Hillary and Barack have so far split the votes 50/50 in the primary.  About 30 million people have voted.

But what's going to win this election in November for the Democrats is going to be the 100 million or so non-die-hard-Bush-McCain-republicans that could vote for the Democratic nominee in the general.

Now, from what I can tell, Hillary conviction that she can win and Barack couldn't is largely predicated on her conviction that a lot of those people are so bigoted that they would come out to vote against Obama or stay home and refuse to vote for a black president.

Barack and his campaign, on the other hand, has always been predicated on a faith in the American people.  Not only that they would be more open-minded than the mainstream media would have you believe, but also that they are smart enough to see through the sham politics that's played on their backs.  

I share that optimism, and from what we've seen so far, people are not only sick with the way this country has been heading for the last 8 years, they're sick of what politics has become.

Barack STILL has what it takes to bring a lot of these "disaffected voters", and energize them, the way he has in the earlier contests, and that's why I believe he'd have a much better chance of getting a lot more of these voters than Sen. Clinton.

For all it's worth, Sen. Clinton is as entrenched as a Washington politician as you can get, and I'd say that comes with all the good and the bad, but I think especially now, at this time, that image carries more bad with it than good.

Who do we want running in the general?

Obama, who separated himself from Wright and the crazy stuff he's said,

or Hillary, who's running for a co-presidency with the impeached ex-president, who can't seem to help himself from commanding the stage.

Bill will be there, trying to remind everybody of the 90s and defending his legacy, but kneecapping Hillary every step of the way by saying stupid stuff, contradicting himself and wagging his famous fiver in the air.

Is this the spin we'll going to see?  Now Barack is the "angry" black man trying to stop the "fury" that threatens him?

Oh, don't forget that loss in PA and all the white folks that were scared Wright was going to kidnap their children and eat their lunch.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) — Barack Obama angrily denounced his former pastor for "divisive and destructive" remarks on race, seeking to divorce himself from the incendiary speaker and a fury that threatens to engulf his front-running Democratic presidential campaign. Obama is trying to tamp down the uproar over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright at a tough time in his campaign. The Illinois senator is coming off a loss in Pennsylvania to rival Hillary Rodham Clinton and trying to win over white working-class voters in Indiana and North Carolina in next Tuesday's primaries.

Link to AP story on Google


If you want a feel-good take after that sour "news bite", check out this one.

In light of this ad, which Hillary is trying to use to push the "issues", there's a clear path to framing Hillary as a political opportunist and somebody who doesn't understand the realities of this countries.

Her #2 and #3 worst ideas of all time are touted as her biggest strengths in this ad:

#2: freeze on mortgage rates

and

#3: gas tax holiday

follow closely on the heels of the #1 hit "let's scream loudly about nuking Iran".

Best thing about these panders/mistakes are they are so easy to hammer away.  Enough is enough.  Hillary does no longer deserve a pass for presenting stupid policies.  The fact that everybody knows she's posturing should make it count AGAINST HER even more.  

Stop ignoring her rethoric. Let's keep calling her out.  The media is catching up on the gas tax crap.  Keep it coming!  

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/29/dickcheney.usa

The lawyer for US vice-president Dick Cheney claimed today that the Congress lacks any authority to examine his behaviour on the job.

The exception claimed by Cheney's counsel came in response to requests from congressional Democrats that David Addington, the vice-president's chief of staff, testify about his involvement in the approval of interrogation tactics used at Guantanamo Bay.

Ruling out voluntary cooperation by Addington, Cheney lawyer Kathryn Wheelbarger said Cheney's conduct is "not within the [congressional] committee's power of inquiry".

"Congress lacks the constitutional power to regulate by law what a vice-president communicates in the performance of the vice president's official duties, or what a vice president recommends that a president communicate," Wheelbarger wrote to senior aides on Capitol Hill.

The exception claimed by Cheney's office recalls his attempt last year to evade rules for classified documents by deeming the vice-president's office a hybrid branch of government - both executive and legislative.

The Democratic congressman who is investigating the legal framework for the violent interrogation of terrorist suspects, John Conyers, has asked Addington and several other top Bush administration lawyers to testify. Thus far all have claimed their deliberations are privileged.

However, Philippe Sands QC, law professor at University College, London, has agreed to appear in Washington and discuss the revelations in Torture Team, his new book on the consequences of the brutal tactics used at Guantanamo.

Excerpts from Torture Team were previewed exclusively by the Guardian earlier this month.

Two witnesses sought by Conyers, former US attorney general John Ashcroft and former US justice department lawyer John Yoo, claimed that their involvement in civil lawsuits related to harsh interrogations allows them to avoid appearing before Congress.

In letters to attorneys representing Ashcroft and Yoo, Conyers shot down their arguments and indicated he would pursue subpoenas if their clients did not testify at his May 6 hearing.

"I am aware of no basis for the remarkable claim that pending civil litigation somehow immunises an individual from testifying before Congress," Conyers wrote.

Conyers, who chairs the House of Representatives judiciary committee, also questioned the reasoning of Cheney's lawyer in a letter to Addington.

"It is hard to know what aspect of the invitation [to you] has given rise to concern that the committee might seek to regulate the vice president's recommendations to the president," Conyers wrote.

"Especially since far more obvious potential subjects of legislation are plentiful," he added, mentioning several: US laws on the use of torture on terrorist suspects, the 15-year-old War Crimes Act, and the rules that allowed the Bush White House to receive legal advice from a specialised office within the justice department.

Did anybody listen to Rev. Wright for the past few days?

Did they hear "Different is not Deficient", and "Reconciliation as the pillar of his ministry"?

Why are we letting them keep twisting what this man is about, and what he said?

And by the way, did anybody notice what Rev. Wright was announcing at the press club speech?

The two-day symposium on the black church, and the fact that all UCC denominations (all 5000 and some of them), along with a whole lot of other churches, will begin a dialogue on race, religion, with a focus on the black church, over the next few weeks.

I wonder how that will play out.

I know a lot of the media doesn't go to church, but the viewers will be informed, and maybe they'll be held accountable at some point.

Why are all the pundits spending 50% of their time

speculating

WHAT OBAMA SHOULD SAY!

Every other sentence is:

"Obama should say this"

"What if Obama will say THIS"

"If Obama says THIS, will it be enough?  Maybe he should say THAT"

I think they're all jealous. I think they want to be where Obama is.  They can't believe what this guy is doing.

After Rev. Wright's "Best Of" YouTube clips made headlines 24/7, everybody and their mother was screaming about how offended they were.

And one of the most serious complains was:  "Why is the Obama campaign hiding this guy away?  We want to ask him questions!  He needs to answer to this!  He needs to apologize for insulting us!"

Now, Rev. Wright was supposedly on a cruise at that time.  But even after he came back,  Rev. Wright, as he told the Press this morning, didn't go out and speak right away.

He said he learned something from his mother, and so he let the press make total fools of themselves for as long as they would (it was funny to see that the "top" MSNBC analysts couldn't understand what he was talking about there).

But now that he's back and talking, seems these same people can't stand to hear him speak his mind and answer their questions.

Number 1 complaint:  "Why can't the Obama campaign put this guy away?".

People who keep saying that Wright should have been "loyal" to Obama and waited to speak out are the same ones that would be up in arms if anybody had suggested that Obama was standing in the way of Wright answering questions from the press.

You see, Obama is a presidential candidate, not the end-all be-all of anybody.  Wright is his pastor, and he's been attacked and ridiculed badly.  And he has the right (and, frankly, the responsibility to his congregation), to respond as he sees fit.

I don't think this is helping Obama with the people that assume that anything pro-black is anti-white, and those that feel threatened when a black man speaks loudly. 

Rev. Wright's words should be heard, and maybe this country will stop hiding from the reality of the black experience all over this great nation.  We can't solve our problems unless we can face them without turning our heads away.

Those that want to put Rev. Wright into a box and have him hidden away have done the same to King, Malcom, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.  Anybody see a theme here?  Black man better not be speaking truth to power lest he be deemed "controversial".


And one last thing.  Weren't the Clintons close with Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson in the past? Aren't they considered controversial by the same people that see Wright as controversial?  Why are the Clintons not forced to explain how their views differ from those of the Revrerends? 

Oh, I forgot, black person is friends with black person who's controversial, he's "conspiring".  White person is friends with controversial blacks, they're "tolerant".

Now I'm angry. 

There's no doubt any more: Bill is running for a third term

Dubbed the "Billification" of Sen. Clinton's campaign by some insiders, Mr. Clinton has become something of a strategist-in-chief in recent weeks. He has been pushing for harder and sharper attacks on Sen. Obama. While she has jabbed her opponent over his "elitist" tone and controversial statements by his former pastor, Mr. Clinton delivers his own slams on the stump, calling Obama ads misleading.

Mr. Clinton has placed several of his own aides at headquarters, including his former lawyer and a bevy of strategists. Known as a bad loser, Mr. Clinton privately buttresses his wife's drive to push on, telling her, according to aides: "We're not quitters."

On his own daily message calls, advisers say, he implores: "We've got to take him on every time." At the Clintons' Washington, D.C., home recently, these people say, he reviewed possible TV spots and told ad makers to be more hard-hitting, faster and harsher.

WSJ Piece

Spokesman Jay Carson finally comments on the Anti-Obama ad:

"Even though they (Perdue and Moore) are supporting Senator Obama they are good Democrats, and this ad is wrong," Carson says, in a statement sent to ABC News' Eloise Harper. "It's exactly the kind of ad Republicans run every cycle to distract us from their failures and the real issues that face our country."

ABC News

"Even though"? 

The implication here is that the ad is wrong because it hurts Purdue and Moore by association with Obama!

The Clinton camp is not decrying the way the ad is framed.  Once again (we've seen it with Rev. Wright before),  Huckabee and McCain have more grace than the Clintons.

Ugh....

Finally some real journalism:

It concerned the videotape question that was posed by the woman at top, Nash McCabe of Latrobe, Pa. Here's what she asked:

Senator Obama, I have a question, and I want to know if you believe in the American flag. I am not questioning your patriotism, but all our servicemen, policemen and EMS wear the flag. I want to know why you don't.

As I watched her question, what I wondered -- and I imagine many other viewers wondered as well -- was where on earth did ABC find this representative of my home state. As a journalist, I kind of assumed that ABC sent a film crew to western Pa., and then culled the most provocative questions from the people that they found. Silly me. In fact, ABC News found Nash McCabe the old-fashioned way -- they read about her, and her thing with the American flag, in the New York Times earlier this month:

LATROBE, Pa. — Ask whom she might vote for in the coming presidential primary election and Nash McCabe, 52, seems almost relieved to be able to unpack the dossier she has been collecting in her head.

It is not about whom she likes, but more a bill of particulars about why she cannot vote for Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.

“How can I vote for a president who won’t wear a flag pin?” Mrs. McCabe, a recently unemployed clerk typist, said in a booth at the Valley Dairy luncheonette in this quiet, small city in western Pennsylvania.

.............

That original New York Times article (by a former Newsday colleague, Paul Vitello), the one that started this whole ball rolling. It wasn't really about flag pins or patriotism.

It was about race.

Here's the headline over the picture of Nash McCabe: "In Ex-Steel City, Voters Deny Race Plays a Role."

Vitello writes that he found little support for Obama in Latrobe, and crux of his article is this:

But when dismissing Mr. Obama, voters in this former steel center, whatever their racial feelings, seem almost compelled to list their reasons, if only to pre-empt the unspoken race question.

Because he voted “present” too often as an Illinois state senator. Because he speaks very well, but has not talked about reviving the coal industry. Because he would not command the respect of the military. Because there is something unsettling about his perfect calm, they say.

So, the New York Times is basically stating that many voters are finding odd or vague reasons not to support a candidate who president who happens to be black. And without any thought to the subtext, ABC News plucked one of those reasons and brought it to the center stage of democracy.

To be extra clear, none of this is a criticism of Nash McCabe -- my heart goes out to her and her husband, and there is no evidence here that her views on Obama and the flag, which I personally think are misguided, are racially motivated.

Instead, it is yet another indictment of ABC News, which was eager to act is if there's no racial subtext to this election, other than its question about affirmative action for Obama's "affluent African-American daughters." Obama's been under fire for the last week for suggesting that Rust Belt voters -- facing a swirl of feelings about the economy and "people who don't look like them" -- are wooed by wedge issues.

ABC's contribution to that discussion: Wooing voters with wedge issues.

Sad.

Philly.com story

In January 1995, as the Clintons were licking their wounds from the 1994 congressional elections, a debate emerged at a retreat at Camp David. Should the administration make overtures to working class white southerners who had all but forsaken the Democratic Party? The then-first lady took a less than inclusive approach.

"Screw 'em," she told her husband. "You don't owe them a thing, Bill. They're doing nothing for you; you don't have to do anything for them."

The statement -- which author Benjamin Barber witnessed and wrote about in his book, "The Truth of Power: Intellectual Affairs in the Clinton White House" -- was prompted by another speaker raising the difficulties of reaching "Reagan Democrats." It stands in stark contrast to the attitude the New York Democrat has recently taken on the campaign trail, in which she has presented herself as the one who candidate who understands the working-class needs.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/16/hillary-clinton-on-workin_n_97017.html

I'm sure Barack never thought any condescending thought towards people that won't vote for him. 

You know why? Because I've heard similar statements from him in the past, although most of the time, his construction is a lot better.  See  for example his Charlie Rose interview.

So all of these people who assume that he MUST think something's wrong with these people are just projecting.  Because, in his shoes, if they had a hard time winning somebody over, they'd blame it on them.

But that's not what Barack is about.  He knows that it's not that there's something wrong with them.

There's been something wrong with government for the last 30 years. These people have been through hell, and they just gave up hope.

Even Bill said it back in the day: They're not voting for somebody who promises them things, because they know they won't deliver.

Instead, they vote for those that promise not to take more things away from them.

That's why we need to keep fighting for Barack.  He actually plans to restore people's trust in government. It's a hard battle, but it's worth it.   And if this works, this investment of effort would keep giving for a long time.

If you agree with this post, consider making calls or donating on barackobama.com. 

Sounds like Bill is blaming young people for not voting for Hillary ontheir "lack of wisdom" and "propensity to be fooled by rethoric" compared to their elder counterparts

Full story

First of all, the whole comment comes out as petty coming from Clinton who looks like he's just being defensive about being lumped with the Bushes into the 20 years of neglect for small towns that Obama was talking about. And sounds a bit bitter that it's not 92 and he's not cool with the kids any more.

Secondly, how is it that older people are wise enough and have good memories when it comes to the 90s,  but when it comes to sniper fire, any person over 60 might be prone to mis-remembering things?

If you can fabricate a war story out of whole cloth, could you be deluding yourself about how great things were with the presidency as
well? (I'm looking at you, Bill and Hillary...)

Aside from being ridiculous and conflicting,  this also shows you what happens when you parse every word people say and look for things to be offended about. Should everybody who considers themselves "young" have a
right to be offended?

Obama was in a casual conversation in a room with a small group of people when he made his "condescending" remarks.  This guy was speaking at a rally!

What did Hillary say about the other day about blaming people not voting on you on them instead of yourself?

To her credit, I don't think Hillary ever said something like this herself, but she came pretty close and her campain has basically dissed
voters in all small states, red states, caucus states, casino workers, and people in MI and FL that had better things to do than vote for a popularity contest.  Oh, and everybody that doesn't remember the 90s as the age of "peace and prosperity".

Because market deregulation was such a great idea, everybody was gleeful at the time.  And losing majorities in the senate in the house, and
having all of government on hold during impeachment trials was a thrill.

Give. me. a. break.

Clinton has ONE mission in PA: win OVERWHELMINGLY the low-income, white voters, to prove that Obama has a problem "sealing the deal" with these voters.

This has been her strategy for weeks now.

But she's making the big mistake of confounding short-term strategy with the long-term goal.  Her recent tirades are losing her huge amounts of the "latte liberals" that, after all, helped Bill win the election.

Chalk that one as another reason why Hillary would be the WORST C-in-C.