Inside Politics

A friend in need

“This week we learned the limit of a dream in American politics. At Barack Obama’s darkest hour, not one prominent ally came forward to support him. Everyone abandoned Everyman,” Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger writes.

“No prominent black clergyman came forth to make even the simple point that Jeremiah Wright’s notion of the ‘black church’ is but one point on a spectrum of faith. Rev. Wright, now written off as a virtual nut case, got more support from black clergymen than did Obama,” Mr. Henninger says.

“Barack Obama was bleeding by Monday and needed cover. Where, when he could have used them, were Obama’s oh-so-famous endorsers: Jesse Jackson, Ted Kennedy, Oprah, John Kerry, Chris Dodd, Patrick Leahy, Tom Daschle, Amy Klobuchar, Claire McCaskill, Jay Rockefeller, John Lewis, Toni Morrison, Roger Wilkins, Eric Holder, Robert Reich, Ted Sorenson, Alice Walker, David Wilhelm, Cornel West, Clifford Alexander, Donald McHenry, Patricia Wald, Newton Minow?

“Where were all the big-city mayors who went over to the Obama camp: Chicago’s Richard Daley, Cleveland’s Frank Jackson, Atlanta’s Shirley Franklin, Washington’s Adrian Fenty, Newark’s Cory Booker, Baltimore’s Sheila Dixon?

“It isn’t hard for big names to get on talk TV to make a point. Any major op-ed page would have stopped the presses to print a statement of support from Ted Kennedy or such for the senator. None appeared. Call it profiles in gopher-holing.”

GOP’s good news

With the Republicans facing a tough political environment this year, it’s news when someone reports that the party’s prospects are improving somewhere. In this case, it’s the governorships.

“Republican prospects in the races for governor have actually improved over the last three months, in contrast to the party’s expected losses in the House and Senate,” Nathan L. Gonzales writes in the Rothenberg Political Report.

In Missouri, unpopular Gov. Matt Blunt’s decision not to seek a second term has “boosted the Republicans’ chances” of holding on to the seat which is now rated a toss-up. In Indiana, Gov. Mitch Daniels “has improved his standing slightly, and he is now a narrow favorite for re-election.”

Democrats now hold 28 governorships to the Republican Party’s 22, but only four of the 11 races this year are “at risk at this point,” Mr. Gonzales says.

Republicans are targeting Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire and another Democratic seat that is open in North Carolina.

“Instead of a Democratic gain of a governorship or two (our winter 2007 forecast), the most likely outcome is either no net change or a Democratic gain of a single seat,” Mr. Gonzales forecasts.

Still possible

“One of the debates around our office these last two days has been whether it’s still possible, as a practical matter, for Hillary to win. Or, more precisely, whether it’s possible for the superdelegates to override the pledged delegates without provoking the kind of backlash that would doom Hillary,” the New Republic’s Noam Scheiber writes in a blog at www.tnr.com.

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