John Edwards

One part of the story in Washington's eighth district I haven't touched on yet was Darcy's role in a major dispute over local media consolidation between the two papers here - the Seattle Times and the Seattle PI.  In 2007, she co-chaired something called the Committee for a Two Newspaper town, which ultimately forced the owners of the Seattle Times to pay out $24M and keep the Seattle PI in business.  I'll have more on that fight below, because it segues nicely into the overall conflict between the two wings of the Obama power structure - the center right moderates and the populist left progressives.

Buried in the contours of the massive shift in politics we're seeing with the collapse of the conservative movement is a burgeoning fight between center-right establishment, both locally and nationally, and populist progressives.  read more »

As Glenn Greenwald points out , there's been a dramatic sea-change in the rules of effective political rhetoric. Glenn cites three examples over the course of one week's time--GOP Rep. Robin Hayes, VP nominee Sarah Palin, and GOP Rep. Michelle Bachmann--all attacking Democrats' patriotism, then denying it, turning tail and running away.

There's clearly something interesting -- and different -- happening here.  It's not that right-wing politicians are accusing liberals and Democrats of being unpatriotic, anti-American subversives.  There's nothing new about that.  To the contrary, that McCarthyite accusation has virtually been a central plank -- one could say the defining plank -- in the GOP platform for the last three decades, at least.

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I hope the Open Left admins don't mind that I'm posting this diary I wrote a few months ago for Bleeding Heartland. Voters are getting push polls against Obama and other Democratic candidates in quite a few swing states.

Two days before the June 3 Democratic primary in Iowa, I received an automated push-poll, followed the next day by a second robocall containing "important information" for me. Both calls were hit jobs on Jerry Sullivan, the leading Democratic candidate in Iowa House district 59.

Many of us will receive similar calls between now and November. We need to be prepared to help the Democrats who will be targeted in this way.

My number one piece of advice is do not hang up the phone.

Do not hang up the moment you hear an automated voice on the other end.  read more »

Here's a bunch of Republicans at a Palin rally saying Obama's a terrorist.

And here's McCain's new web ad calling Obama a terrorist.

One of the most idiotic parts of our political dialogue is this pretense that the Republican Party leaders are disconnected from their base, a conceit held not only by journalists but also by  read more »

During John Edwards' two campaigns for president, Andrew Aldridge Young was a trusted, loyal aide, often near the candidate's side when he was in North Carolina.

Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has decided to stay out of public view until after the election, saying he doesn't want the controversy surrounding his extramarital affair to harm the candidacy of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

Singer notes that Palin is 'in virtual seclusion' and has done only one interview, with People magazine (and taken no other questions from the press).  I was on Al Jazeera last night with a right-wing blogger, and you can always tell how powerful your arguments are when matched up on TV.  I just kept talking about what a joke this process has been and how undisciplined and sloppy John McCain is, and my opponent just couldn't really respond.  He tried with some double standard talk about John Edwards, but it didn't work.

David Plouffe is on the same page.
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DENVER — Former Sen. John Edwards is hard for North Carolina delegates
at the Democratic National Convention to ignore, even if most are
trying their best.

DENVER — Former Sen. John Edwards is hard for North Carolina delegates
at the Democratic National Convention to ignore, even if most are
trying their best.

Iowa's most prominent pundit, David Yepsen, wrote a piece in the Des Moines Register warning that it would be perilous for the presidential candidates to ignore rural America at their parties' nominating conventions.

His column inspired me to look into what Barack Obama and John McCain are offering voters outside major cities and suburbs. What I found is after the jump.  read more »

I don't see much evidence that Barack Obama has a problem with women voters. He leads among women by more than Al Gore or John Kerry did at the same time during their own presidential campaigns. The most recent Iowa poll shows Obama leading by six overall but by 12 among Iowa women.

Among purveyors of conventional wisdom, however, there is still a perception that Obama has work to do among women voters, and particularly the women who preferred Hillary Clinton in the primaries.

The Obama campaign has been scheduling women's outreach events to address this issue.  read more »

From her front row seat at the 2004 national convention, delegate Linda Gunter led the cheers when fellow North Carolina Democrat John Edwards accepted the vice presidential nomination.

Howard Wolfson thinks so:

If reporters had nabbed former presidential candidate John Edwards lying about his extramarital affair, Hillary Clinton would have captured the Democratic presidential nomination, her former communications director said.

"I believe we would have won Iowa, and Clinton today would therefore have been the nominee," Howard Wolfson told ABCNews.com in an interview released Monday, because internal campaign polling showed "our voters and Edwards voters were the same people. They were older, pro-union. Not all, but maybe two-thirds of them would have been for us and we would have barely beaten Obama."

I used to argue that Obama benefited from having Edwards in the campaign.  read more »

A busy week I suppose, even though Congress is not in session.

• It's an old trick (Kerry did it in 2004), but a good one.  Give Obama your email or cell phone number, and you'll be told the VP choice first.  Along with millions of others.  It's a tie.

• Soren Dayton reveals some interesting stats about the right online.

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ROBBINS, N.C. — Verna Hancock and other longtime residents of this small Moore County town served as a willing backdrop for John Edwards' "son-of-a-millworker, rags-to-riches" campaign narrative during two runs for the Democratic nomination for president.