The political chefs continue cooking—but who would have thought they’d still be using essence de la Hillary to spice up the political stew this late in the season…

METAPHORICALLY SPEAKING….

As we close in on the West Virginia primary, the “never-say-quit” girl continues to run, even as her financial gas tanks empty and an ever increasing number of Superdelegates leave her side of the road to the White House creating more and more potholes for her to navigate around….

Caught in the grips of the crocodile’s jaws, she’s yelling “full steam ahead to the White House” while the beast is about to crush her while doing the death roll underwater…

EXIT STAGE LEFT….

Back in the 60’s—one of the lesser known Saturday morning cartoon characters from the Hanna-Barbera stable was a pink lion known as Snagglepuss...

When he got into trouble one of his running tag lines was “exit stage left..”

Now, would be a good time for Hillary to figure out an exit strategy… The longer she waits—the less graceful it will be…

VEEPING THROUGH THE KEYHOLE….

There are some indications Clinton’s trying to open the door to her departure by angling to become Obama’s Veep…

Her biographer, Carl Bernstein, says that in this interview you can read here..

In the meantime, a newly created political group called VOTEBOOTH— which was formed just before the Pennsylvania primary— has been pushing the Hillary for vice president issue everywhere it can.

But, as you can read here— Votebooth is actually made up of Clinton operatives and supporters. Another backdoor hint that Hillary is hoping to snag the v.p. spot???

Things standing in the way of that would be Clinton’s high negatives, and Michelle Obama’s reported extreme dislike of Hillary…

WHOSE THAT LADY?

Meanwhile both McCain and Obama are now completely ignoring Hillary as they wage their campaigns.

Instead when they talk about opponents, they talk about each other—not her.

Further emphasizing his new campaign focus, Obama is now visiting states without upcoming primaries—indicating he’s not worried about her winning this Tuesday’s primary in West Virginia…

—Steve

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With just about a week to go before the next set of primaries in North Carolina and Indiana—much of the campaign has become focused not on the candidates—but on what a non-candidate is doing.

Right now—it’s Jeremiah Wright who is whose become the main ingredient in this pot of political stew…

DO THREE WRIGHTS MAKE A WRONG?

In just four days, Rev. Wright has made three high profile public appearances—including an extended session atthe National Press Club in Washington on Monday where he made a speech, and then answered questions.

His repeated public statements have left Obama trying to distance himself yet again from the man who is his spiritual mentor…

It would seem that Rev. Wright is enjoying the international attention he’s getting…

Decide for yourself…Take a look at the first nine minutes of the Press Club Question and Answer session…

(The full session is linked to it, in 10-minute long clips)

McCAIN TURNS WRIGHT…

John McCain’s been spending a lot of time these last few days dealing with Wright.

First, he condemned this advertisement put together by the North Carolina Republican party which tied both democratic gubernatorial candidates to Rev. Wright…

By Sunday night, McCain was lashing into Wright’s statements—saying he agreed with Obama’s comments that “Wright was a legitimate topic of discussion. “

McCain also says he will no longer try and stop others from using Wright as an issue in TV commercials and other venues….

Rev. Wright’s comments aside, with so much attention focused on Jeremiah Wright, you’ve got to wonder—is HE running for president too?

BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME….

With Hillary Clinton still way behind in the delegate count—and with the real possibility that she’ll lose North Carolina, and be badly hurt in Indiana—some are wondering why she is still running?

Former Clintonista Dick Morris has come up with an interesting theory.

He believes Hillary is trying to establish herself for a run at the presidency in 2012…

As you can read here, his theory is that Hillary believes Obama will be the democratic nominee, and then lose to McCain…

So, he thinks she’s positioning herself as the presumptive front runner for the next time around…

Although Morris knows the Clinton’s well—I’m hard pressed to believe that Hillary is ready at this point to give up on snagging the nomination this summer in Denver.

—Steve

Link to the video & story Steve covered today on NBC-17

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We’re just about a week away from the Pennsylvania primary and both Hillary Clinton an Barack Obama continue to keep the political stew boiling…

..And while they’re whacking each other on the head—John McCain is enjoying a nice gentle simmer.

Have you noticed that McCain is getting virtually no coverage these days?

For a candidate in his position—with the GOP nomination locked up—he can go about the business of campaigning without having to worry about any major missteps becoming the media flavor of the day.

Right now—the mainstream press continues to focus on the Clinton-Obama dust up.

Ever since Obama’s “guns and church” comment—Hillary’s campaign has pressed it hard—desperately trying to turn it to her advantage.

By Sunday—Obama was finally trying to take the offensive…

Meanwhile— McCain is benefiting in another way from the carping candidates. As you can read here—yet another poll indicates the longer the Obama/Hillary smack-down continues—the more likely democratic voters jump ship….

INSTANT RECALL….

Meanwhile, as we’re enjoying a freshly prepared meal, let’s not neglect the leftovers in the fridge… Let’s look back at the early stages of this race for the White House…

Below are some excerpts from posts back in January….

Right after Iowa—it was unclear if Barack had staying power…. A couple of weeks later, the race still had no clear leaders—and on the GOP side, McCain looked to be on his way out the door—with a poor delegate showing… And the democrats race had tightened to just three candidates…

~~~~~~~JANUARY 4th~~~~~~~

BARACK TO THE FUTURE?

The results of the Iowa Caucus are in. Huckabee ran away with it on the Republican side pulling about 34% of the vote… And Barack Obama scored a decisive victory over his rivals capturing about 38% of the Democratic votes.

Now—lets look at his victory in the context of Iowa’s demographics.

Iowa is 93% White.

The minority population breaks down along these lines:

• 3.8% Latino
• 2.3% African American
• 1.5% Asian

All those various groups only make up 7.6% of Iowa’s population.

So WHERE is Obama getting his support? You do the math.

Is Iowa a fluke?

We’ll have to see what happens next in New Hampshire.

~~~~~~~ JAN. 18th ~~~~~~~

As we enter the next round of contests in the presidential quest— we’re seeing an interesting dynamic at play here on both the Republican and Democratic side—

—there’s no candidate whose just dominating; no one who has pulled out in front of the others and become the far and away leader….

Lets look back.

IOWA : Obama/Huckabee

N.H. : Clinton/McCain

MICHIGAN: Clinton/Romney

On the eve of the South Carolina primary—could we see yet ANOTHER set of winners?

It’s quite possible.

Fred Thomson is hoping to score big—as is John Edwards.

In addition to looking at front runners—we also have to look at delegate counts.

And, as of this writing, all the winners in each of the previous contests are—for the most part—are not that far apart when it comes to delegates.

DEMOCRATS NEED 2,025 DELEGATES TO NOMINATE.

• CLINTON: 190
• OBAMA: 103
• EDWARDS: 51

REPUBLICANS NEED 1,191 DELEGATES TO NOMINATE.

• ROMNEY: 54
• HUCKABEE: 22
• McCain: 15

~~~~~~~

Isn’t Hindsight Fun ???? 

—Steve

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~~~~

Brünnhilde, the very large Valkyrie in Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, is the so-called “fat lady” who sings at the close of the epic opera… Until she finishes belting it out—the show ain’t over…

The “fat lady” metaphor has been used to describe everything from sports to political contests…

And, in the Democratic race for the presidency, it appears the fat lady’s been wailing for a while—but who is listening?

In recent days, we’ve seen more and more evidence that the Democratic party is finally taking note of that soloist’s Aria.

However, Hillary apparently is deaf to the overtures from folks like super-delegate Patrick Leahy, even as her campaign slowly melts down.

You can read here—in much greater detail—about the string of high ranking democrats who are also putting the pressure on Hillary to say “goodnight” because they fear all her campaign will do now is fracture and disrupt the Democratic party.

Then there’s he money issue.

Hillary’s campaign has left a trail of unpaid bills all across the country—and has been doing this for months as her organization can’t raise enough to meet the expenses it’s incurring. You can read the analysis here.

Meanwhile—it’s more than just cash and delegate counts that are lacking for Hillary…

Daily tracking polls by Gallup are now showing Obama with a 10 point lead over Hillary among Democrats nationwide… At 52% to 42%—it’s his largest lead ever…

Hillary says it’s not time for her to quit. But as comedian George Carlin says, “you don’t tell time, time tells you.”

—Steve

We’re still a couple of weeks away from the next major primary—but there’s plenty of tasty tid-bits to chew on from the political stew…

TAKING THEIR BEST SHOTS….

Hillary Clinton’s taking heavy sniper fire—but it’s not in Bosnia.. It’s happening on several fronts right here in the USA…

• A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows Hillary’s positive rating is at 37%—the lowest it’s been since 2001… (That translates into a 63% negative)

 

• Politico Blog writers Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen talk about Clinton staffers who acknowledge that she’s got virtually no chance of winning. You can read their entire post here along with a scold to the media for pretending the contest with Obama is a close race when it is not.

 

• She’s having trouble shaking the calls that she lied about landing during sniper fire in Bosnia—as critics bring up the account in her book “Living History” that varies greatly from what she claimed in speeches.

You can check out one of her speeches on the matter vs. the actual newstape of her Bosnian journey in this clip.

THE McCAIN MUTANY…

A new Gallup polls says a big chunk of Democratic voters will bolt the party and vote for John McCain if their favorite doesn’t win.

19% of Obama supporters say they’d jump to the McCain ship if Hillary is the Nominee..

28% of Hillary supporters say they’d vote for McCain if Obama is the nominee..

RUSH TO VOTE….

Rush Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos” campaign continues to stir up controversy all over the country as well as threats of criminal prosecution in Ohio…

The talk show host has been urging republicans to cross over and register to vote for Hilliary Clinton in democratic primaries.

In Ohio—voters are required to take a pledge…. And lying on that pledge is a felony. Conviction could result in a fine of $2,500 and/or a year in jail…

Although there’s a lot of squawking over his tactics—it’s hard to envision prosecutors clogging the courts for weeks on end trying to convict thousands of voters of election fraud.

There’s months to go before this election is decided—and lots more stew to serve in the days ahead.

Keep your soup bowls handy !

—Steve