Spencer ends campaign against Latham

Who needs political pundits when you have Vegas bookies?

On Sportsbook.com (click “Exotics”), the Vegas odds-makers give us the “live line” on who will become President of the United States.  As of today, here’s the breakdown:

Hillary Clinton, 1-1

Al Gore, 3-1

John McCain, 3-1

Barack Obama, 6-1

John Edwards, 8-1

George Allen Jr, 10-1

Rudy Giuliani, 10-1

Sam Brownback  10-1

Mitt Romney, 10-1

Bill Richardson, 12-1

Mark Warner, 15-1

Mike Huckabee  20-1

Evan Bayh, 20-1

Wesley Clark, 20-1

Chuck Hagel, 22-1

Colin Powell, 25-1

Joe Biden, 30-1

Condoleezza Rice, 30-1

Newt Gingrich, 40-1

Tom Vilsack, 40-1

Russ Feingold, 40-1

Rick Santorum, 50-1

Tom Tancredo, 50-1

Chris Dodd, 50-1

Mike Gravel, 50-1

Tom Ridge, 50-1

Tom Daschle, 50-1

Bill Owens, 50-1

Bob Kerrey, 50-1

John Kerry, 50-1

George Pataki, 50-1

Gary Locke, 70-1

Dick Gephardt, 75-1

Dick Cheney, 75-1

Howard Dean, 75-1

Alberto Gonzales, 75-1

Bob Ehrlich, 75-1

Charles Schumer, 75-1

Harold Ford Jr, 75-1

Jack Kemp, 75-1

Jeb Bush, 100-1

Bill Frist, 100-1

Jay Rockefeller, 100-1

Ralph Nader, 100-1

Paul Bremmer, 150-1

Joe Lieberman, 150-1

Bob Graham, 150-1

Michael Bloomberg, 150-1

Tommy Franks, 200-1

Jesse Jackson, 200-1

George W Bush, 200-1

Dennis Kucinich, 200-1

Arnold Schwarzenegger, 250-1

Bill Clinton, 300-1

Paul Wolfowitz, 750-1

Alan Keyes, 750-1

Elizabeth Dole, 750-1

Clint Eastwood, 750-1

Ted Kennedy, 750-1

Bill O’Reilly, 750-1

Laura Bush, 1000-1

James Carville, 1000-1

Jesse Ventura, 1000-1

Al Sharpton, 1000-1

John Ashcroft, 1500-1

Donald Rumsfeld, 2000-1

Pat Robertson, 2000-1

Bill Maher, 2500-1

Donald Trump, 2500-1

Michael Moore, 7500-1

I’d throw a dollar at Laura Bush, with those odds.

http://snipehunter-politics.blogspot.com/

The previous discussion about caucus pledge cards got me thinking.  Hillary’s camp made a big mistake last week.

Hillary’s first mistake, besides the whole National Anthem part, was not aggressively soliciting pledge cards from the audience.  I think I may have seen a sign-up sheet on a table, but that’s not going to do it.

Now, sure, it’s early.  And maybe the audience was more “undecided” than “committed.”  But the fact is Team Hillary didn’t push people to sign up, at least in my opinion.

There were 3,000 folks there, the vast majority of which were caucus-going Iowa Democrats.  And they were there to see Hillary.  It seems like a wasted opportunity to let all those future volunteers/precinct captains slip by, especially when Hillary lacks activist structure in Iowa.

At a Vilsack event I attended, the folks were pretty aggressive about getting attendees to fill out the cards.

It will be interesting to see if Team Obama has the materials and the capacity (staff + volunteers) to capture pledge cards from the crowds in Cedar Rapids, Waterloo and Ames, which I hear will be huge.

Also, FYI, the Ames event has been moved to the Hilton Coliseum.

We have a new round of Iowa staffer updates.

As Chris Woods reported yesterday, Chris Hayler of John Kerry and Evan Bayh fame has been picked up by the Hillary campaign as its Iowa Political Director.

This morning’s Hotline reports that Mark Daley has been picked up by Hillary as her Iowa Communications Director.  Daley is the executive director of One Iowa, and previously held posts as Communications Director for the Iowa Democratic Party and Leonard Boswell for Congress.

I am also hearing rumblings that Steve Chasse has been picked up by the Obama campaign.  He’s a great pick up.  Formerly with John Kerry in 2004 and more recently aligned with Governor Mark Warner’s bid, Chasse has solid labor ties.

After checking out the FEC reports on U.S. House candidates available on the Web, it’s fair to say that losing an election doesn’t just put you down in the dumps emotionally.  It also puts you in the poor house.  Unfortunately, it’s a bipartisan problem.  With that said, the worst offenders are Republicans.

Check out some of these losing candidates who broke the bank (as of Dec. 31, 2006):

1st District

Richard Dickinson (D)– Cash-on-Hand: $2,300; Debt: $45,909

William Dix (R)– CoH: $10,658; Debt: $125,000

Bill Gluba (D)– CoH: $348; Debt: $50,073

Brian Kennedy (R)– CoH: $1,729; Debt: $126,000

Mike Whalen (R)– CoH: $4,963; Debt: $448,950

3rd District

Jeff Lamberti (R)– CoH: $8,476; Debt: $150,000

4th District

Selden Spencer (D)– CoH: $2,248; Debt: $35,000

5th District

Jeffrey Ballenger (R)– CoH: $33; Debt: $350,000

Robert Chambers (D)– CoH: $25; Debt: $19,400

Roy Neilsen (I)– CoH: $1,036; Debt: $48,500

Joyce Schulte (D) – CoH: $137; Debt: $48,500

Of course, winning doesn’t necessarily mean you’re in the black:

Steve King (R)– CoH: $29,332; Debt: $57,233

If you’re friends with any of these folks, expect to get a mailing or seven asking for a bailout.

For a guy who is running for President of the United States, former Governor Tom Vilsack sure is picking up a lot of new jobs.

According to the Des Moines Register, he is joining MidAmerican Energy as a consultant.

Today, the Hotline blog ponders rematches for House races in 2008, particularly GOP incumbents who got the boot that want to get back in.

It’s probably an appropriate time to start ponder 2008 House races in Iowa.  Since IA-01 and IA-02 are pretty solid, I’ll put my “races to watch” on IA-03 and IA-04.

For anyone who has traveled east-bound on Hwy. 20 near Tama, it’s hard to miss.  There’s a barn with a giant sign on it.  It’s been up for months.

What does it say?  Hint: it doesn’t have anything to do with farming.

“STOP HILLARY”

While the Republican side has been quick to hire quality talent in the state, it seems like the Democrats, at least relatively, have been slower to the punch.

There’s a lot to fill: field, political, advance, press, scheduling and finance to name a few.  In your mind, thinking about the talent remaining in Iowa, who are the Top 5 staffers Dem presidentials should be thinking about?

Also, who were the best pickups for staff so far?

I see the National Journal has come out with some new rankings on the Republican side.  With all the buzz surrounding the D-side, I’m not sure if anyone cares.  But, here it is anyway, with some editorializing.

IowaPolitics.com has the press release from the Clinton campaign.

The Clinton presidential campaign announced today that veteran Iowa operative JoDee Winterhof will run its state operation. Winterhof, a fourth-generation Iowan, served as Sen. Tom Harkin’s chief-of-staff from 1999-2003, and worked on his presidential and senatorial campaigns…

In addition to her work for Senator Harkin and other campaigns in Iowa, Winterhof served as the first Political Director of America Coming Together (ACT) during the 2004 election cycle, executing the largest progressive voter mobilization in history. She will take a leave as a principal at Grassroots Solutions, a firm that specializes in grassroots advocacy, political field consulting, training, and targeting.

Before that, Winterhof was the National Project Director for The White House Project, a non-partisan public education campaign working to see women at the highest levels of leadership in the country and served in the political operation of EMILY’s List.  Additionally, she served as a political appointee in the Clinton-Gore administration at the National Women’s Business Council.

Charlotte Eby in the Quad City Times breaks the big story on some new hires for the Obama campaign in Iowa:

Paul Tewes will serve as Obama’s director in Iowa, where the caucuses kick off the presidential nominating contest. Tewes, a Minnesota native, ran Democrat Al Gore’s Iowa caucus campaign in 2000.

Iowa native Emily Parcell has been tapped to serve as the political director. She worked on Sen. Tom Harkin’s re-election campaign in 2002, and U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt’s 2004 caucus campaign.

And so, the hiring for the big three (Edwards, Obama and Clinton) finally begins.

Here’s a story (not really, it’s total trash) hopefully everyone will forget before too long.  Apparently, someone in “somebody’s” campaign is spreading a lie that Barack Obama was at one point a Muslim. 

Here are a few points to think about.

1) Barack Obama has always been a Christian.

2) Who cares?