San Francisco Chronicle, January 30th

Speaking from Katrina-devastated New Orleans where he announced his campaign 13 months ago, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards withdrew from the Democratic presidential primary race Wednesday, setting off a scramble to woo his supporters and the 56 delegates he had won.

Edwards offered no endorsement of either of his rivals, Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, but said that both pledged to him that they would make eradicating poverty a central theme of their campaign after Edwards told them of his planned withdrawal.

“This is the cause of my life and I now have their commitment to engage in this cause,” Edwards said Thursday.

But if he’s going to be a kingmaker, he needs to endorse someone soon: Voters in 22 states cast ballots in Democratic contests Feb. 5.

Edwards got comparatively little media coverage in the shadow of the much better-funded campaigns of what could be the first African-American or woman to win a major party presidential nomination.

Even after Edwards finished second in the Iowa caucus, he received only a fraction of the media coverage that Obama and Clinton did in the following days, and slightly more than former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican who barely competed there, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s campaign coverage index.  Click here to read more in the San Francisco Chronicle.

The Bush Legacy:  Death, Torture, Destruction, Recession, Deficits, Corruption, Perjury, Unsafe Borders, and Partisanship.

The Washington Post, Jan 29th, Peter Baker

Gone were the grand dreams of remaking Social Security, immigration law or the tax code. In their place were modest initiatives, such as hiring preferences for military spouses. The economic package targeted tax breaks to low- and middle-class workers. And the foreign policy stressed Middle East peacemaking and diplomacy with rogue nations.

President Bush took office with so much derision for the outgoing president that critics defined his attitude toward governing as ABC — “anything but Clinton.” He would not play “small ball,” he declared, nor would he coddle North Korea or waste time mediating between the Israelis and Arabs. But as he delivered his final State of the Union address last night, Bush increasingly appeared to be adopting some of his predecessor’s approach.

Turning the corner into his last year in office with the nation already voting on who might succeed him, Bush is recalibrating what remains possible in a Congress controlled by the opposition and rethinking the most effective way to get what he wants on the international front. While aides insist he is not dwelling on his legacy, the “unfinished business” agenda he outlined seemed geared toward consolidating past achievements and focusing strategically on where he can win a few more.

“At some point, you realize you’re coming to the end of your time in office, and you’ve got to start making a determination what your legacy is going to be,” said Rep. Michael N. Castle (R-Del.). “And some of the broader, sweeping things you wanted to do at the beginning simply aren’t going to be achieved.”

For a president who has always favored boldness, it amounts to a dramatic shift. Just a year ago, Bush in the same chamber defied the new Democratic majority with his decision to send more troops to Iraq and challenged lawmakers to overhaul the immigration system. The past year demonstrated that Congress could not force him to change course in Iraq, but neither could he bend it to his will in the domestic arena.

Click here to read more about George Bush’s legacy to America.

Bill Clinton’s Negative Campaign Attacks Hurt Hillary; 60% of voters who said in exit polls that Bill’s remarks were important to them, voted for Barack!

Barack Obama’s win in South Carolina does many things. It returns momentum to his campaign. It proves that Democrats are tired of negative attacks and; yes, it suggests that race is still important in American politics. With 55% of the vote Barack Obama captured the first decisive win in a presidential campaign that has been marked by many candidates and small pluralities of both Republican and Democratic candidates.

But perhaps the most important part for Democrats is that minority voters and younger voters were united by the Obama campaign. With demographics in America swinging rapidly, this has a huge implication for the long term future of both political parties.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama took 55 percent of the vote to win the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary on Saturday — his second victory among the party’s five voting events so far, and the most decisive primary win by any candidate in either party to date.

Obama defeated New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who had 27 percent, and 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards, a former North Carolina senator and a native of South Carolina who had won the state’s primary by a wide margin in his bid for the 2004 presidential nomination.

African-Americans in South Carolina make up the largest share of the population and the Democratic primary electorate of any state that has voted so far in the nominating process. And the outcome indicated that Obama, who is seeking to become the nation’s first black president, may be building a profound advantage in the competition for those voters — despite the past popularity of Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, among African-Americans.

Click here to read the rest of this story on Yahoo News.

The New York Times has a similar story with some different observations.

Senator Barack Obama proved in South Carolina on Saturday that he could not only endure everything the Clinton campaign threw at him in the most confrontational week of the presidential contest so far but also draw votes across racial lines even in a Southern state.

Still, his victory came in part because Mr. Obama was able to turn out large numbers of black voters, a dynamic that will not necessarily prove as decisive in the 22 states that hold nominating contests on Feb. 5.

And his share of the white vote in South Carolina, 24 percent, was lower than what he drew in Iowa or New Hampshire, raising questions about whether race will divide Democrats even as the party shows tremendous enthusiasm for its candidates.

If the South Carolina result buoyed the Obama team, it left Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign facing a new set of questions. Her advisers’ steady attacks on Mr. Obama appeared to prove fruitless, if not counterproductive, and the attack-dog role of former President Bill Clinton seemed to have backfired.

Surveys of voters leaving the polls showed that many Democrats who believed that Mr. Clinton’s role in the campaign was important ended up voting for Mr. Obama. Click here to read more in the New York Times.

Click here if you would like to listen and/or watch Barack Obama’s victory speech which has been posted to his campaign website.

While the data less than 400 people, pollster Bruce Merrill predicts that voters favor Hillary by a double digit margin.

Clinton still leads among Democrats in state, poll finds

By Howard Fischer

Capitol Media Services

Tucson, Arizona

PHOENIX — Hillary Clinton is maintaining her lead among Democrats in Arizona despite Gov. Janet Napolitano endorsing her leading foe.

A new survey of 366 likely Democratic voters in the Feb. 5 primary shows the senator from New York is the choice of 30 percent of those questioned. Illinois Sen. Barack Obama is the pick of 17 percent, with former North Carolina senator John Edwards far back at 5 percent.

When pollster Bruce Merrill factors in those who are leaning toward one of the candidates, Clinton picks up 45 percent of the vote against Obama’s 24 percent.

Both figures have a 5.1 percent margin of error.

Merrill said Clinton’s lead is about the same as it was in October — and the same as it was before the governor’s Jan. 11 endorsement of Obama. But Merrill, who conducted the survey for KAET-TV, the Phoenix PBS affiliate, after the endorsement, said the failure of Napolitano to move the numbers is no surprise.  Click here for more on this story at the Arizona Star.

The findings of two non-profit journalist groups show that the top five White House officials including Condolleezza Rice, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld were closely following a propaganda script in public statements in months before the Iraq invasion and occupation. Data suggests that the officials closely coordinated the words used and intended messages on a daily basis. Similar actions have more recently been taken with regard to discussion of Iran.

WASHINGTON - A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The study concluded that the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.”

The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.

The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.

It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida,” according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. “In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003.”

Named in the study along with Bush were top officials of the administration during the period studied: Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.

Click here to go to a news article from the Associated Press.  You can also click here to visit Center for Public Integrity website to review the findings.

Bill Richardson dropped out of the campaign today leaving a three way race between Clinton, Obama and Edwards.  Today, we visited the national John Edwards campaign office in Durham, North Carolina.  Our visit was pretty unsuccessful in getting an Edwards representative for our Saturday Presidential Forum.  So we now expect to have representatives from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama at the forum and should have a lively debate.

Richardson Drops Out

By Kate Phillips

Gov. Bill Richardson announced that it’s over for him. He dropped out of the race for the Democratic nomination, after finishing fourth in New Hampshire earlier this week.

And he did it — as usual — with a sense of humor that has often rippled through the Democratic field and lightened the tensions of the feuding front-runners.

“It is with great pride understanding and acceptance that I am ending my campaign for president of the United States,” he said at first. And he added: “You know it’s been an exhilarating and humbling year, an experience I will treasure and never forget.”

Campaigning in the early states, like Iowa and New Hampshire, he said, “tested me in ways that I’ve never been tested. We had 200 debates – actually it was only 24 but it felt like 200 — and there I believe we made our case to the people.”   Click here to read more from the New York Times.

New Hampshire tonight said hold on, we think differently than Iowa and we want this race to go on. Despite polls that showed ten point advantages to Obama, Hillary has won the actual votes. McCain wins by five points over Romney. The best news of the night is the continued surge in Democratic turnout figures that indicate we are “Fired Up and Ready To Go!” Let’s all get ready for our Presidential Forum at the Mountain View Club house this coming Saturday at 3pm.

McCain and Clinton Win in NH In Remarkable Comebacks

By Chris Cillizza
Washington Post.com Staff Writer

Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) won tonight’s New Hampshire primaries, capping two remarkable political comebacks.

While public polling suggested that McCain would triumph over former governor Mitt Romney, there were few — if any — political strategists who believed Clinton had any real chance at victory. Clinton’s own campaign seemed resigned to a loss as recently as early this evening with talk of senior staff shakeups and money problems dominating the political chatter.

During a victory celebration minutes ago, a joyous Clinton declared: “I come tonight with a very very full heart and I want especially to thank New Hampshire. Over the last week, I listened to you, and in the process I found my own voice.”

Earlier, Obama said in a concession speech:”I want to congratulate senator Clinton on her hard fought victory in New Hampshire.”

NBC, CBS, CNN and the Associated Press declared Clinton the winner shortly before Obama made his concession speech.

For McCain, the win is a reaffirmation of the connection he enjoys with the voters of New Hampshire who first propelled him onto the national stage with an impressive win over then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush in 2000. McCain’s campaign appeared dead in the water just a few months ago as laggardly fundraising and a series of staff departures left him with little hope of winning the GOP presidential nomination. Tonight, he roared back into the top-tier of the Republican presidential field, with Michigan — a state he carried in 2000 — looming on Jan. 15.  {Some of us however are somewhat skeptical}  Click here to read more of this story in the Washington Post.

The turnout in New Hampshire is set to exceed records. Watch for the Democratic turnout numbers! Last week in Iowa, almost one third of all Democrats turned out to vote while only a sixth of Republicans voted. We believe that Democrats are fully charged up and ready to wage an aggressive campaign. We should see these trends repeat themselves tonight. In contrast Republicans are falling behind on fund raising, voter excitement, and they continue to engage in bitter divisive party battles.

Voters Surging to Polls at Record Pace in N.H. Primary

New York Times, Jan 8th

HANOVER, N.H. — New Hampshire voters were turning out in record numbers Tuesday, as Democratic Senator Barack Obama sought to record a victory to cement his position as the Democratic front-runner and Senator John McCain looked to revive his second White House bid in the state that gave him a resounding win eight years ago.

Secretary of State Bill Gardner predicted a record turnout and some polling places reported they were in danger of running out of ballots. Lines formed at some voting stations before they opened at 6 a.m., according to local news reports. One state election official described the turnout as “absolutely huge” and it was added to by a springlike day.

“Today, it is your turn to stand up and be counted,” Mr. Obama said at a morning rally at Dartmouth College. “Today, you have your turn to say that you are fed up with the petty politics of Washington.”

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton Hillary pledged to fight on to the next round of early-voting states and said she planned to continue to aggressively question Mr. Obama’s credentials, declaring, “at some point the free ride ends.”

Even as voters cast their ballots here, Clinton advisers privately debated how to revitalize her candidacy and calm nervous contributors and supporters, five days after she finished third in Iowa’s caucuses.

In separate appearances, Mrs. Clinton and former President Clinton opened a harsh new attack on Mr. Obama’s record on the Iraq war and his credibility in what may be a preview of their strategy in the days to come. Mr. Clinton, in a tirade Monday night, called the media coverage of the Obama campaign “the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.” Click here to read more in the New York Times.

Washington Post, Jan 4th

Obama Wins Iowa’s Democratic Caucuses

Edwards and Clinton Battle For Second

By Dan Balz, Anne E. Kornblut and Shailagh Murray

DES MOINES, Jan. 3 — Sen. Barack Obama, riding a message of hope and change and buoyed by extraordinary turnout, decisively won the Iowa Democratic caucuses Thursday night, dealing a significant setback to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the battle for the party’s 2008 presidential nomination.

With all of the state’s 1,781 precincts reporting, Obama (Ill.) won 38 percent of the delegates being awarded in the competition. Clinton (N.Y.) took 29.5 percent to run third behind former senator John Edwards (N.C.), who drew 29.8 percent.

Obama’s victory came after the longest, costliest and most intensely fought campaign in the history of the Iowa caucuses. The year-long competition produced a huge turnout that temporarily swamped some precincts and reflected the energy and enthusiasm among Democratic voters determined to recapture the White House in November.

Party officials said turnout exceeded 239,000, far above the 124,000 who participated four years ago and eclipsing even the campaigns’ most optimistic forecasts.

Obama’s victory was the latest chapter in a remarkable political story. A neophyte on the national stage whose inspirational message first captured the imagination of Democrats at the party’s 2004 national convention, Obama has passed the initial test against one of the most popular names in the Democratic Party.  Click here to read more of this story in the Washington Post.

Democrats Slim Down to Four Candidates!

Yahoo News, Jan 4th

DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - Veteran U.S. Sens. Joe Biden and Chris Dodd dropped out of the race for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday after placing a distant fifth and sixth, respectively, in the Iowa caucuses.

Biden of Delaware and Dodd of Connecticut offered perhaps the most experience among the Democratic contenders, having each served in Congress for more than a quarter century. Both chaired powerful committees.

But they came up far short in the race for the White House with polls showing Americans demanding change.  Click here to read more from Yahoo News.