Prove your assertion. The National Journal had this to say: "Obama: During his two years in the Senate, Obama has been among its more liberal members. In the 152 Senate votes that were used in NJ's ratings in 2005 and 2006, he voted against the liberal position only 12 times. Many of those votes dealt with national security issues or presidential nominations."

"Clinton: A review of Clinton's vote-ratings scores shows a clear-cut shift. In the first three years after her election in 2000, when she focused her attention chiefly on her home state, she was twice among the most liberal senators...Since then, with the prospect of a presidential bid looming, Clinton has moved notably toward the right among Senate Democrats. Only 12 Democrats had a more conservative score in 2004, and 12 were to her right again last year; most of them were from the South or West. In those two recent cases, her ratings were close to those of Sen. Joe Lieberman, I/D-Conn., whose growing independence has riled many of the party faithful."

Posted at January 30, 2008 10:49 AM in response to Edwards Dropping Out Discussion

My favorite is the restoration of funding to secure nuclear materials. That's followed by the Congressional ethics package which was long overdue. (And Hillary complained about it but failed to mention she didn't help negotiate it and that her complaint is for an older piece that wasn't under consideration....after the fact criticism is very unhelpful, IMO.) Another is transparency with posting legislation on the Internet.

I think that's a fairly good record for a freshman US Senator. In the state, I am particularly fond of how he gathered a consensus to videotape confessions. I agreed with the end result and I'm a bit stunned he convinced the initial opponents to change their minds.

And perhaps you don't think these are significant compared to quite naive complaints that he didn't single-handedly cut off funding for Iraq.

Posted at January 24, 2008 12:21 PM in response to Didn’t Obama Watch the Firm?

I don't see how this changes your innuendos and allegations of wrong-doing on Obama's part. Obama bought his house in 2005 and in 2006 bought a 10-foot strip of the adjoining lot, owned by Rezko's wife, for market price. Obama has since said that the 2006 transaction had the appearance of wrong-doing and it was bone-headed of him.

With the continuing bankruptcies with the Rezko properties, maybe the Rezkos needed money. That makes just as much sense as anything else you've said.

Really, get specific here. If you're just seeing smoke then say so. Folks have always seen plenty of smoke around some of the Clinton dealings--even She Who Must Be Voted For In The General Election.

Posted at January 24, 2008 8:32 AM in response to Didn’t Obama Watch the Firm?

Good grief! We can do nothing, I tell you, with the masterminds in charge of everything. We are just ants waiting to be stepped on. We can do nothing!

What a whining piece of drivel. You can't be serious??!!

It takes work that will go beyond radio and TV and newspaper. So what we have is you dinosaurs fixated on declining unions to do the actual contact work with voters and an over-inflated dependency on mass media (including the Internet) to fuel things along.

The GOP is decades ahead on identifying their supporters and staying in touch with them throughout the year and for more than money and votes. If we can't do that, then we deserve to become a footnote in the history books.

You give no damned plan for getting out of the hole. Just all of these generalities wrapped up in how "someone else" or "something else" is at fault and is so big and mean and unmovable that practically nothing can be done.

Good grief!

Posted at January 24, 2008 6:48 AM in response to Didn’t Obama Watch the Firm?

Stel-lah, ya couda been a contenduh. Practice your personna more, Stella. It simply isn't credible right now.

Posted at January 23, 2008 3:41 PM in response to Didn’t Obama Watch the Firm?

LOL. Apparently the Clintons were never good money managers and Hillary got exercised over college for Chelsea. Hence, the investment.

I certainly don't put getting a bit ahead with the help of friends in the same category as allegations of murder. But you believe what you want....

Posted at January 23, 2008 3:02 PM in response to Didn’t Obama Watch the Firm?

Bar, I view the blame placed on the "media" as a complete distraction. The problem is with Democrats and with our party. We are not fielding good candidates and we really have to address that. We either remain a minority party or we grow the party. And that's just how I see this election.

Now, you want to fault the "media" for these campaigns and I fault both the candidates we are fielding and the antiquated groups these candidates believe they have to cater to. This is going to have to stop or we will become a footnote in this history books.

And that's what I'm for--not this vague hand wringing that blames someone else that one has absolutely no control over. We can exercise some control over our party. It's time to do that.

Posted at January 23, 2008 2:59 PM in response to Didn’t Obama Watch the Firm?

There are politicans prior to Bush II, you know. The theme of WDC pols needing to go and the leadership of the party requiring change and even handing things to younger people are not unknown trends. There is nothing that unusual in Obama's challenge.

I am quite glad that the primary wasn't decided after Iowa. I want the primary to extend PAST Super Tuesday until every last person has been heard from. We'll have plenty of time to see how Obama handles negative campaigning since it seems quite obvious that the Clintons are up to the slinging of mud.

I certainly hope we fight all the way down to the last vote being counted in the primary and then we can repeat it in the general election.

Posted at January 23, 2008 2:51 PM in response to Didn’t Obama Watch the Firm?

It's very wearing to have my support of a candidate characterized as putting him on a pedestal and having sky-high and unrealistic expectations. It really is an arrogant characterization. I'm very practical in my support.

It seems very clear to me that the Democratic Party needs a serious shake-up. I suspect that the establishment figures like the Clintons will be not be up to that. I thought Dean might be able to--but that didn't work out because he's simply not a good campaigner or a good manager.

Obama is my choice....but he certainly isn't my god. I do admit to enjoying oratorical skills after years of Bush II mangling of the language. If you want to have at me for that enjoyment, feel free.

Posted at January 23, 2008 2:47 PM in response to Didn’t Obama Watch the Firm?

January 13, 2008, transcript, Meet the Press with Hillary Clinton:

"MR. RUSSERT: Again, learning from mistake, do you wish you had read the National Intelligence Estimate, which had a lot of caveats from the State Department and the Energy Department as to whether or not Saddam Hussein really had a biological and chemical and active nuclear program?

SEN. CLINTON: I was fully briefed by the people who wrote that. I was briefed by the people from, you know, the State Department, the CIA, the Department of Defense; all of the various players in that. And many people who read it--well, actually, not very many people read the whole thing because we were getting constant briefings. And people--some people read it and voted for the resolution, some people read it and voted against the resolution. I felt very well briefed. And it wasn't just what the Bush administration was telling us in the NIE, I went way outside of any kind of Bush administration sources; independent people, people from the Clinton administration, people in the British government. I looked as broadly as I could at how to assess this.

And if, of course, you see the vote as I saw it as opposed as how it's been characterized, I thought it was a vote to put inspectors back in, to make it very clear that Saddam Hussein wouldn't be able to go off unchecked. If those inspectors had been permitted to do the job that they were set up to do, we would have avoided war. It became clear in retrospect, Tim, once people started writing books and information came out of the administration, the president had no intention of letting the inspectors do their job. That's not what I was told by the Bush White House. That's not what we were told in constant briefings from high-level Bush administration officials. That's not what the president told the country in his speech in Cincinnati shortly before the vote. If you remember, he said this vote was the best chance to avoid some kind of confrontation."

Gee, and this is our little policy wonk? I think we should demand that our representatives do a much better job than this. And I also think someone who wants to be Prez needs to always do a better job when the outcome can get people killed.

Posted at January 23, 2008 1:37 PM in response to Didn’t Obama Watch the Firm?