All Blog Posts from Horserace

President Bush today cast an early ballot for Republican presidential nominee John McCain, the Associated Press reports.

The president and first lady have traveled to Texas to vote in past elections. The pair plans to be at the White House on election night this year, according to AP.

An interesting side note: In an effort to draw attention to the vote, the campaign of Barack Obama, which has repeatedly tied McCain to the unpopular Mr. Bush, emailed the AP report about the vote around to campaign reporters.

The White House released the following excerpts of President Bush’s speech tonight via satellite to the Republican National Convention:

Read the whole thing here.

On Hurricane Gustav:

We are thankful that the damage in New Orleans and across the Gulf Coast was less than many had feared.

I commend the Governors of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas for their sure-handed response and seamless coordination with the Federal government. I thank all of the wonderful volunteers who stepped forward to help their brothers and sisters in need.

On Senator McCain Being Prepared To Make the Hard Decisions That Fall Solely to the President:

John McCain’s life has prepared him to make those choices. He is ready to lead this Nation.

We live in a dangerous world. And we need a President who understands the lessons of September 11, 2001: that to protect America, we must stay on the offense, stop attacks before they happen, and not wait to be hit again. The man we need is John McCain.

On Senator McCain’s Courage and Vision:

John McCain’s life is a story of service above self.

John is an independent man who thinks for himself. He’s not afraid to tell you when he disagrees. ... No matter what the issue, this man is honest and speaks straight from the heart.

Last year, John McCain’s independence and character helped change history. The Democrats had taken control of Congress and were threatening to cut off funds for our troops. In the face of calls for retreat, I ordered a surge of forces into Iraq. Many in Congress said it had no chance of working. Yet one Senator above all had faith in our troops and the importance of their mission – and that was John McCain. Some told him that his early and consistent call for more troops would put his Presidential campaign at risk. He told them he would rather lose an election than see his country lose a war. That is the kind of courage and vision we need in our next Commander-in-Chief.

On Americans Choosing the McCain-Palin Ticket:

I am optimistic about our future, because I believe in the goodness and wisdom of the American people. I am optimistic because I have faith in freedom’s power to lift up all of God’s children and lead this world to a future of peace.

And I am optimistic about something else: When the debates have ended, and all the ads have run, and it is time to vote, Americans will look closely at the judgment, the experience, and the policies of the candidates – and they will cast their ballots for the McCain-Palin ticket.

President George W. Bush is offering his congratulations to Barack Obama on clinching the Democratic nomination, reports CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller.

Press Secretary Dana Perino said this morning that Mr. Bush knows from experience how grueling a primary campaign can be.

"Senator Obama came a long way in becoming his party's nominee," she said. "And his historic achievement reflects the fact that our country has come along way, too."

She also said Mr. Bush wants to congratulate Hillary Clinton on her spirited campaign, one that made history as well.

Bush did not place a call to either Clinton or Obama, and Perino said she did not think he would. She suggesting such a call would be unusual, adding that she didn't believe then-president Bill Clinton called Mr. Bush when the latter won the GOP nomination in 2000.

The Associated Press reports that Secretary of State Condolezza Rice also congratulated Obama.

"The United States of America is an extraordinary country," she said. "It is a country that has overcome many, many, now years, decades, actually a couple of centuries of trying to make good on its principles. And I think what we are seeing is an extraordinary expression of the fact that 'We the people' is beginning to mean all of us."

Former Clinton State Department official James Rubin says John McCain is a hypocrite.

Rubin interviewed McCain two years ago for Sky News, a British network. At that interview, Rubin writes in today's Washington Post, he asked this of the presumptive GOP nominee: "Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?"

Here, per Rubin's column, is McCain's answer: "They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it's a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that."

McCain now criticizes Democratic frontrunner Barack Obama for his professed willingness to negotiate with so-called "rogue" leaders like Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, suggesting it reflects a "naiveté and inexperience and lack of judgment." In response to Rubin's column noting McCain's apparent willingness to negotiate with the militant Palestinian group, the McCain campaign released this statement, from spokesman Tucker Bounds:

“There should be no confusion, John McCain has always believed that serious engagement would require mandatory conditions and Hamas must change itself fundamentally – renounce violence, abandon its goal of eradicating Israel and accept a two state solution. John McCain’s position is clear and has always been clear, the President of the United States should not unconditionally meet with leaders of Iran, Hamas or Hezbollah. Barack Obama has made his position equally clear, and has pledged to meet unconditionally with Iran’s leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the leaders of other rogue regimes, which shows incredibly dangerous and weak judgment.”

The Rubin column comes on the heals of President Bush's comment, before the Israel Knesset, that "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along." The president compared people who want to sit down with rogue leaders to those who wanted to engage in talks with Nazis in 1939, citing "the false comfort of appeasement." Though he did not mention Obama or other Democrats by name, the Democratic frontrunner and other Democrats responded to the comments with outrage.

Read full post…

President Bush held court at a barbeque at the Broken Spoke Ranch in Crawford, Texas, today, raising $3.5 million for his party, the Associated Press reports.

500 GOP donors showed up for the festivities, as well as a number of the president's relatives, among them his parents and brother Jeb. Presumptive GOP nominee John McCain did not attend.

The president is spending four days at the ranch, the AP reports, and "White House spokesman Scott Stanzel didn't deny that the president and his wife, Laura, could also be taking care of some wedding-related details while here."

Bush's daughter Jenna gets married at the ranch on May 10th.

With McCain likely to take matching funds for the general election, the Republican National Committee's ability to raise and spend money on the candidate's behalf could be key. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have robust fundraising operations and are poised to opt-out of the public financing system, allowing them to raise and spend in excess of the $84 million provided by the government to those who opt-in.

One bright spot for McCain: The RNC has been far more successful than the Democratic National Committee in raising and holding onto money. The RNC ended February with nearly $25 million in the bank to the DNC's less than $5 million, and the DNC ended last year nearly broke.

As for Mr. Bush, he has raised three-quarters of a billion dollars for the GOP and its candidates since taking office.

The following is a dispatch from CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller:

Because President Bush is giving a speech tomorrow on the situation in Iraq, you won’t hear much about the two Republican Party fund-raisers he’s doing later in the day. And that’s the way the White House prefers it.

But as a sitting president, George W. Bush has no equal as a fund-raiser. Our CBS News tally shows that he has attended over 300 political fund-raisers since taking office, raising – get this - over 3/4s of a billion dollars for the GOP and its candidates.

To be exact, he has done 304 fund-raising events over the last seven years – generating $760,232,500 in contributions to various GOP committees and candidate campaigns. This amount only includes the contributions raised by the fund-raisers he personally attended, including those for his re-election campaign.

And you can expect that total to increase significantly by the end of his term – since much of his political activity this year is expected to be relegated to Republican fund-raising.

In 2000, Bill Clinton’s final year as President, he attended a whopping 203 political fund-raisers – including 29 for wife Hillary’s campaign for the U.S. Senate. He raised just under $106 million dollars that year. But Mr. Bush topped that amount in four of the last seven years – and did so attending far fewer events.

For example, in 2002, Mr. Bush did 68 fund-raisers generating over $145 million. During his campaign for re-election in 2004, he did only 49 money events, but racked up nearly $154 million – his highest one-year total to date.

So far this year, Mr. Bush has attended only 13 fund-raisers – but has brought in over $30 million. You don’t hear much about them, because 11 of the 13 events have been closed to the press. Whenever a fund-raiser attended by the President is held in a private residence – usually belonging to major contributor - the White House seizes it as an excuse to exclude reporters.

Both of the fund-raisers he’s attending tomorrow in Ohio and Pennsylvania will be closed to the press as well.

The following is a dispatch from CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller:

When historians of the future examine President Bush’s daily schedules as issued each day by the White House press office, they might be tempted to think he never attended a political fund-raiser.

They can scour his schedules and never find the word ‘fund-raiser,” although our CBS News tally shows that as President, Mr. Bush has attended over 300 of them.

Last Tuesday in Florida, he raised over $1.4 million for the GOP at two events in Jacksonville and Palm Beach – but here’s how they were listed on his public schedule:

12:30 pm THE PRESIDENT attends a Republican National Committee Luncheon
Private Residence | Jacksonville, Florida
CLOSED PRESS

5:50 pm THE PRESIDENT attends a Republican National Committee Reception
Private Residence | Palm Beach, Florida
CLOSED PRESS

The listings show he attended a “luncheon” at the first stop and “reception” at the next - no mention of the word “fund-raiser.”

It’s the same in the 11,000 pages of schedules released last week covering Hillary Clinton’s eight years as First Lady.

During her last two years, she attended scores of fund-raisers for her U.S. Senate campaign in New York – but the word “fund-raiser” is avoided as shown by these three listings on June 30, 2000:

2:40 pm- HILLARY 2000 RECEPTION
3:40 pm Private Residence
CLOSED PRESS

6:30 pm- HILLARY 2000 RECEPTION
7:30 pm Top Floor Dining Room
Crystal City DoubleTree Hotel
2030 Army Navy Drive
Arlington, VA

7:55 pm- HILLARY 2000 RECEPTION
9:00 pm Private Residence
CLOSED PRESS

The public schedules of President Bush and Hillary Clinton offer some insight into how they spend their days, but the most interesting material is omitted.

If only we had access to a president’s or candidate’s daily diary that would show every move, meeting, phone call and even bedtime.

To see what I’m talking about, check the on-line archives of Pres. Lyndon Johnson. At the LBJ Library website, you can view actual pages from the Daily Diary of his presidency kept by his personal secretaries.

The entries show every phone call he made or received, every meeting he had, and often provided details on what was discussed.

John McCain's campaign has released a new web-only ad, "A Man In The Arena," that puts a historical spin on McCain's argument concerning national security.

The spot features both Winston Churchill and Theodore Roosevelt. The former is heard saying, "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills, we shall never surrender!"

Roosevelt, meanwhile, offers this: "Surely there never was a fight better worth making than the one in which we are in."

McCain's comments in the ad hit a similar note.

"Keep that faith," McCain is heard saying. "Keep your courage. Stick together. Stay strong. Do not yield. Do not flinch. Stand up. ... We're Americans. We're Americans, and we'll never surrender. They will."

Watch it:



In other McCain news, washingtonpost.com's Dan Froomkin points out that the presumptive Republican nominee does not seem to be trumpeting the embrace of President Bush, who endorsed McCain this week.

"As of this writing, there's no mention of [the endorsement] on the home page of McCain's Web site," Froomkin wrote yesterday. "There's no mention of it all on the Republican National Committee's home page. In fact, I can't find any mention whatsoever of the event on either Web site at all. (It's like: Bush Who?)"

Horserace was able to track down a reference to the endorsement on McCain's site. It's here – if you look hard, you'll see Bush's name under the header "Former U.S. Presidents."

So far, President Bush has demurred when asked about the race for the Republican nomination, saying it's not his job to be "pundit in chief." And it turns out that principle applies even when one of the GOP hopefuls – in this case, Mike Huckabee – is criticizing Bush's foreign policy.

Huckabee, in a much-discussed article in the upcoming issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, accused the Bush administration of possessing an "arrogant bunker mentality" in dealing with the rest of the world that "has been counterproductive at home and abroad."

Those words would likely draw strong criticism had they been written by a Democrat. But White House press secretary Dana Perino declined to comment on Huckabee today, CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller reports. “We’re gonna stay out of the primary politics and when there’s a nominee – the president will vigorously support that nominee," Perino said. “I will refer you to the Republican National Committee which during the primary season can answer those questions. As much as I may want to, I’m not going to do it from the podium."

Perino's words conjure the interesting, and possibly awkward image, of Bush campaigning with the man who assailed his foreign policy. That assumes, of course, that Huckabee will want the unpopular president anywhere near him.