- Tue. Oct 7, 2008
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The Time Has Come
Ardent Hillary supporters now admit behind the scenes that it's time to kill the lights and strike the set on her presidential ambitions. Meanwhile, the Democratic candidate vows to fight on even after weak per-formances in the Indiana and North Carolina primaries this week.
Who is going to give Hillary the hook? Party elders are surely blanching at the prospect of dragging the dynastic-minded Clinton off the stage. We can hear the conversation at the Democratic National Committee headquarters now: "I'm not gonna do it. You do it, Howard!" "Yeah, right Al, I like having my head connected to my neck."
With Clinton out of steam and her campaign at least $15 million in debt, few insiders see any upside to her continued candidacy. There's only one good way to deliver the bad news to Hillary, management consultant Toby Decker says. "Just say it. Spit it out immediately."
One supporter expects a different denouement. "I think she'll figure it out on her own. She needs a little space. I think this will be over soon." --Randy Barrett
Murmurs
Psst! Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., had a CNN camera crew in tow this week. Specter's office confirmed that the network's chief medical correspondent, Sanjay Gupta, is doing a piece on the senator's working through his chemotherapy treatment--a day-in-the-life sort of feature that will air in a few weeks. Specter announced in April that his Hodgkin's disease had returned ... We overheard Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., questioning Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., on his quest to oust President Bush. "If you impeach Bush, then you wind up with [Vice President] Cheney," Scott lamented. Nadler quickly explained why there was no worry there: "We impeach them both." Next in line, of course, is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. ... President Bush continues to stick by his controversial Federal Election Commission nominee Hans von Spakovsky, even as he withdrew GOP commissioner and FEC Chairman David Mason from consideration for another term. But von Spakovsky may have won the battle only to lose the war. The word is that senators intend to vote on the president's new slate of nominees, unveiled on May 6, individually rather than as a group. And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid almost certainly has the Democratic votes to defeat von Spakovsky. Look for the FEC stalemate to drag on ...
Vital Statistics
36 points, 20 points
Hillary Clinton's margins of victory among white female voters in Pennsylvania and Indiana primaries, respectively
--RealClearPolitics.com
18 points, 4 points
Hillary Clinton's margins of victory among union households in Pennsylvania and Indiana primaries, respectively
--RealClearPolitics.com
Who's the Fairest?
Taped to a mirror in the office of House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey is a sign: "Is there anything you want me to do for somebody else that is more important than whatever it is you want me to do for you?" The question is prompted by the steady stream of visitors to the corner office in the Capitol who want a piece of the budget pie that Obey slices up. Fellow House members beseeched him to insert more than 110 spending requests in the supplemental appropriations bill this spring. Only two pitches--unemployment benefits and college aid for veterans--made the cut. "We just turned them down right and left as fast as they came in," Obey told reporters. "A lot of times, we just take a look at the label and say, 'Sorry, we'll move it to the next train.' " The next train may be a second supplemental bill that Obey wants for domestic programs this summer. --Brian Friel
Alphie's Legal Travails
Federal prosecutors appear to be closing in on former Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson. Last week, a grand jury in Washington heard from key witnesses familiar with Jackson's ties to William Hairston, a Hilton Head Island, S.C., contractor and Jackson friend. With Jackson's help, Hairston landed a job as a construction manager at the HUD-controlled Housing Authority of New Orleans. He was paid more than $485,000. Sources familiar with the inquiry said that the grand jury heard from Lori Moon, a longtime Jackson associate and former HANO official. Jackson has maintained he never intervened in contracting, but Moon has publicly contradicted his account of Hairston's hiring. Nadine Jarmon, who worked closely with Moon at HANO, also testified before the grand jury. Separately, a search warrant served at Hairston's home, recently unsealed in federal court in South Carolina, shows that prosecutors are focusing on whether Hairston did any favors for Jackson: The warrant sought "all documents relating to any work performed or services provided" by Hairston "for Alphonso Jackson or his wife." --Edward T. Pound
Pretty in Pink
After long days protesting George W. Bush's reign in the White House and getting pushed around by the cops, Washington's most raucous political activists seek refuge in their own version of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: the Pink House. Located within walking distance of the Capitol, the rented row house of CodePink rabble-rousers is actually yellowish on the outside, but it has ample pink inside--including drapes, furniture, and utensils. The pad features a "peace room" in the basement, "Impeach Them Both" yard signs, and a pink mailbox. Six Pinksters call it home and welcome visiting revolutionaries who come to lampoon or lobby Washington. --David Hatch
Q&A With Ben (Cooter) Jones
Actor and former Democratic congressman from Georgia
NJ: Why do you support Barack Obama? Aren't you the type of rural white voter he can't win over?
Jones: [He] is a very smart, charismatic, honest guy--somebody who is really thinking about what he says and means it. The Clintons are the past. Obama is the future.
NJ: You supported Bill Clinton for president. Why not Hillary?
Jones: He was the right person at the right time. But the Clintons are phony. [Obama is] not. He's real.
NJ: How can Obama appeal to rural and working-class white voters?
Jones: This question about whether his style is too cerebral is outweighed by his honesty, his talents. He needs to immerse himself in the culture of the heartland. You go from Waffle House to Waffle House, from small town to small town. He's got to develop a love of gravy and barbecue and fried chicken, [and] demonstrate his love for the heartland. Go to every NASCAR race you can and work the crowd--and don't root for Jeff Gordon. It's not phony to do that. That's what you've got to do to represent all of the people in this country.
NJ: How can he get their votes next week in West Virginia?
Jones: He needs rural advisers. He doesn't have any country boys up there. He has to start the West Virginia campaign in the coal mines--at the bottom.
--Lisa Caruso
What Ever Happened to ... Harold Koh?
In the three years that he was assistant secretary of State for democracy, human rights, and labor during the Clinton administration, Harold Hongju Koh spoke out on repression in Tibet, rights violations in Belarus, and U.S. policy on the use of torture. The biggest deja-vu of all for Koh has to do with Guantanamo Bay. As a law professor, he sued the George H.W. Bush administration over its detention of Haitian refugees there; he sued the Clinton administration (before he joined the State Department in 1998) over its detention of Cuban refugees there; and now he's fighting the George W. Bush administration over the prison camp it created there.
Koh was on the faculty at Yale Law School before he came to Washington, in 1998, and he went back in 2001. He's been dean since 2004. His time in government, he says, "made me very much appreciate New Haven and the tranquility of life in an American college town." But Koh says he never imagined that the Bush administration would follow what he called its "unthinkable" policies on military commissions, warrantless surveillance, indefinite detention, and torture.
Koh has remained active on the public stage, testifying before Congress and filing a half-dozen amicus briefs with the Supreme Court. "The role of the dean of a great law school is to participate in the debate," he says. "My job is not to shut up and take care of the plumbing." --Will Englund
On April 30, the Federal Open Market Committee of the Federal Reserve Board cut short-term interest rates again and issued an explanatory statement. In keeping with Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's commitment to transparency, we offer this reliable and imaginary translation. --John Maggs