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Schumer Calls Ted Kennedy a 'Miracle'
Tweet Share on Facebook August 25, 2008 CommentIn advance of Sen. Ted Kennedy's trip to the floor of the Democratic National Convention Monday night, fellow Sen. Chuck Schumer said he holds out hope that the ailing Massachusetts political giant will make a return to the Senate floor next month. "There's a real chance," says Schumer, just coming from a breakfast with the New York delegation that featured Sen. Hillary Clinton. "He's doing great. It's a miracle - but a miracle we very much need," he told our Liz Halloran. Kennedy, who is suffering from brain cancer, will be honored tonight at the convention. Kennedy is in Denver, it's not known whether he will take the stage, where his niece, Caroline, will introduce a video tribute to her uncle.
And, oh, during that Clinton-Schumer visit with their state delegation this morning, we're told that Hillary took offense to Sen. John McCain featuring her criticism of Sen. Barack Obama in a new TV ad, a delegate told us. "I'm Hillary Clinton," she said to hoots and laughter, "and I didn't approve this ad."
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Civic Center Park Protests and Profits
Tweet Share on Facebook August 25, 2008 Comment
Even before the Democratic National Convention began several blocks away, protesters set up shop inside the flower-filled Civic Center Park in downtown Denver plying their issues and wares. Most of the protests hit President George Bush, but some also took a shot at Sen. John McCain and the liberals' charge that he would bring a third Bush term to Washington. While the protests were the main focus, most groups also sold goods like T-shirts and Impeach Bush ribbons for up to $20, making the Monday event a profitable one too.
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Michelle Obama to Fight "Distortions" in Her Convention Speech
Tweet Share on Facebook August 25, 2008 Comment (6)
On "family day" at the Democratic National Convention, we visited with two longtime pals of Sen. Barack Obama and his wife Michelle and learned two things: Michelle is sick and tired of all the stuff the blogs are writing about her and plans to push back in her address to the convention tonight and the campaign always expected to be even with Sen. John McCain in the polls going into the four-day party here in Denver.
First Michelle: After taking it on the chin for months for allegedly being unpatriotic or worse, she will use her speech tonight to present her own story. At a breakfast with Obama pals and advisers, 17-year friend Valerie Jarrett said that Michelle will have her first chance to tell her family's story and address some of the Internet tales about her as well as some of her own words that have been viewed negatively. Jarrett said that many stories about her friend are "a complete distortion" of who Michelle is and she's eager to take them on. But mostly her speech will "give some shape to what moves them individually and as a couple." Obama is expected to first talk about her Chicago upbringing and how she has raised her own family while also being a working mom. Then she will turn to her husband's upbringing as the son of a single mom and how that shaped who he has become, at least as a dad. Jarrett, for example, said that Michelle is likely to talk about how her husband's dad fled their family when he was two and how Barack Obama has pledged to be a "better father" than his dad was.
Next, the polls: With Jarrett at breakfast was Sen. Dick Durbin, the senior senator from Illinois. He claimed that the Obama campaign fully expected the polls to even after Obama's recent trip to the Middle East and Europe and they expectedly fell further when the senator took a vacation this month. He added that the Russian invasion of Georgia helped McCain move above Obama in some polls, presumably because McCain took a very hard and public line against Moscow. But he said that the polls are irrelevant until the conventions are over and the public starts paying attention to the race. Durbin's is an interesting take on the drop in Obama's polling because before the Democrat went overseas, the campaign fully expected a bump in the polls. It never came. Still, Durbin sounds confident that the campaign can turn it around here in Denver.
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Undecided Voters Getting Tired Of Obama Change Message
Tweet Share on Facebook August 25, 2008 Comment (13)
After spending two hours Sunday with undecided Denver area voters who participated in a focus group hosted by AARP's Divided We Fail campaign, one thing is clear: Voters want more from Sen. Barack Obama than talk of change.
Now they want to hear what Obama wants to do and how he will pay for it. The focus group, conducted by long-time pollster and wordsmith Frank Luntz, found a shift among voters who have yet to pick between Obama and Sen. John McCain. As he polled them, most said that they now put the issue of accountability over change. Luntz's recommendation to both Obama and McCain: Stop asking questions and start answering them.
"They aren't going to be spun by simple platitudes," says Luntz, seen in the picture wearing a red tie. Candidates need to "ask a rhetorical question and answer it."
Luntz showed the group ads from both campaigns, and in the end the undecideds appeared to like the McCain approach more, even including his retort to Obama's slam on the Republican's inability to remember how many homes he owns.
In the end, Luntz says that most undecideds will likely make up their mind during the presidential debates when the candidates finally go up against each other to lay out their presidential plans. "The reality," says Luntz, "is that they've got some kind of hang-up with both of them."
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Denver Cops Take In a Day of Protests at the Democratic Convention
Tweet Share on Facebook August 25, 2008 Comment (1)
DENVER—Monday should bring another day of protests in downtown Denver, but they are calm, in part, because of the unusual way in which the Denver police are handling the events. Instead of leading the protesters through city streets, we found that the police are simply hanging back, literally following the groups on foot and in SUVs. In these pictures, a large group of protesters in downtown Denver, marching against the war in Iraq, walked well ahead of the police, most of whom were dressed in riot gear. At several points, the protesters moved so fast that they enveloped cars waiting at red lights. But the police did not move in, instead simply waiting to the rear, a practice that appeared to lessen the normal tensions between the two groups.
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FCC Chairman Kevin Martin Knows the Shift to Digital TV is Hard
Tweet Share on Facebook August 25, 2008 Comment (1)Just because he's young—41—and a government bureaucrat doesn't mean that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin is immune to the pain of millions of Americans who face a TV blackout next February if they don't update their old sets. "I grew up in a rural area outside of Charlotte, N.C. Didn't have cable, couldn't get it," he says. "We had rabbit ears and a rooftop antenna" that needed to be adjusted to make Happy Days clear, he says. So, when he makes the case that Americans with predigital TVs have to switch to cable or satellite or get a signal converter box, "I get it," he says. "When I'm trying to describe what steps need to be taken," adds Martin, "I think about how I'd talk to my mom and dad when I was growing up."
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Welcome to Denver, Land of Democrats and Media
Tweet Share on Facebook August 25, 2008 Comment (1)
DENVER — Democratic delegates and the press continue to arrive in droves today as the Democratic National Convention kicks off. But the celebration doesn't just start at the Pepsi Center, home to the events. From the moment people get off their jets, they are greeted with signs and Democratic supporters. Here, we ran the gantlet of Democratic greeters and those picking up the media and party big shots. If you look carefully to the right, you can see a McCain bumper sticker held up by a driver looking for Republican Party official Carly Fiorina, who traveled on the same plane as Whispers from Dulles. And we didn't have to walk long before seeing the trinkets for sale in the newspaper and candy shop.
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Putin Roars at the U.S.
Tweet Share on Facebook August 25, 2008 Comment (6)If anyone doubted that Vladimir Putin is really in charge of Russia, here's more evidence that the prime minister remains the boss. U.S. officials reveal to Whispers that he issued back-channel threats that the 2,000 Georgian troops U.S. jets delivered home from Iraq after Moscow's invasion of South Ossetia had better not end up in the war zone. It came after he hit the United States for "aiding the enemy" with the troop lift. Mocked a defense official of the latest threat, "Or else what?"
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Chris Matthews Denies Calling Clinton a 'She-Devil'
Tweet Share on Facebook August 24, 2008 Comment (31)Did he or didn't he? Technically, Hardball host Chris Matthews did say "she-devil" when talking about Sen. Hillary Clinton during the primaries. But now he's fighting back over how it's being interpreted. "I never called her a she-devil," Matthews says of the phrase that has been dogging him as he considers a run for the Senate in 2010. Here's what happened: Matthews opened a November 2007 show that explored GOP attacks on Clinton, who at the time was the Democratic front-runner. "She-devil? Republicans are absolutely demonizing Hillary Clinton," he barked before the screen displayed Clinton with horns. "You can see it is where we introduce the topics to the show," he argues. Matthews says his critics at Media Matters took the two words out of context as they built a website around the host's sometimes outrageous comments. "This stuff has been cooked up," he says, "to build a case." Media Matters isn't backing down. Spokesman J. Jioni Palmer says the TV star has a pattern of "sexist comments," adding, "Chris Matthews speaks for himself."
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The Democratic Convention's Parents Brigade
Tweet Share on Facebook August 23, 2008 CommentManaging the Democratic National Convention has just gotten easier. All those parents of convention organizers who arrive just to "help" their kids are finally being put to work. "Come convention time," says spokeswoman Natalie Wyeth, "everyone comes out of the woodwork, this year more than ever." In past years, Democratic officials have had parents show up a week early, only to sit around their office pestering their adult kids for something to do. "You know what they say about idle hands," says Wyeth. So, for the first time, the party has created the "Parents Program," to put mom and dad to work driving big shots around or handing out press credentials. "It's part of our effort to keep our parents busy," says Wyeth. And because parents like to brag that their kid is running the show, the party is considering printing T-shirts for the parents that say just that.
