Bonior to lead Edwards' expected campaign

[citizen snips]

WASHINGTON - A former congressman is expected to try to help a former senator move into the White House.

David Bonior is getting ready to manage a likely presidential run by John Edwards. Since Edwards isn't formally in the race, an adviser says Bonior will work for now with Edwards' political action committee. Should Edwards make a run, Bonior will manage the campaign.

Edwards ran for vice president with John Kerry two years ago. Bonior left Congress in 2002 to make an unsuccessful run for Michigan governor. He has close ties to labor unions, and has been chairing a group that promotes the right to unionize.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16057955/

[snowbear]

1. Cool....

"Bonior to lead Edwards' expected campaign" ~~


"Boehner to lead McCain's expected campaign" ~~


"Bono to lead Clark's expected campaign" ~~


"Bonehead to lead Brownback's expected campaign" ~~

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Just joking!

I like Edwards a lot! ~~

[goodhue]

4. self-delete

[snowbear]

18. Why'd you delete your message goodhue?

I missed what you said!!

Did I get yelled at again?!?!?

Trying to figure out what I did this time..

[goodhue]

30. because I put message in wrong place

Meant to respond to original post. Nothing to do with anything you did.

[Catchawave]

8. Do we know who Rove is signing on with yet?

Oh, I hope it's McCain, that would be total karma for the hypocrisy of Rove destroying McCain and his family in 2000.

Jeb? Aw sh*t.

[Catchawave]

2. I hear he has Mudcat Saunders too.

Who helped with the Mark Warner and Jim Webb campaigns in Virginia.

JRE is building quite a team just to help him with his PAC :evilgrin:

[citizen snips]

3. I heard about him

they talked about him on CNN's broken government and they showed him at an Edwards event. We can win the south with Mudcat on our team.

[nickshepDEM]

6. I've seen him on Hardball a few times and he seems like a cool cat

(no pun intended). But I havent really been impressed with what he has to say. He basically just talks with a southern accent and says we need to do X, Y, and Z to win the South. He makes it sound so simple.

Personally, I say, F the South (in Presidential politics anyway).

The key to victory is in the West - New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Catchawave]

11. He was great for Mark Warner and Webb...whoa....

What a fine ticket that would be Warner/Webb...Virginia is for Constitution Lovers :D

[citizen snips]

14. I think Virgina and North Carolina are opening up

particularly Virgina with electing Webb and North Carolina had a party change in a house race.

[Hippo_Tron]

19. Ignoring the south would mean ignoring Virginia which is a dumb idea

The GOP screwed us in 2004 by making us play defense in New Jersey and Hawaii. If we can make them play defense in Virginia and Missouri they will have some serious problems.

[BruceMcF]

28. I'd say you have that backwards ....

... its easy to say in binary "red state / blue state" thinking, "cede the South" ... but ceding all the South, including the border south, means ceding Kentucky, then quite possibly spills over to ceding Ohio, and that hurts quite a bit more.

And it also means that the Replicants don't have to play defense anywhere in the South, where the Democrats always have to work a bit to make sure of their foundation in some states that they have to win to have a chance. Press in North Carolina (15) (with the Research Triangle making it more "purple"), Virginia (13) (with Northern VA making it more "purple"), Kentucky (8), Southern Ahia (20), Southeastern MO (11), Arkansas (6) ... and there are 72 electoral votes that Bush carried when his margin of victory was 35. Sure, it would be great to be leading in IA (7), NM (5), CO (9) and NV (5) and be looking at being 17 up if all the states that went Blue in 2004 are won again ...

... but there is much more chance of taking leads in those states into election night if the Replicants cannot focus their pressure on those alone as states that could swing their way, and have to also worry about the risk of other states swinging the other way.

And if you can challenge in the border south, that's exactly what you can do.

The House, of course, is different, because its not state by state winner-take-all. The Senate is different, because the aggresively anti-farmer stance of the big corporate interests that Republicans suckle from to win Senate primaries, combined with the opportunity of Democratic Senators to take their own stand on particular issues near and dear in their state, provides a bit of a balance wheel. And of course there will be progressive and moderate black Representatives elected from districts in states that have not gone Democratic since 1976 ... South Carolina to Mississippi went Solid Dole in 1996.

But for a national Democratic candidate that is going to win the Northeast, Northwest, and California, its really handy to be able to put on a press in the Border South and force the Replicants to play defense there.

[wiley]

32. Solid Post.

Welcome!

[BruceMcF]

35. I would also note on Edwards/Warners, which I did ...

... somewhere else a month ago, that NC, VA, OH/KY and OH are 15, 13, 28.

Anyway, the campaign manager is supposed to look at the maps and work out how to win the election. Its the candidate's job to decide what messages he is trying to win, and more importantly what he is hoping to win the election to do.

A lot of people ignore the role that the Ohio River Valley plays in Presidential politics in Ohio, because they are not big blocks of vote in any of those counties. However, the big blocks of votes tend to divide between the Northeast and Southwest because of natural intra-state political infighting ... because of the dominance of the Cleveland-Akron-Canton metroplex in the Democratic vote and state Democratic party, it is natural for Republicans to pursue the local interests of suburban Cinci, Columbus and Dayton to try to counterbalance. It is, after all, no accident that when OH last had two multi-term Democratic Senators, one was from the Cleveland area and the other was from the southwest side of Columbus, and despite ideological differences they campaigned for each other effectively in their own natural state home bases.

If you look at the http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/">electoral maps (click 'Menu'), Ohio and Kentucky have swung the same way in every election since Kennedy/Nixon, and that is in part because if you can swing the Ohio River Valley, you can often swing both states. That's a 28 vote block ... IOW, a 56 vote swing on offer.

And that is not just "cultural affinities" but also family ties -- if Edwards or Warner is campaigning on both sides of the river and says, "... I'm going to be campaigning shortly North of the River and I'll tell them what I'm telling you ..." and "... I just came from South of the River and I told them what I'm telling you ...", sure as anything someone that was at the first rally will say on the phone, "He says he's coming your way soon and is going to talk about", and then someone who went to the second rally will say when they make their family call the next week, "You know what? That's exactly what he said."

If I were advising Edwards and I had Warner on the ticket, I would for sure put him on a (green biodiesel fueled) campaign bus, and launch him in South Carolina on a whistle stop around the borders of Dixie. Edwards can focus on the campaign to shore up the base and to take out the Great Lakes and Upper Midwest ...

... send Warner whistle stopping through North Carolina (west to east) and Virginia (east to NVA to west), then a stop in WV before whistle stop through Northern Kentucky to Luavul, then across the bridge to Cincinatti and whistle stop through the south and southeast of the state until he hits Youngstown, then on to Cleveland and down the 3C highway, swinging around the three outerbelts and hitting the outer suburbs of 3C. Then a stop each in Southern Indiana and Illinois and campaign heavily in SE MO and Arkansas, stops to support state and Congressional candidates in Texas and campaign through NM, CO, and end in NV. Fly him to his VP debate while the bus is driving back to SE MO, and do a straight run through Southern IL, Southern IN, Southern AH, Morgantown, and then finish up fighting tooth and nail for VA.

If Edwards can get a lead in OH and KY, he puts a world of hurt on the Replicant campaign, and if he forces them to defend VA and NC, they'll find out what Dukakis felt like in the '88 general election campaign.

[ruggerson]

10. If Edwards has bagged Mudcat count me as one happy camper

The Webb campaign was absolutely brilliantly run.

[Catchawave]

13. According to Newsweek.....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13531835/site/newsweek/from/RS.4

Since last summer?

[citizen snips]

17. Thanks for posting that Catchawave

its a good article

[goodhue]

5. Good news for Edwards

[oasis]

7. Bonior is smooth and engaging. He's a rock solid Democrat.

:thumbsup:

[jefferson_dem]

31. ...except for his anti-choice position. But, hey...we've got a "big tent" here.

n/t

[ruggerson]

12. Edwards is really the only one expected to run

who I can muster up real excitement for.

I think a ticket of Edwards/Warner or Edwards/Obama is a big, big winner.

[Catchawave]

15. Warner would be fantastic !

Also, Bayh. Both very popular Dem Gov's in Red States. I love Obama, but we do need a Governor on the ticket, and so far, as of 12-05-06, there isn't a Gov I'd like to see on top of the ticket.

:toast:

[venable]

22. I see your point about a Governor

mainly because historically it seems to matter. I also think a Red Sate governor is a strategic idea, but I would be concerned that Bayh would just seem like a lighter version of Edwards, albeit with more experience. I would also hope that the whole ticket, top and bottom, embrace strong Democratic values, unapologetically. I sometimes get the feeling that Bayh is too measured, too concerned with accounting for all positions. I may be wrong.

I think Edwards' mounting strength is that he has shed the triangulators from his staff, who never had much sway, but now have none. He is what he is, and that's a populist/progressive with a view to a foreign policy based upon moral authority, not weaponry.

[citizen snips]

16. I agree

Edwards/Warner will make a good ticket.

[venable]

20. Mattman, what about Edwards/Webb?

I'm thinking of the tough Marine, straight talker, former Navy secretary, made out of nails.

for that matter, with Edwards/Clark, you get the same congruence of skills and a specific kind of experience.

I do think Edwards is putting together a team that reads old school democratic values. As if saying: enough with the triangulations - let's be who we are.

I love Boniors/Saunders working for Edwards. Could be a tight, smart campaign, made out of courage.

[citizen snips]

21. They both sound like good tickets.

IMHO I don't think Webb would want to be VP that quick in his career but it is worth considering Clark however is also good choice.

[snowbear]

23. Well, since you're mixing and matching....

Definitely could work:


Or.. this might work too:



In both cases, you get the best of foreign and domestic experience.

[citizen snips]

24. or

[snowbear]

26. Hmmm.. yep.

.. That would work too! ..

[BruceMcF]

29. Hey, that's my idea ...

... and here's the lin... waidaminute. What was it that that post up linked to from Newsweek in July?

"It looks as if he's laying the foundation to get back there. He hasn't yet declared himself a presidential candidate, but he has wooed away an adviser to former Virginia governor Mark Warner, ..."

And Warner "isn't running" for President to spend more time with his family. Maybe he wants to a good chunk of the next year and a half with them because he's hoping to be otherwise engaged come Summer 2008. Maybe, IOW, it was someone else's idea before I ever thunk of it, since I thunk of it after he announced he was not running for President.

... not saying he is, just saying maybe ...

[marmar]

33. Not bad, but perhaps we need a little more regional diversity?

Granted, south-south worked in '92 and '96.

[Catchawave]

34. That's what I was thinking

Arkansas-Tennessee, can't get more Southern than that :D

North Carolina - Virginia, I think more Mid-Atlantic than South.

[venable]

25. I suppose I'm thinking of Webb's Navy Secretary past

as relevant experience.

I also was impressed with his campaign style, ie taking no prisoners. Man, do we need that.

The legislative or executive inexperience is not the biggest concern with a Webb, or such like - it's more about campaign experience. The thing about a running mate, or any of the primary candidates, is that the campaign skill and organization required at this level is very high.

That's one thing that makes me think Obama might not be as effective as a primary candidate - he doesn't have enough real experience actually campaigning at this level. He has run against Ryan and Keyes. I've got about 100 friends who've never run for office who could beat those guys.

Not saying Obama doesn't have campaign chops, just that he hasn't been through a fire yet, in that way.

[usregimechange]

27. We need Edwards in the race in 08.