Giuliani

I enjoy putting these together and hopefully our fabulous readers find them useful. Here are the highlights from the press and blogs that I have found today.

• MoveOn is hosting its Virtual Town Hall meeting tonight on Iraq tonight. Over 6,000 questions were submitted by members and tere were over half a million votes to determine which ones should be asked. You can find a party here. After 8pm PST there will be a highlight posted here.

• The LAT has a good profile of Richardson today. The best line by far is a quote from the Gov. "I'm perfectly content to be the only candidate in the second tier." I dunno what Dodd, Biden etc would have to say about that.
• Speaking of Richardson, the American delegation to North Korea had a breakthrough in negotiations today.
• The Fix has a roundup off all of the contenders' comments on Imus.
• MissLaura talks crowd size over at Daily Kos. The Democrats are packing houses, Republicans, not so much.
• Maviglio argues that since Giuliani and Clinton will easily win New York, that it increases the importance of California.
• The NCTimes previews the CDP Convention, where all of the leading Democratic contenders will be speaking. I will be there reporting directly from the conference.
• This Politico story republished by CBS is worth a read. They cover the tweaking by the candidates, in the wake of the fundraising reporting.

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.