Politico screws up big time

An hour before John Edwards’ official announcement that he would continue his campaign for president despite the return of his wife’s cancer, The Politico‘s Ben Smith blogged that Edwards was suspending his campaign. It was the only news outlet to report on what was going to happen, based on a source Smith had that was “an Edwards friend.”

Here was the original post:

John Edwards is suspending his campaign for President, and may drop out completely, because his wife has suffered a recurrence of the cancer that sickened her in 2004, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, an Edwards friend told The Politico.

“At a minimum he’s going to suspend” the campaign, the source said. “Nobody knows precisely how serious her recurrence is. It’ll be another couple of days before there’s complete clarity.”

“For him right now he has one priority which is her health and the security of the two young children,” said the friend.

As for the campaign, “You don’t shut this machine off completely, but everything will go on hold.”

Then the conference started and The Politico got egg on their face, majorly.

Edwards said that he was actually going to continue his campaign. Oops…

Smith posted this mea culpa:

The source, whose anonymity I agreed to respect, spoke of the kind of grim prognosis Elizabeth Edwards herself just described hearing before a second round of tests came back. I trusted the source, somebody I’ve known for several years, and who has always been reliable.

And with less than an hour before Edwards was to announce, I unwisely wrote the item without getting a second source.

For those who know, I’m a frequent reader of The Politico, just because I love political news. But there is no doubt in my mind, and this confirms, that you should only trust The Hotline for your political news. And I say that with no bias whatsoever.

Inside ObamaHQ

The New York Observer will run a really interesting look in its next issue at Barack Obama‘s campaign HQ in Chicago. The really smart people at The Hotline summarized the tour of the office as such:

• The field operations office “is cramped into a small corner room overlooking downtown Chicago. … The walls are papered in maps and yellow strips of oversized legal pads, one of which listed more than 20 states” looking to move up their primary.
• A sign reading “Welcome to the Jungle” hangs on the door of the press shop, “located outside the campaign’s main offices and opposite the locked bathrooms.”
• Elsewhere, “the people charge with finding the means to close that gap” between Obama and HRC “are plying their trade in a drab, gray-carpeted horseshoe of an office space behind the counter of the reception desk.”
• “Down the hall, policy experts without ties conferred with the campaign management in the corner office.”
• “Back toward the reception area, Eureka Gilkey,” Obama’s dep political dir, and Josh Dubois, who runs Obama’s religious-outreach operation, “sit back to back in a stuffy room that smells of scented hand lotion.”
• The entire campaign will soon move to the larger 11th floor, “filled with bullpens, conference rooms, cushioned orange seats and ample electrical outlets.” The new media team is up there now.

Axelrod works out of an office on North Franklin Street. He “almost seems to be the campaign’s token feet-on-the group realist, not only keeping the idealistic staff grounded in a day-by-day campaign approach, but keeping the young candidate himself from revealing as much of himself as the press might wish.” Both Gibbs and Axelrod say that substantive policy proposals will come in time. Axelrod: “This campaign just began, and we have 10 months to go.”

He also talks to Chris Hughes, who is the head of the new media dept., and is, at 23 (!), the youngest staffer. He comes directly from Facebook. I’m so jealous in so many ways.

SEIU Meets The Candidates, Praises Mitt Romney

[Originally posted on Hotline On Call on 1/27/07]:

This weekend, the 60-member SEIU exec. board is meeting with 8 Dem WH candidates during their annual exec. board meeting this weekend at Gallaudet University. On Friday, they met with Sens. Clinton, Biden, Edwards, Obama and Kucinich.

SEIU, you’ll recall, is the largest, most innovative union in the country.

SEIU Sec./Treas. Anna Burger said that the ’08 cycle “has allowed time for candidates to learn more about our members and our members about our candidates.” The union is starting the endorsements process so early so that SEIU can be part of the primary process and “make them the best candidate they can be for working families,” she said.

The candidates were given as much time as they took to speak and answer questions about the “issues of the working family,” which include health care, social security, immigration, and the war. The Dems’ three leading candidates—Clinton, Obama, and Edwards—impressed the members, said one attendee; Obama and Edwards even took an important step and “worked the crowd.” (One attendee implied that Sen. Biden talked too much.)

The response from the Dem candidates so early shows how important the labor vote is, especially with the union-heavy IA and NV listed as an early primary state.

On 3/24, SEIU and the Center for American Progress will host a bipartisan health care forum in Las Vegas with the Center for American Progress.

As part of SEIU endorsement process, candidates will spend a day with a member in IA or NH to “experience what they experience.” Burger: “We think that it’s really important for all candidates, Democrats or Republicans, to spend time with our members learning what it feels like to be worried about your kids having a worse life.” Candidates will also answer specific questions that will be distributed by videotape to the SIEU’s 2M members.

Burger said that she did not expect an endorsement to come out before Sept. and that the SEIU will look engage all of their members and look at both Dem and GOP candidates. [RIKI PARIKH]