Edwards

There is obviously a lot of energy/environmental news today. I don't have time to write up every candidate right now like I did with McCain, mostly because I am working on building out a new feature on the candidates and the issues. More on that later this week.

For now, here is a brief overview of the weekends news, when it comes to the candidates and the environment.

Let's start off with the Republicans for once.

Fred Thompson, not to be confused with Tommy Thompson who has already declared, met with over 50 Republican House members about a potential run yesterday. He impressed the crowd and it is looking increasingly likely that he will run and fill the role of very conservative candidate.

This video of Romney at campaign events this week is worth a watch over at the WaPo. He mixes in comments about the tragedy at VT and taxes.

Joe Trippi announced that he joined John Edwards campaign today. He is working out of the headquarters as a senior advisor. Analysis here.

The schedule at the CDP for the presidential contenders speeches is changing. Clinton has now switched to Saturday afternoon.

Cute story on a kid who got to shake Obama's hand at the big Oakland rally, plus coverage of the MoveOn.org townhall on Iraq in the Sacramento News & Review.

The editor of the Prospect ponders the Democratic primary calendar, and puts forward an argument for a brokered convention. Unlikely for sure, but possible given the wide open field.

Conventional wisdom about the presidential primaries has completely changed in the last three months. All of the DC insiders thought that Clinton and McCain would clean up in the money and march all the way to the nomination for their parties. Nothing could be further from the truth. The DC punditocracy are changing their rankings and pondering a wide open race.

The Hotline rankings for the Democrats are out and there is no leader. They have Obama and Clinton tied, with Edwards just a hair behind.

There is no Democratic front-runner. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards all have a plausible claim on the nomination.

The usual metrics are all jumbled. Clinton leads the money race, leads in New Hampshire, and tops the national polls. Obama leads in South Carolina, in media love, and in enthusiasm. Edwards has the tightest message, the best organization in Iowa, and the lead in Iowa.

The Washington Post focuses on the money race, which is only one of the factors that Hotline takes into account.

SEIU challenged every presidential contender to spend a day walking in the shoes of one of their members. John Edwards was the first one to step up. Clindon, Richardson and Dodd have also signed up to participate. Yesterday was Edward's turn and he joined nursing home worker Elaine Ellis from breakfast through her rounds.

It was a relatively quiet day today on the presidential front. The biggest story was on foreign policy, more specifically the Iraq war.

The big winner (at least on the blogs) from the MoveOn Iraq Townhall was Richardson, who came out strongly for pulling all troops out of Iraq. Edwards stepped up and mostly agreed with that stance today. Bowers explains the difference between Richardson, Edwards and Clinton.

Obama and McCain are going back and forth on the Iraq War. McCain tried to attach himself to one of Obama's statements and he was having none of that.

Edwards is going on a rural tour next week, but not coming to Cali.

Clinton is getting kudos for her defense of the Rutgers basketball team, with a message on her website and email to her list.

On a related note, I recently signed up for emails from Clinton, Obama and Richardson using the forms on their website header (I was already on Edwards and Dodd's list). Not one sent me a welcome message and a request to take some sort of action or collect more information. Come on now people, you should know better. The first 24 hours is your best chance to really form a relationship with your new subscribers. They really should have an auto email system for the newbies. The only email I have gotten from them was Clinton's on Rutgers. Nothing from Obama or Richardson yet.

Time for a tour of the most interesting news articles on the Presidential race today.

• LAT says Clinton and McCain have lost their front-runner status. They of course base most of their analysis on the fundraising totals, which is only one measure of success at this stage of the game. The article really is a vehicle to talk about how engaged and active the Democratic activists are this early in the game.
• Every major newspaper needs at least one article on how the candidates are using social networking sites to engage the youngins. The SDUT takes its turn.
• Bloomberg cover's Edwards' wooing of labor. Edwards put a lot of time and effort into attracting the support of unions since his 2004 primary loss. We will see how much it pays off for him as endorsements are made later on.
• New York has officially joined California on Feb 5th. This obviously helps both Clinton and Giuliani, though New Yorkers definately have a different perspective on Rudy than the rest of the country.

  I think journalists need to decide on its nickname. Is it Super-Duper Tuesday or Tsunami Tuesday? I like the latter personally.

• Guess where Richardson spent his Easter? If you said North Korea you would be correct. He is there with an American delegation negotiating the return of the remains of American servicemen killed in the Korean War.
• Edwards likes California's ReadyReturn so much that he wants to see it become a national program. He is calling for the IRS to use data it already collects to complete 50 million tax returns for people.
• Obama will be on Letterman tonight. Oh and Hill is sending Bill for some CaliCash next weekend.

That seems to be most voters' attitude towards the rest of the Bush presidency and at least a partial explanation for the early interest in the 2008 election. Primary fever has hit California now that we have on of the earliest dates in 2008.

Working Californians is going to do some work around the February 5th primary here in California and I will get to do some blogging. Our focus naturally will be on quality of life issues. Before we get to that and as I get up to speed, this thread will bring you the best of what I have found around the internets today. Enjoy!

• The Field Poll is out with their numbers. Chris Cizzilia of the WaPo has an excellent breakdown of the numbers, including the internals.
• The WaPo has a severely underappreciated video series. Today's on the Edward's first campaign appearances since the cancer announcement is fantastic.
• The news of the day is Obama's incredibly strong fundraising quarter. The story is almost as much about the dollar total as the huge number of donors to the campaign. 100,000 donors is simply unheard of at this stage in the game.
• Field released its Republican numbers. No really big surprises there. Giuliani has a strong lead over his rivals.

  Field also ran head to head matches between the Democrats and Republicans. Obama, Clinton and Edwards all would beat Giuliani in the general election. They would all beat McCain too, but their lead is smaller. California is still a blue state. See Frank Russo for more.

• kos adds up the first quarter fundraising in both parties. Democrats lead $78M to $51M.