Election Central Sunday Roundup
Obama: Economy "Going To Get Worse Before It Gets Better"
In his new interview on Meet The Press, Barack Obama laid out a blunt assessment of the economy, declaring twice that, "The economy is going to get worse before it gets better." He also said he would support the proposed $15 billion loans to save the auto industry from bankruptcy during the lame-duck period, but with conditions for the companies to make changes.
Obama Holding Press Conference, Announcing Shinseki For Veterans Affairs
Barack Obama is holding a 2 p.m. ET press conference in Chicago, at which he will announce his pick of retired Gen. Eric Shinseki -- who was famously ridiculed by the Bush Administration after he accurately predicted in early 2003 that many more troops would be needed for the Iraq War -- to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Obama confirmed the pick during his interview on Meet The Press.
RNC: We Can Still Win Elections
RNC chairman Mike Duncan released a statement last night trumpeting the GOP's victories in yesterday's House elections in Louisiana. "Coupled with the recent Senate win in Georgia, it's clear that Republicans still know how to win elections as we continue to build a solid foundation for the elections in 2010," said Duncan.
It's Official: David Gregory Is New Host Of Meet The Press
NBC News has officially announced that they've picked White House correspondent David Gregory to be the new host of Meet The Press. "I'm filled with a great sense of purpose as I join a superb team to cover Washington and the world from a treasured platform in our country," Gregory said in the press release. "Above all, I want to make Tim proud."
Report: Matthews Inks New Contract With MSNBC, Won't Run For Senate
The Politico reports that Chris Matthews has signed a new contract with MSNBC, set to be announced on Tuesday. If this proves to be true, then Matthews will not be running for U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania
Sebelius Withdraws Her Name From Consideration For Cabinet
Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who endorsed Barack Obama in the run-up to Super Tuesday and helped deliver him a landslide win in her state's caucuses, has taken herself out of consideration for a cabinet post. Sebelius said she wanted to focus her time on solving Kansas' current fiscal crisis, but her decision has one other effect: It leaves her open and available for a possible run for Senate in 2010.
Obama's Speechwriter Favreau Caught In Facebook Antics
Barack Obama's top speechwriter Jon Favreau just got in a bit of trouble on Facebook, with photos posted that showed him apparently groping a life-size cardboard photo of Hillary Clinton at a house party. The reaction from a Clinton spokesperson: "Sen. Clinton is pleased to learn of Jon's obvious interest in the State Department, and is currently reviewing his application."
Sure enough, this is the cause of a great circle-jerk over at No Quarter.
December 7, 2008 1:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the Clinton camp response was extremely classy.
December 7, 2008 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed. Plus it showed they have a sense of humor.
December 7, 2008 2:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
It certainly cracked me up.
December 7, 2008 3:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Those people at NoQuarter are pathetic and just downright bizarre. Some of the things they post about Obama border on science fiction.
To think, a year ago, the vast majority of them were considered normal, reasonable people. Now, many of them have cut ties with long-time friends and family members who like Obama because they can't move beyond the primary fight. They have convinced themselves that Obama is evil and stole the primary and the general and anybody who disagrees has "drunk the kool aid."
I bet Hillary is embarrassed that those kooks call themselves her supporters.
They are 75% responsible for why I let go of any residual resentment I held for Hillary. I feared I would become some embittered, delusional and foaming-at-the-mouth blogger while Barack and Hillary have so moved on.
It's over. Everybody knows it except those clowns at NoQuarter and Hillaryis44!
December 7, 2008 6:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hunh. Tom Brokaw is annoyingly arrogant, but at least he's pretty bright. David Gregory is little more than a shill.
In other news, looks like we won't have Tweety to kick around anymore. Oh, wait...
December 7, 2008 1:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
David Gregory just isn't very bright at all. I think he's the male equivalent of Paula Zahn, and, "Meet the Press" is circling the drain with this pick.
December 7, 2008 1:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
The only NBC bulbs dimmer than David Gregory are the execs who promoted him. Oh well, I already gave up on network news programs a long time ago. The Sunday shows are nothing more than Beltway circle-jerks.
December 7, 2008 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gregory and the people who hired him are dim bulbs, and yet, they work for GE. Ironic, isn't it?
December 7, 2008 3:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
GE: They bring good things to life. Like Mr. Magoo, reincarnated as David Gregory. Feh.
December 7, 2008 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
You know, I have no idea about Gregory's IQ and I'm sure that's the case for everyone who weighed in here about him. I think his MSNBC shows sucks But . . .
I watched Gregory fill in for Russert a few times before he died and once after. He is, by far, the best person suited for that job. Call it a performance but it was very good. He asked good questions and was very deft in following-up.
I'm sure those shows are available somewhere. I suggest you watch them before you pronounce him unfit for the job.
December 7, 2008 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
David Gregoty is the new republican puppet, he is awful and never prepared. He was the one who kept saying: "What is wrong with Senator Obama, he can't get over 50%". He was never using the latest poll.
This is a very poor choice from MSNBC,
One of the best in the industry is Fareed Zakaria. I like his style and his intelligence.
December 7, 2008 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
All the in-house contenders were pretty crummy. However I think they needed to fail with an in-house candidate before bringing in an outsider.
December 7, 2008 1:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
David Gregory will not last a year. He doesnt have the chops or charisma needed for that job. His show on MSNBC isnt even that good.
ABC's This Week with George Stephanie will be the #1 morning news show in a year.
December 7, 2008 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not all of them. Chuck Todd was in contention. He would have been a hellaciously good host.
It's kind of like Todd and Gregory are the opposite sides of the Tim Russert coin. Todd is the insightful, incisive "heads" side, and Gregory is the talking-points spewing, CW-bound, asshat "tails" side.
Of course GE chose the "tails" side.
December 7, 2008 3:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
... so they could get their butts kicked.
December 7, 2008 4:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like Chuck Todd but have you ever watched him host an hour on MSNBC? Not good. Not good at all.
Todd is a very insightful analyst but is interviewing skills are lacking and he can barely go to commercial.
Andrea Mitchell is also a very good reporter but she's a lousy host--stumbling and bumbling over the teleprompter and an awful lot of awkard pauses.
December 7, 2008 6:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah Dave Gregory, he of the constant, "but surely once people hear McCain's story, Obama's chimeric lead will dissipate into the aether..."
Before the financial crisis, "Race to the White House" was little more than an unceasing litany of speculative scenarios fabricated by Gregory that inevitably ended in Obama's defeat. I'll pass, thank you very much.
December 7, 2008 9:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Favreau should absolutely know better, as should the "friend" posting the picture on facebook. He;s lucky the campaigns are over or he'd be out of a job.
Was the Chris Matthews to the Senate speculation nothing more than a bargaining chip?
I wonder if there is more to the story with Sebelius. Is this political cover for both parties - Sebelius for not getting a post and for Obama not appointing her to one?
December 7, 2008 1:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Favreau shouldn't have thought groping a cardboard likeness was funny.
Not because it might wind up being posted on Facebook but because it just isn't funny. It's creepy.
December 7, 2008 1:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Creepy? You'd better tell that to the dozen or so women who took pictures groping and kissing Barack's cut-out at our street party.
You'd better tell that to the millions of people who pose doing wacky, outrageous things with cut-outs of famous people in malls, amusement parks, arcades, etc around the country each year.
Cut-outs are made so people will do silly things with them--things they would never do to the real person.
If he had been caught groping a cut-out in private, I'd think that's creepy. Doing it in public is typical goofy party humor.
And please don't say such behavior shows disrespect as some angry Clintonistas are claiming. Every one of the women who groped Barack's cut-out would walk through hell wearing gasoline thongs for the man!
December 7, 2008 6:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
You probably won't get this, but I think it's creepy, and had I seen the millions of women groping an Obama cut-out, I'd say that was creepy as well.
Look: I'm not angry, and I'm not making some larger argument about respect for women. I look at that image, and I find it creepy that he's "groping" the breast of a cut-out. Just as I would find it creepy to see an image of a female speechwriter groping the crotch of a cut-out.
What's it say about people that they would grope cut-outs?
Yuck is what is says to me.
December 8, 2008 10:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
To me it says juvenile and doing something outrageous for laughs. Just like it does when people dance with a lamp shade on their heads at parties are do jello shooters--for attention. If they did these things when nobody was looking, then I'd say "creepy."
December 8, 2008 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
I understand.
I guess I wish pretend groping of body parts wasn't something just considered attention-getting and outrageous. No one would think that someone pretending to grope a cardboard cut-out, of, say, Dakota Fanning when she was six was just seeking attention. They'd think: ICK. Or at least I think they would.
But pretend groping adults? That's somehow ok?
I'm obviously in the minority on this. And maybe I need a sense of humor transfusion.
December 8, 2008 10:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Making out with an adult is not ICK. Making out with a kid is ICK. That's why groping a cut-out of a kid is ICK, IMO.
Listen, we all have our own thoughts about what's funny and what's not. A lot depends on the intention of those doing the joke. I'd be offended if they were stabbing the cut-out or peeing on it or stomping on it or something. But, I'm sorry, I just can't get worked up about two handsome guys jokingly pretending to hit on Hillary.
December 8, 2008 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, we definitely respond to that image differently. I don't see grabbing a breast as equivalent to hitting on someone, and whether they're handsome is irrelevant to me.
December 8, 2008 11:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm a middle-aged feminist and I'd be flattered if I discovered that two young guys were drooling and making cat calls over my picture or my cut-out. If they did that to me (or any woman) personally, I'd be offended and feel disrespcted and would give them a tongue lashing. But it's nice to know men still find me attractive enough to want to grab my boob.
Equating one's reaction to a picture or cut-out to the reaction to a live person is just looking for stuff to be pissed off about. As if the women at our street party would ever even consider making out with Obama the way we did with his cut-out.
December 8, 2008 11:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm a middle-aged feminist, as well, and I'm not looking to get pissed off at anything. My gut reaction to that picture was extremely negative, and that's what I was responding to. I suspect that if I saw a picture of some young woman groping Obama, I'd have a similar response.
December 8, 2008 12:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
My guess is that she wasn't going to get the position she most wanted and this is a way to save face.
Still, I feel bad for her, after all the veep speculation and then this. It seemed that she and Obama had a great rapport and that she would have been a great asset to his administration.
December 7, 2008 2:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
O indeed. Get real cocky about it, Repugs. You can win, you betcha, as long as you're running against someone so corrupt that even Louisiana turns its back on them -
December 7, 2008 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Then you have Huckabee saying for the Right to rebound they need to get out of "the mushy middle".
December 7, 2008 2:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's pathetic that they are trying to spin something so completely predictable (Repubs can still win elections in the Deep South) into evidence that they are bound for glory nationwide in 2010.
December 7, 2008 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's all good. The longer they maintain their delusion that there is absolutely nothing fundementally wrong, the longer we'll have to fix things before they can back into the majority and start screwing things up again.
December 7, 2008 4:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please. A refrigerator (even with no money in it) should have been able to beat "Dollar Bill" this time around. As someone below mentioned, you've gotta be pretty hard up to claim "momentum" just by picking up a crook's seat in the Deep South -- even in a democratic district.
December 7, 2008 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
The only ones in danger in the mushy middle are Democrats. The only way Democrats lose in 2010 is if Americans are not totally clear that the Republicans and Reagonomics are responsible for the depression. Mushy middleness is not going to get us out of it either.
December 7, 2008 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Being Obama's speechwriter, perhaps, is one of the coolest jobs on earth right now.
It's amazing how one can someone risk a promising career just to get some cheap thrills on facebook. Favreau may or may not a million other things discussed, but he's certainly an idiot.
Stupidity is stunning more often than not.
Just imagine if something similar happened during the most heated days of the primary campaign?
December 7, 2008 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know about "cheap thrills." They took a picture at a party and put it on their Facebook photo album. He just apparently forgot that Facebook isn't a network for friends anymore so much as a global stalking apparatus.
December 7, 2008 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
The chief speechwriter for the candidate that made the Internet and social networking a foundation of his campaign just forgot something about Facebook??
December 7, 2008 3:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Obama campaign's utilization of the website for organizing is the exception, rather than the rule for Facebook. It's first and foremost a site for young people to communicate with their friends and swap pictures. It's basically Myspace except legible. I just think this is all a garbage non-issue where we're criticizing someone for dicking around on a site that's designed for dicking around. The press is just bored writing stories about Obama's trips to the gym, I guess. Plus this requires less thought than writing about the current financial situation.
December 7, 2008 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Was it Favreau himself who posted the embarrassing pix? Or another attendee, perhaps the person who took them? The linked-to article suggests it was Favreau, but it's not totally clear from my reading.
kash:
At least sometimes when he's drunk and at a party. Many of us are like that. I'm usually satisfied if I have a good time and don't hurt myself or anybody else :-)
December 7, 2008 4:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Word Straight Up!
Can people not have fun anymore? I saw the picture - it was very harmless indeed.
December 7, 2008 4:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
The facebook brouhaha might indeed be silly, but it's not at all harmless, as Obama's "no-drama" insistence on a leak-free, careful approach to campaigning and governance indicates.
December 7, 2008 9:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for making my point.
December 7, 2008 3:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
The above comment was meant for MNASB.
As you say, if he thought Facebook was just a place for freinds, then you make my point. Absolute stupidity.
December 7, 2008 3:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
He didn't put it on Facebook. It was a friend.
December 7, 2008 6:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dumb move, no matter how you spin it.
December 7, 2008 9:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Whew! Pennsylvania voters must be breathing a sigh of relief. Surely, there have to be some good Dem contenders from the ranks of the congressional delegation or state-level officials.
December 7, 2008 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Someone hook me up with the video of the press conference.
December 7, 2008 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's the part where Obama nominates Shinseki:
Shinseki
December 7, 2008 3:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Jed Report has the vid up - http://www.jedreport.com/2008/12/post.html
December 7, 2008 4:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Darn thanks but what I really want to see is the Q and A section.
December 7, 2008 7:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here ya go!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duXl57O57xQ
December 7, 2008 9:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
And here is part 2.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkZLYoKTKZs
December 7, 2008 9:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
A Depression...Obama's self-fulfilling prophecy.
Why is he trying to intentionally make the economy worse? One of the keys to getting out of a recession is consumer spending. No one is going to spend if they believe it is going to get worse. It will lead to a deflationary spiral and give Obama what he wants, a depression.
Then he can nationalize everything in sight for the "good of the country".
I assume all the Obama supporters are going to spend more this holiday than they did last year. No? Could it be because..."the economy will get worse before it gets better"?
December 7, 2008 5:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, if only Larry had mailed out the whitey tape in time!
December 7, 2008 5:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
The economy is already Obama's fault!
Get out the champagne, guys! We've made it!
December 7, 2008 6:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Confidence is what will get people spending. He's not even president yet and he has officially destroyed all confidence.
Now THAT is leadership.
December 7, 2008 7:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Officially? Wow! What powers!
Great analysis, by the way. It doesn't in the least bit look like you're just cooking up ridiculous hypotheticals to express your bitterness over the fact that your candidate's ass was KICKED and Barack Hussein Obama is now YOUR president-elect. Nope, not in the least. Just great, objective analysis, rooted in facts and a nuanced comprehension of economic policy. Good job.
December 7, 2008 7:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with you tellmemore! If Obama just said the economy would turn around next month, the economy would turn around next month.
You know how when Bush said there were WMD's, there were WMD's; and how Bush said "mission accomplished" mission was accomplished.
Doesn't Obama know that reality is over-rated? Damn him!!
December 7, 2008 8:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know. Obama should say the fundamentals of our economy are still strong! Maybe it would sound better coming from Obama than it did McCain. Or we could have Howard Dean do it with his signature scream.
December 7, 2008 9:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah. It's all a mental recession. Tellmemore is right. When McCain said "the fundamentals of the economy are strong" the DOW jumped 1500 points in one day. Or did it?
Separating truth from fiction is so hard these days. Is my bank account really as low as it looks on paper? Perhaps, instead of paying my mortgage, I should just tell the bank that I paid since it's all about building confidence in my ability to pay!
December 7, 2008 9:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
As if Bu$h and the repugs do instill confidence? It's their damn fault we're in this mess!
December 7, 2008 8:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
What about telling the truth and having credibility? If he said everything was rosy nobody would believe him as folks are struggling and it IS going to get worse and folks will feel it getting worse. However down the line when the economy might need a little jolt in the right direction when things are showing signs of improving, Obama's credibility built up by being straight with folks will give his words more weight.
December 7, 2008 8:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's not fair. Everyone from the Left to the Right and everywhere in between has been saying that it will get worse. It's a reality check. And what's with the Obama supporters crack? We have sense you know. If we ain't got it, we ain't got it.
December 7, 2008 7:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not going to spend more, because I've been fooled by this fake "recession." As John McCain, the fundamentals of the economy are sound, it's only a mental recession, after all. But stupid me, I look at "facts" and shit!
December 7, 2008 8:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
GRINCH !
December 7, 2008 8:42 PM | Reply | Permalink