Obama Wins Guam Caucus
This is the seal I designed
to show my blog's support
for Hillary's candidacy.
Back when I was infamous in the anti-Clinton whitosphere for my tireless and infuriating diaries in support of Hillary Clinton, and before she announced her candidacy for the presidency, I got an e-mail and then a telephone call here in Brazil from Peter Daou, Hillary Clinton's Internet coordinator. Peter asked me to blog for Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy, and I agreed to help in any way that I could. He asked me not to divulge Hillary's decision to run for the presidency before it was officially announced and I kept my promise not to do so.
I took a look at Hillary's new beta site for blogging, but I quickly decided that expressing my firebrand opinions there would do her more harm than good. Moreover, I decided that my loyalty lay with the Black People and the development of our AfroSpear, not with any particular presidential campaign.
Peter Daou never offered me employment with recompense and I never request or accepted any.
When Barack Obama joined the race, I immediately perceived that this could cause problems for Hillary. Within days of Hillary's announcement of her candidacy, I sent the following e-mail to Peter Daou, warning him (and Hillary's campaign) that if she took the color-aroused scorched earth approach to Barack Obama that she is presently taking, then she would lose all hope of winning the Black vote. Well, apparently they ignored me, and it's about time I told the public about it.
Here's the e-mail I sent to Peter Daou on Wednesday, January 17, 2007, because I foresaw and wanted to help Clinton avoid the very troubles with the Black electorate that have prevented her from winning the nomination:
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 10:39:28 -0800 (PST)
From: AKA Manic Attorney
Contact Details Add Mobile Alert
Subject: Hillary and Obama: Confidential
To: "Peter Daou" __@___
Dear Peter:Although Barack Obama has entered the presidential race, I believe Hillary has the best domestic and international experience, institutional support, national contacts, public familiarity and political resilience to win the nomination and the general election, particularly if she maintains the right relationship with Senator Obama in the primaries. If she doesn't, winning the nomination might not ultimately be worth very much, since it will not be possible for Hillary to win a general election without the enthusiastic support of Obama's prospective black, young and independent voter base.
This e-mail and these strategy suggestions assume, for the moment, that Senator Obama will continue to out-pace all other candidates except Hillary Clinton.
To increase Black support while winning the primaries against Barack Obama, Hillary needs to very publicly maintain a very collegial and mutually supportive relationship with Obama throughout the primaries. Her collaborative and supportive relationship with Obama will show that she is not "divisive", while the contrary could leave her seeming increasingly isolated. Cont.
One way of maintaining and increasing support among Black voters is for Hillary to intimate to Black voters that if Senator Obama acquits himself in the 2008 primaries in same the stellar fashion that he has until now, and comes in second in the primaries, then he could receive serious consideration for the Vice Presidential slot, commensurate with the support actually received from primary voters.If Clinton's campaign had heeded my advice, they would have negotiated a partnership with Barack Obama in which both of them would win, and the Party would be united right now. Instead, they apparently assumed that there was no way a Black man could pose a threat to their political aspirations, and there was no way that loyal Black voters would abandon them, after "all they had done for us."I am certain that it will help Hillary in Black communities if Blacks perceive Hillary as being the most likely among the Democrats candidates to offer the VP nod to Barack Obama, particularly for Blacks who doubt that a Black man will be elected President. For Blacks, the possibility that Barack could be Hillary's running mate will be yet another compelling reason for to support Hillary Clinton in the primaries.
So, Hillary needs to carefully telegraph to Blacks that if Senator Obama places second in the primaries, with historic and enthusiastic support from Democrats and Independents across the board, then Senator Obama could well find a place on the ticket in the VP slot in this meritocracy of ours. And this with no public handwringing over the fact that he is Black, unlike the treatment that Rev. Jesse Jackson received when he came in second in the 1988 Democratic Primaries.
This is a matter of simple fairness, but is also a politically astute approach to unifying the Party by putting the strongest candidates on the ticket.
Although traditionally no public promises are made about whom the VP nominee will be, Black voters and all Obama supporters need to be encouraged to consider both putting Hillary and Obama in the White House by getting out the vote and making Hillary Clinton their choice in 2008. A warm, collegial and collaborative relationship between Hillary and Senator Obama can help send this message. Encouraging Blacks and others to view Hillary and Obama as potentially both being nominees will allow Hillary to pursue the nomination vigorously without requiring Black voters to choose between putting Hillary or Obama in the White House.
I am not suggesting that Hillary Clinton must choose Barack Obama as her running mate. I am merely saying a perceived disposition toward an historic and principled fairness and even-handedness in the relationship with Obama will inevitably help Hillary in Black communities.
Sincerely,
AKA Manic Lawyer, Esq.
I and most of the rest of Black America was willing to enter into a constructive partnership with the Clintons for 2008, but we were not and are not willing to be taken for granted. I warned the Clinton campaign that any disrespect of toward Barack Obama would be taken as a personal affront by most Black voters. Apparently, they either didn't believe me or they didn't think it mattered.
A word to the wise is sufficient. But, don't cast your pearls upon swine.
Slate:"Here's a rule I would like every political reporter, campaign official, TV talking head, and politician in the United States to follow. Go ahead and say, if you like, that Hillary Clinton retains a serious chance of winning the Democratic nomination. If you say this, however, you must describe a set of circumstances whereby this could happen. Try not to make it sound like a fairy tale....
"So, please, let's stop pretending there's much suspense about who the nominee will be. As an arithmecrat, I will not consider anyone the winner until a candidate achieves 2,025 delegates. But neither am I obliged to believe Hillary Clinton has a plausible shot. She doesn't."
By CHARLES BLOW, Op-Ed Columnist.....On the other hand, black Democrats’ opinion of Hillary Clinton has deteriorated substantially (her favorable rating among them is down 36 percentage points over the same period).
While a favorable opinion doesn’t necessarily translate into a vote, this should still give the Clintons (and the superdelegates) pause. Electability cuts both ways.
If Hillary Clinton should defy the odds (and the current math) and secure the nomination, she would be hard-pressed to defeat John McCain without the enthusiastic support of black voters, stalwarts of the Democratic base.....
Al Glordano had this to say:Since January, the Clintons have pummeled Barack Obama with racially tinged comments and questions about his character…
The question is this: Have white Democrats soured on Obama? Apparently not. Although his unfavorable rating from the group is up five percentage points since last summer in polls conducted by The New York Times and CBS News, his favorable rating is up just as much.
Wait. The numbers show that the cynical effort to turn the 2008 campaign into a race riot has hurt the popularity of one candidate among an important demographic, and it’s not Barack Obama:
On the other hand, black Democrats’ opinion of Hillary Clinton has deteriorated substantially (her favorable rating among them is down 36 percentage points over the same period).
So, to sum up: Look at the damn graphs. You can see that Clinton is in a staggering free-fall among African-American voters, her favorability is down 36 points while 17 percent view her more negatively than before, while Obama’s favorable and negative ratings among whites have paired at five point increases. You can even see the small dip - about two percentage points - in his popularity among whites that can be attributed to the news cycles about his ex-pastor, and see that it has leveled out and is now on a straight horizontal line (meanwhile, Clinton’s numbers among blacks continue on an extreme downward precipice). The greater context is that even including Obama’s slight dip, he’s more popular today among white voters than he ever was prior to February.
Not since Ronald Reagan has an American presidential candidate withstood such an assault in the media and seen his popularity not hurt by it, but, rather, galvanized by it. That’s what is meant, in politics, by the term “Teflon.”
Those facts won’t stop many media (and Internet) talking heads from continuing - whether out of gullibility or intentional dishonesty - to prop up the “white voters” narrative, but it ought to inoculate you, kind reader, from believing it.
Don’t let yourself get upset when some idiot repeats the false media narrative. Don’t plead with them to tell the truth (they won’t; remember, they’re either stupid or dishonest). Mock them. Ridicule them. Expose them as the lightweights they are showing themselves to be, with all the confidence that understanding the hard data ought to provide you.
Let Operation Anti-Chaos begin!
Superdelegate Brian Colon, the Democratic Party Chairman in swing-state New Mexico, backs Obama.
Endorsements like his are particularly meaningful, because local party leaders see the nominee in part as the top of a ballot in which they'll be fighting races at state and local levels.
Update:
Carl Bernstein
For several weeks, the Clinton campaign has been distributing literature and disseminating incendiary notions -- which figured significantly in Pennsylvania, and are now central to the candidate's message in Indiana and North Carolina -- assailing Barack Obama for his association with Bill Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground, the radical, violent organization responsible for bombing several government buildings in the early 1970s.
In their debate in Philadelphia, after moderator George Stephanoplous had raised the question of Obama's relationship with Ayers, Hillary Clinton elaborated on the subject, seeking to add to its significance:
SEN. CLINTON: ...I also believe that Senator Obama served on a board with Mr. Ayers for a period of time, the Woods Foundation, which was a paid directorship position. And if I'm not mistaken, that relationship with Mr. Ayers on this board continued after 9/11 and after his reported comments, which were deeply hurtful to people in New York, and I would hope to every American, because they were published on 9/11 and he said that he was just sorry they hadn't done more. And what they did was set bombs and in some instances people died. So it is -- you know, I think it is, again, an issue that people will be asking about.
Whether this is 21st century McCarthyism--as argued by several important commentators not publicly allied with Obama -- among them Stanley Fish in the New York Times (who has written several admiring columns about her candidacy) and Rick Hertzberg of the New Yorker -- is a matter readers will have to decide.
It is absurd, aides say, to think that Clinton can overcome Obama's built-in advantages there, and it sets unfair expectations on her when the possibility of a Clinton victory is broached. It's a fair point, but possibly irrelevant. It may well be that an upset victory is the only way to unblinker the superdelegates. It might not serve the principles of justice, but it is what it is.
It's absurd to suggest that Clinton must show strength in a state in which the demographics don't favor her, but not absurd to claim that Obama is unelectable because he can't win states in which the demographics don't favor him?
That sounds like a double standard. But in the Clinton world, it is she that is the victim.
CLINTON ADVISERS think their candidate is being held to an unreasonable standard. Why should she have to consistently demonstrate her capacity to win in major states?
Um ... perhaps because she has already lost the delegate count and the number of states won, and will also lose the popular vote count. So if she wants a coup by superdelegate, she better show that Obama is no longer viable.
If we're going to hear about how Obama can't win downscale whites (which is a real problem east of the Mississippi), we better hear about how Clinton loses big among African Americans, educated whites, and independents (which she has lost in every state except Arkansas, Oklahoma, Massachusetts and Rhode Island).
From CBS News' Fernando Suarez:
ANAPOLIS — Until now, Shirley Morgan had always been the kind of voter the Republican Party thought it could count on. She comes from a family of staunch Republicans, has a son in the military and has supported Republican presidential candidates ever since she cast her first ballot, for Richard M. Nixon in 1972. But this year Mrs. Morgan exemplifies a different breed: the Republican crossing over to vote in the Democratic primary. Not only will she mark her ballot for Senator Barack Obama in the May 6 primary here, but she has also been canvassing for him in the heavily Republican suburbs of Hamilton County, just north of Indianapolis — the first time she has ever actively campaigned for a candidate.
By JIM RUTENBERG, NYTThey also share something else, long and complicated relations with the Clintons that have informed fierce criticism this year — often from the echo chamber of liberal press criticism on the Internet and sometimes stoked by the campaigns — that the hosts have been shallow or unfair in some of their questioning. Mr. Stephanopoulos, who worked in the Bill Clinton White House as a top aide to Mr. Clinton, was attacked for being too hard on Mr. Obama last month in a debate...
I am referring to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. I disagree with and disapprove of the things he says. The U.S. government did not spread AIDS among the black community, 9/11 was not the chickens coming home to roost, etc. He seems like a bright man, warm, humorous and compelling, but also needful and demanding of the spotlight, a showman prone to crackpottery, and I have to wonder how much respect he has for his congregation. He shows a lot of fury and does a lot of yelling for a leader of the followers of the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
Join us in demanding that Democratic Party leadership and superdelegates uphold the integrity of the party and listen to the voice of voters.
Here is the text of the message we'll send to the Democratic Party's leadership unless you create your own statement.
DNC Chair Howard Dean, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and superdelegates:The Democratic Party is playing a dangerous game and I'm writing to ask that you bring it to an end.
It has come to my attention that elected officials and party leaders are actually considering using their status as "superdelegates" to hand the nomination to Hillary Clinton against the will of voters, an action that would disenfranchise millions.
Following this course would be a shocking attack on voting rights and democracy. It would also give your seal of approval to an "electability" strategy executed by stoking race-based fear and division among voters. We expect that from the Republicans; we fight them on it every year. But now the leadership of the Democratic Party is poised to cosign this strategy of division and disenfranchisement. This could be the worst mistake the party has ever made, yet it's being talked about as a legitimate way for this campaign to end.
The voters who have come out in record numbers to participate in the Democratic Party won't allow this to happen, and as the most visible leaders of the party, you must reject the idea that the nomination can be won with a strategy that preys on racism, sows division, and disenfranchises millions of voters.
Sincerely,
Chicago, IL – Today, Former Democratic National Committee Chair and Massachusetts supderdelegate Paul G. Kirk, Jr. endorsed Barack Obama. The endorsement brings the total number of superdelegates to endorse Barack Obama to 253. Senator Obama is 279 delegates away from securing the Democratic nomination.
“It is with a great sense of pride and confidence in his leadership that I am delighted to publicly endorse Senator Barack Obama and pledge my support to him as former National Democratic Chairman and as a superdelegate. Senator Obama is the one candidate who has and will continue to expand the electorate beyond the traditional Democratic party base and bring young and new and Independent voters to the Democratic banner in November, an essential ingredient to a Democratic victory.......
His full statement can be found here.
Must read: Sidney Blumenthal Uses Former Right-Wing Foes To Attack Obama 
Hillary Watch Update: Last night, they teamed up on an "analysis" of Barack Obama's speech on Jeremiah Wright. You have to watch it to believe it -- it was almost like a video press release for the Clinton campaign:
They were so overtly biased last night that I decided it was time to go back to the video of the Philadelphia debate and edit together a montage. Before you press play, let me offer one warning: you're going to get angry watching this.
Mayor Daley
|APUNITED NATIONS — Iran strongly condemned presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton late Wednesday for threatening to attack and "totally obliterate" the country if it uses nuclear weapons.
Iran's deputy U.N. ambassador, Mehdi Danesh-Yazdi, called an April 22 statement on ABC by the New York senator, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, "provocative, unwarranted and irresponsible" and "a flagrant violation" of the U.N. Charter.
Clinton was asked by ABC News' Chris Cuomo in an interview that aired on "Good Morning America" what she would do if she wins the White House and Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons, according to the ABC News Web site.
"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," Clinton said. "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."
Danesh-Yazdi's letter used a partial quote that did not mention an attack on Israel. It said Clinton "unwarrantedly and under erroneous and false pretexts threatened to use force against the Islamic Republic of Iran."
The Iranians sent the letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and asked that he circulate it to the Security Council.
WASHINGTON (AP) - A leader of the Democratic Party under Bill Clinton has switched his allegiance to Barack Obama and is encouraging fellow Democrats to "heal the rift in our party" and unite behind the Illinois senator.Joe Andrew, who was Democratic National Committee chairman from 1999-2001, planned a news conference Thursday in his hometown of Indianapolis to urge other Hoosiers to support Obama in Tuesday's primary, perhaps the most important contest left in the White House race. He also has written a lengthy letter explaining his decision that he plans to send to other superdelegates.
"I am convinced that the primary process has devolved to the point that it's now bad for the Democratic Party," Andrew said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
Bill Clinton appointed Andrew chairman of the DNC near the end of his presidency, and Andrew endorsed the former first lady last year on the day she declared her candidacy for the White House.
Andrew said in his letter that he is switching his support because "a vote for Hillary Clinton is a vote to continue this process, and a vote to continue this process is a vote that assists (Republican) John McCain."
"While I was hopeful that a long, contested primary season would invigorate our party, the polls show that the tone and temperature of the race is now hurting us," Andrew wrote. "John McCain, without doing much of anything, is now competitive against both of our remaining candidates. We are doing his work for him and distracting Americans from the issues that really affect all of our lives."
Update 1: A pre-emptive strike from Andrew
n his letter to fellow superdelegates, Joe Andrew -- whose switch today is a very useful moment for Obama -- pre-emptively guesses how the Clinton campaign will cast him, and accuses them of hypocrisy.
Full Letter HereMy endorsement of Senator Obama will not be welcome news to my friends and family at the Clinton campaign. If the campaign's surrogates called Governor Bill Richardson, a respected former member of President Clinton's cabinet, a "Judas" for endorsing Senator Obama, we can all imagine how they will treat somebody like me. They are the best practitioners of the old politics, so they will no doubt call me a traitor, an opportunist and a hypocrite. I will be branded as disloyal, power-hungry, but most importantly, they will use the exact words that Republicans used to attack me when I was defending President Clinton.
When they use the same attacks made on me when I was defending them, they prove the callow hypocrisy of the old politics first perfected by Republicans. I am an expert on this because these were the exact tools that I mastered as a campaign volunteer, a campaign manager, a State Party Chair and the National Chair of our Party. I learned the lessons of the tough, right-wing Republicans all too well. I can speak with authority on how to spar with everyone from Lee Atwater to Karl Rove. I understand that, while wrong and pernicious, shallow victory can be achieved through division by semantics and obfuscation. Like many, I succumbed to the addiction of old politics because they are so easy.
"If President Bush is more unpopular than the Reverend Wright, the Republicans are in a lot of trouble."
More from the Howey-Gauge poll in Indiana: "The Democratic primary is going to be decided by non-Democrats. To be determined is which group -- Republicans or independents -- are going to decide this race."
North Carolina's attorney general has just put out a press release (pdf) saying that he's investigating the calls and taking credit for having them stopped. "Regardless of the motivation, the robo-calls violated the law and they needed to stop," Roy Cooper said. He also includes a correspondence with the group's lawyer. In the letter, Cooper requests a variety of information about the calls.
Sarah Johnson, the group's spokeswoman declined to comment on the correspondence, referring questions to the group's lawyer. But she did say that the calls occurred last Thursday and Friday in North Carolina as they did in all the other 24 states (pdf) targeted by the group this April.
Organization Trying to Stop Remaining Mail in North Carolina
"In an attempt to prevent further confusion surrounding our voter registration efforts prior to the North Carolina primary, Women’s Voices. Women Vote took the extra step of attempting to stop the remaining mail from being delivered to homes. In total, 20 postal trucks are carrying Women’s Voices. Women Vote registration applications. Four of the trucks have already delivered, but Women’s Voices. Women Vote is making every attempt to delay the delivery of the remaining sixteen trucks.
In regards to the questions from the Facing South blog post regarding robo-calls associated with our mailing, we offer this clarification:
“North Carolina is one of 24 states where we mailed a total of more than 3 million voter registration applications.
“Calls were made to mail recipients for whom we have working phone numbers to alert the household they would be receiving a voter registration form and encouraging them to register to vote. In advance of the mail, a letter was sent to Gary Bartlett in the North Carolina Board of Elections Office. A copy of the letter and a press release sent to North Carolina media announcing the registration effort is attached.
“We understand concerns have been raised about the source of phone calls placed by Women's Voices, Women Vote. These calls were our sincere attempt to encourage voter registration for those not registered for the general election this fall. We understand North Carolina's primary registration effort deadline was April 11. We apologize for any confusion our calls may have caused. Our intent and purpose was solely to call attention to the registration applications we hope will be completed and returned to the Board of Elections office making thousands more North Carolinians participants in one of the most important elections of our lifetimes.
By Chris Kromm, Facing SouthNow Women's Voices is plunging North Carolina into the same confusion. State officials tell Facing South they are still receiving calls from frustrated and confused voters, wondering why "Lamont Williams" is offering to send them a "voter registration packet" after the deadline for mail-in registration for the primaries has passed.
In correspondence with North Carolina election officials, Women's Voices founder and President Page Gardner merely said that the disruptive timing was an "unfortunate coincidence" -- a strange alibi for a group with their level of resources and sophistication.
There are other questions about Women's Voices' outreach efforts. Although the group purports to be targeting "unmarried women," their calls and mailings don't fit the profile. Kevin Farmer in Durham, who first recorded the call, is a white male. Many of the recipients are African-American; Rev. Nelson Johnson, who is a married, male and African-American, reported that his house was called four times by the mysterious "Lamont Williams."
And as Farmer asks, "Why are they using a guy for the calls if the target audience is single women?"
Some have also questioned the ties between Women's Voices operatives and Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton. Gardner, for example, contributed $2,500 to Clinton's HILLPAC on May 4, 2006, and in March 2005 she donated a total of $4,200 to Clinton, according to The Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets.org. She has not contributed to the Obama campaign, according to the database.
Women's Voices Executive Director Joe Goode worked for Bill Clinton's election campaign in 1992 as a pollster; the group's website says he was intimately involved in "development and implementation of all polling and focus groups done for the presidential primary and general election campaigns" for Clinton.
Women's Voices board member John Podesta, former Chief of Staff for President Bill Clinton, donated $2,300 to Hillary Clinton on April 19, 2007, according to OpenSecrets.org. Podesta also donated $1,000 to Barack Obama in July 2004, but that was well before Obama announced his candidacy for president.
"The reports from other states are very disturbing, especially the pattern of mass confusion among targeted voters on the eve of a state's primary," Democracy North Carolina's Bob Hall tells Facing South. "These are highly skilled political operatives -- something doesn't add up. Maybe it's all well-intended and explainable. At this moment, our first priority is to stop the robo-calls and prevent the chaos and potential disenfranchisement caused by this group sending 276,000 packets of registration forms into North Carolina a few days before a heated primary election. We need their immediate cooperation."
Benefit of the doubt? Not this time. Please take a look at the group's (Women's Voices/Women Vote) Directors/Leadership Team.
1. John Podesta -- Chief of Staff to Bill Clinton 98-01.
2. Mimi Mager -- Member Clinton-Gore Transition team.
3. Michael Lux -- Clinton Gore Alumni Association (ClintonGoreAlumni.org (CGA) is member-driven organization that seeks to maintain an ongoing network among those former political appointees of the Clinton-Gore Administration, the national '92 and '96 campaigns and Democratic Party activists around the country.
4. Joe Goode -- the Senior Analyst on company CEO Stan Greenberg's work for the Clinton for President campaign in 1992.
(http://www.wvwv.org/about/board-and-bios)
And look who their legal counsel is.
"[t}here's more to [Holly] Schadler and her law firm than a list of corporate pigs and polluters. Schadler, a former Sierra Club official, is an operator for the Clinton White House. She, along with Robert Bauer and Judith Corley--two other partners at Perkins Coie--incorporated the Back to Business Committee, set up in 1994 by Lynn Cutler and Ann Lewis (Democratic Party operators) to defend Bill and Hillary.
http://eatthestate.org/03-38/NaturePolitics.htm
So gee, I wonder who is behind these calls. Nice legal advice, Holly Schadler.
And guess who was on the board at late as 2007?
Clinton Campaign ManagerMAGGIE WILLIAMS. (Part Of the Leadership Team)
Yeah, and I'M the one wearing the tinfoil hat?
Ain't enough 'coincidences' in the Western World.
Well, one insider says she was booked on Keith Olberman and Morning Joe to talk about her tome — and then unbooked. “These are shows that call her regularly to come on. And then the word came from on high that she had to be cancelled.”
It seems that Arianna Huffington has run up against the impenetrable wall that is Tim Russert’s ego. Huffington, who is currently on tour for her new book Right Is Wrong: How The Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded The Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe, will be appearing on CNN, ABC, and CBS. She had been booked on Morning Joe and Countdown with Keith Olbermann as well, but those bookings were suddenly and inexplicably cancelled.
NBC confirmed that Huffington wouldn’t be booked on any NBC-affiliated show to promote her book, but refused to explain why. Huffington’s people say that this is Tim Russert’s doing, that Russert is out for revenge because Huffington called him a “conventional wisdom zombie” in her book and devoted seven pages to faulting Russert for allowing his Meet the Press guests to go unchallenged (not to mention HuffPo’s RussertWatch).
Oh, did the poor widdle WATB get his feelings hurt? Or were Arianna’s words just a little too close for comfort?
Usually I see no reason to chime in on an issue that many other people have discussed. But, perhaps because I've just come back to China, I feel obliged to register a view for the record about destructive nuttiness in my homeland: The pandering and ignorance-across-party-lines represented by the John McCain-Hillary Clinton united front for a temporary reduction in the gasoline tax should make Americans hold their heads in their hands and moan. No one who has thought about this issue thinks that it will actually reduce prices or -- more important -- help the the people disproportionately hurt by $100+/barrel oil and $4 gasoline. And to the extent it has any effect on America's long-term approach to energy policy, transportation, oil dependence, and climate change, the effect will be perverse.
I can imagine that John McCain, who boasts about his sketchy command of economics, might consider this a good idea. But the master of policy, Hillary Clinton??
Please. This is embarrassing. It makes me long for the good old days of debating about flag pins on the lapel. And I wonder: has there been bipartisan agreement to stupider effect in, say, the last fifty years? The US Senate's 88-2 vote in favor of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964 doesn't count: they didn't know what lay ahead. Hillary Clinton, at least, knows why what she is saying is wrong. I will pay for a year's subscription to the Atlantic for anyone who can come up with a more foolishly destructive bipartisan example.
Update: The 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force vote that paved the way for war in Iraq doesn't count either. That vote reflected terrible judgment, in my view, but not outright stupidity or, as with the current gas-tax charade, certain foreknowledge that the policy being recommended would do no good.
The Obama campaign just posted a new delegate tracker on BarackObama.com and it will count down the delegates until he secures the nomination. It's something you won't see on HillaryClinton.com, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why. According to the tracker, Obama needs just 288 more delegates to secure the nomination. That works out to 40% of the uncommitted delegates. Also, given that he's a lock to get at least 200 more pledged delegates, it means he really only needs 88 of the undeclared superdelegates -- just under 30%.
Bottom-line is that barring a catastrophic collapse, Barack Obama's delegate math is just unbeatable. Of course, the media doesn't want to tell you that story -- if people stopped paying attention to the primary campaign, their ratings would suffer.
As for me, all I know is that I barely watch news on television any more -- I just DVR the evening broadcasts and sometimes check them out. (And until the mainstream news blogs start covering the general, I won't be spending much time on them either.) I still do watch is Countdown, though.
(h/t The Jeb Report)
By Steven Thomma | McClatchy NewspapersINDIANAPOLIS — It's a story Hillary Clinton loves to tell, about how the Chinese government bought a good American company in Indiana, laid off all its workers and moved its critical defense technology work to China.
And it's a story with a dramatic, political ending. Republican President George W. Bush could have stopped it, but didn't.
If she were president, she says, she'd fight to protect those jobs. It's just the kind of talk that's helping her win support form working-class Democrats worried about jobs and paychecks, not to mention their country's security.
What Clinton never tells in the oft-repeated tale is the role prominent Democrats played in selling the company and its technology to the Chinese. She never mentions that big-time Democratic contributor George Soros helped put together the deal to sell the company, or that the sale was approved by the administration of her husband.
"Hillary Clinton must have been hoping we Hoosiers have short memories," Ed Dixon of Valparaiso said in a letter to a local newspaper after a recent Clinton visit. "Her husband was president at the time and allowed this to happen."
"They would have us believe Bush was behind this sale," added Fred Sliger of Valparaiso in another letter, "when in fact the Clinton administration rubber-stamped this along with the sale of numerous other high-tech secrets to the Chinese. …Let's get the facts straight."
By & Capitol Hill insiders say the battle for congressional superdelegates is over, and one Senate supporter of Barack Obama is hinting strongly that he has prevailed over Hillary Rodham Clinton.Since the Pennsylvania primary Obama has picked-up 7 to Clinton's 3 superdelegate.
SUPERDELEGATES: Clinton 265-244 (286 uncommitted)
PLEDGED: Obama 1,490-1,334
OVERALL: Obama 1,734-1,599
*** UPDATE ***
OBAMA (7):
Brad Henry (OK GOV), Audra Ostergard (NE DNC), David Wu (OR Rep), Charlene Fernandez (AZ DNC), Jeff Bingaman (NM SEN), Ben Chandler (KY Rep), Richard Machacek (IA DNC).
CLINTON (3):
John Tanner (TN Rep), Kathy Sullivan (NH add on), Mike Easley (NC GOV).
Charlie Cook, National Journal Despite the recent show of strength by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., the odds against her winning the Democratic presidential nomination are as imposing as ever — and probably worse.
There was a time when one of the stronger arguments in favor of nominating Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., was that he was more electable than Clinton.
The thinking at the time was that Clinton was so polarizing, she could get close to winning a general election but would have difficulty getting over the top.
Now, about the only plausible argument that Obama is more electable is to claim that Clinton’s backers would probably get over an Obama nomination better and sooner than vice versa.
Indeed, while Obama might lose some states by narrower margins than Clinton, his weakness among downscale and older white voters raises questions about whether he would be as competitive as Clinton in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, or, for that matter, run as strongly as Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., did in 2004.
But the delegate math is the delegate math, and there is little if any good news there for Clinton.
Almost half of the delegate advantage she netted against Obama in Pennsylvania was offset by losses of superdelegates the same week. Colby College political scientist and delegate selection expert Anthony Corrado estimates that Clinton would need to win about 69 percent of the remaining delegates, a virtual impossibility given proportional representation of the nominating contests.
In recent months, Clinton has been losing up to three superdelegates for every one she has picked up.
One superdelegate in a Southern state, clearly a Clinton sympathizer, said it would be political suicide for him to oppose Obama, pointing out that the black community would be furious. The best support he could offer Clinton would be to remain neutral until it’s over.
One of the most salient arguments made these days by superdelegates is the fear of what would happen to the party if Obama were to be spurned.
Even if they wanted to nominate Clinton, the fear of damage to the party is sufficient to argue against it. Between the newbies — the young and new voters who are so enthusiastic for Obama — and the black community — who ironically were somewhat late to join the Obama bandwagon after his Iowa win — the fallout from a spurning of Obama would be profound.
What has happened is that a bit of the bloom is off the rose for Obama’s candidacy.
His trajectory has flattened a good bit and while no one doubts his mortality, he has lost a good bit of the iconic appeal that he showed early this year.
Maybe he wins a general election, maybe he doesn’t, but it is clear there are liabilities along with assets to the idea of his nomination.
As well as he has bonded with “Starbucks” Democrats, he has not done so well with white, “Lunch Bucket” Democrats. Obama’s appeal is a bit too exotic for their tastes.
And as much as the Republican brand has been damaged over the last eight years and as much as many voters have misgivings about Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain’s uncompromising support for the war, he is perceived as distinct enough from his tarnished party.
Plus, his record as a Vietnam veteran and history as a prisoner of war seems to give him a benefit of the doubt that offers him a much better chance of victory than his party has of, at a minimum, breaking even in the House and Senate races this fall.
The irony of this year’s political situation is that — despite the difficulty a party has in holding the White House for three consecutive terms — the Republicans still have a much better shot than that of scoring so much as a net gain of one seat in the House or Senate.
The Republican brand is weighing down the party’s congressional candidates, but McCain seems to be hurt so much less because of the independence that has rubbed his Republican congressional colleagues so raw over the last couple of decades.
It’s fascinating to think how implausible all of this would have seemed 18 months ago.
While it was not unthinkable that a Clinton nomination was inevitable, it is truly remarkable that she would be beaten by Obama in the way that it looks likely to happen.
Who would have thought that someone could launch a successful bid for a presidential nomination just two years out of a state legislature?
Who would have thought that so many experienced contenders for the Democratic nomination would have been discarded so cavalierly?
Who would have predicted that former President Clinton would become almost radioactive in the black community, his remarks during and after the South Carolina primary regarded by many, black and white, fairly or not, as having racist overtones.
Taken together with the precipitous fall, then Lazarus-like comeback of McCain’s nomination bid, it all seems a bit surreal.
If this campaign’s events were in a political novel, it would seem so far-fetched as to be laughable. But here we are.
Is Jermiah Wright a colossal disaster for Barack Obama or a press trick? A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
A New York Daily News reporter, Errol Louis, revealed that Rev. Barbara Reynolds, who is also a journalist, is a Clinton supporter who suggested Rev. Wright as a speaker to the National Press Club awhile back and was recently asked to organize his appearance there this week.
Since Louis broke his story, the relevant February entry on Barbara Reynold's blog has disappeared -- just vanished. In addition, neither Rev. Reynolds nor the Clinton campaign, as of the posting of this news alert, have responded to queries about whether Reynolds suggested and organized Wright's appearance at the National Press Club with the knowledge of the Clinton campaign or go-betweens for the Clinton campaign.
Using cache recovery and other techniques, a BuzzFlash reader recovered the key blog entry that Errol Louis quoted from before it was deleted.
These are, allegedly, Rev. Reynolds' words of support for Clinton and explanation as to why she voted for Clinton in Maryland:
Using Google's cache and examining the source code of the deleted entry, I have been able to reconstruct the posting from Barbara Reynolds' blog (http://reynoldsworldnews.blogspot.com/) dated February 14, 2008, titled "HOPE", in which Barbara Reynolds, the person who supposedly organized Rev. Wright's appearance at the National Press Club, praises and thanks the Clintons.
The URL of the Google Cache is here:
and the text I retrieved is here:
Hope
February 14, 2008
Never before has the political clout of African-American women been so crucial as in this presidential race when they make up as high as two-thirds of registered black voters. Black women voters are the primary reason why Senator Barack Obama pulled Oprah and Senator Clinton garnered Maya Angelo and the majority of the black women in the Congressional Black Caucus in their respective camps.
As expected Sen. Barack Obama trounced Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Chesapeake Trifecta of Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.
With most of my Maryland and DC friends beating the drum for Sen. Obama, I tried to join the parade. Usually I am a drum major, leading momentum, but not this time.
Like many African American women, I have struggled with the dilemma of selecting a black man or a white woman to go against warmonger Sen. John McCain. My problem was that both Senators Obama and Clinton are darn good.
Finally I voted for Senator Clinton. My first reason was that as seductive as Obama’s mantra of hope, the Clintons legacy of help is more substantive and stronger.
Hope by definition is not based on facts. It is an emotional expectation. Things hoped for may or may not come. But help based on experience trumps hope every time.
How do you abandon someone like Hillary Clinton, who at every opportunity worked for causes benefiting the poor, especially children? Her work began in her early days with her mentor Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund and at Yale Law School, where she pursued children’s studies. Early on her stated life’s goal was to be a "voice for America’s children."
Look how different things would be that before any policy, rather foreign or domestic, could be advanced, the fate of our children would be the first consideration, a value that I believe Clinton would bring to the table as president.
Under Bill, this nation championed diversity. With Bill and Hillary as first Lady in the White House, black unemployment declined, small business loans to African-American doubled, there was strong support for affirmative action and more blacks in his Cabinet and in high positions than ever before. In addition, Hillary made history by selecting a black woman, Maggie Williams, as her chief of staff. To offset plummeting election returns, Williams has been promoted to head her campaign staff.
In fact during the Clinton years, the nation experienced the longest economic boom in history: unemployment dropped from 7.5% to 4%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average of stocks rose from 3,200 points to over 10,000, and the federal budget rose from a quarter-trillion-dollar deficit to a surplus of nearly that much.
Now since one Clinton cleaned up the first mess created by Bush I, why not let another Clinton clean up the mess created by Bush Light and why not a woman?
Traditionally, I have sympathized or cast my lot with the "underperson," the one needlessly being picked on or ridiculed. Media treatment of Senator Clinton has been degrading.
Much of the news media have gone bonkers over Senator Obama, pandering and refusing to ask tough questions, while intensely and sometimes nastily grilling Senator Clinton. Pundits continue to stress that Clinton is "polarizing," and that 41 percent of voters say they won’t vote for her as if to cement a self-defeating prophecy.
When the Clintons were in office, I worked at the executive levels of journalism. It was overwhelming to see how many white men, even liberals, detested Hillary not only because she is a woman but because she did not play it safe and took on controversial issues, such as trying to win health care for the more than 44 million people who can’t afford it. She lost the fight, but it took courage to start it and I believe she deserves another chance to win it.
Atty. James Walker, a law professor at the University of Connecticut, explains the disparate treatment this way: "In light of issues like the Don Imus firings, neither politicians nor the press want to go near anything racist. The public environment has been sanitized toward political correctness, but there are no holds on sexism. That is why there can be open season on Senator Clinton."
"Hillary is getting the benefit of Bill’s baggage, his dirt from the Monica Lewinsky scandal, but Obama is getting a clean slate because of the guilt recently brought to the forefront of how America has treated blacks. That means an easy walk for Obama and the opposite for Senator Clinton," Walker said.
I also find it troublesome that so many influential Republican conservatives are confessing their love for Senator Obama. When people who are my enemies become friends of my friends, I am just naturally suspicious.
In any event, Sen. Obama, tall, brilliant, handsome, with a wonderful wife and a message of hope would make a good president, but I embrace Clinton because at the highest levels they have helped make life better for African-Americans. My vote for Hillary in the Maryland Primary was my way of saying Thank You.
Could all be a coincidence, but that's one heck of a Clintonian coincidence to be sure.
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
