2008 & Counting

Reid hints Dem leaders will push superdelegates to make a decision

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Thursday that three of the party’s most influential figures might join to convince Democratic superdelegates to make up their minds which presidential candidate to support.

Reid said he, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean might write a joint letter, or individual letters, to superdelegates after the last primaries in early June, “unless something comes up.”

{mosads}Reid rejected suggestions that the nomination fight may extend to the Democratic Convention in August, and expected superdelegates to make up their minds before the beginning of July.

“I’ve said for several weeks now that this matter will be over by sometime in June, or no later than the first of July. I still believe that that’s the case,” he told reporters.

At a closed-door meeting Wednesday, Reid said “seven or eight” or “maybe even more than that” of his Senate chairmen indicated they had not yet made up their minds on whom to support, adding that one chairman planned to make a decision “pretty soon.”

“So people are in the process of making a decision,” Reid said. “I think people will have plenty of opportunity after the last primaries to make a decision.”

Despite the length and nature of the race, Reid said he “feels comfortable where we are” because of Democratic voter registration, which is “rising rapidly.”

— Manu Raju

McCain blasts Bush over Katrina

Presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), touring the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans as part of his “It’s Time for Action” tour, slammed President George W. Bush’s handling of Hurricane Katrina, promising, “Never again.”

On an otherwise quiet day in presidential politics, McCain called the handling of the disaster “disgraceful,” according to reports, acknowledging in direct response to a question that he thinks the failed response can be traced directly to the top.

“I’m just saying I would’ve landed my airplane at the nearest Air Force base and come over personally,” McCain said, according to Reuters.

The White House responded that Bush “absolutely took responsibility for any failing on the part of the federal government.”

“But at the same time there were problems at the … state and local levels, as well, which they have admitted to,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. “One thing I would point to is that — it was the largest hurricane to hit us. It hit us hard and it hit us in a spot where we were the most vulnerable; where we had citizens who were living in a place that was really in a bowl, and they suffered the consequences of a terrible flooding.”

McCain’s visit to the area sparked a war of words between the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Republicans after the DNC criticized McCain for the trip.

“Touring the 9thWard with reporters can’t hide the fact that John McCain voted against billions of dollars in Katrina recovery efforts, emergency healthcare for survivors, unemployment assistance for displaced workers and even the creation of a commission to find out what went wrong,” DNC Chairman Howard Dean said in a statement. “People in the Gulf Coast can hardly afford four more years of the failed Bush-McCain agenda.”

The Republican National Committee reminded reporters that Dean once called for an end to partisanship in rebuilding New Orleans.

— Sam Youngman

Coburn responds to Obama’s comparison

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) thinks Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) made a mistake last week when he compared Coburn to his association with a Vietnam War activist.

In defending his friendship with the Vietnam-era domestic terrorist William Ayers at the last debate, Obama said he is also “friendly with Tom Coburn, one of the most conservative Republicans in the United States Senate, who, during his campaign, once said that it might be appropriate to apply the death penalty to those who carried out abortions.”

Coburn said that he still considers Obama “one of my friends, and we’ve talked.” But he added: “Everybody makes gaffes. Period.”

Coburn said it is “absolutely not” a fair comparison.

Some of Coburn’s allies in opposing abortion agreed.

“I don’t think it was a fair comparison,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.).

Obama’s supporters said that the comparison was fair, and used appropriately.

“They are friends, and that’s the point he tried to make, and that he might see these issues differently,” said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), one of Obama’s biggest supporters.

Durbin said critics who said Obama threw his GOP friend under the bus were being “overly sensitive.”

Obama’s invocation of Coburn’s name also seems to have the backing of Coburn’s fellow Oklahoma senator, Republican James Inhofe.

“Frankly, I think he probably thought that through, knowing that question would come up,” Inhofe said. “ And it was a good example for him to use — I thought.”

— M.R.