Ed Rendell

With a run-off in Georgia set for Tuesday and a lengthy recount still ongoing in Minnesota, not all of this year's Senate races have been resolved. And yet it is a contest that won't even take place for two years that has arguably stirred the most interest this past week.

For months, it's been obvious that Chris Matthews would like to return to his native Pennsylvania and run for Arlen Specter's Senate seat in 2010. He's done nothing to silence media speculation that he'll be a candidate, declared on national television, "I want to be a senator," and even  read more »

The combination of Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire should give Barack Obama the presidency. The reason: Pennsylvania and New Hampshire were the only two Kerry '04 states that John McCain was seriously contesting. He has now lost them both, giving Obama a lock on 252 electoral votes (the number won by Kerry in 2004). Add Ohio's 20 electoral votes to that total and Obama is over the magic number. The rest of the outstanding battleground states are all red states; wins by McCain would not sink Obama under the 270 mark. The only hope for McCain now, if you can call it that, is a botched call in one of the projected states.  read more »

In Philadelphia this weekend, Governor Ed Rendell and Mayor Michael Nutter professed themselves utterly unimpressed with John McCain and Sarah Palin's personal attacks on Barack Obama.

"I have, like, zero interest in Sarah Palin," said Nutter, speaking to a scrum of reporters after an Obama event in Vernon Park. "You know people are focused on Senator Obama and trying to figure out what John McCain is talking about and I think Sarah Palin's 15 minutes of fame were up a long time ago."

Asked if he detected a racial undercurrent in the McCain attacks, Rendell said, "Not particularly.  read more »

PHILADELPHIA—In an effort to boost voter turnout in the all-important battleground state of Pennsylvania, Barack Obama held four separate rallies on the afternoon of Oct. 11 in which he sought to connect with largely black audiences on economic grounds.

At each event, Obama was introduced by Governor Ed Rendell, who plainly laid out the campaign’s mission to the crowd.

“Fifty-three percent this Election Day won’t cut it, right?” Rendell said during an event in Germantown, referring to the Democratic turnout of the Philadelphia area during the primary. “I want to see Philadelphia go over 70 percent.”

The day started early, in North Philadelphia's Progress Plaza, where Obama stood, in shirtsleeves, in a square surrounded by stores with signs like “Auto Tags,” or “Dollar World.  read more »

DENVER—Michael Nutter, the young, brainy, African-American mayor of Philadelphia, took a chance during the Democratic primary season. He vocally supported Hillary Clinton against Barack Obama, the candidate with whom he shares many qualities—and the overwhelming preference, as it turned out, of his constituents. He explained his decision by citing the Clintons’ track record of delivering for cities like Philadelphia, which experienced a revival during the 1990s. But in terms of raw political calculation, Nutter was picking sides in a battle that split Pennsylvania’s Democrats, from the highest levels (Governor Ed Rendell supported Hillary, Senator Bob Casey, Obama) right down to the neighborhood clubhouses that make up Philadelphia’s fabled—though somewhat diminished—Democratic machine.  read more »

DENVER--Less than a day after the Democratic Party nominated Barack Obama as its candidate for President, two of Hillary Clinton’s strongest supporters held a private meeting with top donors to talk about some close-to-the-ground methods of improving his performance in the critical swing states of Ohio and Pennsylvania.

“It was a mix of Obama and Clinton donors,” said Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, who hosted the event with Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, as he left the meeting “Dodgeball” room of the Curtis hotel. “And a lot of those folks go back with me to 2000 when I was the DNC chair. We discussed ways to legally help the Pennsylvania and Ohio Democratic parties, to strengthen the parties, which will strengthen their abilities to get what is called a coordinated campaign going.  read more »

DENVER--Ed Rendell, the governor of Pennsylvania, is a man of large and unfettered appetites, and to see him tear into a small, crustless reuben sandwich, corned beef flying, is a little like watching a lion take after a plump, wounded antelope. His first order of business completed, Rendell gallumphed up the microphone at the Pinnacle Club, where the Pennsylvania delegation was having lunch on Tuesday afternoon, a few hours before Rendell and Hillary Clinton were to address the Democratic Convention.

“Isn’t the food terrific here?” the governor began, and then segued into some stern instructions. “I want to make sure that we do two things tonight.  read more »

DENVER—Discussion of infrastructure in national presidential campaigns is usually extremely limited, as the decidedly un-sexy topics like highway funding and new tunnels tend not to energize the public as does, say, a war or a controversial social issue.

Things haven't been much different this election, at least not yet, but there are at least a few reasons to think under-funded infrastructure might enter the debate in a more pronounced role, at least if one listens to some of the infrastructure geeks we heard at a roundtable on the topic on Monday, hosted by the Rocky Mountain Institute.

The funding needs nationwide for highways, roads, rails, ports, etc.  read more »

STATE COLLEGE, Penn.—Hillary Clinton, speaking on the Penn State campus here on Sunday night, once again sought to exploit Barack Obama's declaration that John McCain would make a better president than George W Bush.

She was met with cheers when she told the crowd, "We need a nominee who is going to take on John McCain, not cheer him on."  read more »

Hillary Clinton has widened her lead over Barack Obama in Pennsylvania, a new Quinnipiac poll shows. She now holds 53 percent of the vote among likely Democratic primary voters, while he has 41 percent. A poll released February 27 put her lead at 49 – 43.

Both Democrats have spent time in the state over the last few weeks, though Clinton has given her attention almost exclusively to Pennsylvania since the last contests.

The poll also shows a widening of the racial divide, with Obama’s share of support among black voters growing, and Clinton gaining among white voters.

Another notable piece of data, although I'm not sure how significant it is, particularly because Pennsylvania does not necessarily reflect the national opinion, shows that a fairly large number (43 percent) of these likely Democratic primary voters aren't interested in a joint ticket between the two remaining contenders.

The full release:  read more »

Slightly but significantly, Ed Rendell has separated himself from the Clinton campaign's assertion that Barack Obama can't win Pennsylvania–and the general election, for that matter–in the fall, telling MSNBC that Obama would be able to defeat John McCain in the Keystone State.  read more »

The Clinton campaign chastised Barack Obama this morning for what they said is his shunning of Pennsylvania, a state that the campaign argues a Democratic candidate needs to carry to win the general election.

On the call, according to Howard Wolfson, were a "great lineup of guests," including Governor Ed Rendell, who talked about "the Obama campaign's attempt to diminish the importance of the state" and Mayor Michael Nutter, who said he would "fire" a staffer who wrote a memo lowering expectations in Pennsylvania.

Mark Penn was on the call too, to make sure the campaign's main message was heard: "[Obama] doesn't seem to be able to pass the commander-in-chief test."

When asked during the question-and-answer period whether the intensifying rhetoric between the Clinton and Obama campaigns is destructive to Democratic chances in the general election, Rendell argued it was actually a good thing, because it takes attention away from John McCain.

More after the jump.  read more »

When he deputized Warren Christopher to oversee his search for a running mate in the spring of 1992, Bill Clinton recoiled at the suggestion that he might use the process to float names and score political points.

“I think it’s important not to play games with people’s names,” Clinton insisted. “I don’t think that’s a good thing to do.”

Sixteen years later, though, that’s precisely what Bill and Hillary Clinton are doing as they try to damn Barack Obama—the front-runner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination—with the faint praise that he’d make a fine candidate for vice president.

“I’ve had people say, ‘Well I wish I could vote for both of you,’” Hillary said in Mississippi late last week. “Well, that might be possible some day. But first I need your vote on Tuesday.”  read more »

The morning after, CNN reports that Barack Obama has already been making (cheap) ad buys ahead of the March 11 Mississippi primary, while Hillary Clinton's campaign released this jubilant statement from Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell:  read more »

PHILADELPHIA—During a short press conference at an event at Philadelphia’s City Hall where Hillary Clinton received the endorsement of Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell, a reporter asked if the governor approved of the aggressive campaigning Bill Clinton has been doing in the last few weeks against Barack Obama.

“Let me say this,” Rendell began. “You know that I have in my political career eschewed negative campaigning. But this is a rough and tumble, as Senator Clinton said, this is a tough election and the stakes are high. And everybody talks about not only what they want to do but talks about the weaknesses of what they think the other candidates” are.  read more »

PHILADELPHIA -- With the South Carolina primary three days away, Hillary Clinton is focusing on the tri-state area.
She is currently in Philadelphia’s City Hall, receiving the endorsement of Pennsylvania governor Edward Rendell.
“I’d like to take you back for a minute to the years when Hillary Clinton was our first lady,” said Rendell in his introduction of Clinton. “And Bill Clinton was our president.”
He spoke of a 45 percent decline in Pennsylvania’s deficit and a boom in jobs and “incredible economic progress” for African-American businesses and Hispanic businesses in the tri-state area.
“I will say that the Clinton years certainly had a dramatic effect on the trajectory of Pennsylvania and New Jersey and Delaware,” said Rendell, adding that he would work for Hillary in South Jersey and Delaware, which, he said “will be meaningful.”
In her own remarks, Clinton spoke of Rendell’s achievements with words she has used to criticize Barack Obama.  read more »