I've been waiting for one of the campaigns to start going nuclear here in Texas, and the wait is over. First, the Clinton campaign comes out with an ominous ad by Austin ad-man Roy Spence.
"It's 3a.m. and your children are safe and asleep. Something's happening in the world. Who do you want answering the phone?" (Cut to shot of HRC with her glasses on, talking on the phone.) See it here.
Senator Obama hit back during a campaign stop.
"We've seen these ads before. They're the kind that play on peoples' fears to scare up votes," he said. "Well it won't work this time. Because the question is not about picking up the phone. The question is - what kind of judgment will you make when you answer?"
Is former President Bill Clinton prescient? Check out his remarks on a "fear" versus "hope" argument while on the stump for Senator John Kerry in 2004.
Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle already made clear who he wants to see succeed him as DA -- Rosemary Lehmberg. Now, he's taking a role in the Democratic primary contest for CD-10, the seat currently held by US Rep Michael McCaul.
"It is unusual for me to make an endorsement in a race that is not solely about law enforcement," Earle said in a statement. "But crime trickles down, and the tone of corruption at the top is reflected in violence on the streets. In order to avoid the latter we have to clean up the former."
Earle cites Grant's civilian work in Iraq and Afghanistan as "boots-on-the-ground" experience in the "real work of democracy".
As proof that consulants can bring people together, both Lehmberg and Grant are clients of Austin-based Democratic strategist Kelly Fero.
Senator John McCain, the presumed GOP nominee, stopped by Dell's Round Rock headquarters to take questions from employees in a pretty informal town hall. Only, when we wanted to ask employees what they thought of the candidate afterwards, they said they were prohibited by Dell Corporate Communications from talking to us. So, I can't actually report what the people in the audience thought about the candidate.
Above is a look at the press gaggle surrounding the guy this morning; needless to say he's got a lot of lenses on him lately.
McCain only mentioned Clinton and Obama a couple of times, basically saying they "won't acknowledge the surge is working" and criticizing their positions on NAFTA.
Reporters covering the Obama campaign have gotten to know Ian Davis quite well -- he's the indefatigable leader of a grassroots, all-volunteer group called Texans for Obama, which grew out of a book club in 2006. The group has since been organizing meet-ups and sign-making parties and policy talks... then, when the nomination battle actually came here, Davis surged into action, helping drive the "people power" part of the Obama Texas campaign.
The 29-year-old Austin community organizer has been laboring for months with no guidance at all from Obama headquarters. When Sen. Obama's team finally arrived, Mr. Davis handed over laundry baskets stuffed with 20,000 handwritten names of potential volunteers, which Mr. Davis had gathered on his own.
How cool for him... there's even the standard WSJ pencil drawing of his mug instead of a photo!
*In the Obama commercial, "Join", you know, the one set to rock music with images flashing between things like "we can save the planet" and "we can save the world", you see an image of Ian, only, it's the back of him. He's doing the Richard Nixon, arms up and out, hookin' em instead of thumbs up.
It's night number three of our Belo Texas Tracking Poll. Barack Obama now takes the lead over Hillary Clinton (46% to 45%).
"The race continues to trend slowly but steadily toward Barack Obama, keeping in mind these changes are slight and within the margin of error," writes pollster David Ianelli of Public Strategies.
SUBGROUPS
In the primaries that have taken place to date, Clinton has won the Anglo and Hispanic vote, while Barack Obama has won the African American vote by large margins. When it comes to the racial/ethnic groups in Texas, Obama is doing better with African Americans than Clinton is doing with Hispanics and, conversely, he is having more success cutting into her support with Hispanics than she is in cutting into his support among African
Americans.
GEOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN
This is new for tonight. The pollsters created six groupings of state senate districts and looked at how the race is breaking in those groupings. (Delegates in Texas are allocated by state senate districts, Travis County - where Austin is - has the most delegates in the state, at eight.)
I thought this breakdown was especially interesting given that different geographic areas have starkly different delegate counts, and Obama leads in all areas with high delegate concentrations. He does especially well in Austin, where he is polling at 67%. The threshold he needs to break in Travis County is 67.5% in order to take six of eight Travis County delegates.
Ianelli says Barack Obama enjoys majority support in DFW (36 delegates), Houston (34 delegates), Austin (8 delegates), and even San Antonio (10 delegates), while Hillary Clinton enjoys majority support in the Valley/border regions (22 delegates) and the remainder of the state (17 delegates).
ISSUES
Among likely Democratic primary voters, the economy/jobs continues to be the most important issue in their vote for a nominee. Nearly one quarter (23%) volunteer the economy and jobs, while health care runs a close second with 19%. Another 16% volunteer the war in Iraq.
But another new shift here. Those who say the economy is their number one issue now support Obama over Clinton (48%-42%). Previously, Clinton held a 47%-44% lead among economy/jobs voters. Clinton still holds a lead among healthcare voters; Obama has grown his lead on Iraq War voters.
We have the new Belo Texas tracking poll for today... and tonight it will feature a geographic breakdown to show how well each candidate is doing in different Texas regions.
It's embargoed until 10pm but be sure to check back at 10:01pm. There are small shifts that the pollster says indicate a larger trend.
If this tracking poll is news to you, here's the overview: The four TV stations of Belo Texas commissioned a tracking poll that surveys 400 registered voters in Texas each night. It started Sunday night. Each night's results are cumulative numbers based on the previous three nights of polling.
Senator Barack Obama snuck into a dressing room/bathroom at the Austin Convention Center to do a quick interview with me this morning before an Austin Town Hall meeting. (Click on the image for the video).
I asked him whether Texas might actually be in play for Democrats, especially after Senator Hillary Clinton conceded to Evan Smith last week that Texas is "usually not in the electoral calculation for the Democratic nominee", but that Florida and Michigan delegates should be seated because they ARE in play.
"It's true that it's been a long time since Texas has gone Democratic when it comes to a presidential election, but we've had Democratic governors here in Texas fairly recently, [and[ we've got a closing gap in the state legislature here in Texas," he said.
Would he actually compete here, then?
"It's five degrees in Chicago right now, and it's seventy in Austin. You know that I want to come, as much as possible. We're going to have to see, if I am in fact the nominee, and if I am then I want to come to Texas."
When I learned of this opportunity yesterday, I started thinking about what to do with the five minutes the campaign was granting us. My natural inclination was to ask a lot of horse race/process questions... i.e., his reaction to the Kirk Watson stumble, how much money did you raise in February, etc. Then after a conversation with my main man and fellow journalist, Stiles, I decided it would serve more ordinary voters to talk about things that might actually matter in their lives... i.e., their power bills, their drives home from work.
In retrospect, I wish we could have at least hit the Rezko trial starting next week. Hindsight's always 20-20.
BTW, while Obama was walking out, our photographer Doug snuck in a question...
Doug: Has anyone ever told you you sound like [wrestler-turned-actor] "The Rock"?
Obama: Yeah, actually I get that a lot.
Obama's now taking questions from the crowd. He started with a question I haven't heard before...A UT computer science major asked about the US Patent Office being too slow to issue patents. Obama gave a tiered answer, and has continued to do so pretty gracefully ever since the town hall began. His answers fall into a general pattern:
1.) General exposition on the topic
2.) Proposed Solution, broken down into "point number one", followed by "point number two" (occassionally a "number three")
3.) Tying the answer to the War in Iraq in someway... sometimes directly, sometimes peripherally
Senator Obama took the stage a few minutes ago and started speaking, but from the place where the press tables are, it's nearly impossible to make out what he's saying due to a pretty bad echo. He sounds all muffled, but I think he just mentioned "corporate lobbyists" and "making college more afforable", to which he recieved cheers and applause.
Here's something we don't usually see at Obama events -- empty seats. I'm told this was a ticketed event -- the tickets were free, but supporters had to take extra steps to get them.
This is a view from where I'm sitting at today's Obama event at the Austin Convention Center. I'm behind the press risers... we'll have more photos throughout the day.
Another superdelegate defection to Obama. Longtime State Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, joined a growing list of superdelegates who are leaving Senator Hillary Clinton's camp. See the AP story here.
Just last Thursday, you could find Thompson in the Texas debate spin room talking up Clinton. Just another example of how fleeting superdelegate support can be.
Six days out from the Texas Democratic presidential primary, the race remains a statistical dead heat with Hillary Clinton leading Barack Obama by a slim 46%-45% margin, narrowing slightly from 46%-43% since yesterday. The race continues to trend toward Barack Obama, though these changes are slight and within the margin of error.
Among those who say they have already voted, Barack Obama leads 53%-47%;
yesterday the tally among those who already voted was 50%-50%.
TRAITS VOTERS LIKE:
Interestingly, the two least important traits are experience and best chance of winning the general election in November. Among the 12% who choose experience Clinton leads 93%-5%, while Obama leads 65%-28% among the 5% who choose best chance of winning the general election.
Former President Bill Clinton is back in Austin, and since I'm out here at UT where he will soon hold a rally for students, I'll liveblog between responsibilities for the 5 and 6pm newscasts.
7:48pm: And Clinton wraps up... "He cheats us out of four and half minutes of a sixty minute speech!" The AP reporter jokes.
7:47pm: We're almost at the one hour now. The Time reporter goes, "Doesn't it feel longer, though?"
7:39pm: "We've been very serious tonight," Clinton admits. "THink about what being president is like... if you're not careful you might think you are somebody rather than what you are, which is the most fortunate hired hand on the face of the earth. If you ever forget, you can get in trouble in a heartbeat. She will never forget you."
7:33pm: Now we're on Iraq policy.
7:30pm:I just asked the Time reporter a question about something Clinton said, and she goes, "Sorry, I was zoned out." This has been a meaty speech, but he's losing the crowd.
7:24pm: "She believes in getting rid of No Child Left Behind," he said. And everyone applauses. Clinton says "this is the only surefire applause line in American politics". "You could drop me in the middle of Idaho and if I said that, an elk would applause."
7:22pm: The Time Magazine reporter sitting next to me and I started chatting a bit since we're kind of in a lull part of this speech. Clinton is coming back around to the subject of healthcare.
7:18pm: "The only motherload of clean jobs is clean energy," he said.
7:14pm: The subject has turned to energy, and the cost of food going up because of the rate that energy costs have been climbing.
7:10pm: "Hillary's argument is I'm tainted the battles of yesterday and I'm pretty proud of the things I fought for. You need a changemaker in the White House, somebody who has already done it," Clinton said. "Words matter, but in the end you choose people to change and move the country. She's the best change agent."
7:08pm: Clinton is taking us a tour on his wife's record regarding healthcare - expanding special education, helping start SCHIP.
We can stop the unofficial Clinton Texas Campaign Response Time Tracker at 31 hours and 30 minutes. Kamyl Bazbaz called just after my 6pm liveshot tonight to clear things up, after I blogged yesterday about my failed attempts to get the Clinton Texas campaign to respond.
"I'm so sorry about that, we really apologize," said Bazbaz. "That's not our reputation and I will personally do my best to get back to you."
So for the remaining six days of this primary race, we have established a reliable Texas contact for the Clinton campaign. The Response Time Tracker is now stopped.
UPDATE:Bazbaz says he has indeed made contact with reporters at my station previously, just not me. So perhaps our not-connecting is just an unfortunate confluence of events?
One's in English, one's in Spanish. The first highlights ethics reform efforts in Washington (which our tracking poll shows is a trait that voters like in Obama by a fifty point margin). The second ad is about college education.
Here's the one in English, which uses footage from what looks like the Houston rally last week. (Was that just last week? It feels like an eternity ago.)
Deja vu all over again. Remember the dust-up during the 2006 gubernatorial race between Kinky Friedman and Chris Bell, when Kinky's campaign started touting that Ann would have voted for Kinky... but then the Democratic candidate, Bell, came back with "Ann always voted a straight Democratic ticket"?
Now there's "What Would Ann Do" questions again, this time, regarding the tight Texas presidential primary race.
The Clinton campaign's Women for Hillary group is promoting a video showing that former Texas Governor, the late Ann Richards, would have voted for Hillary. The video shows pictures of Hillary edited with pictures of Ann.
"The bond between the legacy of Ann and what Hillary brings to us today is palpable and it is strong. It's this legacy that is untied the young and the young at heart. We here in Texas are standing up together, uniting to help women break that ultimate glass ceiling," said Courtney Spence, former Clinton staffer.
But now, the sons of the late Ann Richards are objecting to the video, and its suggestion that Richards would have supported Clinton. Here's the AP:
Clinton's campaign had permission from Richards' youngest daughter, Ellen, who said in a statement provided by the campaign that her mother was an "ardent feminist" who would be thrilled by her friend Hillary Clinton's candidacy.
"I believe that if my mom were alive today that she would be stumping across Texas and around the country supporting Hillary for president," her statement said.
...
But sons Dan and Clark Richards, partners at an Austin law firm, say nobody can know who the outspoken and opinionated former governor would have supported in the race between Clinton and Barack Obama.
Dan Richards said in an interview Tuesday that they denied permission and he's angry the campaign published the video anyway. He said the campaign contacted him again last Friday to ask him to reconsider, and he repeated his objections.
"They asked me if I would sue the campaign, and I said no, I wasn't in the business of suing the campaign, but I didn't think they should do it," he said in a telephone interview. "To try to present who she would endorse a year and a half after she died is offensive to me."
Perhaps to avoid this kind of strife in the future, political candidates should stop claiming posthumous endorsements?
Since the arrival of the competing presidential campaigns, I have had a difficult time getting a hold of the Clinton campaign's Texas press contact, Adrienne. It's rather difficult to include the Clinton campaign in stories when we cannot connect. For example...
-- A February 8th email to establish first contact went unreturned.
-- A call and voicemail message on February 13th regarding office openings went unreturned.
I called again this afternoon to try to connect, but got a voicemail greeting.
I hear anecdotally from my press corps brethren that I'm not the only one having problems with this. So I'm starting the unofficial "Clinton Texas Campaign Response Time Tracker", to track future attempts at making contact and the time it takes to hear back. Time is obviously pretty important to journalists, since our deadlines are often "right now".
I'm not going to go out of my way to call the campaign just for the sake of it. Instead, we will continue only reaching out to the campaign about legitimate questions in which we're seeking a response, and we'll track the response time with each attempt.
So the clock on a response to today's question started at 10:45am. It's now 11:10pm, so it has now been 12 hours, 25 minutes...
Whew. The embargo of our KVUE presidential primary poll is finally over. Bottom line? The Texas Democratic Primary race is a toss-up. (And definitely no telling how the caucuses will go.)
Clinton leads Obama in this poll 46% to 43%, within the 4% margin of error.
Austin-based Public Strategies is performing this daily tracking poll for all four Belo Texas stations, and started polling Sunday night (during the Oscars).
These are the cumulative results from Sunday and Monday night, polling a total of 800 registered voters in Texas... and broken down among whether they're likely to vote in the D or R primaries. Preferences among likely Democratic voters:
Margin of error +/-4%
Question: What is the single most important policy issue in your vote for a Democratic nominee?
9:38pm: And we're out. A big round of applause from the quietest debate audience this cycle. Were they even there!??!
9:34pm: In closing, both are asked for the "fundamental question" that the other must answer in order to be worthy of the nomination. Obama says that Clinton is indeed worthy, so she doesn't need to pass a test, but that he is a better candidate.
HRC gets an applause line for saying it would be a "sea change" for her to be the first woman president. The question she has is "Who can actually change the country?" This is the same Clinton argument about how her experience means she can better bring about change, but it hasn't been effective enough for her... so far.
9:30pm: Obama said that he would take back his vote on Terri Schiavo in 2005. The Senate voted unanimously to let Congress intervene in whether to keep her alive.
"I should have known better," he said. "I think that was an example of inaction, and that can be as costly as action."
9:28pm: Clinton says she would take back the vote on authorizing the war. "But I think this election has to be about the future," Clinton said. "We could have gone around the world and talked about Latin America... Africa... China... the Middle East."
9:26pm: Okay, she kind of named him, saying "Medah... medi... yeah, something." (Full name: Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev.)
9:25pm: Oh crap! Memories of the 2006 gubernatorial debate when CKS couldn't name the new president of Mexico. Clinton has to talk about "Putin's handpicked successor" but can't name him....
9:15pm: Everyone still awake? I just took a long blink.
9:14pm: More than an hour in, and this debate has been not only wonky but tame. This might actually help both of them; HRC not coming off as shrill or desperate by going after Obama full hog, Obama not having to be on the defensive nonstop.
9:12pm: This is a "controversial topic hopscotch". Obama is now having to denounce Louis Farrakhan's support of him.
The Brian Thompson campaign is calling attention to the latest campaign finance reports out today, which show incumbent State Rep. Dawnna Dukes, D-Austin, took another $24,000 from "Swift Boat" financier and mostly Republican donor Bob Perry.
An email blast from the Thompson campaign points out she also took money from the following:
$10,000 from Michael Stevens - one of the largest Republican donors in Texas - TPPF Board Member - gave to the controversial Craddick-funded Tx Jobs PAC - Republican appointee to Sunset Advisory Commission
$2,500 from Harold Simmons - Republican donor who gave more than $3,000,000 to 'Swift Boat' attack ads - largest importer of nuclear waste in Texas
$2,000 from Texas Lobby Group - run by Craddick confidant, Bill Messer, and former Chief of Staff to Republican Governor Rick Perry, Mike Toomey
$2,000 from Donald Wood - Republican donor from Odessa - gave to Craddick's Stars Over Texas PAC - appointed by Dewhurst to a state board at Craddick's recommendation
$2,000 from Jack Wood - Republican donor from Odessa - gave to Craddick's Stars Over Texas PAC
$2,000 from Clay Wood - Republican donor from Odessa - gave to Craddick's Stars Over Texas PAC
But Dawnna Dukes' campaign is firing back.
Campaign consultant Colin Strother put out a release of his own, noting Thompson took $48,588 from a Houston trial lawyer named Steve Mostyn, who got a reprimand from the Texas Bar for once agreeing to a settlement that his client didn't agree to. As the Austin Chronicle points out, that wasn't a cash donation -- it amounted to an in-kind donation for paying for the Thompson television ads now on the air.
Usually it's the Republicans who like to slap the "trial lawyer" tag on someone to demonize him/her, but in this case we're hearing it in a Democratic primary. It's also usually Republican candidates who receive large sums of money from Bob Perry. But it is not unusual to see big chunks of Perry cash flowing toward supporters of House Speaker Tom Craddick, regardless of party affiliation.
Sorry for the lack of posts today, we're trying to make sense of all the poll data provided to us by our pollsters at Public Strategies. But a busy night tonight, and I hope you'll come back and visit because I'll do my debate night liveblogging, as well as detailed poll results and analysis (after 10pm.)
Sorry the poll stuff can't come sooner, it's embargoed until 10:01pm. (How specific, right?)
The four Belo Texas stations, KVUE Austin, WFAA Dallas, KHOU Houston and KENS San Antonio have together commissioned a daily tracking poll of the Texas primary race. It's in the field daily until Sunday. The first results will be reported by all four stations simultaneously tonight at 10pm.
Obviously this breaks my one-man-blog-policy of not reporting on polls. But since it is the poll our station paid for, I'll be reporting on it tonight at 10pm on television and in some form throughout the week. Results will also be available on www.kvue.com. Details to come... tune in at 10pm.
In an exclusive with our Dallas sister station, WFAA, Hillary Clinton addressed the controversy over the photo of Barack Obama wearing a Somali headdress. Clinton said she didn't know who leaked the photo, but accused her rival for using it as a distraction.
"I know nothing about it," Clinton told WFAA's Brad Watson. "This is in the public domain. But let's just stop and ask yourself: 'Why are you -- why is anybody concerned about this?'"
Click above to see the full interview, which includes a lot more.
I would totally make some Lord of the Rings references here if I could remember the trilogy well enough not to offend any superfans. So, we'll just play it straight here and say that actor Sean Astin, well known for his role as Sam in Lord of the Rings, will be in Austin to talk about his candidate-of-choice, Hillary Clinton.
I don't know why I just now got this press release, it could be my server or something, but apparently Astin is at the Hillary Clinton HQ on Ben White RIGHT NOW.
5:00 p.m. CST
Sean Astin Hosts Rally with Clinton Supporters
Austin Hillary Clinton for President Headquarters
701 East Ben White Boulevard
Austin, TX
So if you want to meet him.... hurry on out there!
The problem with Brian Thompson's campaign ads is in the details, says Nelson Linder, the man who filed the complaint.
The documents show the ad was purchased by a third party on behalf of the Brian Thompson campaign. In the commercials, the ads say they are "paid for by the Brian Thompson campaign" rather than paid for by the third party. This amounts to an in-kind campaign contribution, which we will see if Thompson lists on his campaign finance reports.
But Linder's problem with Thompson is broader.
"Brian Thompson has so little scrutiny," Linder said of his motives to file a complaint. "I wanted to force the media to look at him. It's a witch hunt out there to find negative stuff about Dukes."
Was it untrue, then, that Dukes misreported $90,000 in campaign spending (which we reported, and was a source of an ethics complaint)?
"I think she clearly misreported her campaign filings," he said. "But we should weigh her record overall."
The ethics complaint against HD 46 challenger Brian Thompson accuses his campaign of failing to disclose its commercials are "political advertisements" and who paid for them. But here's a screen grab of the last shot of the ads:
In his email, the complainant, Dukes supporter Nelson Linder, says he filed the complaint to "bring more scrutiny to tactics being employed [by the Thompson campaign] and not reported" by the press. Not sure what kind of tactics are being alluded to here, it seems clear that the commercials specify they are political advertisements and who paid for them.
I've been getting a lot of emails from folks about the picture on the Drudge Report showing Barack Obama wearing traditional Somali dress. The Clinton campaign does not deny that it circulated it.
First, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe responded:
"It’s exactly the kind of divisive politics that turns away Americans of all parties and diminishes respect for America in the world.”
Then, Clinton campaign manager Maggie Williams:
“If Barack Obama’s campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed. Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely."
Some critics have questioned your patriotism. Is that fair game?
It typically is based on this scurrilous e-mail that's been going around, which is completely false. So to the extent that it's a vicious, false rumor that's deliberately being spread over the Internet, no, that's not fair game. But nobody said politics was fair. It is important for us to dispel it ... I am not a Muslim and never have been. I've been going to the same church for the last 20 years. I was sworn in on my family Bible. And I have been pledging allegiance since I was 3. And in fact you can see it on C-SPAN sometimes. When I've opened up the Senate and am presiding over the Senate, I lead the Senate in the Pledge of Allegiance, so these are just the kinds of, I think, dirty tricks that you see crop up periodically.
Now both candidates in the HD 46 primary have complaints against them at the Texas Ethics Commission.
East Austin resident Nelson Linder has filed a complaint against HD 46 challenger Brian Thompson for an infraction similar to DA candidate Rick Reed's complaint about Rosemary Lehmberg's signs. The complaint says Thompson's latest television ads do not clearly say they are political ads and who paid for them.
They are both off to Ohio on Tuesday, for the only debate before March 4th. But surrogates and spouses will be here in Texas until Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton return to Texas later in the week.
In Austin tomorrow -- Caroline Kennedy. JFK's only surviving child will make a campaign stop for Barack Obama at Serrano's Mexican Restaurant on Red River. Doors open at 2pm. She heads to the border on Tuesday.
Michelle Obama will be in Beaumont, Galveston and Houston on Monday.
Former President Bill Clinton spends Tuesday in Dallas and Fort Worth, and comes back to Austin on Wednesday for a rally on the University of Texas campus. The event's on the main lawn and starts at 5:30pm.
Barack Obama returns to Texas on Wednesday and plans to be in San Marcos, then Fort Worth on Thursday and San Antonio on Friday. No word on Hillary Clinton's plans after Tuesday night's debate.
Clinton Campaign's Saturday Morning Conference Call
MSNBC screen grab
Wolfson and his lucky sweater
State Sen. Leticia Van de Putte and Ohio Governor Ted Strickland are joining Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson on conference call right now, to unveil two new Clinton ads to air in Texas. I'm not sure if he's wearing his lucky sweater.
The campaign's been emphasizing Clinton's "strong closing", aka "very very powerful close" during the debate Thursday. It's using that closing statement in its first new ad, "Resolve". See it here.
"It was a great example of the quality and the inner core of Hillary Clinton," Van de Putte said.
The second commercial, "Deliver", features a Texas straight-talkin' type narrator. Watch it here.
"It really focuses on action rather than talk," Van de Putte said. "We appreciate the talk but Texans have always been exposed to talk... but who does the walk? Who goes beyond the bull to get to the cattle? Texans expect their leaders to fight for them, not just talk about it."
But reporters this morning didn't want to ask about the ads. Instead, Wolfson was asked to comment on a new Washington Post story about how the Clinton campaign's preparing for surrender.
"The storyline is nonsense. The mood is upbeat, Senator Clinton is working hard everyday. Momentum is a media storyline, but that is not an issue on which voters vote," Wolfson said.
Reporters also asked about whether the campaign has enough money to run these ads anywhere, but Wolfson maintains the ad buy is "expansive".
"These ads are up, and we are obviously hoping to have as strong as possible buys," said Wolfson.
10:01pm: And as KVUE hits the air, we're over and out! Tune into the Nightbeat!
10:00pm: Obama finishes with the "this is our moment" line... he went a full hour.
9:46pm: Fire marshal estimates crowd at 20,000 plus. The crowd stretched W to E from Congress to Brazos, then N to S from 11th street all the way down to 7th street.
9:45pm: "Don't tell me about speeches and solutions," he says. "Because those two things go hand in hand."
9:42pm: All right, for those of you who have heard this stump speech a gazillion times, he's almost done, he's on the "needs some seasoning" part.
9:37pm: Obama is a tall guy, but looks pretty small when he's surrounded by a sea of humanity.
9:28pm: How cold is it out here? I can't feel my fingers. The traveling photographers on the riser (who have been in subzero temps in Wisconsin recently) were making fun of me.
9:25pm: Stock stump speech stuff at this point, so it's smooth sailing. Re: Texas-tailored talk -- He started with thanks to locals - the Texas Congressmen who have endorsed him, and a shout out to Ian Davis, and then called for a moment of silence for the officer killed in Clinton's motorcade this morning.
9:19pm: Obama has made that joke about how Dick Cheney is his cousin in every stump speech. But every time he makes that joke he seems to crack himself up.
9:16pm: "I am here to report my bet has paid off.. because you have told me you want something new, that you are ready for change, that you want to move in a new direction," Obama said. "THat's what you told me."
9:01pm: Right on time! Barack Obama takes the stage to some swinging bluegrass music!
8:57pm: It's Larry Burchette, the man who is supposed to introduce Barack Obama tonight. I guess that means he's on time for his 9ish arrival to the stage.
8:56pm: Crowd has stretched a total of five city blocks, from Congress to Brazos, and from 11th to 8th street and in every nook and cranny in between.
Senator Barack Obama's been campaigning all over the state today, but should be back just after 9pm to appear in a massive public rally that has several downtown streets blocked off already. Since he won't be here for a while, the campaign has hired a lot of pre-entertainment. At Obama's rally at The Backyard in November, we heard from the band Fastball. Sorry to disappoint, but Fastball is not in the lineup tonight.
The campaign tells me we will hear from:
-- A band that's playing right now that I don't recognize
-- Black Joe Lewis
-- A mariachi band of some sort
-- Larry Burchett, retired Navy SEAL, Vietnam Vet and a realtor in Austin, who will introduce Senator Obama
Hey, it's everyone's favorite feds! A throng of TSA agents are standing in the TXDOT parking lot below me milling about. I guess they are getting ready to make us take off our shoes and present our boarding passes before going through the metal detector.
It looks like the press risers, the head-on pool camera riser and the risers for the people who are going to be standing behind Obama are now up. Here's a shot from my office window.
CNN/Univision drew in 7.6 million viewers for last night's Democratic primary debate from UT. It's the second higest rated primary debate yet -- the only debate more-watched than ours was the one in California, starring Leo DiCaprio and Josh Lyman from The West Wing as "audience members".
The debate drew 7,576,000 total viewers; 1,257,000 18-34 viewers; 2,812,000 18-49 viewers and 2,986,000 25-54 viewers. Out of the all 19 debates broadcast this cycle, the Texas debate ranks second in viewership. Not too shabby. Just think, almost eight million people saw a brief shot of State Rep. Craig Eiland standing up in the audience at the conclusion of the broadcast event. (OK was I the only one who saw Craig Eiland?)
Our Capitol office has huge windows that directly face the south side of the Capitol, so stairs and scaffolding and tents and port-a-potties for tonight's massive Barack Obama rally have been literally going up right before my eyes:
Clinton Cancels FW Event After Cop Killed in her Motorcade
Hillary Clinton canceled her Fort Worth appearance this afternoon after an officer in her motorcade died in Dallas this morning.
He was killed when his motorcycle, traveling at the back of Clinton's motorcade, slammed into a viaduct. If you've seen these type of motorcades, you know how fast they go and how quick they take these curves. It's the third police motorcade death in three years, after two separate casualties in President Bush's motorcades.
State Senator Kirk Watson, D-Austin, has inspired a t-shirt. Technically, his performance on MSNBC Tuesday night inspired the shirt, now available on cafepress, the same site where you can buy the Rick Perry Adios Mofo t-shirts (and mugs).
The black shirt features a logo of Watson's face (it looks like it's a screen grab of his expression during questioning the other night), with the text "Hardballed" written across it.
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