The central topic at the Democratic Debate in Philadelphia this week was the issue of Iran. While all the Democratic candidates seem to agree on the issue of Iraq, when it comes to Iran, one of them stands alone.

Senator Hillary Clinton is the only Democratic candidate who voted for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment last month. This amendment designates, among other things, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.

In the debate Clinton was heavily criticized by her opponents, in particular by John Edwards, who made a strong performance at the debate, trying to establish himself as The Alternative to Clinton. Referring to the vote for military action in Iraq in 2002, he said: “A lot of us on this stage have learned our lessons the hard way: That you give this president an inch, and he’ll take a mile”.

At the time of the Iraq-vote, both Edwards and Clinton voted for the resolution. Edwards later apologized for the vote, but Clinton has always refused to apologize, which initially caused unrest among the Democrats. Clinton defended her refusal by saying: “If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from.”

With that unrest appearing to be put to rest, Clinton has now opened up another Pandora’s box with her vote for the sanctions against Iran. Her campaign released a statement last week saying: “We must use all the tools at our disposal to address the serious challenge posed by Iran, including diplomacy, economic pressure, and sanctions.[…]The Bush Administration should use this opportunity to finally engage in robust diplomacy to achieve our objective of ending Iran’s nuclear weapons program, while also averting military action. That is the policy I support.”

Of the major candidates, Barack Obama is the only one that hasn’t voted for the war on Iraq. He couldn’t have, because he was a state lawmaker in Illinois at the time, but he continually reminds voters that he was against the war in Iraq from the start. On the new sanctions against Iran, Obama said: “It is important to have tough sanctions on Iran, particularly on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which supports terrorism. But these sanctions must not be linked to any attempt to keep our troops in Iraq, or to take military action against Iran.”

In the Philadelphia debate, the Iranian issue was used against Clinton as a way to slap on a Bush mask. Whatever the effect, with both Obama and Edwards going for the same bone of The Alternative for Clinton, the latter might actually still come out the strongest.

The war in Iraq is the main point of focus even in very simple elections. Watch this video of two stuffed animals that are running for president, and make up your mind about which candidate you will vote for. The two animals give very straightforward answers to the question of what should be done about the war in Iraq, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to make your choice.

Running for the Democrat presidential candidacy costs money, let alone running for the highest office itself.

But focusing on how much the key Democrat presidential nominees can earn is a distraction. In fact, the non-Hillaries are worth far more than Mrs. Clinton alone.

US primary campaigns are notorious for all the razzmatazz you can imagine. The politics itself is almost overshadowed by the endless round of conventions and hard-hitting advertising: at times, the campaigns look more like traveling circuses than sober attempts to name a potential leader of the free world.

After that, it gets worse. According to the BBC, George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign is estimated to have run to $273 million; John Kerry raised $249 million. The next Democratic candidate is going to need even more.

So even at this early stage, it’s all about the money. It stands to reason that the party nominee who can score the most dollars now will have a higher chance at the primaries. The Democrats certainly aren’t going to want to back a lame duck from the start, and financial contributions in 2007 must indicate the relative levels of popularity each will enjoy when crunch time comes next year.

The Washington Post today reports the approximate funding the four main candidates have raised over the last three months:

• Hillary Clinton: $17 million
• Barack Obama: $17 million
• John Edwards: $7 million
• Bill Richardson: $5.2 million

So between the bunch, and knowing that Hillary and Barack haven’t yet disclosed the exact totals for the quarter (they’ll have to by October 15), that’s a cool $46.2 million: $17 million for Hillary and $29.2 million for the other three.

But with eight Democrat candidates standing (let’s not forget Dodd, Biden, Gravel and Kucinich, however tempting it might be), isn’t there something of a distortion here?

Let’s play devil’s advocate for a moment. Perhaps the main thing going for seven of them is the simple fact that they’re not Hillary. Tot up the known funding totals so far for this magnificent seven (derived from opensecrets.org) and the figures speak clearly. Between them, they’d gathered $115 million by quarter two - $52 million above Mrs. Clinton’s equivalent total, or about 83% more.

What does that tell us? It tells us that - assuming anti-Hillary voters would support anyone who wasn’t married to an ex-president - the ‘I’m not Hillary’ ticket is worth almost twice as much. The problem is that it’s currently diluted between the seven others, so the cash is simply not as effective.

But as far as the current campaigns go, there can be only one. So what happens to all the spare cash the unsuccessful candidates have raised? Are they going to pool it for the long-term good of the party? I doubt it. No, even though the anti-Hillary nominees are worth 83% more, they may not to be able to capitalize on it.

Democratic as well as Republican presidential nominees face a lot of stress while campaigning. Not only do they have to get up really early every day, they also have to take care of their public appearances and money.

Making sure that the press pictures her well is one of many energy absorbing tasks of Hillary Clinton and her consortium. The Clinton campaign is said to even challenge the Bush administration when it comes to attracting positive press releases by manipulation/ control. Hillary mainly controls press release by distancing herself from the press, making it very hard for journalists to talk to her personally.

A bigger headache than press release, however, is the control of the fundraising. Who donates the campaign money? This is something that some presidential nominees have been worrying about, since some campaigns are already hurt by fundraisers who, after their donations that undoubtedly trigger political thrill seekers to investigate, are charged with criminal activities that range from possession of cocaine to money laundering.

Read all about who’s campaign was harmed by which fund raiser at the blog www.politico.com

The campaigning period for the 2008 presidential elections has hardly started but the media in the United States already work at full speed to keep track of every movement of the presidential candidates. The top issue coming to the fore again and again is of course the Iraq war and the candidates’ opinions on the War Strategy. Another issue is the health care problem in the United States, although Democrats are found to be tackling this issue far more often than Republicans are.

Although, besides covering O.J. Simpson and his robbery and earlier this month Britney Spears and her Las Vegas performance, the United States press and media is already very much occupied with the campaigns and the upcoming elections, the rest of the (Western) world does not seem to be very interested in the presidential candidates yet. Major newspapers and opinion-makers such as the French Le Monde, the German Der Spiegel or the British BBC or The Guardian do not dedicate any attention at all to the developments in the U.S. campaigning period.

Perhaps it’s just too early, or perhaps there are bigger things happening in the world these days than the premature speeches of U.S. presidential candidates. It will be interesting to see when the international press starts to become involved in the coverage of the (run-up to) the US 2008 elections and what they will have to say about the candidates, their ideas and campaigns.

Emotions in U.S. politics are running high after General Petraeus testimony on Iraq earlier this week and President Bush’s speech after the release of the White House report on Iraq. Republicans as well as Democrats are divided in their reactions to the report’s results and the speech. Democrats who have been arguing for an immediate ending of the war in Iraq have been put into the extreme corner by Petraeus testimony and yesterdays’ speech by President Bush.

General Petraeus, commander in chief in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, ambassador to Iraq, testified before Congress in expectation to the release of the White House report on progress in Iraq early this week. The report, that was released yesterday, shows a lack of progress towards peace and stability in Iraq, with progress in only 9 of 18 benchmarks set for the Iraqi government. Read the full report here.

In reaction to the report President Bush addressed the American citizens via a television speech. The president showed dissatisfaction with the lack of progress in Iraq. He announced that he will retire troops from Iraq, but that a fast retirement would be irresponsible and a possible disaster for the Iraqi people and the stability in the region. Mr. Bush plans to bring home 5.700 troops by Christmas.

Democrats favouring a fast retirement of troops are now vulnerable for accusations of being weak, something that causes the already existing divide within the Democratic party to deepen. Grassroots democrats are still pushing for a direct ending of the war, while the Democrat leadership fears a possible emergence of an image of weakness for the Democratic party, something that may have a significant influence on next year’s elections. However, although announcing the retirement of troops, President Bush did not offer a clear strategy towards ending the war, a weakness that might turn out to be a possibility for Democrats in Congress to push for their own strategy. Democrats do not have the majority to veto the President, but an alignment with Republican critics of the developments in Iraq might empower them enough to do reach a majority.

The democratic presidential candidates are now reacting to the Petraeus Report and to Bush’s speech, with Larry King having Barack Obama live in his late night show. Live from Iowa, in a reaction to the Petraeus report, Obama was very critical about the results of Bush’s strategy and he kept pleading for a different strategy in Iraq. He also stressed that, in opposition to his rival in the running up to the presidential elections Hillary Clinton, he has been opposing the War in Iraq since its beginning. Obama also praised fellow democrat Jack Reed, who earlier this week was responsible for the Democratic response to Bush’s speech. Read the full text of the speech here.

The war in Iraq, and especially the question of how to end the war, will be of major influence in the 2008 presidential elections. Let us hope that the fight for the presidency will not be determining the strategy in Iraq but that it will be the other way around. Whoever finds a possible strategy to end this horrific chaos and grow seeds for stability in Iraq and its neighbouring countries, deserves the presidency. The Bush era will end in January 2009 but Iraq will not, and this is becoming clearer every day as progress stagnates and violence stays alive in Iraq.

Sources:

www.uspolitics.einnews.com

www.ft.com (Financial Times)

www.cnn.com

According to the Huffington Post, Barack Obama will be giving a speech in Clinton, Iowa this afternoon. The speech will be about major Iraq policy issues, and will be very critical towards the Bush administration. Excerpts from the speech were published today by the Huffington Post:

“Turning the Page in Iraq”

We hear eerie echoes of the run-up to the war in Iraq in the way that the President and Vice President talk about Iran. They conflate Iran and al Qaeda. They issue veiled threats. They suggest that the time for diplomacy and pressure is running out when we haven’t even tried direct diplomacy. Well George Bush and Dick Cheney must hear - loud and clear - from the American people and the Congress: you don’t have our support, and you don’t have our authorization for another war. (…)

“Conventional thinking in Washington lined up for war. The pundits judged the political winds to be blowing in the direction of the President. Despite - or perhaps because of how much experience they had in Washington, too many politicians feared looking weak and failed to ask hard questions. Too many took the President at his word instead of reading the intelligence for themselves. Congress gave the President the authority to go to war. Our only opportunity to stop the war was lost.”

“There is something unreal about the debate that’s taking place in Washington… The bar for success is so low that it is almost buried in the sand. The American people have had enough of the shifting spin. We’ve had enough of extended deadlines for benchmarks that go unmet. We’ve had enough of mounting costs in Iraq and missed opportunities around the world. We’ve had enough of a war that should never have been authorized and should never have been waged.”

“I opposed this war from the beginning. I opposed the war in 2002. I opposed it in 2003. I opposed it in 2004. I opposed it in 2005. I opposed it in 2006. I introduced a plan in January to remove all of our combat brigades by next March. And I am here to say that we have to begin to end this war now.”

“Let me be clear: there is no military solution in Iraq, and there never was. The best way to protect our security and to pressure Iraq’s leaders to resolve their civil war is to immediately begin to remove our combat troops. Not in six months or one year - now. We should enter into talks with the Iraqi government to discuss the process of our drawdown. We must get out strategically and carefully, removing troops from secure areas first, and keeping troops in more volatile areas until later. But our drawdown should proceed at a steady pace of one or two brigades each month. If we start now, all of our combat brigades should be out of Iraq by the end of next year.”

“Some argue that we should just replace Prime Minister Maliki. But that wouldn’t solve the problem…The problems in Iraq are bigger than one man. Iraq needs a new Constitutional convention that would include representatives from all levels of Iraqi society - in and out of government. The United Nations should play a central role in convening and participating in this convention, which should not adjourn until a new accord on national reconciliation is reached.”

“The President would have us believe there are two choices: keep all of our troops in Iraq or abandon these Iraqis. I reject this choice… It’s time to form an international working group with the countries in the region, our European and Asian friends, and the United Nations…. We should up our share to at least $2 billion to support this effort; to expand access to social services for refugees in neighboring countries; and to ensure that Iraqis displaced inside their own country can find safe-haven. …. Iraqis must know that those who engage in mass violence will be brought to justice. We should lead in forming a commission at the U.N. to monitor and hold accountable perpetrators of war crimes within Iraq.”

“I’m here today because it’s not too late to come together as Americans. Because we’re not going to be able to deal with the challenges that confront us until we end this war. What we can do is say that we will not be prisoners of uncertainty. That we reject the conventional thinking that led us into Iraq and that didn’t ask hard questions until it was too late. What we can say is that we are ready for something new and something bold and something principled.”

Source: The Huffington Post

Rebublicans Mitt Romney and John McCain are the biggest money spenders in the first two quarters of this year’s run up to the presidential elections. Mitt Romney spent more than $11 million on his campaign in the first quarter and more than $20 million so far in the second! Republican presidential candidate John McCain spent more than $8 million on his campaign in the first, and more than $13 million in the second quarter.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are the two biggest spenders on the Democrats’ side, being good for more than $41 million spent together so far in the first two quarters of 2007. Obama was the number 1 democrat spender in both the first and the second quarter. See for more details on presidential candidates’ campaign spending the Interactives at Yahoo.com

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama held a speech on Labor Day, see video below. Most of the presidential candidates make good use of these kind of new online technologies.

Writing early September 2007, the most prominent democratic presidential nominees for the 2008 U.S. presidential elections are:

• Hillary Clinton, New York Senator
• Barack Obama, Illinois Senator
• John Edwards, former Senator from North Carolina

• Dennis Kucinich, Ohio Congressman, former Mayor of Cleveland
• Bill Richardson, Governor of New Mexico
• Joe Biden, Senator of Delaware
• Chris Dodd, Senator of Connecticut
• Mike Gravel, former Senator
• Al Gore is high up in the polls, although it is still not clear whether the man will run for president in 2008. He has been busy with his book “An Inconvenient Truth”, which won the 2007 Academy Award for Documentary Feature.

The official campaigning period has hardly begun, and nominee Hillary Clinton already spent more than $ 20 million on her presidential campaign. Back in the 1990s, her husband had “only” spent $ 20 thousand at this particular time in the run up to the elections.

Traditionally, Labor Day (early September) marks the kick-off for the presidential campaigns for the year after, however, it seems like the presidential campaign for the 2008 elections already started right the day after the 2004 presidential elections.

The long weekend of Labor Day 2007 was used as the kick-off for the presidential candidates’ campaigns, with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama campaigning in New Hampshire with their families, and John Edwards interrupting a two-day campaign in Iowa to receive the endorsements of two labor unions in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: the United Steelworkers and the United Mine Workers of America, together representing more than one million members. Receiving the two union endorsements makes that, with a total of three endorsements, John Edwards is ahead of Hillary Clinton, who received two union endorsements and Chris Dod, who so far has received one union endorsement.

Hillary Clinton is leading the polls, with Barack Obama coming in second at a safe distance. However, in some primary states, the race is closer and Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards are wound up in a three-way battle for the top positions. Such is the case in Iowa, a lot of campaigning therefore is expected from the democratic presidential nominees in Iowa in the coming months.

Technology plays an important role in the 2008 presidential campaigns, as the big online democratic debate that was organised by CNN and YouTube on Monday July 23rd 2007 shows. Citizens from all over the U.S. could ask their questions to the presidential candidates, who answered the citizens live. The CNN/ YouTube format is being hailed as a transformational moment in the history of presidential debates (BBC News). It has been marked as very democratic and as a reflection of the dominant role the internet plays and will play in the 2008 campaign.

The democratic presidential nominees themselves also use the internet as a major campaigning tool. Hillary Clinton has her own website where you can subscribe to support her and where you can win a lunch with Hillary at her home in Washington when you contribute to her campaign. www.hillaryclinton.com

Barack Obama totally discovered YouTube as the ideal way of promoting himself. His site is loaded with YouTube videos from his campaign tour and he created his own profile on YouTube. At this blog you’ll find one of his speeches.

Also John Edwards benefits from YouTube and put some videos on his website www.johnedwards.com

At DemocraticPresidentialNominees.com we try to keep you posted on the developments in the run up to the 2008 presidential elections of the United States.