U.S. Democratic Party

The presidential nominating process is a lot like the Bowl Championship Series that governs college football: a maddeningly clunky, irrational, and outmoded system that regularly inspires calls for reform, none of which ever go anywhere.

So it’s tempting to greet the latest proposed overhaul of the Democratic primary calendar, this one authored by Florida Senator Bill Nelson, as just another in a long line of futile efforts. It’s also easy to dismiss Nelson’s maneuver as sour grapes, given his state’s black-sheep status in this year’s Democratic contest.  read more »

The presidential nominating process is a lot like the Bowl Championship Series that governs college football: a maddeningly clunky, irrational and outmoded system that regularly inspires calls for reform, none of which ever go anywhere.

So it’s tempting to greet the latest proposed overhaul of the Democratic primary calendar, this one authored by Florida Senator Bill Nelson, as just another in a long line of futile efforts. It’s also easy to dismiss Nelson’s maneuver as sour grapes, given his state’s black-sheep status in this year’s Democratic contest.  read more »

According to Councilman Michael McMahon, the fact that the Democratic Party on Staten Island has never nominated a candidate of color isn't a sign of bias.

That was the implication yesterday from the campaign manager of an African-American Assembly candidate, Kelvin Alexander, who lost the Democratic nomination and is now running against the party-backed candidate, Matthew Titone.

"I am one of those who firmly believes that when the time is at hand, a person of color be nominated and endorsed by the Democratic Party of Staten Island," McMahon said. "The issue then becomes working with the community and finding elections that they can be successful in. Because whatever the election, whether it's the Assembly, state Senate or City Council a person of color has to be able to get votes from all the people in the district just like I, not being a person of color, have to get votes from people of color as well.

"My point is, the issue is not whether there should be a candidate of color but how best to accomplish that."

He went on to say, "They'll point to the fact that the Republicans Party has supported candidates of color, but it's in races when they have no chances of winning."

-- Azi Paybarah

The Spitzer for President chatter, which I touched on here, gets a bit of new life at the tail end of this article in the Sun about why the governor is undecided about moving up New York's presidential primaries.

Mr. Spitzer could be waiting for other large states to make their move before he proceeds. By keeping his options open, he also preserves a bargaining chip that could come in handy in his dealings with the national Democratic Party.

Mr. Spitzer, who is widely believed to harbor presidential ambitions, also must be considering the impact an earlier date would have on his own chances in six or 10 years.

"It's not just about Hillary," said a Democratic political consultant, Hank Sheinkopf, who was an adviser to President Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign and also worked for Mr. Spitzer's first successful bid for attorney general in 1998. "To presume that's how he's thinking about it is wrong. He's thinking about it in a larger context."

-- Azi Paybarah

Democrats will no doubt hail the non-binding resolution just passed in the House of Representatives as another victory towards forcing the administration to change its course in the war.

Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey sees the non-binding House resolution opposing the Iraq troop increase as a defeat for the Democrats.

Discussing the 246 to 182 vote, which included 17 Republican defections, Armey said, "The White House is doing good then, if they held it to 17. I think they felt if they could keep it to 20 or below then they are in good shape. I think that settles the deal."

"They didn't get enough of a show of Republican votes, so that it will drift into the category of little-noted-no-longer-remembered," he said.

The Democrats have convened an unusual Saturday session of the Senate in an attempt to make sure that doesn't happen.

--Jason Horowitz

In this week's (stunningly attractive!) redesigned Observer, I wrote about a plan from the Spitzer people to panic Republicans Senators into defecting to the Democrats.

The idea would be not only to install a friendly majority in the Senate but to diminish the influence of Sheldon Silver, who has emerged as Spitzer's Moriarty-type nemesis in Albany.

According to a senior administration official, the contrast between the Senate Dems and the Assembly Dems would "make clear that there is a reform wing of the Democratic Party and a status quo wing of the party a reform wing of the Democratic Party and a status quo wing of the party."

Also in the paper, Felix Ortiz criticizes the establishment.

And Adolfo Carrion looks at the 2009 mayoral field and laughs.

-- Azi Paybarah

I just got off a conference call with Senator Biden, much of which focused on today's story.

At first he was asked about the validity of his comments attacking the other candidates in the Democratic Party.

"I believe I was quoted accurately, but they weren't meant to take shots," he said. "I was responding to what I thought to be two important things. One -- how could you possibly defeat Hillary Clinton? She is so very popular. She has 40 percent of the vote or thereabouts. And my point was that she is known by 100 percent of the people and that she has had the legitimate, understandable, considerable support from her husband and there is 60 percent of the people are still up for grabs. And that's the only point I was making... And she is clearly qualified to be president. And if I left an impression, that is not an accurate reading of what I intended to say anyway.

"And with regard to the assertions I have just read as I walked over here... about Barack Obama. Barack Obama is probably the most exciting candidate that the Democratic or Republican Party has produced, at least since I have been around. And he is fresh, he is new, he is insightful, and I really regret that some have taken totally out of context my use of the word 'clean.'

"So I called Barack," he added, "and he said 'Joe you don't have to explain anything to me.'"

Biden also said, "He is probably, as I said the most exciting candidate this party has had in a long time, that was the only point I was trying to make."

About his use of the word "clean" to describe Obama, Biden explained by saying, "My mother has an expression: clean as a whistle, sharp as tack. That's the context."

Later, he added: "I have spoken to Senator Obama -- he knew what I meant by it ."

When pushed again if the quote was correct, he added, "It was exactly what I said."

Another reporter asked why Biden was running if he thought Obama was so well qualified.

"I think he's great I think they're all great I think I'm better," he said, adding. "Now it's about ideas, and I think her ideas are incorrect for how to proceed in Iraq."

--Jason Horowitz

Speaking of Chuck Schumer, here, after some ado, are a few passages from his new book.

"One of the open secrets in Washington is that senators of the same party and same state rarely get along. Hillary and I are both ambitious hard working politicians who occasionally step on each other's toes. We have had out high point and our low points. But we have the bonds of my campaign in 1998 and hers in 2000 that are unique to our relationship."

The book starts with some curious little tidbits. For example, Schumer, aka Mr. 1600,reveals that in 1964, as a 14-year-old, he worked the mimeograph machine for Stanley Kaplan of the eponymous SAT prep course and that he nervously munched on "Cold calamari and oversized cookies" in the Hyatt Regency Washington on midterm election night. At Harvard, he originally planned to be an organic chemist and, much less surprisingly, what he looks for in a restaurant is a place where the "food is good and not very expensive."

(Hillary Clinton will be throwing Chuck his book party in his favorite haunt, a cheap Chinese restaurant in D.C.)

As far as the future of the Party, Chuck was not satisfied with the Democratic takeover of the Senate.

"Our victory was well deserved, but the Democratic Party still needs a new paradigm," he writes. And Schumer thinks he is just the person to provide it. His key to perpetual victory is encapsulated in the title for Chapter 2: "It's the Middle Class Stupid."

Chuck talks at length about Joe and Eileen Bailey, the middle class family he has conceptualized and who he feels should be the Party's target voters.

They live in Massapequa and are both 45. He's an insurance agent and she works in a doctor's office. They have two cars in the garage, are worried about terrorists, heath care property taxes and college tuition. They are infrequent church goers and "politically, they are up for grabs."

One of the reasons he recruited Casey over significant opposition, he said, is that "Casey was the guy who best represented the Joe and Eileen Baileys of Pennsylvania."

Chuck says that he was at first reluctant about taking on the head job at the DSCC.

"The DSCC job is not necessarily a plum assignment. It's like being elected resident of your condo association - someone's got to do it. It requires a lot of travel and a lot of time dialing for dollars.

"The number-one reason that I decided to take the job was because I worried that if we had another bad election, if we lost another two or three seats, it would be over...The Supreme Court would take this nation backward 130 years."

The major cause for the 2004 electoral losses, Schumer says, was losing touch with middle class voters.

"We were competitive among the middle class - voters with household incomes between $30,000 and $75,000 - only because of near- unanimous support among middle-class African-American voters. Meanwhile, among white middle-class voters - a third of the electorate - Bush beat Kerry by twenty-two points. Twenty-two points!"

"We needed to do a better job of reaching the middle class, regardless of ethnicity, and, whatever we did, we could never ignore African-American voters."

Schumer attributes the decay of Hispanic support for the Democratic Party in 2004 to their increased incomes, which put them more in the middle class that he thinks the Democrats were ignoring.

The rest of the book targets the more wonkish reader, and consists of Chuck's "eureka moments" about how to "increase reading and math scores by 50 %," how to "reduce property taxes that fund education by 50%" how to "increase the number of college graduates by 50%," how to "reduce illegal immigration by at least 50% and increase legal immigration by up to 50%" "reduce our dependence on foreign oil by 50%" and how to reduce cancer mortality, abortions, tax evasion, child obesity and access to child pornography by 50 percent.

--Jason Horowitz

You don't have to run for president to sell books.

Take Chuck Schumer, who on February 22 will make an appearance at the New School to publicize his new offering, Positively American: Winning Back the Middle-Class Majority One Family at a Time.

The recently ordained political guru of the Democratic Party will talk about his prescription for luring average-income suburban types back into the fold, a subject the school's Milano School for Management and Urban Policy will be revisiting with a related conference in April about the urban middle class.

--Jason Horowitz

Chuck Schumer, politician, campaign guru and fund-raiser extraordinaire, is now also officially an author.

From "Positively American," the senator's 270-page offering which is scheduled to show up in stores later this month, we'll get his take on the Democratic Party's appeal and the Supreme Court, among other things.

Schumer has said that he is not satisfied with the Democratic takeover of the Senate that he helped engineer this year, and is offering a strategy in this book for attracting middle class families who are not committed to either major political party.

Schumer was at first reluctant about taking on the head job at the DSCC, but has said that he did so in part because of the lasting impact that a GOP-led Congress could have had by appointing more conservatives to the Supreme Court.

-- Jason Horowitz

UPDATE: After being made aware by the Schumer people of certain embargo details, we've re-posted this item without some quotes and details that were in the original. The official publication date is Jan. 23.

The Democrats' domestic agenda items "suggest that they're picking selected fights rather than going for wholesale change."

Hillary Clinton ducked a question about whether Barack Obama is experienced enough to be president.

When asked about 2008, Clinton told reporters to worry about the next two days, two weeks and two months instead of the next two years.

Obama's hometown paper says his past drug use should not be an issue in the campaign.

President Bush may call for 20,000 more troops to go to Iraq.

New state comptroller...Diana Taylor?

Eliot Spitzer will propose legalizing gay marriage within the year, according to a spokesman.

Some 9/11 families are turning to Spitzer for new leadership at Ground Zero.

Andrew Cuomo's investigation of state member items is comes in for some praise.

The New Jersey Senate looks to ban all gifts to lawmakers.

Mike Bloomberg sounded reluctant to win his own bid to host the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

Only 27 percent of NYC students eligible for free tutoring actually sign up for it [first item].

And a Vanity Fair writer has a contemporary take on some upcoming anniversaries.

-- Azi Paybarah

William Samuels, Democratic donor, semi-retired businessman and son of three-time gubernatorial cand  read more »

Here's a memorable quote from a speech yesterday by newly elected state Democratic Party chair June O'Neill, explaining her unusual path to power:

"You know, there's an old saying, if you ever see a turtle on a fence post, you know she didn't get there by herself. So, speaking as the turtle on the fence post, on behalf of my team of ninja turtles, words are really inadequate to say thank you to all the people."

More from her speech is here.

-- Azi Paybarah

"Best shape we've been in in modern history."

That's how outgoing state Democratic Party chairman Herman "Denny" Farrell just described the state party's condition at the end of his five-year tenure.

(For the record, that's slightly different from how newly-elected party co-chair David Pollak, sees it.)

In a speech to party leaders at the Sheraton, Farrell noted that since he took over as state chair from Judith Hope on Dec. 3, 2001, the party has picked up five congressional seats and had a "dramatic increase in Democratic enrollment. "Together," he said, "we did it."

-- Azi Paybarah

Now that most of the electoral goals of the state Democratic Party have been accomplished, it's sort of an open question when it comes to the direction Eliot Spitzer will want to go in when he weighs in on the selection of the new chair.

Here's an interesting piece of speculation from one informed Democratic source:

"It really depends... on what they want the party to do and succeed in. If it's to nurture and strengthen the bench then [Nassau Suffolk County Chairman Rich Schaffer] would be good. If they want a caretaker then it could be someone more they trust who will just raise money like [Spitzer fund-raiser] Cindy Darrison.

"She does not have the same level of campaign experience but she is great for money. Rich has been one of our most successful chairs and has won all the major races."

Newsday quoted one lobbyist saying Schaffer is the likely replacement. A lobbyist I spoke with said that Schaffer's not interested in it. (I haven't heard yet either way from Schaffer himself.)

As for Darrison, she wasn't mentioned as a member of Spitzer's transition team today. Spitzer's spokeswoman Christine Anderson said they had no further announcements about personnel.

Any other logical candidates?

-- Azi Paybarah

In the only contested race in Manhattan - where there are three judicial candidates running for two civil court vacancies - Shari Michels is leading Kelly O'Neill Levy 17.76% to 13.61%.

Less than 20% of precincts have reported so far.

It's a noteworthy race because neither Michels or Levy are running on the Democratic Party line.

-- Azi Paybarah

"I'm a big deal!" shouted Anthony Weiner as he walked down the steps of the Sheraton towards an interview with Fox News.

Weiner was joking about his new status in a Democratic majority. But he conceeded that the success will create some tensions between ambitious representatives.

"There is going to be a tussle within the Democratic Party," he said, and not only between politicians competing for plum jobs. "There are some forces in the Party that think we should be evening scores."

--Jason Horowitz

I escaped the velvet cage holding reporters at the Democratic Party here in the Sheraton long enough to run into one Democrat who said Hevesi has a "zero chance" of serving a full-term.

"The question is, does he make it to the New Year."

According to this source, the leading replacement would be Bill Mulrow -- not NYC comptroller Bill Thompson.

And it should be noted this Democrat, unlike some revelers here, wasn't drinking.

-- Azi Paybarah

Here's a palm card the state Democratic Party printed up, presumably before the Hevesi chauffeur incident turned into a full-blown feeding frenzy.

I'm not sure how widely it'll be distributed, but one political operative in City Hall said, "They got to hand it out. Hevei's got to win so they can replace him."

There's one more piece of lit after the jump.  read more »

Update: Here is that flier from the AFL-CIO, one of the union's backing Hevesi, which Fred Dicker noted shows every Democrat running for statewide office, except Hevesi. A spokesman for the union explained it was printed during the primaries and Hevesi didn't have a Democratic opponent. So, instead of throwing them away, spokesman Mario Cilento said, they were still being handed out. New ones featuring Hevesi are being sent out, he said. --Azi Paybarah

In this e-mail to supporters, unsuccessful congressional candidate Chris Owens offers this depressing update about his post-primary financial situation:

"We raised $380,000. But we now have some $30,000 in outstanding obligations. Having been "unemployed" for over a year while campaigning, I am not in a position to meet these obligations on my own and I am asking for your assistance one final time. Fundraising during a campaign is a humbling experience; doing so after the election is even more so."

He goes on to say:

We must remember that our increasing dependence upon money to activate the electorate is a most insidious disease. It leads sensible people to lose their sense when deciding who to support for public office. It leads good people -- individuals as well as well-meaning organizations -- to violate the law. If we do not pursue significant campaign finance reform from the top on down, then the alienation of our people from the political process will reach a point of no return.

Full text after the jump.  read more »

--Azi Paybarah

That was quick.

The state Democratic Party is treating John Faso like the fearsome candidate Republicans have been dreaming of, releasing a "Some votes you may not know about."

Come to think of it, it is sort of the same way Eliot Spitzer's running mate, David Paterson, was welcomed on the campaign trail.

There are not shortage of parties tonight, and overworked campaign staffers and city employees "volunteering" today have more than a dozen choices of where to hang out tonight.

But Democratic consutlant Scott Leveson has a warning for anybody with high hopes on the Democratic party scene.

"Somewhere down the line Democrats have forgotten how to dance," he said. "Somehow, it seems like Young Republicans are having more fun than we do."

Come to think of it, I don't remember much dancing at the last Democratic Party party I crashed.

Eliot, Andrew, the dance floor is yours.

-- Azi Paybarah

How amazing that the Conservative Party leader in Britain, David Cameron, is now lashing out at American neoconservatives and denouncing Tony Blair's "slavish" relationship to the U.S. So the neocons are identified there with Labor. As they have found a home in the Lieberman/Hillary wing of the Democratic Party here.

We're all in for a realignment, and not as David Brooks has stated, of warmongering elites versus populist isolationists. This realignment is about how to handle the Arab world, how to handle autocratic Syria as it tries to put a damper on Islamic fervor, how to handle the Israeli occupation, how to put down weapons, how—as Tom Kean emphasized at the National Press Club yesterday—to win hearts and minds.

John Koblin caught this interesting remark from last night's AG's debate, where Sean Patrick Maloney switches who he thinks is the second-best candidate in the race.

"Well, I think Mark is the second best candidate but he's going to lose this race so it's hard for me to support him. So a few weeks ago, I'd say Mark, but tonight I'd say Andrew."

Update: This other quote from Maloney, I think, helps put his other remark in context. Maloney ties Green's electability directly to Green's negativity.

"I think you've taken the Democratic Party down to defeat more times than anybody in the last 30 years, and one of the reasons is because you don't give people something to vote for."

-- Azi Paybarah

Sydney Beveridge has a piece on Gotham Gazette about the elections in New York and notes that there is room for a few more.

Of 65 seats in the State Assembly representing New York City, only 20 primaries are planned (all but two of which are for the Democratic Party). These numbers keep declining as candidates are removed from the ballot at the last minute. This scant number of primaries is typical throughout the whole state. Less than one in five New York City voters registered with a major party will have a reason to go to the polls September 12th and even fewer will be confident that their vote could make any difference.

She goes on to write:

In 2004, New York City could have had as many as 130 Assembly primaries, but had 17, and 60 Senate primaries, but had 12.

-- Azi Paybarah

One day before blowing out her birthday candles, Hillary will be the guest of honor at the Queens county Democratic Party's annual pre-election cocktail party.

The party takes place on Wednesday, Oct. 25 at Antun's, Queens Village at 6 PM.

Prediction: Soon-to-be county chair, Rep. Joe Crowley, grabs the mic for a birthday cheer and somehow finds a way to slip in references to some obscure race she's never heard of. -- Azi Paybarah

The conventional narrative of what may become Joe Lieberman’s final campaign for public office—p  read more »

Greg Sargent, in his new side-gig at TPM Cafe, reports that gazillionaire George Soros will be hosting a Hamptons fund-raiser in August for the DNC.

His analysis:

"You may recall that Soros pledged to raise $75 million to defeat George Bush in 2004, a vow which inspired much muttering on the right about Soros's alleged desire too buy his way into a role as the Democratic Party's secret radical puppet-master. Apparently he hasn't given up on his dark designs."

-- Josh Benson

From the AP, HIllary Clinton's not-unreasonable response to the GOP's Rove-ian discipline on Iraq:

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton conceded Friday the Democrats are "openly struggling with a lot of the difficult issues," but said that was better than the GOP's "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil."

The senator and potential presidential candidate said the Democrats' debate a day earlier on the Senate floor about war policy in Iraq was actually a sign of party strength, not weakness.

"Although unity is important it is not the most important value. It is, I think, a tribute to the Democratic Party at this moment in time that we are honestly and openly struggling with a lot of the difficult issues facing our country," Clinton, D-N.Y., told the New Democrat Network.

Both Clinton and Chuck Schumber voted yesterday against the Kerry-Feingold troop withdrawal proposal, which called for a complete U.S. troop pull-out from Iraq by July 2007. Instead, they raised their hands for the non-binding Reid-Levin proposal, which called for the U.S. to begin a "phased redeployment" this year but set no timetable for a complete withdrawal.

-- Josh Benson

The New York Carib News is reporting that Marty Markowitz is staying out of the 11th Congressional race, but has some harsh words for Chris Owens, who upset the Borough President by endorsing Gloria Mattera last year.

This guy is an opportunist. That's all he is. I don't wish anyone ill, except for him to be defeated which is what he wished me in my campaign (for Borough President). He endorsed the candidate outside of the Democratic Party against me, which is his right to do. He sucks up to the affluent minority. That's who he does the dance for. That's his thing, the affluent minority. He is turning his face on the majority.

—Nicole Brydson

Today's LA Times has a good piece by Jacob Heilbrunn about Democratic neocons.

They want, in essence, to return to the beliefs that originally brought the neocons to prominence, the beliefs that motivated old-fashioned Cold War liberals such as Democratic Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson.

Where will all this lead? To an internecine Democratic war, of course. Just as Republicans are being riven by debates between realists and Bush administration idealists, so the Democratic Party is about to witness its own battle.

Just as the old neocons wanted to expel the McGovernites, so the new ones want to rid the party of the Moveon.org types and move it to the right. As [Peter] Beinart puts it, "whatever its failings, the right at least knows that America's enemies need to be fought."

This is nothing new. Neoconservatism has always had adherents in the Democratic party, a lot of the neocons are former Democrats (who never cared for the Republican agenda of fiscal conservatism, anti-immigration and anti-civil rights). The New Republic, where Beinart worked, has been a hive of this thinking for the whole Iraq War. Senior editor Lawrence Kaplan rolled out the red carpet for the Iraq invasion in a book he wrote with Bill Kristol, The War Over Iraq. The issue is whether the Democratic Party base—left-liberals—can fight this battle openly. The only way to do so is to say, We stand for the peace process in Israel/Palestine and against the idea that the Arab world can be reformed by a bloody crusade against its dictators.

You feel lost, confused, alone in the world. Everything you do ends in failure.  read more »

Joe Klein is the flower of American political journalism, a sharp raconteur who shows traces of the  read more »

Joe Klein is the flower of American political journalism, a sharp raconteur who shows traces of the  read more »

Two Hillary items not to miss: The Washington Posts's disclosure yesterday of the fact that Harold Ickes is setting up what amounts to a parallel Democratic Party to the one run by Howard Dean (whom they obviously don't trust), using George Soros's money for one of those fancy voter databses that some credit with giving the Republicans an edge last cycle. (Others credit voters.)

Also, Greg Sargent has a look on The American Prospect's blog at Mark Penn's briefing with donors, at which her pollster talked up that WSJ/NBC poll that has her as the nation's leading Democrat.

Over on the West Side, one of the Assembly candidates, Charles Simon, has a couple of mailings that perfectly illustrate how hard it will be for the state Democratic Party establishment to extricate itself from a lobbyist-heavy political culture. The central problem being that the establishment is composed in no small part of lobbyists. Here's one mailer (.pdf), highlighting Simon's call to "ban gifts from lobbyists," his refusal to take donations from lobbyists (it helps to have your own money), and his general disgust at their proliferation. And here's one with headshots (.pdf) of a couple prominent Simon supporters; one is Ethan Geto, identified as Howard Dean's New York campaign manage. In his day job, Geto is ... a lobbyist and P.R. man whose clients include major real estate developers.

State Democratic Party consultant Howard Wolfson, on Fred Dicker's show this morning, took a whack at Tom Suozzi.

In paraphrase (I don't have exact notes, but Wolfson confirms):

"A lot of Democrats are disappointed that Mr. Suozzi refused to rule out running on the Republican line," he said. "A lot of Democrats are becoming increasingly concerned that Mr. Suozzi's biggest financial backer is a leading Republican who supported George Bush."

Wolfson told The Politicker that he wasn't speaking in his role as party spokesman.  read more »

"I was speaking for myself," he said.

...says Robert George, in a thoughtful, bipartisan rant: He smacks Hillary, but adds: "[C]onservatives don't get a free pass on this. I don't know who started it -- though this was an early entry -- but too many on the right have adopted the "plantation" language as a favorite trope in trying to dislodge minority (particularly African American) allegiance to the Democratic Party. It matters little whether those comments have come from black conservatives or white conservatives (or Latino conservatives), it is inherently insulting and counterproductive to the very principle that the writer is advocating. It's very difficult to convince someone of the validity of your argument by suggesting that continuing to vote for the other party is evidence of a slave-like mentality. .... In short, suggesting that blacks have a plantation mentality for continuing to support Democrats -- and then expecting them to support Republicans -- makes about as much sense as trying to convince a Republican to switch parties becaused the GOP are Nazis."  read more »

Well, that challenge to Hillary from the left has materialized. Cindy Sheehan said "no," but she's endorsed one Jonathan Tasini, a labor guy whose name will be familiar to freelance journalists and New York Times lawyers* and not many other people.

His challenge is based first on the charge that Hillary "has been one of the leading proponants of the war," he said in an interview this morning, and secondarily on economic issues like Nafta.

In a statement on Tasini's Web site, Sheehan describes Clinton as "a candidate who advocates for continued killing on the basis of flimsy reasoning."

Tasini's challenge -- along with running threats over at DailyKos to primary Joe Lieberman -- represent the Web-organized, anti-war wing of the Democratic Party putting its electoral money where its much-hyped mouth is. Here, Tasini faces a real logistical challenge, first of all, in even getting on the ballot, needing 15,000 signatures scattered across half the state's counties.

"If there's a base of [financial and volunteer] support within about 30 to 60 days, I think this campaign has legs and is going to get off the ground," he said. "This may not touch an nerve and then we're not going to be able to do it. We'll see."

He also mentioned that the activist group Code Pink plans to begin regular protests at Clinton events.  read more »

Some will speculate that this sort of thing is just what Hillary needs for her national image, and it's hard to imagine the campaign -- from, incidentally, some of the folks who brought us Norman Siegel this time around -- will do a whole lot of electoral damage. But who knows where the politics of the war will be when she hits New Hampshire two years from now.

*Tasini was the plaintiff in a case freelancers brought,and won, against the New York Times for the use of their work outside the print paper. Which means his campaign will put the Times, and perhaps freelancers who benefited from the settlement, deep in disclaimer-land when they write about him.

The Hotline's blog has this from actor Tim Robbins' interview with Air America's Marc Maron this morning:

"Hillary Clinton can kiss my butt. That ridiculous, ridiculous statement she made about the war . . . First of all, for supporting it in the first place, an second of all this sort of equivocate now . . . I mean, it's that terrible strategy the Democratic Party has had that has wound up in lost elections, lost Senate control, lost Congressional control. You gotta have a backbone."  read more »

Ouch.

Robert Shrum, the political consultant whose words and ideas have helped define the Democratic Party  read more »

Robert Shrum, the political consultant whose words and ideas have helped define the Democratic Party  read more »

If you misplaced your City Section over the weekend, you missed an op-ed by Howard Wolfson and Gigi Georges on what's wrong with the city's Democrats.

Their diagnosis is that a party that has run on identity politics needs to find a new way to survive in a politics driven by ideas. They don't say it, but a system of uncontested general elections for City Council and for citywide offices like Comptroller means that candidates never test their views against somebody who might actually disagree on big issues. Not until they run for Mayor.  read more »

Georges and Wolfson also note something undeniable: security is now a threshold issue, and any candidate for Mayor has to convince voters that he or she can be trusted to run things in a crisis. My only quibble is the question of whether Mike Bloomberg is really not a Democrat, or bad for Democrats. Obviously, he's bad news for the dozen or so actual employees of the state and county Democratic Party organizations. But Democrats elected him. And he isn't -- unlike national Republicans, and unlike Rudy -- really presenting an ideological alternative. He crushed Freddy in part by doing the reverse -- leaving no ideological daylight between them.

Thank God for broadcast television.

With the Observer's cable down today, we've dragged our 11-inch Samsung TV and raggedy antenna over to the window, tuned in to WNBC, and we're ready to go.

7:01 -- Ben -- Mike forced to watch cartoon.

Jess -- Minus the gropy part.

7:03 -- Ben -- Mike: "The Republican Party gave me an opportunity the Democratic Party would not give me." Freddy -- "Aw, c'mon." Plus some Spanish. Mike is gripping that podium awful tight.

7:06 -- Ben -- Gabe finds a good way into the Iraq question: Should the Mayoralty be a bully pulpit?

Jess -- "Do you agree with him that the war should be brought to an end as soon as possible?" Gabe asks Mike. What kind of a question is that? It's the "possible" part that gets folks heated....

7:09 -- Ben -- And Mike finally gets an Iraq policy: "Walking away at this point would make all of them having died in vain. It would be an outrage...." Instead, we should "stay there until the generals say Iraq's government can maintain peace and maintain a democracy."

7:11 -- Jess -- Bloomberg: Defend first, spend later. Doesn't this take some pressure off Washington? Extra money "would be nice"?

7:13 -- Ben -- Mutate! Mike is kind of a public health nut.

7:16 -- Ben -- That 50% dropout rate has got to be the single least solid stat of this race. And there is, as usual, quite a bit of competition.

7:17 -- Jess -- Though the $7 million to Bush actually seems a little dodgy, as well.

7:18 -- Ben -- Corrected! Mike: "Joel was wrong." How hard was that, now? Kind of a trap, but probably worth walking into.

7:19 -- Ben -- Freddy sticks with the stat, as he has to. "Joel Klein was right."

7:20 -- Ben -- A little bit of disdain there from Mike, quickly withdrawn. "Or maybe he just doesn't understand..."

7:25 -- Ben -- Russo really opens Mike's empathy gap here. When she notes that the woman they've interviewed already has a job and is still struggling, he responds with a non sequitur: "We've got to keep making this government as efficient as we possibly can."

Jess -- Mike is wagging his finger now. It's not quite dancing, but it beats the white knuckles-on-podium routine. Bloomberg: "This is an expensive city, probably always has been, probably always will be....the best answer is a job for everyone." Is this a re-emergence of the NYC as luxury product idea?

Jess -- Mike says that the immigrants come here "with a not great command of the English language." Sigh!

7:28 -- Horowitz -- As Mike lists endorsements: "What about the fucking Observer!?"

7:29 -- Ben -- Don't get Freddy started on the Post. He told me on Primary Day that Post cartoonist Sean Delonas was "a disease."

7:37 -- Ben -- "Second in size and mass only to the president of the United States." This is a venerable old line...but really...it's not that important.

7:41 -- Jess -- Ah, the Bloomberg billions. "Look, what I'm trying to do is to get my message out to everybody...no matter where they live." This actually sounds like he's trying to spin the spending as.... egalitarian.

7:42 -- Ben -- Freddy's winning on style. A bit canned, but Mike's stiff. And has a slight lead in the smirking department. But as in the last debate, Mike's mastery of the content is evident, a bit dulling but effective.

7:45 -- Ben -- A glimpse inside Mike's head: "Don't look at your watch. Don't look at your watch...."

Horowitz -- Um. Defeatism watch. Did Ferrer just talk about Mike Bloomberg's "next budget"?

7:50 -- Ben -- Ouch. Is that the best Mike can do? "I think my opponent is a great family man and he speaks Spanish better than I do."  read more »

7:53 -- Ben -- Freddy to end overpopulation.

Well, that was the debate Freddy wanted. He was lively, and despite the occasional hairy moment, on top of the material. Mike was bored and wonky. Though very wonky.

A displeased Assemblyman Richard Brodsky called this morning to do some rapid response to an item in Crain's Insider. The item suggested he would drop out of the race for Attorney General to preserve his seniority in the Assembly, not to mention his "chairmanship of the powerful Codes Commmittee," of which he is not chairman. It also noted that he hadn't spent much money on his campaign recently.

He didn't want to rebut the claim, exactly.

"I don't want to rebut because it's a fucking lie," he said. "They let themselves be used."

(Never happens to The Politicker. Really.)

His campaign, he added, is "moving brilliantly," and while he hasn't spent much money lately, his fundraising has put him over $1 million.

"There's no warmth in the Democratic Party for the two candidates with the best name recognition. Nobody in the Democratic Party is going 'goody goody goody, Mark Green and Andrew Cuomo," he said, saying that he's the "lawyerly" alternative in the Spitzer tradition.  read more »

Does seem that somebody's a bit worried about Brodsky, in any case.

With the national mood apparently swinging in their favor, the Democratic Party elders are seizing the moment to ... coin a new lame slogan. (Out with the old lame slogans!)

The Hill reports: "House Democratic leaders are holding a closed-door meeting with members of their caucus this afternoon to discuss a new slogan for the 2006 midterm elections: 'Together, We Can Do Better' or 'Together, America Can Do Better,' according to Democratic sources."  read more »

(via Political Wire)