Hillary Clinton

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CARTOONING THE ELECTION

Getty Images Photo

Former President Bill Clinton with Linda Stender in the closing days of the 2006 campaign

CRANFORD -- Speaking in support of Assemblywoman Linda Stender's congressional bid at Union County College today, former President Bill Clinton said Hillary had sent him.

"She said that New Jersey had been good to me and good to her, and we needed to be good to New Jersey by helping Linda Stender get elected to Congress," said Clinton.

Clinton spent the bulk of his time giving his usual stump speech for Barack Obama, but he started off by rattling off some of Stender's accomplishments in the legislature.  He characterized her as an integral part of a sweeping change needed in Washington.

"I have reviewed Linda Stender's record very carefully, and if you look at the needs of America today, I think you can make a very compelling case that she has a record that is one of the finest not only in the legislature in New Jersey, but in the entire United States of America," he said.

Clinton specifically mentioned Stender's global warming bill, her previous work dealing with mortgages, her support for stem cell research and her bill to ban junk food in school cafeterias.

He also demonstrated some familiarity with her last race against now-retiring U.S. Rep. Mike Ferguson.

"She lost by 3,000 votes last time.  There are enough people in this room to turn 3,000 votes between now and Tuesday," he said.

He was less familiar with the margins he won New Jersey by in his two elections.  Clinton said he won the first time by one percent, and the second time by 15 percent.

"We haven't won by less since," he said. (John Kerry beat President Bush in the New Jersey by 6%).

City Hall gadfly (and by-the-way Department of Transportation employee) Isac Weinberger has some predictions for Tuesday’s elections.

“On Tuesday, we might not win the State Senate, and Obama will win by 51 percent," he said. "It won’t be that overwhelming, but it will be good in the electoral votes.”

Weinberger said Obama’s narrow victory will give Hillary Clinton some prospective leverage, if she wants it.

“If Obama wins only slightly, like by two points, she could say, ‘If I would have run, I could have had 65 points.’ If Obama wins overwhelmingly, she doesn’t have that to say,” he said.

Other predictions for Tuesday?

U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) will return to Kentucky this Sunday for a second campaign swing on behalf of Democratic Senate candidate Bruce Lunsford, of Louisville.

Though specifics are not yet available, Clinton will be visiting Hazard and Louisville on November 2, according to the Lunsford campaign.

The Senator from New York earlier campaigned in Lexington and Pikeville for Lunsford. Clips from her earlier visit were assembled into a new ad from the Lunsford campaign that began airing today.

The infamous bloodhounds are back in a Kentucky Senate race, though this time on the Democratic side. One of four new ads from the campaign of Senate candidate Bruce Lunsford (D-Louisville) borrows heavily from a spot his opponent - U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Louisville) - ran in his first Senate campaign in 1984.

Like McConnell's spot then, one of Lunsford's new ads finds a look-a-like of the opponent being chased across various country landscapes and a kitchen -said to be "running from his record" - before ending up in a tree.

"We've got you know, Mitch McConnell," says a narrator, as the McConnell look-a-like sits in a tree with two dogs and a tracker barking below.

The line is the same as that which closed McConnell's famous 1984 ad targeting then-incumbent Democrat Walter 'Dee' Huddleston, though, of course, the opponents names have been switched. Huddleston was then accused of missing an excessive amount of votes by the McConnell camp.

Clinton

In a second ad, Lunsford's camp capitalizes on a campaign visit by U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), who stumped for Lunsford earlier in the campaign.

"I think that one of the great gifts Kentucky can give our country is to send Bruce Lunsford to the Senate and retire Mitch McConnell," says Clinton in the ad, in footage trimmed from a speech she delivered while in Kentucky.