Do African-americans Think Obama's Unelectable?
Via Ed Kilgore, Scott Helman has a very interesting piece in the Boston Globe about black South Carolinians' doubts that Obama is electable: "Personally, I don't think he has a chance in hell," said Leah Josey, a 20-year-old English major at Morris College, a Baptist school in Sumter. "All those white people? Come on." Such sentiments are prevalent among black South Carolinians, who are expected to make up nearly half of voters in the Democratic primary in January.
Gore-doerr
Just in case you needed any more evidence that Al Gore's not going to run for president in 2008, Fortune reports that he's joining the venture capital behemoth Kleiner Perkins. Of course, the Fortune article goes on to say that Gore has "left the door open" for a run. But I think the Kleiner Perkins move pretty much closes that door. --Jason Zengerle
Not So Strange Bedfellows
Ben Smith, who's been on a roll lately, has another great piece--this time about the Obama and Edwards campaigns' tacit alliance. It begins with a fun scene from after the Jefferson Jackson dinner: They switched on the lights in the bar at the Hotel Fort Des Moines at 2:00 a.m. Sunday, and a crowd of two dozen buoyant young field organizers for Sen.
Quote Of The Day
“You people are really nuts. There’s kids dying in the war, the price of oil right now — there’s better things in this world to be thinking about than who served Hillary Clinton at Maid-Rite and who got a tip and who didn’t get a tip.” -- Anita Esterday, the Iowa waitress at the center of Tipgate, to The New York Times, November 8. --Jason Zengerle
Are Aqua Dots For Real?
The Boston Globe's Josh Glenn pours cold water over the aforementioned Aqua Dots scare. He suspects a hoax, and some of his logic--especially that which doesn't involve Hitler and the Bush administration--is pretty compelling: How on earth could a toy be accidentally coated with roofies? Answer: It couldn't. Either the Chinese really are trying to poison American children, which is far-fetched, or this whole recall was a big lie. . . . If Aqua Dots were merely toxic, I might not be so suspicious. But (innocent children) + (anything to do with sexual predators) = widespread, instant hysteria.
'to Be The Man, You Gotta Beat The (wo)man'
I think Noam and Joe Trippi are both right that 2008 is not 2004--and that John Edwards won't be reprising the role of Dick Gephardt, who, in the process of torpedoing Howard Dean in four years ago, managed to sink his own candidacy as well. Which would seem to be bad news for Barack Obama, who, if '08 really were a repeat of '04, would be playing the John Kerry role and would win the nomination after the Edwards-Hillary murder-suicide. The biggest reason '08 won't be like '04 is because Hillary Clinton is not like Howard Dean.
Press Release Of The Day
Ever since I wrote this article, I've been on the publicity lists for a few of the celebrity weeklies. Normally I don't pay too much attention to what they send me, but this release was impossible to ignore--and too good not to share. From In Touch Weekly: It wasn’t a dinner theater performance when George Clooney got into a fight with romance novel coverboy Fabio during dinner at Madeo in West Hollywood on November 2. Fabio and a group of women, including a professional photographer, were sitting at a table next to George and his girlfriend, Sarah Larson.
Sarko The Patronizing
From today's NYT article about Nicolas Sarkozy's storming of the White House: Mr. Sarkozy arrived in Washington without a spouse but with some of the women who reflect the diversity of his cabinet: Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, a former chairman of a Chicago-based law firm, Baker & McKenzie; Justice Minister Rachida Dati, who has a Moroccan father and an Algerian mother; and Rama Yade, his 31-year-old Senegalese-born subminister of foreign affairs and human rights, whom Mr.
Let The Frank Gehry Backlash Begin!
I It's bad enough that Frank Gehry seems to have gotten every major architectural commission of the past 20 years. (I mean, Bilbao is very cool, but the novelty starts to wear off after a while, especially when its tricks get repeated again and again.) But now it looks like Gehry's buildings aren't only repetitive, they're leaky!
Rudy's Achilles Heel
For all the talk about Rudy's electability--and I agree that, in an election year that looks as if it's going to be tough for the GOP, an unconventional Republican like Rudy probably has an advantage over a conventional one like Romney--the Bernie Kerik saga is tailor-made for some pretty great Democratic attack ads. Especially when Giuliani continues to talk about Kerik like this: “Sure, there were issues,” Mr. Giuliani added, “but if I have the same degree of success and failure as president of the United States, this country will be in great shape.” --Jason Zengerle
