May 17, 2007
Some Curiosities, And Other Ways To Fill Space
1. Why did John Edwards not disclose his Fortress salary until today? That's three weeks of bad Iowa stories, a George S. grilling, and lots of other unnecessary guff? Just for $479K?
2. What's the significance of this potential difference between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on Feingold-Reid?
Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., indicated Wednesday that her cloture vote in favor of a Feingold amendment which would cut off funding for major combat operations in Iraq after March 31, 2008 was not tantamount to supporting the underlying legislation.“I am not going to speculate on what I am going to be voting on in the future,” Clinton told ABC News in a follow-up to a question posed by the New York Times’ Jeff Zeleny. “I voted in favor of cloture to have a debate, we weren’t successful. . . So I will take the votes as they come. . . You know, if we were making progress, if I thought the Iraqi’s were ready to make the tough decisions, you might have seen a different vote. I don’t see that.”
Going forward, look for the Dodd campaign (out in the open) and the Obama campaign (more quietly) to use Clinton’s Wednesday straddle on the issue to curry favor with ardent opponents of the Iraq war.
“We're as confused as anyone on Senator Clinton’s position,” Dodd spokeswoman Christy Setzer told ABC News, “and frankly it's hard to know whether it's indecision, miscommunication, or simple word games and political gamesmanship we're dealing with.”
The more restrained Bill Burton of the Obama campaign passed on the chance to criticize the former first lady while affirming Obama’s support not only for cloture on the Feingold amendment but also for the underlying policy of cutting off funding for major combat operations after March 31, 2008.
“It has been Obama’s position that he supports the Reid-Feingold measure and he would vote for it” as a substantive measure, Burton tells ABC News.
3. Is this a John Kao idea or what?
Posted at 11:45 AM
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