AirCongress The Online Voice Of Capitol Hill

John Randall, the online communications director at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, alerted me to this NRSC video a couple of days ago with a note that said, “Bad singing, worse Senate.”

You readers can make up your own minds about the politics of the video, but trust me, saying that the singing is bad is an understatement. It’s worse than the off-key performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Categories: Democrats, Hillary Clinton, Friday Fun

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Issue-specific candidate questionnaires on everything from gun rights to abortion have been a staple of presidential politics for several election cycles, and in the 2008 race, some interest groups are adding a new media element to that tradition. They are getting candidates to go on the record on film and posting their answers to the Internet for everyone to watch.

Twelve of the current Republican and Democratic candidates recently accepted the ongoing challenge of the election reform group Why Tuesday, and the group has video of another candidate, Republican Fred Thompson while protected by aides, walking away from an opportunity to take the challenge.

And today, the Save Darfur Coalition, a human rights group focused on ending genocide in that region of the African nation of Sudan, unveiled a similar “voter education project.”

So far, the project includes five short video op-eds of the candidates that complement their stated positions on Darfur, Africa at large or Darfur. Visitors to the coalition’s Web site also are encouraged to e-mail candidates who don’t yet have Darfur-specific policies.

“The next president of the United States must walk into the Oval Office with a cogent and ambitious plan to end the suffering in Darfur,” coalition spokeswoman Allyn Brooks-LaSure said in a release. “Darfur’s suffering has galvanized millions of Americans, who all demand an end to the Darfur genocide, regardless of party, ethnicity, religion, red state or blue state.”

Here are the video op-eds from the first five candidates, Democrats Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson; and just one Republican, John McCain:

Categories: Producer's Picks, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, John McCain, Foreign Affairs, Human Rights

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At last night’s Democratic presidential debate, CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer asked Hillary Clinton whether Ross Perot was right in the 1992 presidential race when he warned that the North American Free Trade Agreement would kill U.S. jobs.

Her quips in response that she has only “a vague memory” of a bunch of charts about the NAFTA debate in the campaign that sent her husband, former President Bill Clinton, to the White House is now online video fodder for Democratic rival John Edwards.

Talking Points Memo posted a fuller clip of Clinton’s answer, including her acknowledgement that “NAFTA was a mistake to the extent that it did not deliver on what we had hoped it would, and that’s why I call for a trade timeout.”

Categories: Labor, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Economy, AdWatch, Trade

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The Internet powerhouse Google continued its “Candidate@Google” series of interviews with 2008 presidential hopefuls today. Barack Obama, one of the three leading Democratic candidates, visited the Google campus in Silicon Valley to discuss the innovation agenda he unveiled hours before his appearance.

Google previously has welcomed the following candidates to its headquarters:

• Democrat Hillary Clinton;
• Democrat John Edwards;
• Democrat Mike Gravel;
• Republican John McCain;
• Republican Ron Paul;
• And Democrat Bill Richardson.

Among other things, Obama called for “an open Internet” and emphasized his commitment to “network neutrality,” a term that refers to a proposed government mandate for equal treatment of high-speed Internet content by companies that control broadband networks.

Here’s an excerpt from the speech:

What comes next depends on the choices that we make right now, in this moment, in this election. We could see the spirit of innovation that started this company be stifled. We could see the Internet divided up to the highest bidders. We could a government that uses technology to shut people out instead of letting them in. Tax breaks shuffled to special interests while the next startup, the next Google, can’t get a fair shot. …

Another alternative is for us to unlock a new future of opportunity. Together we can open up the government and invite all citizens in while connecting all of America to 21st-century broadband. We can use technology to help achieve universal health care, to reach for a clean energy future, and to ensure that young Americans can compete and win in the global economy.

Categories: Producer's Picks, Technology, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, John McCain, Ron Paul

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Ed Morrissey of Heading Right Radio aired his pre-recorded interview with Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani during his live show at a new media conference in Las Vegas. Here are excerpts from Giuliani:

• “We have to maintain a feudal government [in Pakistan], but we have to push [Pervez] Musharraf to do two things”: restore the constitution and the rule of law, and root out the Taliban and the al Qaeda terrorist network. “So there’s a big agenda with Pakistan, and it has to be handled very delicately.”
• Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has been guilty of “a great deal of double-talk.” She “has had six different positions on Iraq; she won’t answer a question on Iran. … And [she] can’t give a straight answer on driver’s licenses? If you can’t do that, I don’t know how you can deal with these more complex issues.”
• “I’m really the only candidate that has a chance of beating Hillary in those places [New Jersey and Pennsylvania]. I’m really the only candidate that can be a 50-state candidate among Republicans. So I think that’s something that has to be considered also.”

Producer’s note: Through a partnership with BlogTalkRadio, AirCongress is promoting federal policy and political content produced by the company’s Internet-based talk-show hosts.

Categories: Politics, Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, Foreign Affairs, BlogTalkRadio

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