All Blog Posts from Horserace

Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, the man who was the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2000, will soon know whether that party will allow him to continue to serve as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee or whether he’ll be stripped of that position.

Lieberman, who changed his party affiliation to run as an independent in 2006 after losing the Democratic primary, has organized with Democrats since winning re-election and in doing so, gave the party its majority status. Lieberman also served as one of the most enthusiastic and high-profile supporters of Republican John McCain’s presidential campaign and spoke at the GOP convention, something that has infuriated many in his former party.

With Democrats having picked up an additional six Senate seats in the election (with three races yet to be decided), Lieberman’s value to the party has decreased substantially. They no longer need his vote to claim a majority and plenty of party faithful would like to see him stripped of his committee chairmanship for backing McCain. So Senate Democrats tomorrow will vote, by secret ballot, on whether to do just that, the Hartford Courant reports.

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Republicans prefer “South Park” and Democrats watch the “Colbert Report,” a new study by Nielsen’s IAG service. The study, which sought to measure how “engaged” partisans are with the cable TV programs they watch found those two shows at the top among supporters of the two major parties. Others shows on the list for Democrats include “Deadliest Catch” on the Discovery and “I Love New York” on VH-1. Republicans are most engaged with shows like “Cash Cab” on Bravo and “Rock of Love” on VH-1. Who says the Republicans and Democrats have nothing in common? Click here for more on the study.

The Obama campaign has thus far largely stayed away from reports about the increasingly angry rhetoric coming from some attendees of McCain-Palin rallies. (The candidate did make an indirect reference to the rallies this morning, saying, "it's not hard to rile up a crowd by stoking anger and division.") 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry, however, directly addresses the issue in a fundraising appeal today.

"The reports are piling up of ugliness at the campaign rallies of John McCain and Sarah Palin," Kerry writes. "Audience members hurl insults and racial epithets, call out 'Kill Him!' and 'Off With His Head,' and yell 'treason' when Senator Obama's name is mentioned. I strongly condemn language like this which can only be described as hate-filled."

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Two key House Democrats, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, held a press conference this afternoon to discuss the status of the financial bailout bill.

Pelosi said that "great progress is being made" towards a deal, though she suggested that yesterday's bipartisan summit at the White House was not helpful.

"I would not include yesterday among the days that we've made progress," Pelosi said, suggesting that there was an "intervening event that set up back, took time, and now we're back on track."

The comment appeared to be a shot at GOP nominee John McCain, whose decision to suspend his campaign and return to Washington to help out with the deal, since reversed, was not welcomed by Democrats involved in the negotiations.

Frank was more direct.

Work can continue on the deal “now that Sen. McCain is safely in Mississippi" for the debate, he said.

Frank suggested he expected a deal to be reached by Sunday. He has criticized McCain's behavior this week, suggesting the GOP nominee's call to postpone tonight's debate was "the longest Hail Mary pass in the history of either football or Marys."

UPDATE: The Republican National Committee's Alex Conant responds: "In a moment of national crisis what the American people want and expect and deserve leaders who put politics aside like John McCain did this week. It’s unfortunate that the Democratic leaders continue to put politics first and attack John McCain’s leadership.”

(ST. PAUL) As their convention gets back on track in St. Paul, the McCain campaign is out with a new line of attack against Barack Obama. A new ad attempts to tie Barack Obama to the Democrats in Congress. The ad superimposes images of Obama with several Senate Democrats, trying to show that they will together bring big spending and higher taxes.

“Take away the crowds, the chants, all that’s left are costly words,” the ad begins with familiar pictures from Obama’s speech in Berlin as the backdrop. The ad then moves to a picture of Obama, but then quickly shifts to pictures of Congress and pictures of Democratic Senators Chris Dodd, Byron Dorgan, Harry Reid, Patrick Leahy and Charles Schumer. The narrator continues: “Barack Obama and out of touch congressional leaders have expensive plans – billions in new government spending, years of deficits, no balanced budgets and painful tax increases on working American families. They are ready to tax, ready to spend, but not ready to lead.” An image of Obama then appears with the last line, replaying the common line the McCain campaign has employed about their rival.

The ad, entitled “Expensive Plans,” is a joint project between the McCain campaign the Republican National Committee. It is running in 14 states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

You can watch it below:

Barack Obama’s acceptance speech was watched by 38.4 million people, the most-watched presidential speech ever, according to Nielsen estimates. The speech beat out the U.S. audience for the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, which drew about 34 million viewers.

The Obama speech attracted about 60 percent more audience than tuned into John Kerry’s four years ago, reports Washington Post television writer Lisa de Moraes. Comparisons to some past speeches are harder to discern because the ratings company did not isolate individual hours and networks gave more time to the conventions in past years. But the huge number is pretty evident. "It appears (Obama's speech) is far and away the largest audience for an . . . acceptance speech since Nielsen instituted the People Meter, which was the first time we were able to have 'persons' data" a Nielsen representative tells the Post. Read more here.

(DENVER) It was still more six hours before Barack Obama was scheduled to take the stage to formally accept the Democratic nomination for president, but Verda Martin had already settled into her seat at Denver’s open-air Invesco Field for what she called “one of the most important moments we’ve had in probably the last 20 or 30 years.”

“I’m really excited, I’m really, really excited,” Martin said, laughing, as her boyfriend nodded emphatically in the next seat over. “I never thought I would see a nomination speech live, and then for it to be the first African-American presidential nominee, so yeah – I’m just about to jump out of my skin.”

Inside the stadium, venders who normally would be selling Denver Broncos merchandise instead hawked Obama t-shirts and hats at tables strewn with forms asking customers to donate to the Obama Victory Fund. (The form made it clear that between donations to Obama’s primary campaign, general election campaign and the Democratic National Committee, donors could give more than $30,000.)


Outside, meanwhile, the line snaked for blocks, nearly back to the Pepsi Center a mile away. The mood, however, was festive, with corporate sponsors handing out free water bottles and a blue sky that likely eased the nerves of organizers worried that rain would come down on Obama’s triumphant moment.

Dave Newell, a former Hillary Clinton supporter who “immediately joined Obama’s team,” said he waited for forty-five minutes to get into the stadium, where more than 75,000 are expected to turn out.

“I came out just to kind of be inspired, to soak up a little of the energy of the crowd and maybe take some energy out and spread it around for Obama,” he said, looking out over the stage affixed with columns where Obama would later speak.


Leonardo Ranzani, meanwhile, had come to Denver from Milan. He sat in the stadium in a red, white and blue top hat.

Most of the people he knows in Milan, he said, “tend to be Obama supporters, probably because he is more similar to a European way of seeing things. Maybe because of the health care plan.”

“The idea to have a black president,” he said, explaining what drew him all the way to Denver. “Many, many people believe that many Americans are maybe racist or something, and then you say, ‘oh, a black president, he’s going to win, it’s a kind of change.’”

(DENVER) With several hours yet before the Democratic convention kicks off, John McCain’s campaign is taking advantage of the calm before tonight’s big event to find ways to insert itself into the media spotlight.

McCain’s campaign announced it will air a new ad tonight in which he will speak on-camera directly to Democratic nominee Barack Obama. The campaign will not comment on the substance of the ad but McCain communications director Jill Hazelbaker told MSNBC this morning it is a “historic” ad. “I think this is the first of its kind,” Hazelbaker said. “Senator McCain is going to speak direct to camera to Barack Obama. I’m not going to give away many more details than that. But suffice to say it’s going to be a very exciting ad, and I think it’s going to get a lot of attention.”

Meanwhile, speculation continues to swirl over the timing of McCain’s vice presidential announcement. The campaign indicated that they would not roll out the pick today but the Drudge Report cites sources saying that the news will be leaked this evening. And as the chase begins to pick up, the potential selections are going to ground. Even if McCain’s choice remains secret, the flurry of activity has provided McCain an opportunity to become a part of the story in Denver.

CBS News reports that former President Bill Clinton will tout Barack Obama’s readiness to be commander in chief in his speech tonight. Clinton will say Obama brings leadership that demonstrates depth, perception and experience, CBS News reports. He will also say that Obama is looking to heal America and the world. Bill Clinton will leave Denver tonight and will not attend Obama’s acceptance speech tomorrow night.

(DENVER) In town for the Democratic convention to promote his “Pickens Plan” for alternative energy, billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens predicted $200 a barrel oil within three years.

“In two or three years, we’re going to be at $200 a barrel—could be $300 a barrel for oil,” Pickens said inside the “Big Tent,” a complex outside the Pepsi Center set up for bloggers. “And consequently, our economy is going to struggle and our security is just—it’s a disaster.”

Pickens was joined on stage by Sierra Club president Carl Pope and Center for American Progress president John Podesta, both of whom endorsed The Pickens Plan, although each called for additional proposals.

Pickens said the United States is blessed with “two corridors” that are conducive to alternative energy sources: the “wind corridor” from Texas to Canada and the “solar corridor” from Texas to California. Although Pickens said he agreed with Al Gore that global warming is a major problem, his first priority is to help reverse the tide of sending billions of dollars overseas for America’s energy needs.

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