Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had a taped segment on The Tonight Show last night where she tried to intervene in the ongoing war of words and banning that has gone on in the Conan vs. Newark Mayor Cory Booker Feud.Booker has gotten some great exposure for Newark as he tries to turn around public opinion of the city. Clinton was pretty funny about the whole thing as well. This is all leading up to a Booker appearance on the show himself.
NJN used their programming to take a look back at 2008 this weekend. On the Record took a video look at the highlights and low points of the year that even included pigs flying:
Reporters Roundtable featured a discussion looking back at 2008 including the Governor's toll proposals, Clinton/Obama, the economy, the NJ Supreme Court, the Andrews Senate effort, rising stars and more:
Some news trickling into the Blue Jersey center you might find interesting:
Here's another sign Steve Rothman's early endorsement of Barack Obama increased his standing:
Congressman Steve Rothman has accepted an invitation from Senator Barack Obama to be with him at the election night event in Chicago tomorrow evening. Rothman was the first Member of Congress in the 8 northeastern states to endorse Obama and has served as Northeast Regional Chair of the campaign since July of 2007.
Politico says Tom Kean may be considered for Education Secretary by Obama. Don't faint: That's Tom Kean Sr., not Jr.
Rasmussen Reports has Barack Obama leading by 15, 57-42. I suppose the good news for McCain is that 42 matches his best poll result in the last three weeks. Obama has a 63% favorable rating.
Update: Rush Holt has asked County Clerks to distribute supplemental poll books:
I was very troubled to read today, in the Asbury Park Press, that some number of voters ? possibly thousands -- whose registrations met the October 14 voter registration deadline were not included in the official election rolls in your county, and that instead of distributing to your poll workers supplemental poll books including the names of those voters you will be requiring those duly-registered voters to cast provisional ballots. This places those voters, unnecessarily and unjustly, at a greater risk of not having their votes counted in this historic election.
I am writing to strongly request that you distribute supplemental poll books to your poll workers so that they will have every opportunity and ability to confirm that all voters in this election who registered before the deadline are in fact duly registered, and therefore entitled to cast a regular ballot. In addition, I strongly request that, to the extent that any voters may still be required to cast a provisional ballot, that you take all necessary steps to ensure that the provisional ballots of all voters who registered by the October 14 deadline are counted, whether you timely entered their names into the rolls or not.
Update 2: Barack Obama's maternal grandmother has died.
Following unanimous support from the NJ Delegation for Barack Obama in yesterday's caucus, Scott Weingart caught up with Congressman Rush Holt for some comments:
New Jersey may not yet have a speaker at this year's Democratic National Convention, but during last night's vote, the Garden State took center stage. The state cast the last recorded votes of the roll call, before New Mexico yielded to Illinois, which yielded to New York, whose home state Senator and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton moved to end the roll call and declare Barack Obama the Democratic nominee by acclamation.
The stage for yesterday evening's outstanding piece of political theater was set that morning, when New Jersey's delegation voted to unanimously support Barack Obama for president of the United States. Yesterday morning, New Jersey's pledged and unpledged Clinton delegates offered the strongest gesture of unity possible.
After Wednesday's delegation breakfast, I asked Congressman Rush Holt about the unanimous vote. He answered:
It's nationally important that New Jersey, one of the strongest bastions of support for Hillary Clinton...would go so enthusiastically—not just unanimously, but enthusiastically unanimously for Barack Obama.
Here is Corzine, casting New Jersey's vote:
And a transcript of the Governor's remarks:
Madame secretary, as the proud governor of a great great state, the Garden State, New Jersey, home of the Super Bowl Champion Giants, the Boss anbd Bon Jovi, where the sun rises on our shores and sets over our green mountains in the west, where our people are industrious, entrepreneurial, and every once in a while have an attitude, we, we, the democrats in one of the most trailblazing, progressive states in the nation, providing healthcare, paid family leave, and making sure every child has a quality education, we proudly, we prouldy and unanimously, unanimously I repeat, vote for the next president of the united states, a person who will lead us to the change this country needs, who will inspire america with hope and promise, a leader who will inspire america with hope and promise, we unanimously cast our 127 votes for Barack Obama.
Blue Jersey's inside sources at the convention in Denver are reporting that a motion was just made and unanimously carried by voice vote to pledge New Jersey's delegates to Senator Barack Obama by acclamation, without the need for a roll call vote. Among those speaking in favor of the motion were Rep. Frank Pallone and labor leader Donald Norcross.
Upon passage, the enthusiastic Jersey crowd gave the motion a standing ovation. The mood of the room was summed up by Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts, who remarked that Garden Staters are going to make it clear that "no matter where we were in the primary, we are coming together for victory."
I think that makes the score Unity - 127, PUMAs - 0.
Updated. Acclimation / Acclamation... Whatever. I was in a rush to beat Friedman. LOL!
Mark Warner may be giving tonight's keynote address, but all eyes and ears will be focused on Hillary Clinton, who will address the convention last. I have not seen the speech yet, but I would expect Senator Clinton to spend a great deal of time hitting McCain, who is trying to win over her supporters with ads like "Passed Over." Hillary weighed in on Senator McCain's new ad earlier this week:
More than two months after Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama buried the hatchet in Unity, New Hampshire, the press still throws around that five-letter word just as much as they did back on June 3. After the delegation breakfast, Governor Corzine held a short press availability, and the media spent nearly the entire time asking him questions about party unity. When a reporter asked Corzine what he thought of the recent CNN poll which found that fewer than half of Clinton supporters were "strongly supporting" Obama, Corzine replied: "That's why we have conventions".
Monday morning at the Inverness meant the first New Jersey Delegation Breakfast. Governor Corzine, Senator Lautenberg, and Congressman Rothman all roused the audience with their speeches. Lautenberg offered a particularly scathing criticism of his Republican Senate opponent, Dick Zimmer, who he suggested would roll back gun laws and threaten New Jerseyans' health care. Rothman emphasized unity in his speech, acknowledging Clinton's ten-point victory in New Jersey February and empathizing with her supporters.
But it was the final speaker of the morning, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, who brought the crowd to its feet with a fiery defense of the Garden State. Booker recounted the state's key role in the American Revolution, and he highlighted several New Jersey firsts, among them the first light bulb, the first football game, and the first electric guitar. Booker closed by addressing the delegation's lousy seating at the convention center:
"Let them seat us in the back, because New jersey is loud, we are proud, we can be heard above the crowd."
Newark Mayor/Obama delegate Cory Booker. More pictures below the fold.
Rep. Frank Pallone (NJ-06) has suggested to Blue Jersey that Hillary Clinton may release her delegates after placing her name in nomination at the Democratic National Convention. The congressman's understanding is that at the start of the roll call, Clinton will tell her delegates to vote for Obama.
Pallone says he still supports Clinton, but would vote for Obama if Senator Clinton asks her delegates to do so.
A response from Steven to the post earlier today -- Hopeful.
Hi, everyone. My friend Creed Pogue blasted me in another posting. He entitled to his view. Here I'd like to refute him.
Creed's headline, Clinton Delegate Says He Wouldn't Vote For Obama, is nuts. Creed is referring to me, a Clinton delegate. I'm a Democrat, I bleed Democrat, I'm voting for the Presidential nominee of my party, period.
Specifically, Creed is referring to the article in PolitickerNJ.com today in which I was quoted as saying I would not vote for Obama if he chose Sam Nunn as his running mate. Yes, that's true, I was quoted correctly. But it's not the same thing as a headline that would have you believe I'm not voting for Obama in November, period.
Not surprisingly, New Jersey as such is rarely mentioned in these high level memos. As many warned, we got lumped into the big February 5 Super Tuesday. It's good to see that Mark Penn did value Corzine enough to view his endorsement as a significant April 2007 development, on par with Iowa Governor Vilsack.
After that, the main interest of the leaked memos is in the predictions of the outcome. On January 21, 2008, senior adviser Guy Cecil included New Jersey in his predictions. His memo considered New Jersey one of only four Clinton "Base States" and predicted the following primary results (Clinton-Obama):
Vote: 56%-44%
Statewide Delegates: 21-16
District Delegates: 39-31
Total Delegates: 60-47
This was pretty good: The actual results were 55% - 45%, statewide delegates 21-16, district delegates 38-32, and total 59-48.
The memo specifically lists Delegate Districts 10 as a 3-delegate district they should target and Districts 16 and 17 as additional targets to pick up delegates. At first, I thought this was an excellent decision as Clinton picked up +1, +1, and +2 net delegates in those districts. Clinton got 52% of the vote in NJ10 to pick up an extra district, so that targeting decision was definitely right on. On the other hand, vote breakdown, Clinton actually easily blew by the thresholds in NJ16 and NJ17, and I can't help but think some effort in District 2, or districts 12 and 18, would have been more valuable. If I read the 21 January internal targeting projections correctly, Clinton's campaign aimed for the minimum threshold in these districts, when in reality they fell just missed the higher threshold to pick up additional delegates on February 5.
Assessment: B+: The Clinton campaign predicted the vote within 1% and the delegate breakdown within one. The three districts Cecil wanted targeted provided a net +4 delegates, most of the Clinton district-level +6 victory margin. So far so good, but when I look at the district breakdowns I wonder what they were doing in districts 2, 12, and 18, where a few percent more would have picked up additional delegates. So I give them a B+, but only with the benefit of hindsight.
Michael Muller, who was campaign director for Hillary Clinton's NJ primary race, will run the NJ coordinated campaign for the 2008 cycle. State Democratic Chair Joe Cryan:
... We have the best candidates, we have the issues on our side and we have a strong Democratic tide fueled by the accumulated failures of George Bush and the Republicans. Hard working and skilled campaign staffers such as Michael will help convert Democratic advantages into Election Day victories.
The coordinated is the election effort of the NJ State Democratic Committee through which resources are channeled to support individual campaigns, provide common resources to candidates and party-build for successive election cycles. With sharply-defined choices in both the Senate and Presidential campaign, national issues are certain to filter into campaigns up and down the ticket.
Muller, who currently manages the communications shop for the Assembly majority office, is a well-known political presence in Trenton. With so many of the state's institutional Dems driving the Clinton efforts until recently, it continues to be interesting to watch how the Clinton and Obama camps - and their supporters - make the effort to unify for November.
This is great news for Barack Obama, and here's why:
Back in February, when Obama lost the New Jersey Presidential primary to Hillary Clinton in February, he held only a narrow lead in general election heats against John McCain. But since March, Obama has opened up a solid lead in New Jersey, and ten staffers and 95 Obama fellows are quietly organizing the state ahead of the fall campaign.
Still, at least in New Jersey, higher poll numbers haven't translated to stronger fundraising for Obama. Even though he outraised Senator Clinton $149 million to $88 million overall since Super Tuesday, Clinton raised $146,000 more than Obama in New Jersey in the same four month period. In fact, New Jersey was one of Hillary Clinton's strongest fundraising states during the primary--by one measure even stronger than her home state of New York:
State
Clinton
Obama
Ratio
MOV*
Arkansas
$1,651,202
$241,324
6.84:1
43.8%
West Virginia
$437,149
$209,687
2.08:1
35.6%
Puerto Rico
$356,191
$211,538
1.68:1
36.8%
New Jersey
$7,524,587
$5,129,865
1.47:1
9.8%
New York
$33,048,552
$22,862,555
1.45:1
17.1%
Oklahoma
$945,016
$730,005
1.29:1
23.6%
(*primary margin of victory in each state for Hillary Clinton.)
At least on the fundraising front, the Obama campaign still has some work to do in New Jersey. Michael Kempner can do a lot of that work.
A reader who was at the Hillary Clinton rally in DC where she announced that she is suspending her campaign sends in this photo. Congressman Bill Pascrell was in attendance to show his support.
Powerful. Classy. And according to people who were there, effective at winning over the crowd.
Update: Rep Steve Rothman, the Obama campaign's authorized representative for New Jersey and a Northeast Regional Co-chair issued this statement:
"Democrats everywhere should applaud Senator Hillary Clinton and her supporters for mounting a passionate, groundbreaking primary campaign that drew new voters to the process and generated excitement all across our country. Although one phase in this historic presidential election is ending, our battle for fundamental change this fall is only just beginning. No matter what differences came up between us, the fact is that we have far, far more in common on the issues we care most about, such as the economy, jobs, getting out of Iraq, and protecting a woman's right to choose. And I want to be very clear: New Jersey Democrats will be unified in our efforts to deliver our state and elect Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America.
"After 54 contests, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have inspired nearly 40 million voters across the country, over 1.1 million of them in New Jersey, to support a Democrat in this election. We have a tough fight ahead, but I am confident that Senator Obama will be the next President of the United States."
New Jersey supporters of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama worked closely together in recent months to organize the state's delegation to the Democratic National Convention in Denver this August. The team was finalized in May, at which point Governor Jon Corzine was elected as the Delegation Chair and Congressman Rothman as the second in command, the Delegation Whip.
Congressman Rob Andrews made news today with some comments he made about the Clinton campaign. "There have been signals coming out of the Clinton campaign that have racial overtones that indeed disturb me," he told the Star Ledger.
Several people I've talked to have asked why he's speaking up now while the Democratic party is trying to unify after a bitter primary. So I asked him.
Andrews answered with a rhetorical question. When a family has a problem, "is it better to hide it or talk about it?" I told him many might prefer that the issue die quietly, but he said that's how dysfunctional families deal with their problems.
Andrews said that the Democratic party needs to address this real issue or face defeat to John McCain. "If we go into November and these tensions still exist, we're going to lose," he said. "We have to deal with it. We have to get it behind us so we can win in November."
He noted that Congressman James Clyburn's outrage at Bill Clinton for minimizing Obama's South Carolina victory by comparing him to Jesse Jackson was a healthy thing for the party.
Andrews was careful to point out that these comments didn't come from Hillary Clinton herself, but from campaign staff. "That's not the Hillary Clinton I know." He added that her recent remarks at AIPAC were a healthy step forward towards addressing the divide.
Asked about the political repercussions he might suffer for airing the dirty laundry, he said that "losing the election in November is bigger than any one person's career."
U.S. Rep. Rob Andrews, who supported Hillary Clinton throughout the primary season, disclosed he received a phone call shortly before the April 22 Pennsylvania primary from a top member of Clinton's organization and that the caller explicitly discussed a strategy of winning over Jewish voters by exploiting tensions between Jews and African-Americans.
"There have been signals coming out of the Clinton campaign that have racial overtones that indeed disturb me," Andrews said at his campaign headquarters in Cherry Hill Tuesday night after he lost his bid for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination.
"Frankly, I had a private conversation with a high-ranking person in the campaign ... that used a racial line of argument that I found very disconcerting. It was extremely disconcerting given the rank of this person. It was very disturbing."
Andrews said the phone call came after he angered the Clinton camp by making some positive comments about Obama. He would not disclose the caller's name because of the private nature of the conversation.
"Comments like these, coming so soon after Congressman Andrews' crushing defeat, are sad and divisive," said Clinton's chief national spokesman, Phil Singer.
Andrews stood by his statements and said: "I would hope that all Democrats can put this divisiveness behind them. I'm glad the Clinton campaign is finally about to change its tone." He said he made his comments only after his primary loss to Sen. Frank Lautenberg because "I didn't want people to think I was trying to win over Obama supporters in the primary."
No denial from the Clinton campaign. Just a low blow. It wasn't looking likely that the Clintons would be willing to go through the VP vetting process, but if this is true, this eliminates her outright from contention.
Senator Frank Lautenberg joined Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Tom Carper (D-DE), Ken Salazar (D-CO), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Ben Cardin (D-MD) in a call for party unity:
The Democratic nominee for President has now been chosen after a breathtaking and historic race.
As Senators who remained neutral in this contest, we are proud of Senators Obama and Clinton for breaking down barriers that some believed were unbreakable and for inspiring millions in our country to participate in our political process, many for the first time.
Our focus now is on victory in November and on giving Barack Obama every ounce of our support, every bit of our energy, and our total commitment to do everything in our power to win the Presidency.
In order to do that, we are going to spend the next days and weeks leading up to the convention working toward one goal: UNITY IN NOVEMBER.
We want to say, to the Clinton supporters who worked their hearts out and whom we know are very disappointed, that their extraordinary effort on her behalf has strengthened our party and strengthened our nation. They should be proud of her groundbreaking candidacy and her tireless fight for America's families.
We look forward to bringing everyone together so that we can finally put an end of the destructive and devastating policies of the Bush years, which would continue under John McCain.
It is time for positive change in our nation, and nothing could bring about that change more than victory the November election.
During Congressman Andrews' concession speech tonight, he said he would strongly support and work to elect Senator Frank Lautenberg. He repeatedly asked his supporters to do the same.
During Senator Clinton's concession speech rally, she claimed the most votes and said "I will be making no decisions tonight."
Asked if he would withdraw his support for Clinton now and get behind a Barack Obama presidential candidacy, the governor replied, "no, not today. We'll see what happens in the next couple of days."
Corzine wasn't the only Clinton backer and superdelegate remaining true to the New York senator Tuesday.
Rep. Frank Pallone said he'd remain in Clinton's corner so long as she remained in the race, and Democratic Party Chairman Joe Cryan said he'd wait for Clinton to make a decision.
Lautenberg, meanwhile, said he'd support the party's nominee, but fell short of making an official endorsement Tuesday.
