David Corn

Washington Bureau Chief

Corn has broken stories on presidents, politicians, and other Washington players. He's written for numerous publications and is a talk show regular. His best-selling books include Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War.

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New Hampshire Debates: Accentuating the Negative

In the Democratic face-off, Hillary Clinton previewed her get-Obama strategy. During the Republican free-for-all, it was whack-a-Mitt all the time.

—By David Corn and Jonathan Stein

| Sun Jan. 6, 2008 1:00 AM PST

Dem Debate in NH Previews Clinton's Get-Obama Strategy

By David Corn

At the Democratic debate on Saturday night in New Hampshire, John Edwards came to the rescue of Barack Obama. Not that Obama needed it. But it provided Edwards the opportunity to (a) whack Hillary Clinton and (b) grab for the change wave that propelled Obama to victory in Iowa. In a debate featuring few true policy disputes, the thrusts and parries defined the final Democratic face-off before the first primary election—and they revealed the Clinton campaign's strategy for taking Obama down.

[Read the full article]

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Dem Debate in NH Previews Clinton's Get-Obama Strategy

—By David Corn

| Sat Jan. 5, 2008 11:42 PM PST

At the Democratic debate on Saturday night in New Hampshire, John Edwards came to the rescue of Barack Obama. Not that Obama needed it. But it provided Edwards the opportunity to (a) whack Hillary Clinton and (b) grab for the change wave that propelled Obama to victory in Iowa. In a debate featuring few true policy disputes, the thrusts and parries defined the final Democratic face-off before the first primary election--and they revealed the Clinton campaign's strategy for taking Obama down.

Edwards' moment came when Clinton--in a much-anticipated move--went after Obama. She accused her Senate colleague of flip-flopping on health care. First, she said, he was for single-payer health care; then he proposed a different sort of health care reform. "I think that what we're looking for is a president we can count on," she added.

As far as punches go, this was no knockout blow. Clinton's previous attempt to pick a fight with Obama over the differences in their health care plans--a distinction too wonkish for most voters to worry about--did not succeed. But she was giving it another shot, hoping to depict the winner of Iowa as just another pol. Obama gently defended himself, explaining that he had once said that his preference would be a single-payer system but that he believed it would not be practical to scrap the existing system to make way for such a plan. And he noted, again gently, that he did disagree with Clinton and Edwards on the need for mandating health care coverage. He went on to point out, gently once more, that he and Edwards both have taken a stand on Social Security--advocating a small increase in payroll taxes--which Clinton has declined to do. The two bickered some more, with Clinton claiming Obama had waffled on the Patriot Act and Iraq war funding.

Then John Edwards swooped in. "Any time you speak out powerfully for change, the forces of status quo attack," he said. He was equating Clinton with those forces. She glowered at him. Edwards continued:

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

Copycat GOPers: Mitt Channels Obama, McCain Claims He's an Agent of Change

—By David Corn

| Sat Jan. 5, 2008 3:31 PM PST

Washington is fundamentally broken. It cannot deliver what the public demands: health care coverage for all, energy independence, good schools. And we're not going to change Washington by handing more power to the same-old people already there. Hillary Clinton says she has experience, but that's not what the voters want. They want someone who can bring real change to the nation's capital.

Is that Barack Obama campaigning in New Hampshire? No, it's Mitt Romney. At an "Ask Mitt Anything" meeting on Saturday morning in Derry, Romney was channeling the Democratic victor in Iowa. After finishing second in Iowa, where he had invested so much political and actual capital, Romney, good businessman that he is, took stock of the results and saw that the political market is demanding not experience but change. So he has recalibrated his sales campaign. "The message I read into" the Iowa results, he told the assembled in Derry, is that Hillary Clinton and John McCain were "handily rejected by people with messages of change." In that category he included Mike Huckabee, the GOP winner of Iowa, Obama, the Democratic winner, and...himself. Though Romney had finished 9 points behind Huckabee, he was claiming he had not been spurned by the voters and was a fellow rider of that change wave.

This is rather imaginative bookkeeping. But you can't blame a CEO for trying. And Romney appears to be in a tight (and bitter) race with McCain in New Hampshire. So he's attempting to hijack the Obama magic and discredit McCain as just another do-nothing Washingtonian.

At the Derry event, Romney stood near a giant sign proclaiming "Washington Is Broken" and unveiled a to-do list for the U.S. government. It included almost every idea that any candidate has proposed during this campaign: protect America, end illegal immigration, reduce taxes, cut pork, provide health insurance for everyone, end dependence on foreign oil, grow the economy, fix Social Security, put people ahead of "selfish interest." He was covering all the bases. And he discussed each as if he were conducting a PowerPoint presentation. Romney also noted that much of this would not be possible unless "we get the lobbyists off the shoulders" of the legislators. With this remark, not only was he swiping Obama's message, he was also shoplifting McCain's and John Edwards'. Talk about a hostile takeover.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

In New Hampshire, Hillary Finds It Tough To Dash Obama's Hope

—By David Corn

| Fri Jan. 4, 2008 2:32 PM PST

The battle of New Hampshire—on the Democratic side—opened Friday morning with an obvious question: what, if anything, would Hillary Clinton do differently? Her 8-point loss to Barack Obama in Iowa was a clear indicator that what she had been doing until then was not working. And when it comes to the sort of voters who contributed to Obama's impressive win on Thursday night—including independent, young, and upscale voters—New Hampshire is a better hunting ground for Obama than Iowa. So reporters and politicos were wondering how Clinton would recalibrate in response to the thumpin' she had received.

Early in the morning, in a cold airport hangar in Nashua, in front of a couple of hundred people (including Arkansans and AFSCME union workers who were bussed in), Clinton provided the answer: not much. In her only major campaign appearance of the day (she would later join the other Democratic candidates at a dinner for the state Democratic party), she essentially stuck with the message that had failed her in Iowa.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

McCain in NH: Would Be "Fine" To Keep Troops in Iraq for "A Hundred Years"

—By David Corn

| Thu Jan. 3, 2008 6:43 PM PST

The United States military could stay in Iraq for "maybe a hundred years" and that "would be fine with me," John McCain told two hundred or so people at a town hall meeting in Derry, New Hampshire, on Thursday evening. Toward the end of this session, which was being held shortly before the Iowa caucuses were to start, McCain was confronted by Dave Tiffany, who calls himself a "full-time antiwar activist." In a heated exchange, Tiffany told McCain that he had looked at McCain's campaign website and had found no indication of how long McCain was willing to keep U.S. troops in Iraq. Arguing that George W. Bush's escalation of troops has led to a decline in U.S. casualties, McCain noted that the United States still maintains troops in South Korea and Japan. He said he had no objection to U.S. soldiers staying in Iraq for decades, "as long as Americans are not being injured, harmed or killed."

After the event ended, I asked McCain about his "hundred years" comment, and he reaffirmed the remark, excitedly declaring that U.S. troops could be in Iraq for "a thousand years" or "a million years," as far as he was concerned. The key matter, he explained, was whether they were being killed or not: "It's not American presence; it's American casualties." U.S. troops, he continued, are stationed in South Korea, Japan, Europe, Bosnia, and elsewhere as part of a "generally accepted policy of America's multilateralism." There's nothing wrong with Iraq being part of that policy, providing the government in Baghdad does not object.

In other words, McCain does not equate victory in Iraq--which he passionately urges at campaign events--with the removal of U.S. troops from that nation. After McCain told Tiffany that he could see troops remaining in Iraq for a hundred years, a reporter sitting next to me quipped, "There's the general election campaign ad." He meant the Democratic ad: John McCain thinks it would be okay if U.S. troops stayed in Iraq for another hundred years.....

Well, it was straight talk. And McCain's combativeness livened up a session during which he alternated between the old McCain (as in punchy, feisty, humorous) and the old McCain (as in just plain old). He moved a bit stiffly on the stage set up in the middle of the Adams Memorial Opera House. And he--somewhat oddly--shared the spotlight with Senator Joseph Lieberman, who has endorsed him. Lieberman did not merely introduce McCain; he stood by McCain during the entire event, helping McCain to answer questions about education, climate change, and the Iraq war. Several times, Lieberman gave more coherent and animated replies than did McCain. Repeatedly, Lieberman maintained that McCain could rack up bipartisan successes as president. (The Lieberman sidekick bit was curious. But an elementary-age girl in the audience did say, after being handed a microphone, that Lieberman was her role-model and that she fancied McCain. Lieberman hugged her, and the whole crowd oohed at this cuteness.)

Update: Video after the jump.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]