OK, so they've finally got video of that Michelle Obama quote.  Isn't quite as bad as some have made out, though it's one helluvalot worse than other people could have imagined.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/06/the-whitey-tape.html

I think we're in trouble...

This post was primarily spurred by the inability to comment directly on Josh's latest post, which attempts to prove that Kentucky, and by geographical extension Ohio and Indiana, are more racist than the average state.
Race, as we all know, is almost impossible to discuss without offending someone, or being labelled racist.  Perception often seems to make all the difference - for example, the 90% of black voters who support Barack are expressing 'racial pride', apparently, while the 10% of white Democrats who say they don't vote for Barack because of race are racists.

Three things really annoyed me about Josh's post.  Firstly, he says that
"Kentucky itself isn't that big a deal since it will almost certainly go Republican in November"
even though, as he points out, the latest poll shows Hillary and McCain neck-and-neck at 46-48%.

Secondly, he tries to use this Kentucky polling to explain away
Obama's loss in PA, and possible loss in Indiana, as being due only to a racist vote (even though exit polls showed that more African
Americans cast a race-based vote for Barack, than whites cast a race-based vote for Hillary).

Finally, although race, inevitably, became an issue in this election, to focus solely on it to explain why Obama isn't winning, is to ignore the big elephant of misogynism, which equally can explain why Hillary is losing.

The state that perhaps set the tone for this whole primary is Iowa, where Obama scored his surprise win.  It's also a state that apaprently has the infamy of never having elected a woman to a senior political position.  I'm guessing it may
never have voted for an African American either; however, as a proportion of Iowa state population, that's not as good evidence of underlying bigotry (2.5% black, 51% female).

So what's the point of this post?  Racism sucks, as does misogyny, and I'm not commenting on whether one is worse than the other.
Trying to explain away a black candidate's losses, and potential losses, as being due to race
, however, is as flawed an idea as explaining a woman candidate losing because she's a woman.  But if you're going to try, talking about only one without mentioning the other is evidence of a bias of your own.

By Josh's standards, all those caucus states that voted 2-1 for Obama must have been exercising their misogyny.  In  fact, in Nebraska, they voted 68-32 in the primary to Obama.  
In the general, it's a tie with Obama 42- McCain 45.  Hillary-McCain, however, is 30-57.
This is an identical  situation to the one he described in Kentucky, so by his thinking misogyny can be the only cause.

So let's balance things up a bit, OK?  It's fine to have an opinion, but when it makes your analysis sloppy, you cease to be a good reporter.

A while ago, a few people kept posting an email that made it look like Hillary has spent most of her time in the Senate twiddling
her thumbs, while Obama's been some kind of legislative superhero.
Turns out it was a load of misleading rubbish, both in terms of number of bills, and 'calibre' of bills.  On average, Hillary sponsored 51.1 per year, and passed 2.7, while Obama sponsored 43, and passed 0.7 per year.

Get the full analysis here:
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/substance_abuse.html 

Informingly yours,

Two great lines coming out of the Obama camp as they desperately try to spin last night's crushing PA defeat.

1) We don't have a problem with white working class voters, it's just that old people have a problem
"If you look at the numbers, in fact, our problem has less to do with white working class voters. In fact, the problem is that, to the extent there is a problem, is that the older voters are very loyal to Senator Clinton " - Obama here

Upon making the admission that they do have a problem with white working class voters:
2) White working class voters don't matter
"The white working class has gone to the Republican nominee for many elections, going back even to the Clinton years," - Axelrod here

So taken together, neither white working class voters nor old people are important to a Democrat win this year, according to Obama's gameplan.   A little more risky than a
purported big state strategy, don't you think?

OK, I might get a lot of grief for this, 
because the prevailing view on this site is that there's 
no difference between a caucus and a free, fair election.  I disagree, but am happy to agree to disagree.

I also want you all to know that I'm not trying to change any rules "in the middle of the game", just stimulate discussion and maybe add to the information load of  an already very informed demographic :-)  All data from RCP.

If you look only at delegates from Primaries,  Obama's won 50.3%, with:
1195 delegates to Hillary's 1182,
so adding in the Supers, Hillary's ahead by 11 delegates.

For caucus delegates, he's won 66%, with :
287 to Hillary's 148.

This is a massive discrepancy, which at first glance seems to be down to accessibility of the election (a few hours rather than all day), and lack of privacy when voting.

By my count, the caucus states are:
Alaska
Colorado
Hawaii
Idaho
Iowa
Kansas
Maine
Minnesota
Nebraska
Nevada
North Dakota
Washington
Wyoming
American Samoa
Virgin Islands
Anyone feel like advancing some alternate theories as to why these 13 states voted in a manner so glaringly different to primary states?

OK, I think it was inevitable someone would post this to precipitate discussion, so I figure it might as well be me.

Obama lost by around 9.4% last night.
He spent more money on advertising than any presidential candidate in history in PA, and probably spent more time there than any candidate in history (maybe tied with Hillary).  His ads apparently ran almost 10,000 times on TV, and the average Pennsylvanian will have seen his ads 100 times.  He ran a mixture of positive, factual, and
negative ads across all forms of media.  I think it's fair to say
that there were very, very few voters who didn't know who
Barack was, and what he stood for, and his name recognition was probably higher in PA than anywhere outside of Illinois.

His big success of the night, was winning the black vote by 92%, with black turnout estimated at 13% from exit polls.  That means he lost the non-black vote by around 25%, 62-38.  
Is this indicative of a big potential problem for Barack?
Do states like Ohio and PA not matter?
Will it all get rinsed out in the wash after the nomination is decided?
 Your views, as ever, are appreciated.

According to the latest official press release from Obama, Bill Burton says:
<i>When Senator Clinton voted with President Bush to authorize the war in Iraq, she made a tragically bad decision that diverted our military from the terrorists who attacked us, and allowed Osama bin Laden to escape and regenerate his terrorist network.<i>

Right.  Hillary Clinton, like Joe Biden, voted for the Authorization after Bush promised Congress that he'd fully exhaust all diplomatic solutions.  It was supposed to be the stick to go with the diplomatic carrot forcing Saddam to give inspectors unfettered access.  Read her speech here: http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=233783

Whether or not you agree with this, Obama's going far too far in laying the blame for Obama's escape at Hillary's feet.   Listening to him sometimes, you'd think that Hillary's been President for the last 8 years.  Of course, if she had been, America would probably have Universal health care and a vastly improved reputation around the world.  Ahh well.

It was a great speech, and movingly delivered. The only problem, in my view, is that it's hypocritical.
Look at these quotes from it:
"We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demoagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias"
and
"We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card... We can do that... And nothing will change."

Makes a lot of sense to me, BUT it was *Obama's* campaign who was pushing the Ferraro incident, demanding she resign. Just as it was Obama's campaign releasing pages of talking points to the press in South Carolina over a gaffe by Hillary over MLK.

This "let's get above the fray" attitude is, in my view, the correct one to take, but it isn't how he's been running his campaign. The race card has come back to bite him in the arse, and he's given a great speech to try and remedy it, but it doesn't change the hypocrisy of the man (as right as the message may be).

Just to summarise here - I think the speech was great, and more importantly correct, on many issues. But to me it feels like a preacher proseletyzing on Christian morals, but on the sly cottaging in public toilets every Friday night.

Thoughts?

Rather than spending all this time tearing each other down, I reckon it's time we start sinking our demonstrably vicious little teeth into the gnarled old sack of skin that is McCain.

Just today, he began the slow process of letting the idea sink in that there are al-Qaeda in Iran, with an innocent slip of the tongue... I'm sure there will be in 5 years time if the Republicans have
their way!

There're so many reason to be put off by him - the shameless flip-flopping to pander to the extreme right; the hypocrisy of being anti-lobbyist, but having lobbyists conducting their daily business
*from* his straight talk express; the fact that the media don't call him on any of it!

But I now cede the floor to anyone wishing to get a little riled up on genuine issues, and is sick of tearing down Obama/Hillary on minutiae. Get to work!

The idea for this was given to me by majanet - thanks!

Here again, I quest for Obama's supporters to consider their man as critically as they do Clinton.
There's been a lot of talk on here about Clinton not releasing last year's tax returns.  I agree,
we want our politicians to be transparent - it's slightly hypocritical as we want things from them that we would not give ourselves, but hey - they're the ones running for office.

McCain hasn't released his tax returns, but I'm sure you're all equally incensed by that.

Now, Obama is pushing this tax return issue hard, and has released last year's tax returns, but only last year's.  There
are 20-30 years of Clinton tax returns in the public domain, and $50 million wastefully spent in the '90s says that she's never done anything fraudulent.

We aren't we clamouring to see Obama's history of tax returns, especially during the period he was closest with Rezko.  Do we only care where his money came from last year?  I think it's a dangerous tack for Obama's camp to take, making an issue out of this, unless they release all of his records for the last x number of years.

Anyone out there agree?

Up until now, although I'd heard about Obama's church being quite radical, I hadn't read much more about it. Now, ABC has reported on sermons given by Obama's pastor, Rev. Wright, includng such gems as
"'God Bless America?' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible",
After 9/11 "America's chickens are coming home to roost"
and calling America "the US of KKK A", not to mention a bit of anti-semitism thrown into the mix.

Read the article (and see the news clip "is Obama's pastor a liability") here: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=4443788&page=1

Now, I've read on here people defending Obama by saying the Rev. Wright isn't part of Obama's campaign etc, so anything he says is irrelevent. I agree he isn't part of the campaign - he's a far more important person in Obama's life than any politician or work colleague.
This is the man who Obama has chosen to lead him spiritually, for the last *20 years*. Long before he ran for office in Illinois, this was the man who Obama turned to for guidance in prayer, and to align his 'moral compass'.
If this was just a member of Obama's campaign who happened to have a shady history, I wouldn't have a problem with it. But this man is much, much more important and influential in Obama's life - he married Obama and Michelle, baptised his children - and Obama *chose* to elevate him to the position of his pastor. I don't believe Obama when he says that he disavows his Pastor's comments; the rhetoric is truly outrageous, and no reasonable person would
listen to this stuff for 20 years, bring their kids to listen to it, and
then claim for political purposes he doesn't believe it. Please.

I'm interested in hearing your thoughts after reading the article and watching the ABC report "Is Obama's pastor a liability"

The following is a must-read article on the positions that Obama has, and hasn't taken on Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran.  I find it a pretty damning indictment of Obama's supposedly superior 'judgement', and I'm interested in your reasoned views.
From Joseph Wilson at the Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-wilson/obamas-hollow-judgment_b_89441.html

Barack Obama argues that he deserves the Democratic nomination and Hillary Clinton doesn't because he possesses superior "judgment," as he calls it, on the key issues we face as a nation. As definitive proof he offers one speech he made in 2002 during a reelection campaign for an Illinois senate seat in the most liberal district in the state, so liberal that no other position would have been viable. When he made that speech, Obama was not privy to the briefings by, among others, Secretary of State Colin Powell, in support of the Authorization of Use of Military Force as a diplomatic tool to push the international community to impose intrusive inspections on Saddam Hussein.



Would Obama have acted differently had he been in Washington or had he had the benefit of the arguments and the intelligence that the administration was offering to the Congress debating that resolution? During the 2002-2003 timeframe, he was a minor local official uninvolved in the national debate on the war so we can only judge from his own statements prior to the 2008 campaign. Obama repeated these points in a whole host of interviews prior to announcing his candidacy. On July 27, 2004, he told the Chicago Tribune on Iraq: "There's not much of a difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage." In his book, The Audacity of Hope, published in 2006, he wrote, "...on the merits I didn't consider the case against war to be cut-and- dried." And, in 2006, he clearly said, "I'm always careful to say that I was not in the Senate, so perhaps the reason I thought it was such a bad idea was that I didn't have the benefit of US intelligence. And for those who did, it might have led to a different set of choices."



I was involved in that debate in every step of the effort to prevent this senseless war and I profoundly resent Obama's distortion of George Bush's folly into Hillary Clinton's responsibility. I was in the middle of the debate in Washington. Obama wasn't there. I remember what was said and done. In fact, the administration lied in order to secure support for its war of choice, including cooking the intelligence and misleading Congress about the intent of the authorization. Senator Clinton's position, stated in her floor speech, was in favor of allowing the United Nations weapons inspectors to complete their mission and to build a broad international coalition. Bush rejected her path. It was his war of choice.



There is no credible reason to conclude that Obama would have acted any differently in voting for the authorization had he been in the Senate at that time. Indeed, he has said as much. The supposed intuitive judgment he exercised in his 2002 speech was nothing more than the pander of a local election campaign, just as his current assertions of superior judgment and scurrilous attacks on Hillary Clinton are a pander to those who now retroactively think the war was a mistake without bothering to acknowledge Senator Clinton's actual position at the time and instead fantasizing that she was nothing but a Bush clone. Obama willfully encourages and plays off this falsehood.



What should we make of Obama's other judgments in foreign affairs? Take Afghanistan, for example. It has been evident for some time that our efforts there are going badly and that cooperation and support from our NATO allies would be helpful. As chairman of the subcommittee on Senate Foreign Relations responsible for NATO and Europe, Obama could have used his lofty position actually to engage the issue and pressure the administration to take some action to improve our chance of success in that conflict against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Of course, that would have involved holding hearings, questioning administration witnesses, and taking a position and offering alternatives. That is what we expect that from senators in a democracy. It is called oversight.



But, instead, Obama, by his own admission, offers the excuse that he has been too busy running for president to do anything substantive, such as direct his staff to organize a single hearing. "Well, first of all," Obama was forced to confess in the Democratic debate in Ohio on February 26, "I became chairman of this committee at the beginning of this campaign, at the beginning of 2007. So it is true that we haven't had oversight hearings on Afghanistan." To date, his subcommittee has held no policy hearings at all -- none. At the same time that Obama claimed he was too busy campaigning to do anything substantive, racking up one of the worst attendance records in the Senate, Senator Clinton chaired extensive hearings of the Subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health and attended many others as a member of the Armed Service Committee.



As a consequence of Obama's dereliction of duty on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a feckless administration has had absolutely no oversight as it careens from disaster to disaster in Afghanistan, including the central governments loss of control over 70 percent of the country and yet another bumper crop of opium to fuel the efforts of the Taliban and their terrorist allies. Of course, if you don't hold hearings, conduct oversight, make recommendations or sponsor legislation, then you have no record to explain or defend and you are free to take whatever position is convenient when attacking those who actually did address issues. Meanwhile, on the campaign trail, Obama holds forth on Afghanistan, chiding the administration and our allies as though he's a profile in courage and not someone who has abandoned his post in establishing accountability.



On Iran and the question of designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization, the junior senator from Illinois was not quite so clever at avoiding taking a position. He first co-sponsored the "Counter-Proliferation Act of 2007," which contained explicit language identifying the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization. He subsequently claimed to oppose the Kyl-Lieberman sense of the Senate resolution proposing the same thing. Obama's accountability problem here is that he didn't show up for the vote on that resolution -- a vote that would have put him on record. Then he declined to sign on to a letter put forward by Senator Clinton making explicit that the resolution could not be used as authority to take military action. All we have is Obama's rhetoric juxtaposed with his co-sponsorship of a piece of legislation that proposed what he says he opposed.



Obama's gyrations on Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran are not the actions of one imbued with superior intuitive judgment, but rather the machinations of a political opportunist looking to avoid having his fingerprints on any issue that might be controversial, and require real judgment, while preserving his freedom to bludgeon his adversary for actually taking positions as elected office demands. It is hard to discern whether Senator Obama is a man of principle, but it is clear that he is not a man of substance. And that judgment, based on his hollow record, is inescapable.

So it's looking like Obama has been telling fibs about Rezko.  From http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-obama-rezko-home-feb19,0,6690484.story

From the article: "In 2006, he told the Tribune he recalled talking to Rezko and his wife "either at an event or some conversation we had where they mentioned to me that they either knew the property or knew the developer or something like that."

But now, it turns out that he "took his friend and fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko on a tour of the premises to make sure it was a good deal".

Why would he omit/lie about this?  Maybe he pulled a Gonzalez and couldn't "recall", or maybe it was an innocent visit with his buddy Rezko. 

Either way, his response in the SC debate where he responded to Hillary's claims about his dealings with Rezko by saying that he only did 5 hours work in the early 90s in conjunction with a *church group*, was very misleading at best.

I like the guy, but don't like this meaningless "different kind of politics" rubbish.  This is a presidential election, not a hearing on the canonization of a putative saint.