Politics

'Tis the Season for Push Polling

The Delaware-based group Common Sense Issues is using automated phone calls to Iowa voters to talk up Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and spread negative information about his rivals. Mitt Romney's campaign has asked the Iowa attorney general to investigate the push poll calls.

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The White House Appreciates Bloggers Who Regurgitate

In an interview with Texas Monthly, former White House counselor Dan Bartlett complains that many reporters are overly critical of President Bush. "White House correspondents have been tagged, unfairly, with not being tough enough on the administration and President Bush in the run-up to the [Iraq] war. ...

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Wolfowitz Rides Again with Bush/Cheney

Bill Berkowitz reports that Paul Wolfowitz "has been offered a position as chairman of the International Security Advisory Board -- formerly known as the Arms Control and Nonproliferation Advisory Board -- a prestigious State Department

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Cool Citizen Journalism: User "Artificial Intelligence" Digs into Obama's Money Train

SourceWatch/Congresspedia user Artificial Intelligence has been doing a lot of fantastic work on the wiki lately, particularly on the 2008 presidential election. She recently picked up on a common practice in politics - the easiest way for politicians to show gratitude and allegiance to each other is for the big dogs to kick some campaign contributions down to the folks on the lower rungs. The fundraising juggernaut that is Obama 2008 has apparently had a lot of gratitude to show lately. She says:

A recent analysis conducted by PoliticalMoneyLine of 2008 Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama's November 15, 2007, FEC filing revealed that Obama "has been the most aggressive of presidential candidates in using his leadership PAC to help the campaigns of state and local candidates, and not coincidentally, the funds spent that way have gone to Democrats in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. More than one-third of his leadership PAC money is being used this way."

Campaign reports show that in January 2007, when Obama launched his presidential campaign, Hopefund [Obama's PAC] fundraising all but stopped. Since June 2007 Obama has handed out more than $180,000. Additionally, FEC filings for late 2006 through October 2007 show that several recipients of Obama's Hopefund campaign contributions had also endorsed him within months of receiving funds.

Pro-Life Groups Scrambling to Get Egg-Rights Amendments onto State Ballots

An anti-abortion group, Colorado for Equal Rights, is gathering signatures to get a constitutional amendment on the 2008 statewide ballot. The amendment, called the "Definition of a Person Act," would confer full legal rights upon fertilized human embryos. Other anti-abortion groups are simultaneously advancing similar measures in other states under different names.

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Roving Reporter

Former Bush administration political advisor Karl Rove has signed on as a columnist for Newsweek magazine, with his first column titled "How to Beat Hillary (Next) November." Charles Kaiser notes the irony in Rove's decision to join the mainstream media: "In public, Rove is one of dozens of conservatives who assiduously bash the press.

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