08 Presidential Candidates, Political Analysis

This week the biggest news is the likely wrap up of the Democratic primary where Barack Obama will finally likely defeat Hilary Clinton.  In 2 days, the credentials committee will meet and decide what to do with Florida and Michigan.  It may cause an uproar and terrible political fallout, but at least it will be over.  In 3 days, Puerto Rico votes, and Clinton is poised to win by 10 points according to the few polls that are out there on Puerto Rico.  If she does, she could add another 200,000 votes to her lead, (or cut 200,000 from Obama’s lead) depending on which math you want to look at to see who is ahead.  See www.Realclearpolitics.com for the details.  In 5 days, Montana and South Dakota wrap up the voting.  Nancy Pelosi has indicated she will put pressure on the remaining 190 uncommitted superdelegates to make a decision at that time, who along with Howard Dean and other Democrat leaders who will come out and do the same, will likely cause the next week or two to have a vast majority of the remaining delegates go on record as supporting Obama or Clinton.  Many of them have said they will support whoever will win the popular vote, but there is a good argument for either candidate to have won the popular vote.  Although Clinton is polling much better against McCain in key states, Obama seems to be the inevitable nominee at this stage.

McCain thinks so too.  He has ignored Clinton and taken fire at Obama for being more willing to meet with the leaders of rogue states such as Ahmadinejad than our own leaders in Iraq such as Amb. Crocker and General Petraeus.  He invited Obama to go with him to Iraq to see for himself that Obama’s “facts” on Iraq are wrong, but Obama dismissed it as a political stunt.  McCain’s team has noted it has been nearly 2 years since Obama has been to Iraq, but Obama stated that if he goes to Iraq, it will not be with McCain.  McCain also took fire at Obama for still not having held a single meeting on the subcommittee he chairs overseeing operations in Afghanistan.  Obama fired back at McCain stating that Iraq is diverting necessary troops and agricultural experts from Afghanistan. 

Obama right hand man David Axelrod has continued to call McCain’s advisor Charlie Black a powerful corporate lobbyist.  To date, it is clear that Black has lobbied in the past, but it does not yet appear there is any indication Black is lobbying now or has influenced the McCain campaign on behalf of his former clients.  McCain’s camp noted that Axelrod is also a lobbyist, as are many members of Obama’s team.  On the ethics issues of campaign finance, dealing with lobbyists, non-cooperation with earmarks, McCain has a bit of teflon from criticism from Obama since he has taken far less corporate money and has pledged to veto and fight earmarks as President, as he has done in the Senate.  This probably is not going to be a winning theme for Obama who also has still to live down McCain taking public money while he is not going to after having promised that he would.  It became apparent this week that Obama is set on not taking public money as he urged his donors to not give to independent groups but to focus their donations on his campaign so that they can focus their message.