Tag: Endorsement

The continued clusterfvck that is Demerkracktic Campaign 2010 Midterms:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

(Democratic Governor of RI candidate) Frank Caprio’s campaign last week said he would welcome the president’s endorsement. But on Monday, the same day Obama was set to make his first visit to Rhode Island as president and a day after the White House said Obama would not endorse anyone, Caprio angrily told WPRO-AM that Obama can “take his endorsement and really shove it. ”

Caprio also accused the president of “treating us like an ATM machine” by coming to Rhode Island to raise money but ignoring it during springtime flooding that swept through the state. Though Obama did not visit himself, he sent Cabinet secretaries, including Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. …..  Caprio also has publicly contradicted Obama on some important policy positions, such as saying he does not support letting Bush-era tax cuts expire on the wealthiest Americans.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, in Rhode Island for a rally Monday, said he was amused by the conflict. “He’s the Democratic nominee, for goodness’ sakes,” he said. “It’s really insulting, when you think about it.”

Caprio is running against former Rhode Island Senator Lincoln Chafee, a Republican.  Chafee endorsed Obama for President in 2008.  Chafee’s campaign manager feigned getting the vapors over the remark by rival Caprio in an Oscar nominee quality performance.

“The senator was shocked at how intemperate the remark was, especially with the president due to arrive in Rhode Island later today.”

In 2009, VP Biden and several Cabinet members cancelled a keynote address at the National Mayor’s Convention in Rhode Island, which embarrassed then  Providence Mayor Cicilline.  Now Cicciline is running for Congress in Rhode Island to for retiring Patrick Kennedy’s seat, and this was supposed to be His Big Day.  His campaign manager wisely decided to keep his mouth shut until Air Force One is way out of the state again.

No word yet on which one the President will hug on the campaign trail.

He smoked ’em on that endorsement   (HT to Teddy Partridge @ FDL  for this http://my.firedoglake.com/tedd…

After losing the race to represent the Democrats in a special US Senate election, former Democratic politician (and arguably, institution as far as West Virginia is concerned) Ken Hechler has endorsed Jesse Johnson.  Johnson is the nominee for US Senate of the Mountain Party, West Virginia’s affiliate of the Green Party.

Salon describes Hechler and his motivation for, at 95, running for Senate:

In his 95 years, Ken Hechler has recorded history from the front lines in World War II, debriefed Hitler’s top commanders before the Nuremberg Trials, advised Harry Truman, marched with Martin Luther King, published several books, been the subject of a documentary, and — somewhere between all of this — served nine terms in Congress and four as West Virginia’s secretary of state…

    You say that you aren’t running anyone and that you want to use this race to raise awareness of mountaintop removal from strip mining. Why single out this issue?  

             I’m not really running for the Senate, I’m running to enable the people of West Virginia to register at the polls their opposition to this devastating practice, which hurts so many people in the valleys when they dump the rocks in the soil and all the things that they’re blasting out of the mountains into people’s front yards.

Hechler received about 17 percent of the vote in the primary.  Now Johnson is the only candidate in the race who opposes mountaintop removal, a situation he was also in when he ran for governor in 2008.

The following video was posted on the front page of Johnson’s website: