006.
Democratic strategists confidently predict that they will maintain their lead among Latinos in 2008. Immigration reform is still stalled, and the top Republican presidential candidates, with the conspicuous exception of John McCain, are pandering to nativist voters. The line-up at Republican presidential debates was all-white until a few days ago, and includes both Mr Tancredo and Duncan Hunter, who boasts he will build not one but two fences along the Mexican border. Neither has a chance of winning, but the contrast with the Democrats is nonetheless stark. Two of their candidates speak fluent Spanish (the other is Christopher Dodd). All attended a debate on Univision, a Spanish-language channel, on September 9th; the Republicans have yet to follow suit.
It is pointless to make long-term predictions about how a group as diverse as Latinos will vote—it depends how each party treats them. But one can wager that Republican raging about illegal immigration will boost the Democrats next year. If they take Florida, a big swing state where 11% of those who voted in 2006 were Latino, it will be hard for a Republican to win the White House. That is also true if they capture Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado, which are all heavily Hispanic.
The growing political influence and power of the Hispanic electorate is something that we at NDN have discussed for quite some time. For more details, check out our most recent report, Hispanics Rising.
There has been a lot of press coverage on something we at NDN have been discussing for quite a while - that the influence of the growing Hispanic Electorate can't be ignored, much less demonized. Looking ahead to 2008, these articles - a sampling of which is below - provide fair warning specifically to the GOP that their actions could have serious consequences:
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