Top 10 Political Machine Scoops of 2008

Over at Politico, Michael Calderone has a list of the Top 10 Scoops of the Year:

1. Couric and Palin (CBS News)
2. McCain's houses (Politico)
3. Obama on "bitter" small-town Americans (Huffington Post)
4. Palin's shopping spree (Politico)
5. Clinton camp turmoil (Washington Post and The Atlantic)
6. Jeremiah Wright tapes (ABC News)
7. Network TV's military analysts (New York Times)
8. McCain's inner circle (New York Times Magazine)
9. Edwards' extramarital affair (National Enquirer)
10. Powell's endorsement (NBC)

I immediately noticed that none of these were from The Political Machine. That's somewhat understandable. For the most part, we offer commentary and analysis, and we don't get to do a lot of original reporting.

However, over the course of this year, we have managed to jump into the sandbox ourselves and pull out a scoop here and there. Here are the 10 best. My contributions will be in blue, Caleb's in Hot Pink. Or Red.

Get the new
PD toolbar!

#10 - Smerconish Endorses Obama: Conservative pundit Michael Smerconish made considerable waves with his endorsement of Barack Obama, and our Denise Williams got the straight skinny right from the horse's mouth.

#9 – Caroline Kennedy Not the Front-Runner: A good stretch before anyone else was saying it, we reported that sources really close to the Governor said that the other sources saying Caroline was a done deal were pushing the ball.

#8 – McCain Campaign Screens Press Conference Calls: While a bunch of blogs all over the internet tried, and failed, to prove this, we got the goods on Team McCain, who only like "friendly" questions.

#7 – Hillary Rules Out Spot on McCain Ticket: This would become a hot topic in June, with dead-ender PUMAs holding onto every scrap of hope that they'd be able to vote for Hillary, but not Obama, in November. Too bad Tommy got them (snippily) on record at the beginning of March.

#6 – Obama's Birth Certificate: While YestoDemocracy.com had been all over this story for months, our own Liza Porteus Viana heralded its breakthrough to the mainstream press with an exclusive Q&A with the "birfers."

#5 – Hillary Just Says "No Deal" to PUMA: We were the only news outlet to get Hillary Clinton's campaign to repudiate PUMA by name, and to dispute their grossly inaccurate fundraising numbers. That information came in handy for David Shuster, who used it to good effect in this Hardball clip.



#4 – Anonymous Didn't Hack Palin: While Caleb wasn't quite first with this story, he was unquestionably the best, providing first-person reporting, and explaining the unexplainable. This report was one of the best-written things on this page this year.

#3 – Fox News Reporter Attacked in Denver: Although I glommed half of the credit for this, Caleb really got the money shot, Fox News reporter Griff Jenkins being attacked by protesters in Denver. As luck wouold have it, I had about half-an-hour of footage of griff leading up to the attack, including a heated verbal joust with another journalist.

#2 – Don Fowler Thanks God: Caleb Howe strikes again, catching former DNC chair Don Fowler waxing dickish about Hurricane Gustav for a planeload of colleagues. Caleb's like a young, right-wing Allen Funt. Or Bob Saget, for the young-'uns.

#1 – Barack Obama Not Buying His Wife a $30,000 Ring: The story was pushed by Drudge, denied by the Obama press office, but only Tommy got a (hilarious) denial from the jeweler, who spurned all other requests for comment.

Tommy on: BlogTalkRadio I Digg! I Facebook I Twitter

Follow PoliticsDaily On Facebook and Twitter,
and download the new Politics Daily toolbar!