All Blog Posts from Horserace

Whether the subject is Florida or Super Tuesday, Barack Obama's campaign appears to be shifting its focus from winning contests to winning delegates, as illustrated by campaign manager David Plouffe's conference call on Tuesday.

The call started out with a special guest appearance from 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry, who endorsed the Illinois senator in early January.

Kerry was there to urge the reporters on the call to not treat today's Democratic primary in Florida as a significant contest. Both Obama and Hillary Clinton are on the ballot, but because the state's primary date is too early according to Democratic National Committee rules, the committee has stripped the state of all its delegates.

"Speaking as someone who's been through this process and recently won the Democratic nomination, I can tell you that what this race is about right now is delegates," Kerry said. "The bottom line is Florida does not offer any delegates. It is not a legitimate race. It should not become a spin race. It should not become a fabricated race."

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Rudy Giuliani picked up the endorsement of former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan today. It came on the heels of his endorsement from former California Gov. Pete Wilson, who announced he was backing Giuliani yesterday.

But Riordan wasn't entirely on message, as the Associated Press reports. While he said Giuliani "did a fabulous job running New York City and of course in 9-11 he showed that he has the feel of a great leader,'' he also said the former mayor was ``too liberal'' to appeal to right-wing voters in California.

``On the primary, you get this solid, super right-wing group of people who are going to have litmus tests on everything from gun control to abortion to other things," Riordan said. "He's going to be hurt there."

It’s not as though there needs to be more of these presidential debates and forums but sometimes the candidates simply need to show up. The Republican Party won’t quickly recover from the decisions of the big four – Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney and John McCain – to not participate in last night’s PBS debate.

On the other hand the event, focused on urban issues, received far more attention than it would have if those front-runners had chosen to attend. In some ways that’s the problem facing the GOP when it comes to minority voters: Show up and engage and you get little credit for it; skip it and you’ll be raked over the coals.

The no-shows aren’t just hurting themselves, however, they’re hurting the party as a whole. Practically speaking, the GOP candidates are focused on winning their party’s nomination, and that means primary voters in places like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina at the moment. Very few of those voters are minorities living in big cities. But their snub is unlikely to be forgotten in the general election, regardless of who the nominee is. And, while the GOP is not going to nab a substantial share of the black vote under the best of circumstances, ignoring any minority group doesn’t make it any easier to woo others – especially Hispanics, who represent the fastest growing segment of the electorate.


Money, Money, Money: John Edwards has decided to accept public financing for his campaign, and it’s already causing a lot of folks to weigh in on the consequences. It’s going to help in the short term because he’ll get an influx of cash at a crucial moment – right before the voting begins in January. But, his campaign will have to abide by spending limits (less than $1 million in New Hampshire and $1.5 million in Iowa) that will leave him at a competitive disadvantage compared to the unlimited funds Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will be allowed to raise and spend.

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