Subject: Hillary For President News Briefing for Friday, February 08, 2008
From: "Bulletin News Network" <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked], [email-masked]
Date: 8 Feb 2008 06:34:17 -0500

HILLARY FOR PRESIDENT NEWS BRIEFING (Executive Version)
Full version is attached and available online at http://www.bulletinnews.com/clinton

TO: CLINTON CAMPAIGN

DATE: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2008 6:30 AM EST

TODAY'S TABLE OF CONTENTS

SEN. CLINTON'S CAMPAIGN:

+ Obama, Clinton Fundraising At Hectic Pace.

+ Clinton Targets McCain In Northern Virginia.

+ Clinton Addresses Domestic Agenda, Troop Withdrawal In Seattle "Stemwinder."

+ Obama A Stronger General Election Candidate In Time Poll.

+ Obama's Rhetoric Called Inspirational But Vague.

+ Obama Agrees To Texas, Ohio Debates.

+ Edgar Downplays Obama's Ties To Rezko.

Sen. Clinton's Campaign:

OBAMA, CLINTON FUNDRAISING AT HECTIC PACE. The AP (2/8, Babington, Benac) reports, "Battling for every dollar and delegate, Barack Obama raised $7.2 million in Super Tuesday's wake and Hillary Rodham Clinton pulled in $6.4 million, stunning totals reflecting the intensity of their neck-and-neck race for the Democratic presidential nomination." Clinton, "keenly aware of Obama's growing strength...challenged him to five debates in the next month. Obama initially put her off, then later agreed to two." Clinton, who "loaned her campaign $5 million in the run-up to Super Tuesday, brushed aside the notion she has money problems. She pointed to the roughly even split of delegates still being allocated from Tuesday's primaries and caucuses as evidence her campaign has the financial muscle to compete."

The CBS Evening News (2/7, story 3, 0:45, Smith, 7.66M) reported Clinton "was ready to lend it $15 million more. But that's on hold now. Her chief fund-raiser says that since Super Tuesday, her campaign has also raised $7.5 million from 40,000 new donors. The Clinton campaign denies it's in financial trouble or that any staffers are going without pay." Similarly, ABC World News (2/7, story 2, 1:50, Stephanopoulos, 8.78M) reported, "What a difference a day makes. They announced today, the Clinton campaign did, they say they've raised $7.5 million online since February 1st. The staffers who had volunteered not to get paid in February now will get all of their paychecks."

NBC Nightly News (2/7, story 13, 2:10, Mitchell, 9.87M) reported, "With Hillary Clinton now disclosing she loaned her campaign $5 million to keep afloat within the last two weeks, Barack Obama today, in response to reporters' questions, asked where she got the money. Was it hers or her husband's?" Sen. Barack Obama: "I will just say that I have released my tax returns; that's been a policy I have maintained consistently. I think the American people deserve to know where you get your income from." Mitchell: "A Clinton spokesman called Obama's concerns petty and said the Clintons have plenty of money assets of between $10 and $50 million. But they have not released the paperwork on the loan."

The Politico (2/8, Cummings) reports the "vast majority of the money" raised by Clinton, $6 million, "came in after Super Tuesday and after news broke that Clinton had lent her campaign $5 million last month and that Obama was on pace to raise at least $30 million this month." Campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe said, "They know that Hillary has given it all that she has, and now they are saying, 'I want to be with you.'" McAuliffe also "sought to ease donors' concerns about how dire the situation is inside the campaign, noting that reports that some staff members were forgoing their salaries were not true. 'All staff, 100 percent paid, not an issue,' he said."

USA Today (2/8, Schouten, Lawrence, Jervis, 2.28M) reports the Clinton campaign "also reported adding 40,000 new donors. Some senior aides who had planned to go unpaid in February are back on the payroll." McAuliffe said, "February is by far going to be our biggest month by a huge amount." USA Today adds both campaigns "tried to lower expectations for races coming up this weekend and Tuesday. But their schedules reflected a continuing struggle for every possible convention delegate in a proportional allocation system that rewards second-place finishers as well as winners. Nebraska, Washington and Louisiana are voting Saturday, Maine on Sunday."

Loan Prompts Obama To Suggest Clintons Release Tax Returns. The AP (2/8) reports that Obama proposed Thursday that Clinton "follow his lead and release her and her husband's income tax returns so the public can see where the $5 million she loaned her presidential campaign came from. ... Asked whether he would call on the Clintons to release their tax returns, Obama stopped short of saying they should. 'I'll just say that I've released my tax returns. That's been a policy I've maintained consistently. I think the American people deserve to know where you get your income from. But I'll leave it up to you guys to chase it down,' he told reporters on the flight to Omaha, Neb., for a rally."

Twenty Percent Of Clinton Bundlers Linked To '96 Fundraising Scandal. The Washington Times (2/8, Seper, 87K) reports nearly "one in five 'HillRaisers,' the elite big-money fundraisers for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign, have ties to the 1990s fundraising scandal that tarnished her husband's presidency by offering Democratic donors sleepovers in the Lincoln Bedroom and other perks inside the White House." Forty-nine of the Clintons' "Lincoln Bedroom guests are among the 250 HillRaisers listed on Mrs. Clinton's campaign Web page, who have pledged to gather, or 'bundle,' at least $100,000 in donations." Some of the HillRaisers "are longtime friends who have given millions to the Clintons over the years, including Washington socialite Beth Dozoretz, who played a key role in the controversial, last-minute 2000 pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich."

CLINTON TARGETS MCCAIN IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA. The Washington Post (2/8, A1, Turque, Shaver, 723K) reports in a front page story that Hillary Clinton, "making her first appearance in Virginia yesterday before Tuesday's regional primary, matched herself up not with opponent Sen. Barack Obama, but Sen. John McCain, who is on the verge of the Republican presidential nomination." Speaking to "about 2,000 students and supporters in the gym at Washington-Lee High School in Arlington County, Clinton mentioned her Democratic opponent from Illinois only once." Although Clinton "called her Senate colleague from Arizona 'a friend of mine,' she said McCain offered little in the way of change." Clinton said, "I believe he offers more of the same." The Post adds Clinton "cited McCain's prediction that U.S. troops could be in Iraq for as long as 100 years and said that if elected, she would commission a plan for withdrawing U.S. forces within 60 days."

The Richmond Times-Dispatch (2/8, Simon) reports that Clinton "said she was sure her audience in the Washington suburb knows that a lot of people President Bush appointed during the last seven years have no business in government. 'I've got an old-fashioned idea. How about appointing qualified people to do the jobs in the federal government again?' Trying to make Virginia jobs an issue, she said, 'I don't think it's right for a company to move jobs out of Virginia and use your tax dollars to pay for it.' ... Lines on the environment and ending the war in Iraq brought the most thunderous reactions. Students banged the bleachers when she said she would bring troops home."

CLINTON ADDRESSES DOMESTIC AGENDA, TROOP WITHDRAWAL IN SEATTLE "STEMWINDER." The AP (2/8) reports that Sen. Hillary Clinton, "in a 42-minute stemwinder address to 5,000 cheering supporters" in Seattle last night, chided Sen. Barack Obama over his health care plan's coverage, touted her plans for the environment and "green collar" jobs, and told the crowd, "I will bring our troops home within 60 days." The AP calls the enthusiastic, over-capacity crowd "a good sign for a campaign locked in one of the closest races for the democratic nomination." This article was published in some 14 papers and websites, including the Seattle Post Intelligencer, but was not widely distributed outside the Pacific Northwest.

Under the headline, "Thousands cheer Clinton's message," Seattle Post-Intelligencer (2/8, Galloway, 126K) expands on the AP's coverage, adding, "Until now, Washington was largely left off the 2008 campaign schedule of most presidential candidates -- except for private fundraisers. But numerous public events have been scheduled for Friday in advance of Saturday's caucuses. ... Clinton plans to campaign in Tacoma and Spokane Friday with an entourage of her most prominent state supporters: Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, Rep. Jay Inslee and former Gov. Gary Locke. Inslee and Locke are two of her Washington campaign co-chairmen, along with King County Executive Ron Sims."

The Seattle Times (2/8, Postman, Thomas, Edwards, 216K) adds, "Clinton jabbed at President Bush and issued a detailed call for universal health care Thursday night in Seattle as she sought to draw distinctions between herself and...Obama," adding, "Clinton boasted about winning the youth vote in California and Massachusetts this week. She used that to draw a comparison between her credentials and Obama's."

The Tacoma News Tribune (2/8, Sullivan) runs similar coverage, quoting Clinton, "This is no ordinary time for America. There is no guarantee that we will remain the great nation that we have been. ... The era of cowboy diplomacy is over. You cannot be a leader if no one is following." Meanwhile, the News Tribune adds, "Clinton is expected to focus on health care during her town hall-style meeting in Tacoma today." The piece notes that Clinton's comments about "making higher education more affordable" were well received.

OBAMA A STRONGER GENERAL ELECTION CANDIDATE IN TIME POLL. Time (2/8, Duffy, 4.03M) reports though the "real election is nine months away, Sen. Barack Obama would fare slightly better than Sen. Hillary Clinton in a head to head match-up with Sen. John McCain if the general election were held today, a new TIME poll reveals." Obama "captured 48% of the vote in the theoretical match-up against McCain's 41%, the TIME poll reported, while Clinton and McCain would deadlock at 46% of the vote each. Put another way, McCain looks at the moment to have a narrowly better chance of beating the New York Senator than he does the relative newcomer from Illinois." The "difference, says Mark Schulman, CEO of Abt SRBI, which conducted the poll for TIME, is that 'independents tilt toward McCain when he is matched up against Clinton But they tilt toward Obama when he is matched up against the Illinois Senator.'" Time adds that the new poll shows Democratic voters "favor Clinton over Obama for the Democratic nomination by a margin of 48% to 42%."

OBAMA'S RHETORIC CALLED INSPIRATIONAL BUT VAGUE. In a cover story in TIME (2/7, 4.03M), Joe Klein calls Sen. Barack Obama's oratory style in his Super Tuesday speech was "simply breathtaking," saying it poses "existential question for Democrats: How can you not be moved by this? How can you vote against the future? And yet there was something just a wee bit creepy about the mass messianism - 'We are the ones we've been waiting for' - of the Super Tuesday speech and the recent turn of the Obama campaign. 'This time can be different because this campaign for the presidency of the United States of America is different. It's different not because of me. It's different because of you.' That is not just maddeningly vague but also disingenuous: the campaign is entirely about Obama and his ability to inspire. Rather than focusing on any specific issue or cause - other than an amorphous desire for change - the message is becoming dangerously self-referential. The Obama campaign all too often is about how wonderful the Obama campaign is."

"Afterthought" States To Choose Democratic Winner. A separate Time article, summarized in yesterday's briefing, about the appeal of Clinton and Obama sharing a ticket was part of the cover package, as was a Time (2/7, 4.03M) piece by Karen Tumulty, in which she writes that despite the Democratic Party's intention that Super Tuesday would settle the nomination, "it settled nothing. In a result now achingly familiar to the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama split the popular vote 50.2% to 49.8%, by a margin so thin, you could barely slide a butterfly ballot betwixt. ... The grand plan for Super Tuesday, it turns out, depended on one candidate having superior strength, assets and popularity. Instead, the two superstar candidates and their dueling arsenals canceled each other out. ... Now the campaign that was supposed to end continues to the states that didn't join the stampede to move their primaries forward. Far from being an afterthought as just about everyone had expected, they have the power to crown the winner. And if they don't? The decision may well fall to some 800 party insiders known as super-delegates."

OBAMA AGREES TO TEXAS, OHIO DEBATES. The Dallas Morning News (2/8, Jeffers, 432K) reports after "being pestered by rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama on Thursday agreed to participate in a Texas presidential debate before the March 4 Democratic primary." Obama also "announced that he would debate Mrs. Clinton on Feb. 24 at Cleveland State University in Ohio." While Obama has "agreed to a debate in Texas, he has not accepted an invitation to participate in a Feb. 28 debate on energy issues sponsored by MSNBC, the Sierra Club and the Greater Houston Partnership."

EDGAR DOWNPLAYS OBAMA'S TIES TO REZKO. The Chicago Tribune (2/7, Wiehle, 607K) reported on its 'Clout Street' blog, "Former Gov. Jim Edgar, a Republican stalwart in Illinois, says he likes Democrat Barack Obama and believes talk about indicted businessman Antoin 'Tony' Rezko's dealings with the presidential candidate has been overblown." Edgar, who is backing John McCain now that endorsee Rudy Giuliani has dropped out, expressed a preference for a Clinton nomination, since he sees Obama as more electable. Edgar, moreover, "says he believes Rezko's relationship with [Illinois Gov. Rod] Blagojevich is a greater cause for concern than the Rezko ties to Obama."

Copyright 2008 by the Bulletin News Network, Inc. Reproduction without permission prohibited. Editorial content is drawn from thousands of newspapers, national magazines, national and local television programs, and radio broadcasts. The Hillary For President News Briefing is published five days a week by BulletinNews, which creates custom news briefings for government and corporate leaders. We can be found on the Web at BulletinNews.com, [email-masked], or called at (703) 749-0040.