ColdheartedtruthColdheartedtruthGroup Blog with over 350 members since 2002. Coldheartedtruth is a well establish election projection blog. Articles
Captain Docking His Ship
2008-02-25 17:47:00 Ed Morrissey this morning announced that he will be discontinuing Captain s Quarters next month and will instead write for Hot Air, a conservative blog started by Michelle Malkin. I'm sorry to see Captains Quarters come to an end, as I've found it to be the most reasonable of the major conservative blogs - willing to take on conservatives as well as liberals when called for - and have appreciated Captain Ed's civil writing style. More About: Ship
Opps... We did it again?
2008-02-25 16:38:00 There appears to be a fundamental difference between how Republicans and Democrats pick their Presidential candidates and this year those differences have produced a stark contrast between the two assumed candidates. John McCain won because of his experience and perceived ability to step into the job. Barack Obama will win because he has provided a popular message of change and promoted the possibility of a political world unified behind his liberal policies. Mitt Romney lost because of apparent gaps between what he has done in the past and what he was promoting during his campaign. Hillary will eventually lose because her message of being ready to lead from day one has fallen short. In large part, John McCain and Hillary Clinton ran the same campaign of stressing experience and showing that they understand the issues at hand. It obviously worked in one case, but not in the other. Taking it one step further, both Romney and Obama told people what they wanted to hear even as both h... More About: Truth
Unelectable At Any Age
2008-02-24 21:01:00 Ralph Nader today used his appearance on Meet the Press to announce that he will run for president once again in 2008. This is Nader's fourth run for the presidency, as he was the Green Party's candidate in 1996 and 2000 and ran as an Independent in 2004. There aren't many people who've appeared on a general election ballot as a candidate for president four different times (Frankiln Delano Roosevelt is the only major party candidate to do so), although there probably are other minor party candidates who've done so. Nader's recurring runs don't remind me so much of FDR's string of four successful runs or even William Jennings Bryan's three separate losing fall races as the Democratic nominee as they do the repeated runs of Pat Paulsen and Harold Stassen. Although neither Paulsen nor Stassen ever appeared on a general election ballot their repeated pointless runs for president became running jokes in presidential campaign politics: sideshows to the main event that mainly ... More About: President
Update on the McCain FEC public financing story
2008-02-24 04:38:00 The other day Eli wrote a post regarding some potential problems John McCain might have with the FEC. According to a story in the Washington Post, McCain secured a load by pledging to seek federal funds as collateral. A letter was sent by FEC chairman David Mason stating that McCain may not be able to opt out of public funding until he has answered questions about this particular loan. From there the story spread like wildfire throughout the blogosphere with blogs like Firedoglake sounding the alarm that McCain would have no more than $5 million to spend from now until the convention when he would technically start the "general election". Well according to McCain and the McCain camp, they never actually received any matching funds from the government and the certificates issued by the FEC were not used as collateral for the loans in question. McCain himself stated that the letter represented an opinion, not a decision, and that according to his own people (one assumes legal people... More About: Story , Financing , Public , Notes , Update
CQPolitics Update on Indiana House Races
2008-02-23 08:07:00 CQPolitics has a good update on the 2008 races for Indiana 's House seats. Four of the state's nine districts were battlegrounds in 2006, with Democrats wresting seats from Republican incumbents in IN-02, IN-08, and IN-09 while the late Julia Carson kept the IN-07 seat for the Democrats. Of these four, only the IN-07 and IN-09 races are presently considered very competitive by handicappers, although all four are at least somewhat competitive. In IN-07 the seat is presently open pending a special election to replace Carson, and though the Democrats are favored to win that race it's not a sure thing, and it's also possible that the Democratic nominee could win the special election but lose in a primary for the fall election; as a result of this uncertainty it's difficult for handicappers to predict how the race will turn out and are taking a cautious approach. In IN-09 Democrat Baron Hill and Republican Mike Sodrel will face off for the fourth straight time, with CQPolitics, C... More About: Update , Races
Primary Winner Quits Race
2008-02-23 07:46:00 The Republican nominee for the open IL-11 House seat announced Friday that he was quitting the race less than three weeks after his primary victory on Super Tuesday, forcing the Republicans to identify a new candidate for what was expected to be one of the most competitive House races this year. Tim Baldermann, who is mayor of one community and chief of police in another, cited his inability to undertake a campaign for higher office while maintaining both of his other jobs in his statement. He also badly trailed the Democratic nominee, State Senate Majority Leader Debbie Halvorson, in fundraising. CQPolitics immediately shifted its rating from No Clear Favorite all the way to Democrat Favored, making it the only House seat any of the professional handicappers presently project to flip this fall. That seems a bit extreme, given that a new nominee should be settled on soon, but their article suggests the Republicans will have some difficulty finding a strong replacement candidate,... More About: Race , Winner , Primary
Arizona House Seats in the News
2008-02-23 00:44:00 There are two newsworthy items about members of Arizona 's House delegation today. Both items will have some impact on this fall's elections there, although only one actually has a direct bearing the elections. AZ-03 incumbent John Shadegg today reversed his earlier decision to retire and announced that he would seek reelection this fall. More than half of Shadegg's Republican House colleagues had signed a letter urging him to reconsider his decision to retire, and Shadegg had agreed to reconsider. Shadegg as an incumbent should be a very good bet for reelection, despite the fact that Democrats reportedly have recruited a strong challenger this cycle, and should receive either be a strong Republican Favored or a Safe Republican rating from the pros. Not all of the pros had weighed in on the prospects of an open seat race, but the two who I did see offer ratings were split between Leans Republican and Republican Favored. AZ-01 incumbent Rick Renzi was indicted today after yea... More About: News , In the News , The News
John McCain has a huge problem and it could just about destroy his campaign
2008-02-22 23:16:00 I just posted this in a comment on another thread but it bears its own post. John McCain has a problem. And it's not a problem that he wants to talk about. And no, it has nothing to do with lobbyists or the New York Times. His problem is that he took a bank loan about a month ago, and the Federal Elections Commission is looking into whether he used the possibility of public financing as collateral on the loan. If he did then as he would be forced to abide by the $54 million primary season spending limit. He is just below the spending cap already (about $50 million spent this primary season). The difference is not even enough to cover the day-to-day costs of his campaign until the general election season kicks in after the conventions. What that means is if the FEC rules against him he will be limited to spending practically nothing before the convention and may even have another 'fire sale' where he downsizes his campaign like he did last summer when the problem was that he had... More About: Post , Campaign , Problem , Huge
Obama's Dangerous Cult of Personality
2008-02-22 19:12:00 A lot of people are starting to notice that the Obama "movement" reduces to one thing: a spooky cult of personality with a messianic pied piper and a hypnotized crowd of adoring worshippers eager to crown a new Julius Caesar. Think I'm exagerrating? Think again. Audiences erupt into applause when the man blows his nose. Women faint at his campaign rallies. A self-described Obama supporter suddenly finds herself uneasy because she's starting to realize how much a lot of her fellow Obama supporters remind her of the Heaven's Gate cult. Grown adults get "weepy" over Obama campaign videos. George Clooney says he wants to follow Obama "somewhere, anywhere". Halle Berry will "do whatever he says to do...collect paper cups off the ground to make his pathway clear". It's downright disturbing. Even longtime liberals like ABC Nightline anchor Terry Moran and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman have been caught wondering if the Obama "movement" is becoming a cult of personalit... More About: Cult , Post , Personality , Dangerous
Franklin Marshall Poll Is Obama in danger of losing Pennsylvania?
2008-02-22 19:02:00 That's 21 electoral college votes that Obama could not afford to lose... More About: Poll , Pennsylvania , Danger , Franklin
Consensus against fraudulent Iran NIE grows
2008-02-22 18:32:00 The international consensus that the recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iran was flat-out wrong, and that Iran is still a dangerous threat, is growing. Israel has always contended that the NIE was wrong, and that Iran's nuclear weapons program continues. After Iran launched a space satellite for the first time last week, Russia expressed concerns that the satellite launch vehicle was really just a testbed for a nuclear warhead delivery system. Just a few days ago, the exiled Iranian opposition group that had previously proven accurate in indicating the location of two Iranian nuclear sites and exposing twenty years of Iranian nuclear activity, revealed that Iran has accelerated its nuclear weapons program and is building a nuclear warhead production facility southeast of Tehran. And today a simulation commissioned by European Union experts has resulted in the conclusion that Iran could have enough enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb by the end of 2008. The Europeans had ... More About: Post , Consensus
Some more good news from Iraq...
2008-02-22 17:49:00 Powerful Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr extended his Mehdi Army militia ceasefire by six months on Friday, a decision U.S. officials said would help foster reconciliation among Iraq 's divided communities. The renewal was welcomed by Iraq's government and the U.S. military, which both say the initial six-month truce helped to reduce attacks on U.S. and Iraqi troops as well as tit-for-tat sectarian violence that pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war. I find this story to be not only very good news but also sort of a slap in the face of many liberal journalists and bloggers who were suggesting that al-Sadr's silence up until now suggested that he was ready to go at it again. Perhaps it is just me... but from everything I have read and heard on the subject the situation in Iraq is improving by leaps and bounds and this renewal just seemed alot more natural than for the al-Sadr army to restart the violence. As Charles Krauthammer points out in his most recent column, not only is... More About: News , Good News , Notes , Good
The Debate - Hillary's last hurrah?
2008-02-22 16:22:00 I didn't watch it. I mean, come on folks. Lost, American Idol, Celebrity Apprentice, Survivor... and you want me to watch a debate? But from what I saw in the clips and from what I have read the needed Obama implosion or Hillary domination was nowhere to be found. In fact her best line about Obama having "change you can Xerox" was loudly booed by the audience. Apparently the one thing that drew her applause was when she declared how honored she was to be campaigning against Obama. Ouch. She has gone from inevitable, to frontrunner, to in a dogfight, to underdog, to almost irrelevant at this point. The funny thing is that as much as I have looked forward to the inevitable political collapse of Hillary Clinton, I always imagined her concession speech being given in November... not March. I imagined that it would be the majority of American voters who rejected her, not the majority of her own Democratic voters. At this point I almost feel sorry for her... almost. What I do have s... More About: Truth , Debate
Obama and the Trinity United Church of Christ - And Snopes.com
2008-02-22 15:32:00 If you haven't heard the buzz about Obama and the Trinity United Church of Christ... no doubt you will. Apparently the Chicago based church that Obama goes to has caused some controversy in the past and may become a thorn in the presumptive Democratic Nominees side as things move forward. I spent a bit of time googling and researching the Trinity United Church of Christ or TUCC if you will. One of the first sites that came up other than the TUCC site itself was Snopes .com the "urban legend" reference site. I have become increasingly skeptical of Snopes.com when it comes to political questions and I think this one finally put me over the edge. But let's back up here for a second. The issue of the Church has been brought up on some of the Cable News Channels, including Tucker Carlson on MSNBC and Hannity and Colmes on FOX News. The concern for some is that Obama is a member of a church who's mission is to promote the Black Community, has a "non-negotiable commitment to Africa", a... More About: Truth
Another 2000? It's possible
2008-02-21 20:43:00 People tend to look at the general election national polling to determine who will win the Presidency, usually because the candidate who wins the popular vote also wins the Presidency. But as we all know, it is certainly possible that this might not be the case. According to the 4 day tracking poll on Rasmussen, Obama leads McCain by four points at 46%-42%. Seems like a decent lead. But let's look specifically at the two states that decided the past two elections, Florida and Ohio. These are both large swing states and either or both could decide the election again. In Florida it isn't even a contest. McCain wallops Obama 53%-37%. That's a comfortable 16 point lead and would probably take Florida off the battleground state map if it holds up. In Ohio, McCain holds a slim 42%-41% lead... meaning it's anyone's ball game. So how is it that Obama would win the general election by 4 points or more and not have the right votes in the right places to win the EC vote? Well, one has ...
"If she wins Texas and Ohio I think she will be the nominee. If you don't d
2008-02-21 15:24:00 Same old rhetoric from the Clinton camp. This time coming from almost the top. I think what he says is really half true. If she loses either Texas or Ohio she will be done. But winning Texas and Ohio at this point does nothing more than give her an excuse to keep going. Which of course is why I am rooting for her to win in Texas and Ohio. I do think it is telling for her Husband to be on the trail actually sort of admitting that the dreams of a third Clinton term might be drawing to a close. Moreover, it is even more telling that he is basically laying the groundwork for what it would take for her to drop out. More About: Truth , Wins
"Sancho! My Armor!"
2008-02-21 02:44:00 Okay, I've used the title before. But it's just as appropriate to news that Scott Kleeb plans to run for the Nebraska Senate seat being vacated by Chuck Hagel as it was to news that Jim Ogonowski planned to challenge John Kerry. It's actually a bit less Quixotic for Kleeb to pursue this seat than it is for Ogonowski, but that's only because it's an open seat that Kleeb will be running for. This seat is Mike Johanns' to lose - and even then he'd have to try *really* hard to lose. More About: Armor , Sancho
Confession...
2008-02-20 22:55:00 In spite of not wanting her to win the nomination I am hoping that Clinton wins in Texas and Ohio by small margins (in fact, the smaller the better) just to test the theory that Obama cannot become the nominee if he doesn't win one of those big states. I would wonder out loud how the rhetoric would change if after having her butt handed to her for 10 contests in a row, she finally broke the momentum with a 51-48 victory in Ohio. What would be even more ironic would be for her to win Texas and Ohio, lose Vermond and Rhode Island on the same day, and end up with another net delegate loss. Would the Susan Estriches of the world still insist that her wins in Texas and Ohio override the 160 pledged delegate lead of Barack Obama? More About: Truth , Confession
Hope, Change, Pride, & Pessimism
2008-02-20 19:54:00 This morning as I was eating my breakfast, my wife came downstairs and asked me if Michelle Obama really said what the KQ morning show DJ was claiming she said. Now it is very rare that she would interrupt her morning routine to ask me about any current event. But what made it even more unusual is that my wife usually avoids discussing politics at any cost with me. To put it mildly, she doesn?t share the same passion as I do for the subject, and I usually bore her to tears. So my answer was?. If they suggested that she stated that for the first time in her adult life she was really proud of her country? then it was true. My wife was flabbergasted that someone would say this. She was especially flabbergasted that the wife of a Presidential candidate would say something like this. Now we can argue all day long about context, intent, explanation, or the importance of what a politician?s wife says. But the bottom line is that Michelle Obama probably meant what she said and in many... More About: Truth , Change , Hope , Pride
RIP ??
2008-02-20 14:38:00 I think it is time for some serious soul searching from the Clinton camp. Last night's surprising 17 point win for Obama had to be devastating to the Clinton campaign. This was a state where demographically they should have been able to compete. The fact that they couldn't compete, coupled by closing polling results from Ohio and Texas, makes it seem fairly obvious that this just isn't going to be their time. They are now down about 158 pledged delegate and the final number will probably be 160 or more come March 4th. Even the Clinton camp is conceding at this point that Texas will not provide them with any windfall of delegate gains, leaving them with Ohio as their best hope. I have to believe that the Clintons are watching the cable news shows and banging their collective heads against the wall. All this praise being showered on Obama has to be driving them nuts. There is no question that they fully expect that the Obama campaign carriage will eventually turn into a pumkin... More About: Truth
Clinton backers
2008-02-20 14:00:00 Listening to the Clinton backers last night on the various cable news networks, they are still using the theory that if Clinton wins Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania that she will win the nomination. I also heard from several pundits that the Clinton camp believes that their attack ads against Obama were successful in keeping his margin of victory down in Wisconsin? The plan apparently is to hit Obama even harder over the next couple of weeks in hopes of keeping their leads in the two big March 4th prizes. I heard one Clinton backer suggest that the Clintons still feel that it is only a matter of time until the Party comes to its senses and figures out that they have been right all along about Obama. All of these theories are false. Winning Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania does very little at this point to push Hillary to the nomination, much less makes her the nominee. They need to gain pledged delegates. Likewise, a seventeen point loss cannot be spun into a success, nor should the cam... More About: Notes
I Hope He's Not Counting on a Contribution from Steve Jobs
2008-02-20 04:27:00 One of Barack Obama's biggest applause lines in his stump speech that has been finding its way to the public airwaves in Central Ohio this week is as follows: "I am not opposed to capitalism. I am not against free markets. I am all for entrepreneurialism. But there is something wrong when some CEOs make more in ten minutes than some working people do in a whole year." Number one on Forbes.com's list of highest compensated CEOs in 2007 is none other than liberal supporter Steve n Jobs , co-founder of computer maker Apple. http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/12/lead_ 07ceos_Steven-P-Jobs_HEDB.html If you read all of the fine print, Mr. Jobs receives a salary of $1.00 per year for his job as CEO and the other $646 million is a combination of stock options, dividends, etc. But if you pay attention, his total compensation over the past five years is only slightly more, a paltry $650 million, meaning his average per year is "only" $130 million. But to examine Senator Obama's claim, ... More About: Steve Jobs , Post , Hope
McCain wins Wisconsin... Obama leads Clinton, but too close to call
2008-02-20 03:08:00 Opps... It's been called for Obama as well.... must be a significant win since it was called with 1% of the vote counted. Update: looks like he will win by at least 15% in Wisconsin ... which is actually an alarmingly large defeat if you are Hillary Clinton. Looking at the exit polls it looks like Hillary's base is shrinking and shrinking... while she has made no particular inroads into Obama's base. It could very well turn out that Obama will gain more delegates on Hillary tonight than Hillary will gain on March 4th (assuming of course that she actually wins in Ohio and/or Texas). More About: Leads , Notes , Close
A big and a small win for Obama....
2008-02-19 22:12:00 Hawaii I believe that the Caucus setting, the fact that Hawaii is Obama 's home state, and the fact that he is advertising unopposed in the state makes me believe that we will see another big win tonight for Obama in Hawaii. There is only 20 delegates at stake so a good result might be something like 13-7 or 14-6. But at this point, any state that is a victory for Obama is another state where Clinton cannot come back in. Wisconsin There are a half dozen reasons why Clinton should win and a half dozen reasons that Obama should win. But sometimes you have to watch the camps to see how they are acting to get a feel for what might happen. On the Clinton side it appeared that they originally wrote off the state, then stepped it up when they thought they had a chance, and then cut things short to move onto Texas and Ohio. The limited expectations game that the Clinton camp is showing suggests that they think that they will lose. On the flip side Obama has been doing more advertising, m... More About: Notes , Small
The Democratic Convention free for all bloodbath!
2008-02-19 15:44:00 Hillary Clinton?s presidential campaign intends to go after delegates whom Barack Obama has already won in the caucuses and primaries if she needs them to win the nomination. This strategy was confirmed to me by a high-ranking Clinton official on Monday. And I am not talking about superdelegates, those 795 party big shots that are not pledged to anybody. I am talking about getting pledged delegates to switch sides. Ah... so if they cannot find enough superdelegates to overturn the election results, they will simply go after the pledged delegates that were awarded from the election results, at least according to this particular source. ?I swear it is not happening now, but as we get closer to the convention, if it is a stalemate, everybody will be going after everybody?s delegates,? a senior Clinton official told me Monday afternoon. ?All the rules will be going out the window.? Clinton spokesman Phil Singer told me Monday he assumes the Obama campaign is going after delegates ... More About: Truth , Democratic , Free , Convention , Bloodbath
ARG / Public Policy - Wisconsin Polls
2008-02-19 14:35:00 Two new polls came out last night in the Wisconsin Primary race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Neither pollster necessarily gives me the warm and fuzzy feeling of security, but they are polls none-the-less. First was Public Policy polling that ran a poll through Sunday. They have Obama leading 50-39. Second was ARG which ran their poll Sunday/Monday and shows Obama up 52-42. While both of these polls show Obama up about 10 points, the ARG poll reverses a poll they took two days earlier that had Hillary leading. Pollster Date: Obama Clinton ARG 02/18/08 52% 42% Pub Pol 02/17/08 50% 39% Res 2000 02/14/08 47% 42% Rasmussen 02/13/08 47% 43% Stra Vis 02/10/08 45% 41% 48.2% 41.4% More About: Democrats , President
Texas Deadlock?
2008-02-19 02:01:00 So now CNN shows a poll in Texas with Hillary at 50% and Obama at 48%. Couple that with a couple of other polls right around the margin of error and the ARG poll showing Obama ahead, and the Hillary hopes for a Texas sized landslide are beginning to dim. Texas Pollster Clinton Obama CNN 02/17/08 50% 48% Insider Adv 02/14/08 48% 41% Rasmussen 02/14/08 54% 38% IVR/TCUL 02/13/08 49% 41% ARG 02/13/08 42% 48% 48.6% 43.2% +5.4% Let's face it folks.. a 5% win for Clinton in Texas isn't going to cut it in terms of her firewall strategy. At least in terms of pledged delegate count. One can only assume that a Texas victory by any margin might be used for political rhetoric (which is about all the Clintons would have left if March 4th isn't big for them). More About: Democrats , President , Deadlock
Wisconsin, Plagiarism, and expectations...
2008-02-18 22:46:00 You know how sometimes you just have a gut feeling about how something might go? Well in terms of the primary tomorrow in Wisconsin I really have no gut feeling anymore. A week ago I would have put the over/under at about a 10% victory for Obama. But then, Hillary decided to fight for her life in Wisconsin, spending money, making campaign stops, and even going negative on Barack Obama. Now in the middle of it all there seems to be some controversy about an Obama speech that sounds an awful lot like the same speech given by Deval Patrick. But most importantly to me, neither camp is really suggesting that they believe that they are going to win... which is generally a good indication that both camp think that there is at least a chance that they will lose. My best guess (which is not backed up by any gut feeling) is that Obama will win by a very slim margin... perhaps even closer than the polls are showing. It would be a fairly hollow victory after his string of big victories since S... More About: Truth , Plagiarism , Expectations
Another NY Times plug
More articles from this author:2008-02-18 20:44:00 This time on the mtvphil post regarding Ohio: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/0 2/18/open-caucus-a-view-from-ohio/ More About: Notes , Times , Plug 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
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