Diary Contest - Who's Your Favourite Presidential Candidate

We do hear a lot from the campaigns and their staff why their candidate is the best and why we should support them.

But what about you?

Who do you like? Who is your favourite Democratic presidential candidate? During the month of August we're looking to hear from you. Tell us why you like Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama, or Bill Richardson.

All you have to do is register at My Silver State (if you have not already done so), log in and click "new diary" on the menu in the right sidebar. Writing a diary is relatively easy. All you have to do is type what you have to say, click preview and, if it looks okay, publish it. So even if you haven't done this before you shouldn't need to worry about that.

The rules are simple: you can remain anonymous or not, that is totally up to you, but we do limit this diary contest to Nevada residents. So please state in which city or county you live.

The best diaries will be promoted to the frontpage. Even though My Silver State only got started about three weeks ago, we already have a little less than 1,000 visitors per week with about 2,000 page loads. So at least several hundred visitors, if not more, will get to read what you have to say. You can write your diary in any way that you like. It's totally up to you. We just ask you to refrain from attacking other candidates. We want to hear what is good about your candidate, not what is bad about the others.

Get to work! Promote your candidate!

Mike Gravel Will Be on LV Radio Talk Show Tomorrow Morning

You can listen to Mike Gravel tomorrow morning on Basham & Cornell tomorrow morning. From their e-mailed release:

On Saturday May 26^th, Senator Mike Gravel will be the guest on the Basham and Cornell Radio Show at 9 am PST on AM 1230 KLAV in Las Vegas. Mike is currently a candidate for the 2008 Democratic nomination for President of the United States. He is a former 2-term Senator from Alaska from 1969 to 1981.

In 1971, he waged a successful one-man filibuster for five months that forced the Nixon administration to cut a deal, effectively ending the draft in the United States. He is most prominently known for his release of the Pentagon Papers, the secret official study that revealed the lies and manipulations of successive U.S. administrations that misled the country into the Vietnam War. After the New York Times published portions of the leaked study, the Nixon administration moved to block any further publication of information and to punish any newspaper publisher who revealed the contents.

From the floor of the senate, Gravel (a junior senator at the time) insisted that his constituents had a right to know the truth behind the war and proceeded to read 4,100 pages of the 7,000 page document into the senate record. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled that Senator Gravel did not have the right and responsibility to share official documents with his constituents. He then published The Senator Gravel Edition, The Pentagon Papers, (Beacon Press 1971). This publication resulted in litigation, Gravel v. U.S., resulting in a landmark Supreme Court decision relative to the Speech and Debate Clause of the United States Constitution.

One of the leading opponents of the Vietnam War, Senator Gravel was one of the first current or former elected officials to publicly oppose the planned invasion of Iraq in 2002. He appeared on MSNBC prior to the invasion insisting that intelligence showed that there were indeed no weapons of mass destruction, that Iraq posed no threat to the United States and that invading Iraq was against America’s national interests and would result in a disaster of epic proportions for both the United States and the Iraqi people.

Gravel has led an effort to get a United States Constitutional amendment to allow voter-initiated federal legislation similar to state ballot initiatives. He argues that Americans are able to legislate responsibly, and that the Act and Amendment in the National Initiative would allow American citizens to become "law makers".

I'm not sure if Sen. Gravel will take any questions, but you can find the call in numbers here.

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Do you live in Nevada and are a supporter of Mike Gravel? Then join the Nevada for Mike Gravel group at the Democratic Party's PartyBuilder social networking site.

Bill Richardson Now Has The Best Campaign Website - Hands Down

Bill Richardson has the impressive resume and - with his official declaration to run for president today - he has a website to match his resume.

Looking at the websites of the all eight candidates Richardson's is the best - hands down. There are several reasons for this.

Let me go into detail:

Navigation: Richardson's website is easy to navigate, when you click through the top bar you get all the information you need, above the bar is a box to register for email updates, the action center is clearly highlighted on the left hand side and there's a welcome video on the right hand side. When you scroll further down you get a more detailed look at news, blog entries, issues, etc, all the information you could also find by clicking the top bar. The only additional information you wouldn't find in the top bar are the links to PartyBuilder, MySpace, etc. That's how it should be. You should have a clear overview of the site without having to scroll down. Only on the third look does the website seem a little crowded. But just a little.

The other websites are equally easy to navigate, especially Hillary, Obama, Edwards, and Biden, to a lesser degree Kucinich, Dodd, and Gravel.

Information: Couldn't be better. You can find it all by navigating the top bar. Say, you're looking for his stance on Iraq, you go to issues, click on Iraq and get quite a bit of information. In addition to his stance on Iraq you can download a two page flyer and find related news and press releases.

The other websites are not as good as Richardson's. Hillary has a video in addition to her stance , at Obama's site you can submit your ideas. Edwards' issues page is disappointing. He has one paragraph on "Restoring America's Moral Leadership in the World" and that's it. I only found his plan on Iraq by looking at the frontpage again. I don't understand why they can't link to it from their issues page. Dodd doesn't have an issues page. But there's a link to his Iraq stance clearly visible on the frontpage. What you get is a video with his remarks on Iraq and a transcript. On Gravel's website issues are front and center with Iraq on the top. He writes only a couple of paragraphs on it - but more than Edwards. At Kucinich's site Iraq is one of the top issues and is incorporated into the "International Cooperation" page. On the sidebar you'll find related stories and forum topics. The only one who can compete, at least on the Iraq issue - I didn't look at the other issue pages, is Joe Biden. He has a detailed plan for Iraq and a seperate website devoted to his plan.

Networking: Thus far Obama had the best networking site, and only true networking site in my opinion, of all the candidates. Hillary's action center is not the real thing as networking between supporters (like personal blogs and messaging system) is not taking place. Edwards has a community blog and his One Corps site. Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel have a forum and Dodd and Biden don't have any form of networking at all - apart from writing comments on their blog posts.

Richardson's web team seems to have taken a look at all the other websites and must have wondered "what more can we do" as I would say their networking site now beats that of Obama. Their Action Center seems to be modeled on the same platform as My.BarackObama.com and the Democratic Party's PartyBuilder and the same functions. The only additional function on Richardson's network that Obama doesn't have (but PartyBuilder does) is that you can write a letter to the editor of your local paper.

External networking sites: Most campaigns are using them, so we're looking at two things here: a) are they linking to the networking sites directly from their frontpage and b) are they linking to the Democratic Party's PartyBuilder.

Richardson does both a) and b) - as does Obama. All the other candidates don't.

Hillary, Biden, Kucinich, and Edwards link to external networking sites, though not to PartyBuilder, Dodd and Gravel make you find their links but they don't link to PartyBuilder either. Which is a shame. As I said before it runs on the same platform as Obama's and Richardson's networking sites and is a great tool, both to enhance their own network and to build a network for Democrats in general. PartyBuilder provides an extra page for presidential candidates and links to their profiles. I did a little test to see how candidates use this tool and added them to my friends network. They added me in the following order: Kucinich, Gravel, Obama, Biden, Richardson. After more than a week still no reaction from Hillary, Edwards and Dodd which I find surprising considering their resources.

I've also set up Nevada groups for all campaigns:

Nevada for Barack Obama
Nevada for Bill Richardson
Nevada for Chris Dodd
Nevada for Dennis Kucinich
Nevada for Hillary Clinton
Nevada for Joe Biden
Nevada for John Edwards
Nevada for Mike Gravel

Nevada: Speaking of Nevada, how much do the campaigns currently care about the Silver State? I'm not gonna talk about their appearances in Nevada right now, nor about their campaign infrastructure in the state but only about their web presence.

People always say Richardson needs to win or do extremely well in Nevada to stand any chance in the primaries. Not surprisingly, Richardson's Nevada page is the best among all presidential candidates. You'll find links to the Action Center, Nevada related news, press releases, video, and photo gallery. The same applies to the other state pages (Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina).

Dennis Kucinich is the only other candidate to have a Nevada page. Unfortunately, it hasn't been updated since March. Obama, Hillary, and Edwards are still in the old New Hampshire and Iowa mode, as they currently only have state sites for these two. I couldn't find any state specific pages at Dodd's, Gravel's, and Biden's websites.

Overall, Richardson has today launched a website that's ahead of the pack and his rivals will have some catching up to do, some more, some not that much.

Please note: this is not an endorsement of Richardson on my part. This is an analysis of his website compared to those of other candidates and does not reflect my preferences for the primaries.

Does Obama Even Care About Nevada?

While Obama volunteers in Nevada are busy and doing one "Obama walk" after the other (even in Elko), Obama himself doesn't seem to care too much about Nevada.

At least he hasn't been to the state too much. After he missed out on the AFSCME forum in Carson City one would have thought that he'd make that up by traveling to Northern Nevada soon after. Yet, three months later, and nothing happened. Obama's been a total of two times in Nevada, both times in Las Vegas. He ranks at the bottom of the list of candidates:

Richardson: 14
Dodd: 7
Edwards: 5
Biden: 4
Clinton: 4
Kucinich: 4
Gravel: 3
Obama: 2

(numbers via MyDD, via Washington Post)

Obama was on top of the list in primary contributions in the first quarter and the two men with the least money managed to travel to Nevada more often than he did? Are you serious?

All I can decypher from this is the following: currently Senator Obama is not seriously competing in Nevada. If he wants to compete here, he needs to visit and talk to the voters. He really has to make up some ground. So it better be a real visit and not just a quick stop in Reno on the way to another California fundraiser. Otherwise he might just surrender Nevada to either Hillary or Edwards who have both been to Northern Nevada more than once.

Join "Nevada for" Groups at PartyBuilder!

The Democratic Party's PartyBuider social networking site has thus far not been extensively used by presidential candidates - which is surprising when you consider that it doesn't cost anything.

Anyhow, if you're a supporter of one of the eight presidential candidates you can now join the respective group on PartyBuilder:

Nevada for Barack Obama

Nevada for Bill Richardson

Nevada for Chris Dodd

Nevada for Dennis Kucinich

Nevada for Hillary Clinton

Nevada for Joe Biden

Nevada for John Edwards

Nevada for Mike Gravel

Join today and start networking!

Clinton Leads in New Zogby Nevada Poll

Zogby released a poll today of 500 likely Nevada Democratic caucus-goers conducted April 11-12 with a margin of error of +/- 4.5%.

Hillary Clinton leads the crowd with 35%, followed by Obama (21%) and Edwards (19%). Richardson has 5% and Biden 2%. Dodd, Gravel, and Kucinich register below 1%. Zogby himself states the obvious:

Their leads track what is happening nationally in polling, perhaps a reflection of name identification, as candidates just begin their efforts to build campaigns in Nevada, which has moved near the front of the line in the state–by–state presidential sweepstakes and represents uncharted waters for the 2008 election process.

So, it's basically up to the candidates. If they wanna catch up to Clinton, they need to come to Nevada and meet the voters. Dodd's working on that tonight and tomorrow. This becomes rather obvious when you look at the Zogby numbers for New Hampshire and Iowa. Obama and Edwards are just 6 points behind Clinton in New Hamphire and Edwards leads Clinton and Obama in Iowa.

One thing to keep in mind: no one really knows who will go to the caucus. No one. Caucus polling is difficult enough in Iowa where Dean and Gephardt led the polls in December 2003 only to lose heavily to Kerry and Edwards one month later.

I'll continue posting all the poll results. At the same time, I'm sticking with what I've said before: they're mostly worthless.

March 31st Deadline

The candidates are spewing out e-mails this week like their life depended on it - well, their candidacies might. It's contributions week. Nothing else counts. Everyone's playing the expectations game everywhere. It can drive you crazy.

So, Nevada Caucus 2008 makes it really easy for you. On the sidebar you'll find the list of all eight candidates. You can simply enter the amount you wish to contribute to your favourite candidate, then click on the "Contribute" button and fill in the rest. Alternatively, you can go directly to the Nevada Caucus 2008 ActBlue page. The money goes to the candidates, I get zilch.

Reactions on the Health Care Forum

It turned out that I have a life away from blogging after all, so I was not able to watch the health care forum on Saturday and therefore could not liveblog it. Unfortunately, neither the organizers of the forum nor Think Progress (which offered a live webcast) have so far put up any video from the forum.

However, a couple of people did some live-blogging of the forum or compiled a writeup. Jonathan Singer's take on each candidate's position is over at MyDD, another extensive roundup can be found at Blog for our Future. Taylor Marsh was also at the forum and comes away from it very oppiniated and very much in favor of Hillary Clinton while Hugh Jackson writes both at the Las Vegas Gleaner and on Nevada Today that he thought John Edwards was the big winner as he actually had a plan and is more likely to win than Dennis Kucinich who not only has a plan but a bill that is "intellectually, morally and economically sensible and reasonable."

Karen Tumulty, moderator of the forum, wrote up her thoughts here and here.

Finally, the take from the traditional media:

New York Times, Washinton Post, Los Angeles Times, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Las Vegas Sun

The only thing pretty much everyone seemed to agree on was that Obama's plan was sketchy at best, some saying that he was not prepared at all.

I'll put the videos (or the link to them) of the candidates at the forum up once they're available.

The SEIU Health Care Forum in Las Vegas: Polls, Webcast and More

In preparation for the health care forum in Las Vegas today, hosted by the SEIU and the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a conference call for reporters and bloggers was held earlier this week. During this call Andy Stern of the SEIU and John Podesta, former Chief of Staff of President Bill Clinton and now head of the Center for American Progress, outlined their thoughts on the upcoming forum and on how best to achieve universal health care.

Andy Stern stressed that a solution to the health care crisis is in everybody's interest as "American business will pay more for health care they make in profit" this year. Therfore, this presidential campaign should be about the issues, not about "glitz and glamour."

John Podesta noted his "battle scars" from 1994 when he worked in the White House during the Clinton's effort to achieve universal health care. He noted that the ranks of the uninsured are rising and that there are now 7 million more uninsured than in 2000. He sees today's forum as "a critical next step" saying that he has "high hopes that what happens in Las Vegas will leave Las Vegas and set the tone for the presidential campaign."

Also on the call was Celinda Lake of Lake Research Partners who conducted a poll in the four early primary and caucus states regarding health care. The poll asked 400 voters in each state about their attitude towards health care. While the overall picture did look pretty good for universal health care, I was a little disturbed by the sample. 400 voters in one state is not the best sample and when you break it down into half Democrats and half Republicans, the margin of error is just insane.

Nonetheless, here are some numbers from Nevada:

Thinking specifically about the economy, what are you personally worried about the most?

Rising health care costs 39%
Higher taxes 23%
Secure Retirement 19%

The 225 million dollars a day being spent in Iraq would be better spent investing in affordable health care for every American here at home.

Strongly agree 48%
Not strongly agree 19%
Not strongly disagree 12%
Strongly disagree 18%

Who do you think would be the BEST president on the issue of health care?

Hillary Clinton 34%
John Edwards 16%
Barack Obama 9%
Bill Richardson 4%
Dennis Kucinich 0%
Chris Dodd 2%
Joe Biden 0%
Mike Gravel 0%

Now, please note that they're just asking who would be best on health care. Clearly, Hillary has an edge here both because of name recognition and because of her work on health care during the Clinton presidency.

What I found really disturbing about these numbers though, was that 50% of the respondents were 65 or older. How representative are numbers when you have a sample of only 5% below 40 years of age? And it really made me wonder how representative other poll numbers are that do not publish the age range of respondents.

Anyhow, I'm very much looking forward to this forum, as it will hopefully force the candidates to take a stand beyond "I'm for health coverage for all" and maybe they'll even tell us how they plan to achieve it.

You can view the live webcast of the health care forum over at Think Progress starting at 9am PT/noon ET.

Most Dem. Candidates to Attend Health Care Forum in Vegas 3/24

The Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAPAF) and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) give Nevada its second presidential forum. And it's only March.

"New Leadership on Health Care: A Presidential Forum" will take place on Saturday, March 24th in Las Vegas. Since it will solely focus on one issue it will be more difficult for candidates to be vague on what they plan to achieve. Well, that's at least what one can hope.

Even though this forum is open to Democratic and Republican candidates, thus far only Democrats have confirmed:

• Senator Hillary Clinton (NY)
• Senator John Edwards (NC)
• Senator Mike Gravel (AK)
• Representative Dennis Kucinich (OH)
• Senator Barack Obama (IL)
• Governor Bill Richardson (NM)

Gov. Vilsack had also confirmed - before he dropped out of the race. The only declared Democratic candidates missing are Joe Biden and Chris Dodd. But with everyone else planning to attend I'd be surprised should they choose to skip this forum. After Obama didn't attend the AFSCME Forum in Carson City last month it will be interesting to see how the crowd at this forum will react to him vs. Hillary and Edwards.

The details:

New Leadership on Health Care: A Presidential Forum

March 24, 2007
From: 09:30 AM until 01:00 PM

Address:

UNLV's Cox Pavilion
4505 S. Maryland Parkway
Las Vegas, NV 89154
(Cox Pavilion is located at Swenson and Tropicana)

UPDATE: Dodd will also attend, according to a SEIU press release. That only leaves Biden unconfirmed.

AFSCME Forum - Roundup

I had some problems with the livestream at C-Span from time to time but other than that I must say that I was positively surprised by today's forum.

First of all, I really liked the format. I've seen my share of debates and most of them sucked. Even though there were 600 people in the audience the setting came across as quite intimate. 10-15 minutes for each candidate by himself was quite a good idea to get acquainted with all the candidates.

Generally, I was surprised by the quality of the field. We have a wide variety of qualified candidates. And even the ones that are not taken seriously are still interesting and have something to say. Two of the frontrunners, Edwards and Hillary, pretty much performed as expected though Edwards was better than Hillary.

Because of livestream problems at the beginning I didn't catch too much of Dodd but it seemed like he did really well and got a great response from the audience. Other than that I was quite impressed by Bill Richardson and also Joe Biden who came across as the most qualified candidates. Finally Kucinich and Gravel rounded things up and didn't disappoint. I don't know if either should be president but I'd definitely like to see more of them in politics.

All in all, it's gonna be a fun year - and a much better and more interesting primary campaign than 2004.

PS: Oh, yeah, Obama wasn't there. He chose to spend the day in Iowa. After watching the forum I must say that that was probably not the smartest move. Though he did get the endorsement of former Senate leader Tom Daschle today.

Gravel: "The oil there is not worth one more American death"

"I'm no cheerleader". And he ain't kidding. Says that everything Congress is trying to do right now about Iraq, is unconstitutional. Says Murtha is trying to play General. Gravel says Congress needs to introduce a law. "The oil there is not worth one more American death".

He just made George say "Okay" which is DC code for "you're nuts" when he said that Bush is lying to the American people just like Johnson did about Vietnam.

On education: why can Scandinavian countries take a child from Kindergarten to Ph.D. and have the government pay for it? Why can't the US? His answer: the military-industrial complex. Well, he's old enough to still remember Eisenhower.

Is now trying to sell his sales tax initiative. Audience seems to skeptical.

"I'm trying to opt in to public funding".

"I don't think it's a big deal whether I become President or not". He's funny, I like this guy.

He's actually more of a cheerleader than he claims to be. Looking forward to the first debate in which he gets to ask another candidate a question.

Liveblogging the AFSCME Forum Today

I intend on liveblogging the AFSCME forum in Carson City later today. Fortunately, the forum will be broadcast live on C-Span and will also be available as a livestream on the websites of C-Span and ABC News. This way I'll actually be able to watch it from Germany.

The forum itself will take place at 12noon pacific in the following format:

Candidates confirmed to attend, as of publication, in order of appearance at the forum:
(as determined by lottery)
United States Senator Chris Dodd, D-CT
United States Senator Hillary Clinton, D-NY
Former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, D-IA
Former United States Senator John Edwards, D-NC
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, D-NM
United States Senator Joe Biden, D-DE
United States Congressman Dennis Kucinich, D-OH
Former United States Senator Mike Gravel, D-AK

The forum layout and rules (as determined by AFSCME)

At 2:45 am EST all the candidates attending have been invited to attend a group photo and video on then the forum stage. Following the photo the forum will begin with remarks from United States Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), AFSCME president Gerald McEntee and Nevada State Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley.

After the introduction and welcome, each candidate will take the stage individually:
- The candidate will give 2:00 minute opening remarks
- The candidate will answer three questions. Two from George Stephanopoulos and one submitted by AFSCME the order of questions is up to the moderator.
- The candidate has no more than 3:00 minutes to answer each question.
- The candidate has 1:00 minute to make closing remarks
- There will be a count-down clock visible to both the guest and moderator during each segment.

... and they're coming to Nevada

The last post pointed out that the candidates better come to Nevada and they seem to be listening to the new Majority Leader. Anjeanette Damon reports via the Hotline blog that the current frontrunner, Senator Hillary Clinton, has announced her intention to take part in the first Nevada debate (the first nationwide?) on February 21 in Carson City.

Also taking part are Bill Richardson, Wes Clark, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Tom Vilsack and Mike Gravel. Still to announce their intentions are Barack Obama and John Edwards. Dennis Kucinich was ignored (forgotten?) by both.

Welcome to Nevada Caucus 2008

The midterm elections seem to become a distant memory as one potential candidate after another declares his intentions on whether or not he/she will run for President of the United States in 2008.

This blog (which is NOT affiliated with the Democratic Party or any candidate) will focus on news surrounding the Nevada Caucus of the Democratic Party which will be of importance for the first time since it has been moved up in the calendar and will now take place on January 19, 2008 - five days after the Iowa Caucus and three days before the New Hampshire Primary.

Up until now two potential candidates have declared that they will not run for President. Former Governor Mark Warner of Virginia did so before the midterms, Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin announced today that he will concentrate on his work in the Senate, now that the Democratic Party is in the majority, and will not run for President in 2008.

In the summer former Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska announced his intention to run for President and has filed papers with the Federal Election Commission. On Thursday, Governor Tom Vilsack of Iowa has announced that he will form an exploratory committee and file papers with the FEC.

There are of course many more potential candidates out there. Up until they will announce either way they will be listed as potential candidates on the sidebar. Only those who have filed papers with the FEC will be listed as Democratic Candidates running for President.

As for the links:

All potential candidates are linked to their respective Political Action Committees (PAC). Should they not have a PAC or a PAC website, I have linked to their official office sites. In the case of Al Gore I have linked to the "Inconvenient Truth" website.

I have also linked to the most important liberal/progressive and independt blogs in Nevada and the main Nevada newspapers.

This blog is a spin-off of my local blog Turn Tahoe Blue. There you can find more on Nevada and California politics as it relates to the region surrounding Lake Tahoe.

I hope you'll enjoy Nevada Caucus 2008!