Grapevine: Plan B for Clay Aiken after congressional loss
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine...
Not-So-Merry Land
School administrators in Maryland are canceling Christmas...sort of.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Montgomery County, which borders Washington D.C. was asked by local Muslim leaders to include the holy day of Eid al-Adha on the school calendar.
The board went in a drastically different direction, removing all religious holidays from the schedule.
School will still be closed, just not technically for Christmas, or Yom Kippur, or others.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The decision left many unhappy -- including the Muslim leaders. One saying -- quote -- "By stripping the names Christmas, Easter, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, they have alienated other communities now, and we are no closer to equality. It's a pretty drastic step, and they did it without any public notification."
Number Flubber
Vice President Biden occasionally struggles with numbers -- like when he said 161,000 people died in an October tornado, when the actual number was 161.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The Vice President was at it again on Veterans Day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I ask my staff early in the morning to contact the Department of Defense to get a detailed report of the number of troops deployed, the number wounded, and the number killed. Not a general number -- the exact number every day. U.S. troops died in Iraq and Afghanistan: 6,703; troops wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan: 5,168.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}(END VIDEO CLIP)
He focused in that speech, on how much focus he gives to those exact numbers -- but, unfortunately, that last number was off by 47,000. It should have been 52,168.
Plan B
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Finally, one campaign loser had a strong backup plan and donors are not happy about it.
Singer Clay Aiken lost by 18 points in his bid to become a North Carolina congressman.
But the Democrat bounced back quickly with the announcement of a TV reality show, focusing on his campaign.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}That left some Hollywood heavy hitters wondering what they had actually contributed to.
From actor/producer Steve Tyler, who organized an Aiken fundraiser -- quote -- "Apparently you had yourself covered with a reality TV show deal the entire time -- just in case you didn't win...We feel duped, taken advantage of and lied to."
Aiken told supporters in a video that neither he nor anyone in his campaign had any stake in the documentary.