Democratic Chatter 11-16-2008

George Wenschhof

Representatives for President-elect Obama meet with world leaders at economic summit - Former secretary of State Madeline Albright and former Republican Representative Jim Leach released a short statement pertaining to their meetings. Basically reiterated there is one President at a time, they had listened to what the world Leaders had to say and expressed Obama's desire to continue working with them on this critical economic issue. You can read the release here.

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As expected, world leaders agreed to continue to work together on the global economic crisis - Leaders from 19 countries and the European Union meeting this weekend in D.C. agreed to continue to work together but left the specifics to be determined. As we reported earlier, the next meeting will be held in April after Barack Obama has been sworn in as President. McClatchydc.com has more here.

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President-elect Barack Obama thanks voters of Illinois - In a public letter to voters of the state who elected him Senator, he thanks them and informs them he is stepping down to prepare for his duties as president-elect. The Chicago Sun Times has the letter here.

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More White House staff announced - Pete Rouse will be a Senior Advisor to President-elect Obama and Mona Sutphen and Jim Messina were named as Deputy Chief of Staffs. Also more Clintonistas, Washington D.C. lawyer Greg Craig is expected to be named White House Chief Counsel and Ronald Klain Chief of Staff to Vice-President elect Joe Biden.. Read more here.

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Iraq cabinet approves U.S. security agreement - legal authority for US troops to be in their country is set to expire December 31. The agreement will now be sent to the Iraq Parliament for final approval. It calls for withdraw of U.S. troops from Iraq towns and cities by the summer of next year. However, it does not call for the withdraw of U.S. troops from Iraq until the end of 2011. it appears likely this will be an agreement that will be inherited by the incoming Obama administration. The NY Times has more here.

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Does Terry McAuliffe have a chance to be Governor of Virginia? - we'll know soon as he has set up his exploratory committee. He was the national chair of Senator Clinton's presidential campaign, but had little impact on strategy. He is also a former chair of the Democratic National Committee, during which time some disgruntled Democrats nicknamed him "McAwful". Politico.com has more here.

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Interesting stats on the recent Presidential election - Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post points out some actual numbers from the election. One that may be surprising is that the black and youth vote did not increase by huge numbers. Cillizza points out the black vote made up 11% of the vote in 2004 and 13% in 2008. The youth (age18-29) went from 17% to 18%. However the percentage of their vote increased for Obama over Kerry in 2004. Obama received an increase of 7 points by blacks and 13 points by youth. You can read his column here.

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