All Blog Posts from Horserace

Just two weeks after losing his campaign for the presidency, Arizona Senator John McCain is setting up a political action committee to begin raising money for his re-election in 2010, the AP reports, citing unnamed sources. During the campaign, McCain’s future was much discussed and many political observers wondered whether he would stay in the Senate or retire from the political scene.

There has been speculation that Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano (D) might be interested in running for the Senate in a state that is trending more Democratic. McCain ended up winning his home state comfortably but it was close enough heading into Election Day that Democratic nominee Barack Obama ran ads there. An early decision by McCain on his 2010 race might help fend off potential opponents.

With the GOP washout and 2008 drawing to a close, the beginning of the 2012 presidential chatter was inevitable. Of course, it was Alaska Governor Sarah Palin who dominated it in the days following the election, with a series of national interviews and a heavily covered trip to the Republican Governor’s Association meeting in Miami last week.

But some other potential contenders are hardly wasting time and the Senate runoff in Georgia is shaping up as a showcase for them. Mike Huckabee, who won more delegates in the Republican primaries than anyone besides John McCain, stumped for Senator Saxby Chambliss over the weekend and used the opportunity to talk about his support for the Fair Tax.

Today, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney announced that he will head to the state this Friday and that his Political Action Committee is donating $5,000 to help Chambliss keep his seat. Romney will appear at political rallies and at fundraisers. “This is a critical election whose outcome will be important to maintaining a balance of power in the Senate,” Romney said in a statement. “It is critical that Republicans safely retain the ability to filibuster in order to prevent the worst abuses of single party rule.”

And not all the action is in Alaska or Georgia. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal will be in the state of Iowa this Saturday to speak at an event for the Iowa Family Policy Center. Iowa, of course, is the traditional kickoff state for the presidential primary season.

Had the presidential race been a little closer in the Electoral College, we may have woken up to a Florida-like recount situation in more than just one state today. While President-Elect Barack Obama racked up at least 349 Electoral Votes, there are still two battleground states undecided.

In North Carolina (where Obama narrowly leads) and in Missouri (where John McCain retains a slight edge), it could be awhile yet before we know who won them. Provisional ballots have yet to be counted and there could be some wrangling about the final outcomes in those states. It’s fairly academic at this point but remember – Missouri has gone with the eventual winner in every election except one for the past century.

In the Senate races, the picture is even crazier. In Minnesota, incumbent Republican Senator Norm Coleman retains a lead of just over 500 total votes over comedian-turned-political activist Al Franken in a race that is almost certain to head to a recount. In Georgia, incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss is hovering right around 50% as the final votes are counted, a threshold he needs to keep in order to avoid a runoff. In Oregon, a state that votes all by mail and traditionally slow-counting, Incumbent Republican Gordon Smith clings to a small lead.

And in Alaska, Republican Senator Ted Stevens, found guilty by a Washington, DC jury just days before the election of lying to prosecutors about gifts received from oil company executives, hangs on to a small lead in the polls over Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich. An eventual Stevens victory could lead to all kind of melodrama but it appears that regardless of the outcome there, Democrats will remain short of the 60-seat, filibuster-proof majority in the U.S. Senate.

Washington Post columnist David Broder, a longtime political reporter and the man known as the Dean of the Washington press corps, today proclaims this the best presidential campaign he’s ever covered. Broder cites the long-running interest, the nominations of two once-unlikely candidates and the relative absence of race as a divisive issue in the campaign among his reasons.

“For decades, I have said that the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon campaign was the best I ever saw,” he writes. But most of the drama in that contest came after Labor Day. This time, the excitement was generously distributed over a whole year, with moments of genuine humor from [Mike] Huckabee, a torrent of uninhibited conversation from McCain and Biden, and rare eloquence from Obama and both Clintons. The country faces a choice between two men who both promise the nation a more principled, less partisan leadership. And meanwhile, what a show it has been -- the best campaign I've ever covered.”

Virginia's State Board Of Elections has released a "rumor buster" document telling voters to disregard a flyer claiming that Democrats should vote on November 5th.

"A fake flyer claiming it is from the State Board of Elections has been circulating, stating that Republican Party supporters shall vote on November 4 and Democratic Party supporters shall vote on November 5," the document states. "This information is false."

Election Day, of course, is November 4th for all voters.

Director of Communications Susan S. Pollard told Horserace that the source of the fliers is presently unknown, though the police are looking into it. She said it was distributed in predominantly African American areas, notably "Virginia Beach, Hampton Roads and Norfolk." Below, a copy of the flyer. Click here for the PDF.

At Saddleback Church's Saturday evening "civil forum" with the presidential candidates, it was Barack Obama who sat down first with Pastor Rick Warren. Warren asked Obama the same questions he would later ask Obama rival John McCain – though he noted that McCain was in a "cone of silence" and could not hear the questions in advance.

As the New York Times reports, however, McCain was not in a "cone of silence" during Obama's questioning. Instead, he was in his motorcade on his way to the church. McCain's performance at the forum was considered strong, and some Obama supporters speculated that the Arizona senator heard the questions in advance.

McCain spokeperson Nicolle Wallace, a former CBS News consultant, told the Times last night that "[t]he insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous."

Warren's first question for McCain was a joking reference to his comfort level in the "cone of silence." The presumptive GOP nominee quipped that he "was trying to hear through the wall.”

The McCain campaign, meanwhile, is protesting discussing on NBC News about whether or not McCain had access to the questions. As Politico reports, campaign manager Rick Davis sent a letter requesting a meeting with the news network's president. He suggests the network is "abandoning non-partisan coverage of the presidential race."

In the letter, Davis objects to a statement by NBC's Andrea Mitchell on "Meet The Press." Mitchell said on the program that some in the Obama campaign were suggesting "that McCain may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama. He seemed so well prepared."

A McCain aide told Politico that "Senator McCain was in a motorcade led by the United States Secret Service and held in a green room with no broadcast feed."

"Andrea Mitchell is repeating, uncritically, a completely unsubstantiated Obama campaign claim that John McCain somehow cheated in last night's forum at Saddleback Church," Davis wrote in the letter. "Instead of trying to substantiate this blatant falsehood in any way, Andrea Mitchell felt that she needed to repeat it on air to millions of 'Meet the Press' viewers..."

Asked about the criticism, Mitchell said she wasn't expressing an opinion but merely "reporting what they were saying."


UPDATE: Mike Allen writes that "Pastor Rick Warren, in an effort to increase the candidates’ comfort level with his pioneering format, gave each of them a heads-up on several of the hardest questions he asked Saturday night."

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Sen. Hillary Clinton will soon be back on the trail for Barack Obama.

The Obama campaign has announced that Clinton will campaign for her former rival for the Democratic presidential nomination in Las Vegas, Nevada on August 8th and in South Florida on August 21st.

CBS News has learned that Obama may attend the Las Vegas event but will most likely not be at the South Florida event, a Miami fundraiser in the presumptive Democratic nominee's honor.

Clinton appeared at a "welcome back" party in New York City last night with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, where she urged attendees “to make sure we can carry on this campaign and the causes and issues that are near and dear to us.”

Clinton campaigned for Obama at a rally in Unity, New Hampshire on June 27th, but has largely stayed off the trail since then.

Despite what was thought to be some tough competition in a few races, five House incumbents from Georgia all cruised to victory over primary challengers on Tuesday.

The most notable race was that of Rep. John Lewis of the 5th district in Atlanta, who faced his first primary challenge in 16 years. Lewis, the civil rights leader who has been in Congress since 1987, had received criticism in his district for his initial support of Sen. Hillary Clinton instead of Barack Obama in the Democratic primary. Two younger black candidates -- Rev. Markel Hutchins and state Rep. "Able" Mable Thomas -- challenged Lewis in the primary, but Lewis won with about 70 percent of the vote. He is unopposed in the general election.

The other notable Democratic race was in the 12th district in Eastern Georgia, where Rep. John Barrow defeated state Sen. Regina Thomas with about three-quarters of the vote. As we wrote about earlier in this space, this race was significant because Obama endorsed and recorded a radio ad for Barrow, a white centrist Democrat, over the more liberal black challenger, Thomas, in a district that is 42 percent black. But Barrow, who won his 2006 race by less than 1000 votes, can't rest easy now – he now faces Republican John Stone, a former congressional aide who won the GOP primary.

On the Republican side, the most notable race was that of Rep. Paul Broun in the 10th district in northeast Georgia. Broun, who first won his seat in a special election last year, easily defeated state Rep. Barry Fleming, despite the fact that the challenger had much of the party establishment behind him. Broun is favored to win over Democrat Bobby Saxon in November.

In other Georgia races, Democrats Rep. Jim Marshall and Rep. David Scott also defeated primary challengers. And no Democrats got the needed 50 percent in a Democratic primary for the right to take on incumbent Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss. So there now will be an Aug. 5 runoff election between DeKalb County Chief Executive Officer Vernon Jones and former state lawmaker Jim Martin.

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On Friday afternoon, right around the time Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were appearing together in Unity, New Hampshire, presumptive GOP nominee John McCain was scheduled to speak over the phone to the Jewish group B'nai B'rith International.

Members of the group heard McCain give his opening remarks, but then, as the Los Angeles Times reports, all they got was silence.

About 15 minutes later, McCain came back on the line. He asked where the group lost him, and was informed that it had been at the beginning of his comments. McCain, it turned out, had apparently given his entire speech without anyone hearing it.

It was a moment that nicely captured the presumptive GOP nominee’s challenge. When the primary battle between Obama and Clinton ended, there was supposed to be a significant increase in media coverage for the Arizona senator, who had somewhat faded to the background as the high-profile Democratic candidates sucked up all the air.

But even without Clinton as his sparring partner, Obama has continued to dominate headlines to such a degree that McCain wouldn’t be faulted for wondering if all his speeches weren’t being heard. McCain’s biographical tour and policy addresses do not seem to have resonated in the way he’d hoped, and much of his media coverage has come in the form of those dutiful “what the opposition is up to” reports that often follow stories about the more newsworthy candidate.

McCain has to take part of the blame: Republicans have been grumbling that the Arizona senator, whose campaign appearances have been underwhelming, has not yet figured out how to effectively define himself against Obama. Instead of coming up with new strategies, the McCain campaign has largely been sticking to what (barely) worked in the primary: On Saturday, for example, it unveiled an airplane called the Straight Talk Express, modeled on the bus of the same name.

McCain, along with other Republicans, has also taken up a familiar criticism of Obama, suggesting that he is a flip-flopper whose rhetoric about a new kind of politics rings hollow. That might turn out to be an effective strategy, but it sounds an awful lot like the attacks used against Democratic nominee John Kerry in 2004 – not exactly ideal for a candidate trying to cast himself as a post-partisan alternative to an unpopular president.

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The Rev. Michael Pfleger, who mocked Sen. Hillary Clinton while delivering a guest sermon at Sen. Barack Obama's former church, told ABC's "Good Morning America" that he stands by his message, the Associated Press reports.

Pfleger said he regrets that his delivery may have detracted from the point he was trying to make when he pretended to be Sen. Clinton crying about "a black man stealing my show."

"I was giving a talk about race," Pleger said. "And is entitlement one of the things about race that I believe in? Is an unequal playing field one of the things I believe in? Yes, so I don't apologize for being passionate, I don't apologize for being free."

Obama left Trinity United Church after Pfleger's sermon and other controversial statements given by his former pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.