“On the one hand… but on the other hand…”

The October 30 debate among Democratic presidential candidates may well be remembered for the moment when Hillary Clinton was before it before she was against it.

‘It’ in this case was the plan by Gov. Eliot Spitzer to issue driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants in New York, the debate over which became the defining moment of the debate.

The truth is that Hillary has a Spitzer problem. Read more…

Mike Huckabee. Baptist preacher. Anti- same sex marriage. Not into choice. Wants creationism taught in schools. Not conservative enough?! Yeah it’s nutty, but there are some folk out there who worry Huckabee does not have enough conservative credentials to represent the GOP.

Sure he gets puppy love adoration from those who run the Family Research Council (now that’s conservative and scary!) but a couple of fiscal conservatives are not into a number of Huckabee’s speech lines on economics.

“I am not interested in being the candidate of Wall Street but of Main Street,” he says. “CEOs get paid 500 times what the average worker does, but they are not necessarily 500 times smarter or harder-working, and that is wrong.”

He’s not cribbing lines from Trotsky here and every Republican yaps on and on and on about that mythical Main Street and hard work. Heck the great Republican icon Ronald Reagan made a career out of that tableau.

Far be it for me to speak for the Gipper, but he would recognize Huckabee as a kindred spirit.

Jerry to Bill: “Watch where you put that hand, buster; Lady Bird is 87~!”

(President Clinton and former President Gerald Ford celebrating the 200th anniversary of the White House with Lady Bird Johnson, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Betty Ford on 9 November , 2000.)

Now that Gerald Ford is dead, the former president’s conversations with veteran reporter Thomas DeFrank are providing more than enough grist for several mills.

DeFrank, now Washington bureau chief for the New York Daily News, covered Ford for Newsweek, when Ford was vice president and president. Write It When I’m Gone: Remarkable Off-The-Record Conversations with Gerald R. Ford is based on talks Ford had starting in 1991 with DeFrank. And boy did Tom & Jerry talk.

According to DeFrank’s new book (released on Oct. 28), then-President Bill Clinton and his allies asked the former president to help him head off impeachment charges in 1998, at the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Ford’s response? Read more…

I missed Obama on Ellen yesterday.

But word is that he said he is for immediate FEDERAL civil unions. He told her:

“You know what I would do is immediately set up a civil union that is equal in federal rights so that all the states, all the rights that are conferred by the states are the same for gays and lesbians, same sex couples as for any other couple,” he said. “In terms of marriage, what I would do is I would say each religious denomination can make their own decision.”

Um, wow.

Let me say that again: wow.

Immediate federal civil unions goes WAY beyond what any of the top 3 Dems have voiced so far. And yes, I know that CU’s are failing miserably in Jersey. But seriously people: federal civil unions? Not “someday” but “right when I become President?”

That’s pretty damn good.

Another week, another debate. For those counting, this will be the eighth time the Dems have faced off.

Tonight it’s Drexel Univeristy in Philadelphia - Drexel is streaming it live here.

With two months to go until the first primary, the race is heating up. The blogosphere generally expects Obama to start attacking Clinton in earnest tonight; Edwards has already done his best to take the front runner down.

What probably no one will talk about is Obama bringing along that anti-gay gospel singer (despite his campaign’s hopes, tucking along a gay minister in addition is no panacea. Instead, it’s like a weird spit-take: Hey! We think gay people can change and they should but we’re gay friendly!)

Expect Clinton to throw out a lot of union-supporting applause lines, since she’s actively courting SEIU.

Expect, too, that if our issues are talked about, they will only be in the context of gay marriage, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, or ENDA - the three issues that are defining our movement this election season. But hey! We’re more than three issues! We’re a complex people!

By the way, there is weirdness circulating today surrounding Obama’s time in NY. He has said that at Columbia, he buckled down and stopped getting high. But he won’t release his transcript or the names of any friends or colleagues from that time.

Why not? Who cares. If the media can give a pass to George W. before he turned 40, certainly they can let the record of a college kid be.

Oh, and the GOP YouTube debate? It’s back on. Just don’t expect a talking snowman, kids.

They already have that talking man-of-ice, Dick Cheney.

Néstor Kirchner & Cristina Fernández de Kirchner: Mr. President applauds Madam President’s election

A popular president who is credited with engineering an economic recovery; a First Lady who wins election to the Senate and goes on to become president in her own right; questions about the role of the new First Husband and the propriety of a quasi-dynastic succession of husband to wife…

Bill and Hillary Clinton? No, Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the outgoing president and incoming president of Argentina. Read more…