Adam Nagourney

"I'll start right now as if the outcome [the recent count] suggests is the outcome," Adam Nagourney told a crowd that gathered at the Times building. "I'll write other versions too. Four years ago, the legendary Johnny Apple had written an early edition Q-hed analysis on exit polls that turned out to be wrong. And Johnny reacted pretty badly to it. I started writing it, but I'm also writing the other version."

In Adam Nagourney’s piece today on the McCain campaign's how-we-can-still-win scenario, McCain strategist Steve Schmidt made the following assertion:

"The McCain campaign is roughly in the position where Vice President Gore was running against President Bush one week before the election of 2000."

False.

Here are the results of the 10 most recent independent national polls:

Obama, 52-39 (CBS/New York Times)

Obama 52-45 (Rasmussen)

Obama, 50-43 (Hotline)

Obama, 54-43 (ABC/Washington Post)

Obama, 49-46 (Battleground)

Obama, 51-41 (Zogby)

Obama, 52-42 (NBC/Wall Street Journal)

Obama, 51-45 (Gallup)

Obama, 49-40 (Fox)

Obama, 44.8-43.7 (IBD/TIPP)

That last poll, from IBD/TIPP, has been pushed exhaustively by the McCain-leaning pundits, but there's good reason to discount it. As FiveThirtyEight.com points out, the 1-point race that they found is the result of a dubious 74-22 percent advantage for McCain among 18-to-24-year-olds.  read more »

In Denver, Felix Gillette meets MSNBC's newest star, Rachel Maddow, who tells him, "My agenda for the next two weeks is to enjoy being at the conventions—like, 'Oh, that’s Joe Biden outside the window! Woo-hoo!'... I've never covered a convention before. I'm trying to keep it together and stay relaxed."

"I don’t like events where there are a gazillion reporters,” The New York Times political reporter Nagourney tells John Koblin at the DNC. "If you come here and David Axelrod came walking down the aisle over there, there'd be 500 people around him, and you’d be getting the most boilerplate quotes. So what’s the point?"

Leon Neyfakh checks in with Mitzi Angel, who recently relocated to New York to head up FSG's Faber & Faber imprint. Here's what she says about selling books in England: "You know, where you buy your food—there are these big, huge places where everybody goes to buy their food. And now they also sell books, at huge discounts, and they buy them at huge discounts from publishers. They're where you buy everything, these huge places—you go for your weekly shopping, and you buy your newspaper there, you buy a book, you buy a saucepan and you buy a kettle and you buy all your food. And most of the books are rubbish."

Plus: 7 for September... Howard Wolfson... Bumped Bankers Go Bonkers!

DENVER—On Aug. 25, The New York Times’ chief political reporter, Adam Nagourney, was looking for a pair of seats for an interview in a sawdust-ridden tent in the parking lot of Denver’s basketball arena that served as the paper’s media workspace.

The Times wound up bringing so many staffers to this event (60!) that nearly every seat in its space was occupied in that area; he walked over to Bloomberg News, where there were another 30 workstations set up.

The thing about the conventions is that so many reporters come to them. The result is that it’s rare for anyone to write anything important.  read more »

I just spoke to the Times' top political reporter, Adam Nagourney, who told me this might be the last time he'll cover a convention--or, an election for that matter--for the paper.

"What I'm thinking--and it's not remotely about disillusionment; I love this job--that maybe I should do something different," he said. "There are a lot of opportunites at The New York Times. I think I've done it well, or as well as I could do it, but I just want to do something different."

He brought up the possibility of either moving over to the national desk, or taking a foreign assignment. He's been covering Conventions for the Times since 1996.

 

Media outfits are camped out in several different press tents just outside the Pepsi Center. So far, the heavyweight tent is Media Pavilion 4 where you'll find The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Bloomberg News, Reuters, Congressional Quarterly, McClatchy, the Hearst papers, The New York Post and the The Daily News.

And what do you do if you're a reporter and you want a moment to break away from your laptop?

Head over to the Media Spa, located dead in the middle of the tent. It's open for 11.5 hours every day ("11:30am to 11pm!"). We went there around noon (mountain time) and found it mostly unoccupied.  read more »

We had the same thought as New York magazine when we saw this front-page New York Times story by Adam Nagourney on the abortive Hillary-Rudy Senate race of 2000: Didn't Salon write that story yesterday?

Actually, the duelling pieces raise a broader issue.  Given the pace of modern-day campaign coverage, and the sheer number of reporters, bloggers, and YouTube posters capable of providing up-to-the-minute reports from the trail, it obviously makes sense for The Times to shift toward using its resources to offer deeper, more in-depth coverage--like today's front-pager--while using its blog to keep up with the daily back-and-forth.  And that's what it seems to have been doing this time around.  But if these deeper pieces, too, are increasingly being done by alternative outlets, what, besides access to a broader readership, is The Times' unique niche in its campaign coverage?  read more »

Last night in the New York Times building, before a crowd of over 300, five members of the Times political team -- assistant managing editor Rick Berke, chief political reporter Adam Nagourney, online political editor Kate Phillips, and reporters Patrick Healy and Jodi Kantor -- held a surprisingly frank conversation about the 2008 presidential campaign and the relationship between the reporters and the candidates.

At the beginning of the presentation, Mr. Nagourney discussed the recent endorsement of Rudy Giuliani by Pat Robertson as "freaky," "weird" and "a stunt." He also echoed a widespread criticism of Republican candidate Fred Thompson, saying "I really think he's just not that into it."

At one point, Times assistant managing editor Rick Berke asked reporter Patrick Healy, who covers Hillary Clinton, whether the New York senator has forgiven him for the notorious A1 exegesis of the Clinton marriage he wrote last year. "No," Mr. Healy replied.  read more »

New York Times editor-in-chief Bill Keller went to tour Iowa on Thursday and returned yesterday. On Monday, Times political reporter Adam Nagourney emailed Media Mob about the trip...  read more »

In a phone interview on Friday, New York Times managing editor Jill Abramson said that the paper's editor-in-chief Bill Keller was traveling in Iowa with political reporter Adam Nagourney. During the trip, he'd meet candidates and get a flavor of the presidential race this year. Mr. Keller left on Thursday and he'll be back on Tuesday, Ms. Abramson said.  read more »

New York magazine looks at Alan Hevesi and his complicated personal situation.

At the same time, Hevesi may benefit from a legal argument written by a Republican state Senator.

Time magazine says, "By trying to become the perfect candidate for the primaries, McCain could be creating difficulties for himself in a general election."

Adam Nagourney wondered over the weekend if America is "more likely to vote for a woman or an African-American for president."

George Pataki will decide whether to run for president next year.

Eliot Spitzer's mettle may be tested over the issue of raising salaries for state lawmakers.

New York Times editors like the idea of studying congestion pricing.

The Sun editors are weary of the lame-duck session of the legislature.

Ben looks inside Barack Obama's meeting with George Soros and other high-end contributors.

And there's a new cover photo and introduction to Hillary's book, It Takes a Village.

-- Azi Paybarah

Adam Nagourney says that "In Mr. Obama, Democrats have a prospective candidate who both underlines and compensates for the potential weaknesses that worry many Democrats about Mrs. Clinton."

Hillary is meeting with New York Democrats to talk about 2008.

After meeting Eliot Spitzer in his apartment for two hours, Hillary told reporters they discussed "so many issues that affect the city, the state and the country."

Some people wonder if Hillary can win in 2008.

In a New York magazine cover story, Mike Bloomberg asked rhetorically, "What chance does a five-foot-seven billionaire Jew who's divorced really have of becoming president?"

John McCain's counter-intuitive call for more troops in Iraq may be "reminding independents of the maverick they fell in love with in 2000," according to Newsweek.

Eliot Spitzer may release a damning report detailing a two-month long probe by his office into Alan Hevesi.

The Democrats' secret weapon of 2006 is revealed: Blake Zeff.

Congestion pricing is not on the mayor's to-do list. John Haggerty may be the next executive director of the state GOP.

Some Times reporters are reportedly banned from reading Manhattan weekly newspapers.

Spitzer's campaign turned down $25,000 in contributions from a company but later accepted donations in the same amount from that company's owner [added].

And could wikis and blogs prevent the next 9/11?

-- Azi Paybarah

The much-anticipated debate yesterday between Rep. Peter King of Long Island and his Democratic challenger Dave Mejias is online over here. Warning. It's an hour long. But it's also worth watching, if only for a couple of minutes (unless you live in the district).

Like Adam Nagourney and Jim Rutenburg noted today, most Republicans have done an about-face on the idea of campaigning on Iraq. King, as chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, doesn't have the option, and doesn't sound like he'd want to take it if he could

Quick highlights:

Mejias, around the 3:20 mark: "Five years later, after September 11th, we still have not hunted down and killed Bin Laden. That's a crime."

King talks about Iraq around the 4:45 mark: "There are parts of the country that are stable. There are parts of the country that are deadly...I was on a convoy along the highway when a bomb went off. A bomb went off [and I] was almost killed. Then we went through the city and the city was perfectly stable. It shows how dangerous it is and how stable it is at the same time."

-- Azi Paybarah

It is already 2008 for some White House hopefuls, writes Adam Nagourney.

But as of today -- before Labor Day of the midterm elections -- Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Mr. McCain, Mr. Warner and John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator and 2004 presidential candidate, have built what appear to be the closest to full-formed skeletons of national campaign organizations.

Speaking of 2008, Rudy Giuliani may get swiftboated.

In dealing with 2006, Hillary hosts Ned Lamont.

And State Senator Efrain Gonzalez of The Bronx is indicted. [hat tip: John DeSio]

-- Azi Paybarah

The Times's Adam Nagourney's been off the local politics beat for years now, but he still has his detractors.

Over at the Drum Major Institute's blog, Andrea Battista Schlesinger takes a whack at him, and political reporters in general.

Without getting into the details, it will kind of be an honor if people are still mad at me a few years after I get off this beat.

We admire the persistence of Donnie Fowler's campaign for Democratic National Committee Chairman, which just sent us yet another press release. (No, not about pod-casting. That was last month.) But wait. We thought this was over. After all, the ref -- that's Adam Nagourney -- blew the final whistle yesterday, one which we chimed in on.  read more »

Late on the night of July 5, New York Times reporter Adam Nagourney was glued to a laptop computer a  read more »