The Daily Background
| The Daily Brief- Friday
by Arlen Parsa
Senate- Iraq
Now that the Senate passed the President’s emergency funding provision, the bill will be reconciled with the House version passed last week. It is unknown how long this process will take.
The Money Race
As per our special political calendar, the FEC’s first quarter ends Saturday and each campaign is trying to out-fundraise the others. Meanwhile publicly however, they are trying to lower expectations on who raised the most in order to surprise people by exceeding their artificially low expectations.
For an excellent article on this process on the Republican side at least, check out this article from The Politico. Fundraising stats will be delivered to the FEC by April 15, and made public shortly afterwards, although campaign’s own announcements or strategically-timed leaks may pre-empt the official release.
The Endorsement Race
As expected, Hillary Clinton received the endorsement of NOW (the National Organization for Women) on Wednesday. Also making headlines in the endorsement race and possibly timed to follow the NOW endorsement, Barack Obama received the endorsement of Jesse Jackson, Thursday. It’s hard to say whether Jackson is more prominent and respected among African American voters than NOW is among female voters or vice versa.
Quote of the day
“I don’t want to put any names in that hat right now.”
– Mitt Romney, 3/29/03, saying that he did not want to mention any possible VP candidates if he got the GOP nomination in 2008. Romney then proceeded to name Newt Gingrich, Jeb Bush, Mark Sanford, and Jim DeMint as possible VP candidates if he got the GOP nomination in 2008.
Iraq
3,244 (3,243 on Wednesday).
