Media bias was more intense in the 2008 election than in any other national campaign in recent history, Time magazine's Mark Halperin said Friday at the Politico/USC conference on the 2008 election.
"It's the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq war," Halperin said at a panel of media analysts. "It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage."
Halperin, who maintains Time's political site "The Page," cited two New York Times articles as examples of the divergent coverage of the two candidates.
"The example that I use, at the end of the campaign, was the two profiles that The New York Times ran of the potential first ladies," Halperin said. "The story about Cindy McCain was vicious. It looked for every negative thing they could find about her and it case her in an extraordinarily negative light. It didn't talk about her work, for instance, as a mother for her children, and they cherry-picked every negative thing that's ever been written about her."
The story about Michelle Obama, by contrast, was "like a front-page endorsement of what a great person Michelle Obama is," according to Halperin.
The former ABC News political director acknowledged that some of the press coverage was simply reflecting the reality of Obama's presidential campaign.
"You do have to take into account the fact that this was a remarkable candidacy," Halperin said. "There were a lot of good stories. He was new."
New York magazine's John Heilemann, one of Halperin's co-panelists, offered another reason for all the positive press coverage Obama received.
"The biggest bias in the press is towards effectiveness," said Heilemann, who is authoring a book on the 2008 race along with Halperin.
"We love things that are smart."
Because Obama's campaign was generally so well run, he argued, the press tended to applaud even his negative tactics.
"We'll scold you for being negative," Heilemann said, "but if it seems to be working, the tone of your coverage becomes more positive."
Another of Halperin's fellow participants, Los Angeles Times writer Mark Barabak, disagreed more strongly with the Time writer's comments. Still, Halperin's general point met with little resistance
"I think it's incumbent upon people in our business to make sure that we're being fair," he said. "The daily output was the most disparate of any campaign I've ever covered, by far."
PARIS — Barack Obama's election as America's first black president unleashed a renewed love for the United States after years of dwindling goodwill, and many said Wednesday that U.S. voters had blazed a trail that minorities elsewhere could follow.
People across Africa stayed up all night or woke before dawn to watch U.S. history being made, while the president of Kenya — where Obama's father was born — declared a public holiday.
In Indonesia, where Obama lived as child, hundreds of students at his former elementary school erupted in cheers when he was declared winner and poured into the courtyard where they hugged each other, danced in the rain and chanted "Obama! Obama!"
"Your victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change the world for a better place," South Africa's first black president, Nelson Mandela, said in a letter of congratulations to Obama.
Many expressed amazement and satisfaction that the United States could overcome centuries of racial strife and elect an African-American as president.
"This is the fall of the Berlin Wall times ten," Rama Yade, France's black junior minister for human rights, told French radio. "America is rebecoming a New World.
"On this morning, we all want to be American so we can take a bite of this dream unfolding before our eyes," she said.
In Britain, The Sun newspaper borrowed from Neil Armstrong's 1969 moon landing in describing Obama's election as "one giant leap for mankind."
Yet celebrations were often tempered by sobering concerns that Obama faces global challenges as momentous as the hopes his campaign inspired — wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the nuclear ambitions of Iran, the elusive hunt for peace in the Middle East and a global economy in turmoil.
The huge weight of responsibilities on Obama's shoulders was also a concern for some. French former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said Obama's biggest challenge would be managing a punishing agenda of various crises in the United States and the world. "He will need to fight on every front," he said.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said he hoped the incoming administration will take steps to improve badly damaged U.S. ties with Russia. Tensions have been driven to a post-Cold War high by Moscow's war with U.S. ally Georgia.
"I stress that we have no problem with the American people, no inborn anti-Americanism. And we hope that our partners, the U.S. administration, will make a choice in favor of full-fledged relations with Russia," Medvedev said.
Europe, where Obama is overwhelmingly popular, is one region that looked eagerly to an Obama administration for a revival in warm relations after the Bush government's chilly rift with the continent over the Iraq war.
"At a time when we have to confront immense challenges together, your election raises great hopes in France, in Europe and in the rest of the world," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in a congratulations letter to Obama.
Poland's Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski spoke of "a new America with a new credit of trust in the world."
Skepticism, however, was high in the Muslim world. The Bush administration alienated those in the Middle East by mistreating prisoners at its detention center for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and inmates at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison — human rights violations also condemned worldwide.
Some Iraqis, who have suffered through five years of a war ignited by the United States and its allies, said they would believe positive change when they saw it.
"Obama's victory will do nothing for the Iraqi issue nor for the Palestinian issue," said Muneer Jamal, a Baghdad resident. "I think all the promises Obama made during the campaign will remain mere promises."
In Pakistan, a country vital to the U.S.-led war on the al-Qaida terrorist network and neighbor to Afghanistan, many hoped Obama would bring some respite from rising militant violence that many blame on Bush.
Still, Mohammed Arshad, a 28-year-old schoolteacher in the capital, Islamabad, doubted Obama's ability to change U.S. foreign policy dramatically.
"It is true that Bush gave America a very bad name. He has become a symbol of hate. But I don't think the change of face will suddenly make any big difference," he said.
Obama's victory was greeted with cheers across Latin America, a region that has shifted sharply to the left during the Bush years. From Mexico to Chile, leaders expressed hope for warmer relations based on mutual respect — a quality many felt has been missing from U.S. foreign policy.
Venezuela and Bolivia, which booted out the U.S. ambassadors after accusing the Bush administration of meddling in their internal politics, said they were ready to reestablish diplomatic relations, and Brazil's president was among several leaders urging Obama to be more flexible toward Cuba.
On the streets of Rio de Janeiro, people expressed a mixture of joy, disbelief, and hope for the future.
"It's the beginning of a different era," police officer Emmanuel Miranda said. "The United States is a country to dream about, and for us black Brazilians, it is even easier to do so now."
Many around the world found Obama's international roots — his father was Kenyan, and he lived four years in Indonesia as a child — compelling and attractive.
"What an inspiration. He is the first truly global U.S. president the world has ever had," said Pracha Kanjananont, a 29-year-old Thai sitting at a Starbuck's in Bangkok. "He had an Asian childhood, African parentage and has a Middle Eastern name. He is a truly global president."
Taking jabs at Republican nominee John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as a vice presidential pick and denouncing the last eight years of President Bush's administration, Clinton echoed the rallying cries for ''change'' that have been a trademark of the Obama campaign.
''Folks, we can't fool with this,'' Clinton told the boisterous crowd that braved the chilly conditions at Osceola Heritage Park. "Our country is hanging in the balance, and we have so much promise and so much peril. This man should be our president.''
Clinton's pitch to voters, whom he described as ''teetering'' between the two candidates, comes at a crucial time at a crucial place for both campaigns. With five days left until the election, both candidates and their high profile surrogates have been crisscrossing the swing state trying to shore up votes to declare Florida in their camp.
A middle school teacher in Missouri was suspended Monday for putting a video on YouTube of his students chanting lines from Barack Obama speeches and wearing military fatigues.
The video, called "Obama Youth -- Junior Fraternity Regiment," was posted by a YouTube user named "keepitwildtv" on Oct. 2. The school learned the video was on the Internet and took action against the teacher Monday morning.
Joyce McGautha, superintendent of the Urban Community Leadership Academy, a charter school for students in fifth through ninth grades in Kansas City, Mo., said that the video was probably taken last May during the Junior Fraternity's morning meeting at the school.
She would not disclose the teacher's name. "At this time because of the legal action that we'll probably have to take against the teacher, I'm not going to give his name," McGautha said.
Students at the school have 30-minute group sessions four times a week during which they are supposed to work on reading and writing. Once a week they are allowed to have "activities," McGautha said. There are 12 groups at the public charter school.
The Junior Fraternity students studied Obama's economic plan with the teacher, and the superintendent did not know whether the teacher or the students scripted the routine. The group should have also studied John McCain's economic plan, the superintendent said.
In the video, eighth- and ninth-graders wearing military camouflage pants and navy t-shirts chant and perform a routine in the style of a step show, a dance popular among African-American fraternities at universities.
The students enter the room chanting "Alpha. Omega. Alpha. Omega." Then, one at a time, they state things they were "inspired" to do by Barack Obama, including becoming an architect and a sheriff. At the end of the video, the students make statements about Obama's healthcare plan. "Obama's healthcare plan will be able to provide participants the ability to move from job to job without taking their healthcare coverage," one says.
"People are upset that possibly taxpayer money is being used to support one particular candidate," McGautha said, "and now I can understand that. And I didn't condone them. I try very, very hard to remain within the limits of the law. I think this is unfortunate."
John McCain’s campaign and a supporter at a McCain rally separately accused the press of favoring Barack Obama on Monday, with McCain’s top strategist calling The New York Times a “pro-Obama advocacy organization.”
“Let’s be clear and be honest with each other about something fundamental to this race, which is this: Whatever the New York Times once was, it is today not — by any standard — a journalistic organization,” strategist Steve Schmidt told reporters on a conference call. “It is a pro-Obama advocacy organization that every day attacks the McCain campaign, attacks Senator McCain, attacks Governor [Sarah] Palin and excuses Senator Obama.”
Schmidt accused the Times of giving Obama a pass on his “deceitful ads” and abdicating its journalistic responsibility to vet Obama’s “background and past statements.” It was an unusually harsh critique for a campaign that last year enjoyed largely favorable press coverage.
Diana Madoshi, a Clinton delegate from Rocklin, Calif., said: “It was sort of phony. We had to show all this unity. Well, if you’re pressing people to get on the same train and they’re not ready, that’s not true unity. The roll call vote should have been genuine. I don’t think it served us by it not being genuine.’’
Raymond Penko, a Clinton delegate from San Diego who campaigned door-to-door for her, said it was difficult to get Clinton signs onto the floor of Denver's Pepsi Center. Some of the New York senator's supporters wound up using roll-up signs that could be tucked away and smuggled into the arena, he said.
There was even discussion of using body paint to transmit pro-Clinton messages.
Added Penko: “There was pressure all around to conform to what I would call the old boys club. There was pressure to conform to the unity ticket. As soon as Obama delegates heard that one was a Hillary supporter, they would shun you, tell you to get over it, say ‘Stop being a cry baby. What’s your problem? Don’t you want to win in November?’ ’’
Both Penko and Los Angeles attorney Gloria Allred (shown above) circulated a petition for a full roll call vote. They couldn’t round up enough signatures.
Allred, a Clinton delegate well-known in Southern California for her public-relations flair, grew frustrated last week with what she saw as efforts to muzzle her and, as The Ticket noted, showed up at a delegation breakfast one morning with a gag made up of restaurant napkins.
She's still not happy with what transpired at the Democratic gathering.
“This was a scripted convention,’’ she said earlier this week. “There really was no room for dissent for Hillary supporters. Not even room for discussion.’’ -- Peter Nicholas
So we dialed up the Obama press shop and found ourselves in the middle of a ripe field of dismissive comments about Palin’s lack of experience, her tenure as mayor of a small town, a row that’s now the subject of state investigation into pressure to fire an ex-brother-in-law, and other choice morsels that sought to portray Palin as something of a political midget.
These various split-second digs took full form in an official campaign statement moments later from spokesman Bill Burton:
“Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. Governor Palin shares John McCain’s commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush’s failed economic policies — that’s not the change we need, it’s just more of the same.”
That statement arrived just before takeoff (about 9:30 a.m. MDT). Not 30 minutes later, senior adviser Linda Douglass, reading from her Blackberry, gave the traveling press a very different statement, this one from Sens. Obama and Biden: “We send our congratulations to Governor Palin and her family on her designation as the Republican nominee for vice president. Her selection is yet another encouraging sign that all barriers are falling in our politics and while we obviously have differences over how to best lead this country forward Governor Palin is an admirable person and will add a compelling new voice to this campaign.”
What happened?
Did the campaign suddenly regret failing to take note of Palin’s unique place in American history as the first woman tabbed by the Republican Party as a vice presidential nominee? Did it regret missing an opportunity to tell women (especially Hillary Clinton loyalists) across the country that Palin deserved at least a cursory compliment before being subjected to the natural rough-and-tumble or presidential politics? Did it regret a swift descent into the negative, back-and-forth politics that Obama has so earnestly railed against?
It would appear so.
Upon arriving in Pennsylvania, Obama went out of his way –in word and deed — to praise Palin as the GOP vice presidential nominee and welcome her to the political big leagues.
DENVER — Both Clintons’ convention speeches are now history, and the sighs of relief from Barack Obama’s team blew through here stronger than the hot winds off the Colorado plains. The Democratic nominee got all the help from his former tag-team rivals that he could have hoped for -- and then some -- in winning over the die-hard Clinton voters he will need in November.
Now “it’s up to him to bring us home,” says Susie Tompkins Buell, one of those Clinton die-hards, and a big Democratic donor. Mr. Obama’s acceptance speech here Thursday night will be his first big chance.
Ms. Buell was quoted in the New York Times earlier this week expressing frustration that Mr. Obama, the first-term Illinois senator, doesn’t get the “passion” and “commitment” that Mrs. Clinton’s supporters have for the second-term New York senator and former first lady. If so, he’s not alone.
It’s plain from interviews with voters in the months since Mr. Obama locked up the nomination that lots of Americans don’t get why the Clintonites can’t “get over it” -- in the oft-used phrase that drives them nuts. Ms. Buell went online today to try to explain the emotional journey that has, finally, put her on Mr. Obama's side. And in interviews here, some Clinton delegates sought to shed some light of their own.
But first, does it matter that many can’t fully embrace Mr. Obama? In what’s certain to be a close election against the Republicans’ nominee-to-be, Senator John McCain, you bet.
Liberals Remain Blind to Obama's Weaknesses—and Dangers - Bonnie Erbe (usnews.com) DENVER—This is another tale of two conventions. I posted earlier from Denver on how Democratfest felt to me just like the 1976 Republican Convention in Kansas City where Gerald Ford narrowly squeaked by Ronald Reagan to win the nomination. No, in Denver there is no contested nomination as there was in Kansas City. But Sen. Hillary Clinton's presence weighed mightily and at times it felt like there were two Democratic candidates at the convention.
Uber-libs and party regulars seem completely blind to this and in fact seem to be trying to bury it down to the earth's core. Witness this post from left-leaning Salon.com's Rebecca Traister on a PUMA (or Party Unity My A**) protest:
But this is how media fantasy gets made, a miniature tableau of political discord, played out in front of a couple of well-placed television cameras and a television host who finds fetishistic, hyperbolic meaning in everything having to do with the defeated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her still-sore supporters.
I spoke at a panel with Traister, one hosted by the Women's Media Center, and found her to be a thoughtful person (and gifted writer). But her pro-Barack Obama leanings blind her to reality. She portrayed the pro-Hillary, anti-Obama protesters as a hysterical, PMS-ing minority. True, at the convention Obama folks dominate. But a look at the polls and in discussions with honest pro-Obama delegates in Denver, it's clear Democrats are worried and they have plenty to worry about.
A Gallup poll out this morning shows Obama wins more points from voters than McCain on handling of economic issues and in terms of "caring" about voters' problems. But he falls way behind on the question of leadership and on voters' questions about whether he can handle the job of Commander -in-Chief. Meanwhile, as I posted earlier, conservative Democrats are still not behind him, and guess what: There are more conservatives in this country than liberals. Guess what again: Clinton's supporters are more conservative than Obama's.
DENVER - Sen. Bob Menendez declined an invitation for a coveted speaking role at the Democratic National Convention because of lingering hard feelings between him and Barack Obama's camp, according to political and convention officials.
Menendez was offered a pre-prime-time speech, which would have been the New Jersey delegation's only shot at the Pepsi Center podium. But the deal was never closed because the senator did not feel he was given a prominent enough time slot, said the officials, who declined to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.
It's the latest example, they said, of lingering unease that grew out of Obama's hard-fought primary battle with Sen. Hillary Clinton.
Though a longtime - and strident - Clinton supporter, Menendez was expected to address the convention and take an active role in Obama's campaign. He is a popular presence in the Latino community and Obama is aggressively courting that group in his effort to win the White House.
Menendez's absence from both the podium and Obama campaign events has become conspicuous. One Menendez ally acknowledged the problem yesterday but sought to downplay it, saying: "They just haven't connected yet."
In an interview between fund-raising events and media appearances yesterday, Menendez, an accomplished orator, would not say whether he declined the offer.
"You know, the thing is: speaking is not important. Winning is," Menendez said. "Speaking is a moment in time; winning is a moment in history."
Menendez stressed he is committed to Obama.
"I have no reason to have a hard feelings toward Obama," Menendez said. "My advocacy for Hillary was just that, advocacy for Hillary. It was for Hillary and not against Obama for the primary. I am fully enlisted in Obama's campaign to achieve the change we all want."
(CNN) – Barack Obama's campaign sharply condemned rapper Ludacris Wednesday over his new song celebrating the Illinois senator's presidential bid while referring to Hillary Clinton by an offensive remark.
The song, called "Politics: Obama Is Here," was released earlier in the day and refers to the New York senator as an "irrelevant b***h." Ludacris, whose real name is Chris Bridges, also takes aim at John McCain in the song, saying the Arizona senator "don't belong in ANY chair unless he's paralyzed."
The song, which largely celebrates the rise of Obama on the national political scene, also criticizes the Rev. Jesse Jackson and President Bush.
Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said Ludacris should be "ashamed of these lyrics."
"As Barack Obama has said many, many times in the past, rap lyrics today too often perpetuate misogyny, materialism, and degrading images that he doesn’t want his daughters or any children exposed to," Burton said. "This song is not only outrageously offensive to Senator Clinton, Reverend Jackson, Senator McCain, and President Bush, it is offensive to all of us who are trying to raise our children with the values we hold dear. While Ludacris is a talented individual he should be ashamed of these lyrics."
Obama has praised Ludacris in the past and the two men sat down privately in 2006 together to discuss ways to empower youth.
Forty journalists paid $20,000 each to fly with Barack Obama during his tour of the Mideast. Meanwhile, John McCain was met by two journalists after arriving in New Hampshire. Katie Couric reports.
Barack Obama Obama feels like he is carrying the hopes and dreams of people around the world on his shoulders –a burden his aides believe has created unrealistic expectations of what he can achieve if he becomes the first black president.
With Obamamania hitting Britain, Europe and the Middle East when he visits this week, one of his most senior aides told The Sunday Telegraph that the Democratic presidential candidate is very conscious of the rapturous reception that may await him.
Greg Craig, one Mr Obama's inner circle of foreign policy advisers travelling with him, described the scale of infatuation for Mr Obama in Europe, which has seen him compared to John F. Kennedy, as "amazing".
But he added: "He is very conscious of it. He knows he has become a vehicle for peoples' hopes and dreams and expectations and we all fear that such expectations tend to be unrealistic."
The cries of pain came not from Obama or Jackson but from the American political left, from scribes and liberal editorial writers and broadcast analysts and eager bloggers. The true believers who evangelized that Obama would transcend politics as we knew it are suffering a Barackian hangover.
Greedily, they drained the kegs once full of sweet Obama Kool-Aid, drained them to the dregs and mopped up the remains with stale crusts. The inevitable happened—the pain that comes as everything finally becomes clear, in the rosy-fingered light of a terrible dawn.
Obama used them to crush the Clintons, but now the left is finally realizing it's been betrayed, on issue after issue, with Obama changing his positions in order to defeat a tired and disillusioned Republican Party in November.
They're at the dance now and he's the one with the keys and he's the only ride they've got. And they don't like it.
He has flip-flopped again and again, on campaign finance, on government eavesdropping of overseas phone calls, on gun control and even Iraq. Future President Obama now says he'll listen to his generals about when to withdraw. He didn't say he'd listen to the commissars of the blogosphere.
And his cheerleaders are beginning to realize that Obama may not be the Arthurian knight in shining armor, that he may not be Mr. Tumnus, the gentle forest faun of our presidential politics. Months after his inauguration, after he makes Billy Daley the secretary of the treasury and Michael Daley the secretary of zoning and promotes Patrick Fitzgerald to become the attorney general of Mars, the political left may figure out that Obama is a Chicago politician.
"Only an idiot would think or hope that a politician going through the crucible of a presidential campaign could hold fast to every position, steer clear of the stumbling blocks of nuance and never make a mistake," wrote Bob Herbert in The New York Times. "But Barack Obama went out of his way to create the impression that he was a new kind of political leader—more honest, less cynical and less relentlessly calculating than most. . . . Obama is not just tacking gently toward the center. He's lurching right when it suits him, and he's zigging with the kind of reckless abandon that's guaranteed to cause disillusion, if not whiplash."
This panic of the left—particularly among many political media types—is profoundly instructive to foreigners seeking to understand American character. The American media elite chose to portray Obama as some kind of knight in armor. They're analysts. Yet they were desperate to believe in a political fairy tale from Chicago. Somewhere in this desperate yearning is an answer.
Obama is not their fool. And he's not weak. He got down on one knee to the Chicago Democratic Machine and didn't make any waves and asked that it make him a U.S. senator. He lectured the Africans about political corruption and kept his mouth shut about corruption in Chicago, and the national press ignored the inconsistency and pampered and protected him. He waited and he's ready and now they're worried? Too late, boys and girls.
I don't mean to pick on Mr. Herbert, an elegant writer. His is but one of many voices, stunned on the side of the road, wondering what happened. I felt the same Kool-Aid hangover, and the same whiplash, but from the opposite direction years ago, when I was run down in the middle of a paragraph by a clown car driven by Karl Rove.
The Bush White House became the champion of big government, of big spending, of Jack Abramoff and of perjury under oath. The clowns boiled out of the car and I watched them go, taking the Republican Party with them, dragging it out into the desert, where they'd dug a big hole and stuffed it with Kool-Aid-addled conservatives.
So I have some sympathy for those on the left when it comes to Obama. They feel jilted, and the story was of a growing sense of betrayal, until Rev. Jackson whispered his desire to remove Obama's valuables.
Then the left joined in with the right, and with the viewers of Fox News in the front row—representing those Reagan Democrat votes Obama will need in November—we all pounded Jackson, righteously, in Obama's name.
Oh, what a night! And the hits keep coming for Obama. Hell hath no fury as a media scorned.
BARACK OBAMA has been accused of betraying his most loyal supporters, by voting in favour of an amendment to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) he had promised to block. Civil liberties groups say the bill, which aims to make it easier to monitor terrorist suspects, violates the constitution and legitimises government spying on ordinary Americans.
The revised act grants immunity from prosecution to phone companies who assisted the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping programme, something Obama swore to resist as recently as June. Senate majority leader Harry Reid, chief whip Dick Durbin and Hillary Clinton all opposed the bill. Its passage was a significant victory for Dick Cheney.
By far the biggest group at social networking site mybarackobama.com, with more than 23,000 members, is called Senator Obama - Please Vote No On Telecom Immunity - Get FISA Right. In defeat, user comments revealed a potentially damaging breach. Justin from Minnesota wrote: "it cost him my vote and I hope it will cost him the votes of many others." Alejandro from Seattle lamented that he "thought the whole point of the Obama campaign was to not be like other politicians".
advertisementGail from New Jersey addressed the candidate directly: "You lost your most ardent supporters, your workers, your donors," she posted. The fundraising model that Obama has used so successfully, tapping 1.5 million supporters for an average of $197 (£99) each, depends on the goodwill of such activists. At an event in New York this week he admitted donations have been "a little slow".
Obama's shift on the surveillance issue was not an isolated incident. He has been steadily creeping towards the centre ground ever since he secured the Democratic nomination, repositioning himself as a moderate with cross-party appeal. To his left-wing base, a key element of his coalition, this is apostasy, a cynical abandonment of principles that calls his entire claim to be a progressive into question.
Obama has endorsed the Supreme Court's decision to overturn a handgun ban in Washington DC on the grounds that "if we act responsibly, we can both protect the constitutional right to bear arms and keep our communities and our children safe". He has criticised the same judges for limiting capital punishment to murder cases, arguing that child rape sometimes justifies the death penalty.
He has backed off from earlier criticism of free trade agreements, watered down his proposal to alter the tax structure so that the richest pay more, hinted he would introduce stringent mental health checks for women seeking late-term abortions and committed himself to continuing the Republican policy of channelling funding for community services through faith-based programmes.
Wow, they're really turning on him now. I can't say enough that "we told you so." Click here for the rest of this article.
At another point in his standup routine, he began: “My little nephew came to me and he said, ‘Uncle, what’s the difference between a hypothetical question and a realistic question?’ I said, I don’t know, but I said, ‘Go upstairs and ask your mother if she would make love to the mailman for $50,000.’ ”
The joke rambled on until the punch line that he and his nephew lived with “two hos.”
When it came time for Mr. Obama — who has made an issue of parental responsibility among black men — to speak, he gave an abbreviated version of his campaign speech and then chastised Mr. Mac.
“We can’t afford to be divided by race,” Mr. Obama said. “We can’t afford to be divided by region or by class and we can’t afford to be divided by gender, which by the way, that means, Bernie, you’ve got to clean up your act next time. This is a family affair. By the way, I’m just messing with you, man.”
Later, an Obama spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, formally repudiated Mr. Mac.
“Senator Obama told Bernie Mac that he does not condone these statements and that what he said was inappropriate,” Ms. Psaki said.
Many of the liberal blogs who touted the Illinois Democrat early on have blasted Obama for changing his position.
One post on the blog DailyKos.com called Obama's decisions to vote for the bill a "sellout" and a "tactical blunder."
And on "getfisaright.com," a self-described group of 23,000 Obama supporters has posted an open letter to the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, saying that "it is disheartening that you decided to support this bill, which does immense damage to the rule of law and our most fundamental democratic institutions.
"Even though we are disappointed, most of us continue to support you as a candidate," the group wrote. "But as a candidate you have work to do repairing our trust in you and in government."
In an unprecedented attempt to put out a fire in his own house, Senator Barack Obama yesterday issued a response to supporters who had been protesting his position on government surveillance. The release was followed by an 90 minute interchange on MyBarackObama.com between campaign officials and supporters (though as far as I could tell, the campaign officials made no comments themselves but just read the comments being made, leaving it unclear who was actually reading and for how long)..
Unfortunately, there was nothing in Obama's response that addressed the harsh criticism some of his supporters have voiced. I could go into detail on why the statement stinks, but since this is the Internet I don't have to, since I can instead direct you to the excellent point-by-point analysis offered by Glenn Greenwald. My focus here will be the novel political dynamic unleashed by the Obama campaign's social networking site, MyBarackObama.com.
These are uncharted waters we are dealing with here. Yesterday I asked the question whether 18,000 people protesting on the campaign's own web site (out of hundreds of thousands) were a lot or a little. Apparently they were enough to get the attention of the campaign and the candidate.
The comments were a mix of people who were star-struck that Obama had noticed them and written a reply, people who felt any criticism on the site was inappropriate, people who just spouted typical Internet invective at each other, but then an awful lot of extremely informed and thoughtful people who did not back down an inch.
Some defending Obama's position questioned whether the protestors were really from the Obama camp or were Republicans who had logged on to wreak havoc. However, since MyBarackObama.com is a full-fledged social networking site, one can check the profile of each commenter, see how long they have been active on the site, what action groups they are part of, and so on. It appeared that many angry critics were people who had put a lot of time and money into the campaign.
The whole episode raised more questions than it answered. Certainly what is going on here is something new. There are going to be many more controversial issues. A presidential candidate can't always be having to log on to the Internet to defend himself from his own supporters. I am reminded The Obama campaign promised to give its supporters new Internet tools to empower them to make the campaign their own. Now that it as done so, the leadership has to be wondering if it was a good idea. of the musicians who have figured out how to make modest livelihoods marketing their music directly to fans over MySpace, only to discover that doing requires spending hours every day maintaining the sort of direct relationship fans on social networking sites expect.
On the other hand, overall this has to be considered a victory for, and an extension of, democracy. This is a clear-cut case of a candidate promising one thing and doing another. Turns out that in the age of the online campaign there will be a higher price for this time-honored activity.
With the assistance of a press corps willing to play along, the McCain campaign scored a hit Monday, feigning outrage and manufacturing a controversy out of Wesley Clark's questions on John McCain's presidential qualifications. It involved twisting the words of a four-star general a bit, and a pliant press corps willing to redefine the word "attack," but the McCain/GOP spin machine was in high dudgeon and it got precisely the result it was looking for.
This is fascinating being that Obama greatly benefited from "a press corps willing to play along," and "a pliant press corps willing to redefine the word 'attack'" during the campaign against Hillary. Now the shoe is on the other foot and you're going to start seeing pro-Obama bloggers and "journalists" complain about unfair treatment since he'll actually get scrutinized the way he should have long ago.
Between Patti Solis Doyle and Bill "Judas" Richardson, I can't help but notice that the Obama camp is not exactly stacked with the most loyal people in the world. Just wondering how much trouble Obama has to be in before they turn on him. Or maybe some hotshot will come out of nowhere in 4 years and challenge Obama, if he's in fact the president. Let's stay tuned to see how quick they jump ship.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will apparently appear together for the first time since she conceded the Democratic nomination at an event next week with big donors.
The New York Daily News is reporting online today that Clinton's national finance director Jonathan Mantz sent top donors an email invitation today:
"As we move forward, we invite you to join us for a National Finance Committee meeting with both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on Thursday, June 26th in Washington, D.C., to discuss how we can work together to support Barack Obama and the Democratic Party."
"Hillary ran for President because she wants to put this country on the right track," the invitation says. "She continues to fight and stand strong for our values and priorities and will do everything she can to unify the party and to elect Barack Obama the next President of the United States."
The Clinton campaign is encouraging its supporters to contribute the maximum $2,300 to Obama's campaign.
But since she suspended her campaign and fully endorsed Obama on June 7, one of the lingering questions has been whether Obama's donors will help Clinton pay off her campaign debt. At the end of April, she owed $19.5 million, including $10 million she loaned herself.
Meanwhile, Obama addressed the boos that greeted the mentions of Clinton at his rally in Detroit Monday night when he was formally endorsed by former Vice President Al Gore.
Obama chided the crowd then, and told reporters on his campaign plane today, "When I got out there I shut that down, and made very clear that Senator Clinton deserves respect. She ran a great race and we are moving forward because we want to win in November. You know I think people were still in primary mindset, and we're moving into general election mindset."
CNN) — Oprah Winfrey is ecstatic over Barack Obama’s apparent victory in this year’s Democratic presidential race.
"I'm euphoric, I've been doing the happy dance all day,” she said in a statement released Wednesday I'm so proud of Barack and Michelle and what this means for all of us, the new possibilities for our country.”
The talk show host, who campaigned for Obama in several key early primary states, added: “And if he wants me to, I'm ready to go door to door."
ATLANTA (Reuters) - Black Americans savored Barack Obama's unprecedented victory in the Democratic race for U.S. president, but said on Wednesday the higher stakes raised the prospect of deep disappointment in November.
The knowledge that Obama will be the first black American to lead a major party in a U.S. presidential election as he faces Republican John McCain in November provoked a flood of reflection from black voters at Atlanta's "K&K Soul Food" restaurant.
"It's great. We finally have a 'brother' nominated to be president. It's the best thing I've ever seen," said Alan Stephens, 46, who had parked the truck he uses for his welding business directly outside the big side window.
"But it will be even better when he is president," he said, adding that Obama's victory should be put in the context of other milestones in African American history, a popular view among a U.S. minority with a keen sense that discrimination and the struggle to overcome it has defined its identity.
In winning the nomination, Obama has left many African Americans elated but at the same time fearful that their own preoccupations might derail the candidate in a general election, said William Jelani Cobb, author of books about contemporary black culture.
"Black Americans are treading on thin ice, moving very delicately. This (Obama's) opportunity is frail and fragile (and many say) let's make sure that nothing happens to ruin it," said Cobb, a professor of history at Atlanta's Spelman College.
Get used to saying it because the Democrats have just chosen the wrong nominee. Obama will not win in November. Not unless him and his supporters do some major damage control with Clinton supporters, which would mean reaching out to them in a way they seem incapable of.
The Obama supporters who think Clinton played dirty, haven't seen anything yet. Obama's empty record will finally be in the spotlight. He will have to be much clearer on how he intends to bring change, especially to the voters in middle and rural America. He will now have to puth forth credible, detailed plans rather than rely on lofty themes and buzz words. Good plans, what a concept!
There are already millions of Clinton supporters who have vowed not to vote for Obama. Some of them will not vote for him even if Hillary is on the ticket. There has been too much damage done by his surrogates, his supporters, the media and himself. Obama has a lot of work to do to win over Clinton's army. Whatever he does now will probably be received as disingenuous and way too late.
McCain has some work to do as well. If he can recapture the same spirit of his 2000 campaign then it will be no contest. This is doubtful. He's alligned himself to Bush way too many times since then. However, if he can win over many of Clinton's supporters and enough of the more conservative independents, he will be our next president.
If Hillary is picked as Obama's running mate, then it's hard to see how he loses. However, I hope to God she doesn't choose to go this route if she is offered the spot. I think there are better opportunities ahead for her, and she would be far more effective in a different role.
So for all the pundits and Obama supporters trashing Hillary for not conceding tonight, I say, fuck off already and get used to saying it, "President McCain."
"Why is it that of all the wonderful Catholic priests in the Chicago Archdiocese, Obama long ago chose Pfleger to hang with?" Catholic League President Bill Donohue said in a statement. "Truth be known, Pfleger has a very troubling history."
“Senator Obama says he wants to bring people together. Then why does he choose as his clerical friends people like Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Father Pfleger?" Donohue also said. "They are two peas in a pod, both equally divisive, separated only by the color of their skin.”
Texas Democratic Party Vice Chairwoman Roy LaVerne Brooks is a superdelegate who endorsed Barack Obama in March.
The longtime party activist from Fort Worth is also running to unseat current state party Chairman Boyd Richie.
Imagine her surprise Tuesday when she received a disturbing phone call from a national Obama operative who is part of a group that parachuted into Texas to work on this weekend's state party convention.
Roy says the operative, Rudy Shank, told her that unless she drops her candidacy to unseat Richie at the state convention she will not be going to the national convention as a superdelegate.
A deal is offered She said Shank politely told her that "if there was any way I could not run, it would be appreciated because they would like a convention without hurt feelings."
Shank told her he could make a deal with her. He said Glen Maxey, the former Austin state representative whom the Obama campaign hired as its convention director, told him that if Brooks gave up her vice chairmanship to run against Richie, she would lose her status as superdelegate if she lost.
State chairs and vice chairs are automatically members of the Democratic National Committee, which makes them superdelegates. Brooks' term as vice chair ends this weekend.
A quiet rule change Brooks said that was news to her. About 20 years ago, then-Chairman Bob Slagle put in a rule saying that while the election for vice chair would take place at the state convention in June, the term would extend until the end of the national convention. The idea was that the vice chair should be rewarded with a national convention at the end of his or her term, not at the beginning of it.
Houstonian Carl Davis, who served as vice chairman from 1998 to 2000, went as a delegate to the convention in Los Angeles that nominated Al Gore.
"I remember seeing the rule in writing," he said.
But apparently the rule has been quietly changed in recent years.
Slagle says he recently learned of the change, though he didn't recall whether the rule was a written one or a "handshake agreement."
Under the new rule, Brooks would lose her superdelegate status if she fails to unseat Richie. But if she backs out, Richie could name her to one of three "add-on" superdelegate slots.
He is required to nominate at least two people for each of the three seats, to be approved by the nominations committee and then ratified by the convention. Traditionally, the nominations committee approves the chairman's first choice of delegates.
There are ironies in the request by an Obama operative that Brooks back off the chairman's race.
One is that she is an African-American. The state Democratic chairman has traditionally been a white male, with an occasional white female slipping in.
Another is that Brooks is casting herself as a "change" from the good ol' boy system, and Obama's campaign is all about changing the good ol' boy system. Brooks' chances of unseating Richie are enhanced by several thousand change-oriented newcomers who will swell the convention to about triple its normal size.
Brooks said she told Shank she would stay in the race.
"I made the comment that I may need to jump over to Hillary's side because I'm not going to be treated like a dish rag," she said.
I asked if she was serious.
"I'm very serious if they keep trying to get me out of the race and I learn that Obama is behind it," she said.
The job of uniting the Democratic Party after a long and divisive primary season just got tougher, thanks to yet another Chicago Christian leader who's a longtime friend and associate of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has rejected the comments of another controversial pastor who sharply mocked his Democratic nomination rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. (Reuters/Getty Images)Precisely at the time when Obama's camp needs to be building bridges to supporters of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, the Rev. Michael Pfleger, who's known Obama for about 20 years, took to the pulpit of Obama's church Sunday and ridiculed Clinton, using racially divisive language.
The timing could not be worse.
The Democratic National Committee's rules and bylaws committee will meet Saturday to hash out how to deal with the delegations of Florida and Michigan, which are going to be punished for ignoring party rules and holding early primaries.
Clinton supporters plan on staging protests, insisting that the committee count the votes as cast, even though no candidate campaigned in either state and Obama wasn't on the ballot in Michigan.
But hanging over the Saturday meeting will be the mocking comments made by Pfleger from the same Chicago pulpit that Obama's pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, used racially inflammatory language about America to Obama's regret.
Obama was forced to say Thursday he was "deeply disappointed" by Pfleger's pulpit performance in which he mocked Clinton by pretending to bawl after saying she was "entitled" to the nomination because she was white and Bill Clinton's wife.
"There's a black man stealing my show," Pfleger wailed in his mock Clinton voice.
Pfleger quickly followed Obama's statement with his own apology, but the Clinton camp was not mollified.
"This is going to hurt Obama's efforts right now to bring the party together coming out of the primaries Tuesday," ABC's chief political correspondent George Stephanopoulos said today on "Good Morning America."
"The feelings between Clinton supporters and Obama supporters are rubbed very, very raw. This makes that worse," Stephanopoulos said.
But by delivering his remarks, Father Pfleger seems to have officially submitted his entry to the What Else Can We At Trinity Do to Further Assure that the United States Does Not Have Its First African-American President Any Time Soon? video competition. And this application has “Finalist” marked all over it.
It achieves this status because Father Pfleger has more than a passing acquaintance with the person who stands on the verge of winning the Democratic Party’s nomination.
His precise relation to Senator Obama is presently being pieced together and rehearsed in articles across the internet (such as this one, and this one). As of now, it seems fair to say that Pfleger (who has suddenly disappeared from the candidate’s website) and Obama have known and liked one another for a long time. The former appears to have financially contributed to previous campaigns and to have worked for the present one prior to the Iowa Caucus.
According to widely circulated reports (although I have not been able to track down the original source in the few hours since this story broke) Obama once referred to Pfleger as a “spiritual adviser” in a 2004 Chicago Sun-Times article.
After watching -- slackjawed -- Father Michael Pfleger’s remarks about Hillary Clinton and White privilege I have queries. First, what is it about that particular pulpit that brings out the inner Chris Rock in assorted Men of God?
Second, are there any guys on the face of the earth having more fun than the four fellows in robes whooping it up directly behind Father Pfleger? Third, are we going to be told by Obama operatives that the remarks were taken out of context? Fourth, and most importantly, what will be the fallout for the Obama campaign?
In a general election a presidential candidate typically moves to the center. It is now going to be even harder for Obama to do that since America keeps seeing footage of his friends who stand to the left of Fidel Castro.
But that's not all. The Senator from Illinois has his share of difficulties with White Blue Collar voters. I have observed elsewhere that this group loathes this type of rhetoric (unless it comes from Chris Rock).
There's more to be concerned about. Obama has demonstrated some weakness with Catholic voters. The fact that he finds himself receiving glowing praise from a priest who has been in a running, public feud with his local Cardinal might aggravate the problem.
Let's not forget Senator Clinton. She surely will chime in on this controversy later today. It will deflect attention from her own recent gaffes. And it will strengthen her supporters’ conviction that the racial hang-ups of Obama’s inner circle will accrue to John McCain’s greater glory. Too, there is more than a touch of misogyny in the priest's oratory and (as the Male Space Invader Rick Lazio learned the hard way) many women voters rally to Hillary when they feel a gendered slight.
I don’t doubt that the Senator’s aforementioned words of regret are sincere. I don’t doubt that he truly deplores this type of rhetoric. But how many more radical Left- wing confidantes from the South Side can undecided voters withstand before they start questioning the man's claims about being a unifier who is above Red States and Blue States, Republican and Democrat, Conservative and Liberal?
The pro-Obama case against MSNBC's pro-Obama political coverage
Dangerous Liaison Even Obama supporters admit there's a pro-Obama bias at MSNBC. Their reputation is finally becoming mainstream.
And this was only the latest example of the network's undeniable Obama favoritism. David Shuster's comment about the Clintons' "pimping out" their daughter, Chelsea, was clearly boneheaded, but, as Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson pointed out, it caused such a stir among Clintonites because it highlighted the rest of the network's anti-Hillary coverage. Now, that's not to say that their slant has been bad for business; to the contrary. And it has certainly made for some enjoyable television--Matthews is often supremely engaging (who, after all, does not enjoy watching someone exclaim that seeing Obama speak gives him a "thrill going up my leg"), and however withering he can be, Olbermann is frequently hilarious. But the network's coverage has helped create a bubble around Obama supporters that in the end is neither healthy nor desirable.
In fact, MSNBC's bias has actually hurt the Illinois senator. After all, it was the Obama cheerleading from MSNBC (among others) that helped lead to Clinton's New Hampshire comeback. And even if you think (as I do) that the Clintons have made too big of a deal out of the "sexist" and "unfair" portrayal their candidate has received in the press, if you watch enough MSNBC, you realize that their claim isn't without truth. How could you believe otherwise when Olbermann, with his trademark hauteur, told Hillary that "voluntarily or inadvertently, you are still awash in this filth [of the campaign]," or when Matthews took such self-evident glee in trouncing Clinton in between the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary? Similarly now, by mocking Clinton's decision to stay in the race, Olbermann has only bolstered her argument that "the boys" are trying to push her out. And finally, on a number of primary nights, but most notably in Pennsylvania and Ohio/Texas, MSNBC has become so excited by early exit polls that it has raised expectations that Obama ultimately could not live up to.
The problem here is that when supposedly "straight" news anchors phrase questions in leading ways, and report one campaign's spin as if it were fact, it distorts what is actually going on in the campaign--even for those of us who make a living obsessing over and writing about politics. And when anchormen themselves shill for Obama, the distinction between his talking points and the truth grows even blurrier still. So, as much as I find MSNBC entertaining, their creation of a parallel, pro-Obama universe is the type of thing I'd expect of Fox. That's when I know it's time to change the channel.
Isaac Chotiner is a frequent contributor to The New Republic.
Great clip from today's Hardball. Joan Walsh takes on Chris Matthews and Joe Madison and warns Obama supporters about possible backlash of their demonizing of the Clintons and confirms the involvement of the Obama campain in pushing this story.
I'm looking at my Google page and this is about the only story on the page that is not bashing Hillary and actually takes the time to put things in their proper perspective.
I'm looking at a tvr'd "Meet the Press" right now and the Hillary bashing continues with a panel basically dedicating this episode as a "How Hillary Lost" show. There's Maureen Dowd telling us that the calls of sexism by the Hillary side are "poppycock;" Doris Kearns Goodwin ending a thought with "or God forbid what this thought suggested." The only moderate voice seemed to come from Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post who said she "would differ a little bit from some of the people around the table who thought this was intentional."
If you go to the page of the TPM YouTube video, you will see the most hateful, vitriolic, vile comments against Hillary to date. It's so obvious that the Obama side, who is fixated on thrusting the final dagger in the Clinton campaign, is not interested in anything the Clinton supporters have to bring to party. They really feel they can win without us. For me, this weekend is the final straw. I've finally decided that I will not be voting for Obama if he is the nominee. I've been on the fence for quite a while on what to to if he was the nominee, but the Obama side and the media have, just pushed me over. I'm still not sure if I can find myself voting for a Republican but I will either be staying home or writing in Hillary's name if she is not the nominee.
The consequences could be stark if McCain wins. However, in the case Hillary is not the nominee, I think it would be better to lose the presidency than to lend legitimacy to the wing of this party that finds it OK to disenfranchise millions of voters to win, and finds it OK to use a sexist, biased media as a weapon against a fellow Dem. They apparently are OK with swift-boating fellow Dems and the left-wing blogs like Daily Kos, with their juvenile, vile community, is OK with not only lifting their preferred candidate but destroying the opposing Democrat. The left-wing blogoshere, which has spent the last eight years complaining about right-wing tactics, is guilty of behaving in the same manner. For those of you who will no doubt point to NO QUARTER, I say that this is just one site who is just reacting to these tactics and their resentment stems from, to a large degree, the lack of substance from Obama and the vitriolic attacks of his supporters toward Sen. Clinton and her supporters. Most of this is defensive as opposed to what Obama supporters have managed to do, destroy the the original "inevitable" candidate.
I'm not OK with being forced to follow the "it" crowd; a fashion statement. I'd rather lose and pick my battles with McCain than be told to follow a candidate or face "race riots" as Michelle Bernard said on MSNBC on 5/19/08. I'm not OK with being told I'm a racist because I'm not following the "black candidate" after it took months for that community to even consider him black.
I'm not OK with the media choosing our candidate. I'm not OK with Donna Brazile asking me for money on behalf of the party, when she's done her best to promote her candidate with her "undeclared" support, while also, doing her best to "send a message" and make sure Florida voters pay the maximum price for what Florida Republican politicians created.
This party, which started this campaign with an embarrassment of riches, has exposed their sores and is now infected.
The signature defect of modern political journalism is that it has shredded the ideal of proportionality.
Important stories, sometimes the product of months of serious reporting, that in an earlier era would have captured the attention of the entire political-media community and even redirected the course of a presidential campaign, these days can disappear with barely a whisper.
Trivial stories—the kind that are tailor-made for forwarding to your brother-in-law or college roommate with a wisecracking note at the top—can dominate the campaign narrative for days.
Who can guess what stories will cause the media machine to rev up its hype jets?
Actually, I have gotten pretty good at guessing which ones will. So have many of my colleagues and a generation of political operatives.
This weekend’s uproar over Hillary Clinton invoking the assassination of Robert Kennedy as rationale for continuing her presidential campaign is an especially vivid example of modern journalism as hyperkinetic child—overstimulated by speed and hunger for a head-turning angle that will draw an audience.
The truth about what Clinton said—and any fair-minded appraisal of what she meant—was entirely beside the point.
Her comment was news by any standard. But it was only big news when wrested from context and set aflame by a news media more concerned with being interesting and provocative than in being relevant or serious. Thus, the story made the front page of the New York Times, was the lead story of the Washington Post, and got prominent treatment on the evening news on ABC, CBS, and NBC.
It would be a big story if Clinton said something like this: “Hey, I know it looks bad for me now. But, think about it. Obama could get shot and I’d get to be the nominee after all.”
It is a small story if Clinton said something like this: “Everyone talks like May is incredibly late, but by historical standards it is not. Think of all the famous milestones in presidential races that have taken place during June.”
It seems pretty obvious that the latter is what Clinton meant, and not too far from what she actually said. It was not surprising that the Argus Leader’s executive editor, Randall Beck, put out a statement saying, “Her reference to Mr. Kennedy’s assassination appeared to focus on the time line of his primary candidacy and not the assassination itself.”
Let the Republicans have the snake handlers and inbreeds and ignorance that goes with those so called uneducated WV and Kentucky voters.
Look at the way they live and look at the way they have voted locally. They cant govern themselves but America depends on their judgement to choose a candidate to lead all of us.
It is time to put these "Regan Democrats"(whatever that really means) into history with Jessica Lynch!!!!!! Posted by: EddienTexas May 22, 2008 at 11:07 AM
Hillary ought ot run for president of Kentucky. Posted by: blarsen May 22, 2008 at 11:07 AM
93% - that's the same percentage by which blacks vote for Obama. So what is it that 90%+ voting preference says??? Posted by: Keith May 22, 2008 at 11:08 AM
...AND WHAT PERCENTAGE OF THE BLACK VOTE IS OBAMA GETTING. REVERSE RACISM IS STILL RACISM. Posted by: Gordito Mojito May 22, 2008 at 11:09 AM
I love being from Kentucky. Aside from Louisville and Lexington, it's the last bastion of wilderness untouched by the PC radicals obsessed with diversity. Posted by: Seth May 22, 2008 at 11:09 AM
I'm not sure I understand why Hillary is so proud of her KY & WV victories. Is it really a good thing that she is winning the votes of uneducated, poor, rural whites? I mean, I don't think I'd want to trumpet the fact that I'm the choice of people who tend to be less intelligent and more racist than the average person...
Or is it more telling that Obama is winning the "educated voters"? Wouldn't all of this mean that Hillary is winning the people who don't know any better but Obama is winning the people who think for themselves and try to make fact-based decisions?
I don't see Obama going out and being so proud about winning the overwhelming majority of black voters. Why is Hillary accepting such blatant racism in her victories? Posted by: A Voter May 22, 2008 at 11:10 AM
It's no surprise that those hillbilly barrios are full of racist rednecks. Have you ever seen Deliverance? And no the reverse racism thing just doesn't hold. Black people have voted for whiteys before. King Clinton I owes being elected to the black voters so you can't call them racist. Just because they would prefer to vote for Obama than Queen Clinton II does not mean they are racist and would refuse voting for whitey. Seriously is anybody going to say with a straight face that Kentucky and West Virginia are not hillbilly, redneck, cesspools of racism, bigotry and ignorance? Come on! Posted by: TruthIsTreasonComplianceIsPatriotic May 22, 2008 at 11:16 AM
Soon after the 2004 election, after spending so much time, energy and money supporting John Kerry's failed bid, I remember being outraged by some remarks made by the the founder and CEO of the DLC, Al From. From, who is infamous for his centrist and hawkish policies, said in March 2005, “You’ve got to reject Michael Moore and the MoveOn crowd.” From added “rank-and-file Democrats ‘are more like us than MoveOn,’ which [Al] From called a group of ‘elites, people who sit in their basements all the time and play on their computers.’” (NBC’s “First Read,” 3/1/05)
I myself was a MoveOn member, and I guess I still am, although I haven't participated in any of their events in quite a while. So at the time, I took great offense to these remarks, and it seemed he was suggesting that the party needed to move toward the right if it ever wanted to win an election again.
I can't help but think that From's remarks have come to mind several times during the current Democratic campaign. Now I'm not saying that From was correct, but the vigorous support and vitriol shown by Obama supporters and the media which seems to now be overtly gushing over the junior senator from IL, have made things a little clearer. It's quite obvious that there is a rift in the party.
Obama supporters on blogs like Daily Kos, 527's like MoveOn and his supporters throughout the media would have you believe that Clinton supporters are all dumb, white racists and/or feminists. The many Clinton supporters I've met while campaigning are far from being dumb or racist. In fact, many of her supporters admire the work she's done over the years on civil and human rights and her collaborations with African-American and Latino leaders. Many of her supporters didn't even start out this campaign against Obama. They just felt he wasn't ready for the job and that Clinton was ready and much more experienced. After all, if Obama does become president, America will have chosen somebody who's last complete term was as a state senator.
Some of Hillary's supporters didn't start out supporting her. As their preferred candidates finally left the race, they were faced with a decision. I for one started out as an Edwards supporter. One thing that stuck in my mind from the beginning was how Hillary performed during the debates. She just seemed so much more experienced, so much more in control and her answers were always very detailed. It also became very obvious that the media was in Obama's corner. When the piling on started with pundits like Keith Olbermann making it a mission to bring Hillary down, then seeing the ugly diaries and comments at sites that claim to be for all Dems, and when Edwards finally decided to leave the race, the choice became clear for me.
Clinton supporters are passionate for sure. As they began to express their support online, in forums and blogs, they were met with a ferocious wave of disdain from fellow Democrats. The Obama supporters were so furious that many Clinton supporters found it necessary to seek out other places they would be welcome.
So if there is a Clinton wing of the party, I would say they range from being liberal to more moderate, just left-of-center Dems. Clinton liberals can be those with traditional progressive values who feel she is the best person to champion causes like universal health care, the rights of labor, immigrants, gays and despite her 2002 vote, they feel she is the best person to get us out of the war in Iraq. Clinton moderates feel she would be the strongest leader and be the best person on issues like national defense, the fight on terrorism and the security of the nation.
On the other hand, although I don't agree with From's past statements, there is an element in the party that sees itself as entitled. They are ultra-partisan and don't feel the party should be tolerant of any part of the country that is even a fraction to the right of them. They realize that there will be more conservative Dems, in areas where there are a majority of Republicans and will even campaign for them, but they won't let them into their conversations or clubs; they won't let them speak for the party. If they had their way there would only be one party and everybody would be as vile, snarky and liberal as they are. Sounds like a mirror-image of right-wing republicans.
So here lies the danger. If Obama wins, this wing of the party will surely dominate. How will Obama unite the country as he says he can, when his supporters are unwilling to compromise and are not even tolerant of the more moderate views within their own party? And before you reply with comments about how divisive Hillary is and polls showing her supporters are unwilling to support Obama if he's the nominee, remember that she didn't start the attacks. She was very civil and withstood constant attacks from the other candidates early in the race. In fact, I remember one line vividly from the Las Vegas debate: “They're not attacking me because I'm a woman,” she said. “They're attacking me because I'm ahead.” This is from Politico's coverage (which hasn't always been friendly to Sen. Clinton) of that debate:
LAS VEGAS – New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton responded to weeks of increasing criticism from her rivals at a debate here Thursday night with a rhetorical show of force of her own.
She accused former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards of “throwing mud” and said Illinois Sen. Barack Obama is being too modest in his plans for health care and too aggressive in aiming to raise Social Security taxes.
Clinton was cheered — and her rivals' criticisms were, at times, booed — by an unusually raucous crowd made up of students, labor union members and Democratic activists at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.
Clinton supporters have to stay relevant. We have to show the blogs and the pundits that we do count and that bias and sexism will never be tolerated. The most obvious way to do this would be to not support Obama. Without us, he may never get his hands on the prize. However, to be able to make this statement, is it really worth the alternative outcome? I'm not sure that McCain doesn't keep us in the war and maybe start a new one. Universal health care will be out the window. So how will I vote if Obama is the nominee? I'm still not sure. For me, the choice will not be as relevant as I will be voting in NJ this year. I can't see either Dem losing here. But for many of you, a tough decision is pending. I also know for others I've spoken to, the decision will be very easy because you've already decided that there is no way you will vote for Obama, and as long as it's not based of race, I respect that decision.
There is another way we can show our unity and strength. We should start looking toward local races where we can make a difference. We should seek out candidates that share Sen. Clinton's values and show our support. For me, one candidate in particular comes to mind. His name is Steve Harrison from New York's 13th congressional district. I'm sure many of you have heard of the recent troubles of the incumbent Republican Vito Fossella, NYC's only Republican Congressperson.
This seat is clearly up for grabs. My good friend Steve Harrison ran against Fossella in 2006 and received an unprecedented 43% even though he was heavily under-funded and outspent 13:1. Despite promises from the DCCC that they would step in, they never did. This year could be different. He has already received endorsements from DFNYC, the NY Times, Progressive Democrats of America and National Peace Action. "We found that Mr. Harrison would bring to Congress an intelligent and educated approach to the real security of this country based on international cooperation, respect for human rights, and diplomacy," said Peace Action NY State Chair, Sally Jones. "Among the positions taken by Mr. Harrison that garnered him the support of Peace Action is his opposition to the Bush war policy that is destroying the American economy and driving down living standards."
Harrison wants the country to approach our energy problems with the same vigor and national resolve as we did putting a man on the moon. He feels that in a decade we should be free from foreign and domestic fossil fuel dependance.
Steve is also for single-payer universal medical coverage for all Americans. He opposes the war in Iraq and calls for the immediate withdrawal of forces, consistent with our troops' safety. As of the 2006 election, Fossella had voted with Bush administration policies an incredible 91% of the time.
Hillary played a big part in Steve's campaign in 2006, including robocalls from her and Bill. However, the help came too late in the race. With more name recognition this year and more support from people like us, we can get Steve to DC.
I know everybody is tapped out from helping Hillary, but a nominee will be chosen soon. Whether or not it's the person we want is a different matter. However, it would be great to show we can keep this coalition together and actually make a difference. We can send a strong message to the media by supporting candidates that share Hillary's vision and values. This will also help put her in a much stronger position if she decides to run again in four years. Think how many more superdelegates she can win if we are the ones to help put them in that position (unless they become like Bill "Judas" Richardson, kidding).
So whether you can spare $5 now or later on after the convention, I urge you to my ActBlue page and show a little love.
If you can't give anything right now, I would love for you to go to Steve's site at SteveHarrisonforcongress.com and let him know that Marc from Blue Spot sent you and that Hillary supporters have his back.
By Matthew Mosk PORTLAND, Ore. -- Sen. Barack Obama showed every sign of confidence that he has secured the Democratic nomination during a high-dollar fundraiser at a posh club here last night.
Obama predicted a victory in Oregon, and said he believed the resulting delegate haul would "put us over the top."
"We will be able to say we have won a majority," he said. "But we have a lot of work to do ahead of us."
For the past several days, Obama has been moving closer to declaring himself the party's nominee, even as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has been campaigning aggressively to soak up delegates in the few remaining primaries. At an event in the timber-country town of Roseburg, Ore., he twice slipped into past tense when referring to Clinton's bid and the primaries.
Already, top fundraisers for Clinton and Obama have begun private talks aimed at merging the two candidates' teams.
At the fundraiser, he told a boisterous crowd of about 300 supporters that a win in November would require a unified Democratic Party, adding: "That means all of you have to be nice to Clinton supporters."
Is he kidding? We've put up with months of abuse and his surrogates say we're insignificant. We warned his supporters they would eventually need us. I may not vote for McCain, but it's going to take a lot more than this to get my vote.
A month ago, the editors of the Utica (N.Y.) Observer-Dispatch saw a sudden spike in Web readership for stories about the Rev. William Procanick, pastor of a local church who had been convicted of sexually abusing a child.
A story about Procanick was the upstate New York newspaper's No. 1 story in April, with 10 times the readership of the second-highest story. The paper's editors wouldn't expect such a story to generate so much interest, but Procanick's church was in a little-known town with a well-known name: Clinton.
In headlines and stories, Procanick was identified simply as "Clinton pastor."
For some supporters of Barack Obama, including one who posted an item on an official Obama campaign blog, that was an easy recipe for outrage. After seeing their candidate battered over his connection with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the phrase "Clinton pastor" was all they needed to conclude that Bill and Hillary Clinton's pastor was a convicted sex offender.
Never mind that Bill and Hillary don't attend Procanick's church, which is 225 miles from their home in Chappaqua, N.Y. And never mind that the Observer-Dispatch's stories never suggested any connection between the Clinton pastor and the political Clintons. In the lightning-fast world of the blogosphere, emotions often outrun the facts.
"Okay, so now that Bill and Hillary Clinton's pastor has been convicted of child molestation, will we see the same furor directed at Hillary that Obama has had to endure these last few weeks? I don't think so!!!!" said a chain e-mail that was sent to PolitiFact and pasted on blogs.
Similar postings have appeared a blog called "Black Love is Alive," in a comment on the National Journal blog "Hotline on Call," and even on a motorcycle blog called "The Sportbike Network," under the headline "Billary's preacher is now a convicted pedophile."
On My.BarackObama.com, the Obama campaign's official blog, Shemora Singletary of Columbus, Ohio, posted an item April 25, 2008, that was headlined "Clinton's former pastor convicted of child molestation."
Singletary, a volunteer blogger on the site with the nickname "Knowledge Seeker," groused that the media hasn't paid enough attention to the episode involving the Clinton pastor. "Will this story get the press that Rev. Wright is getting?? And will the Clinton's have to answer for the character of this man??" she wrote.
She posted an article from the Utica paper and this postscript: "Now that Obama's lynching has gone off as planned, think the MSM (mainstream media) will run this story about Clinton's former pastor? Or would that upset the planned election of either Israeli-firster Hillary vs. Israeli-firster McCain?"
Singletary's posting drew two comments that said she was wrong. She acknowledged one of those comments but did nothing to correct or retract the inaccurate posting.
Singletary could not be reached for comment.
Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, said that the posting was not authorized by the campaign and that it was removed Wednesday morning after PolitiFact inquired about it. But it had been on the Obama site for nearly three weeks.
“This is one of more than 800,000 user-generated pages. It’s like a comment on your blog," Vietor said. "And it’s been taken down."
The posting was on a campaign blog created by volunteers who support Obama, but it's not always clear where an official Web site ends and the blog begins. The Obama blog has the same logo, candidate photo and quotation ("I'm asking you to believe . . .") as the regular campaign site. The only thing to distinguish it from the rest of the site is a headline that says "Community Blogs."
It has no disclaimer to indicate the messages may not be authorized by the campaign. To the contrary, at the bottom of the page it says "PAID FOR BY OBAMA FOR AMERICA."
The clip shows Obama supporters rallying at a precint in Iowa. Now if I were there, these antics would not have bothered me. But these Clinton supporters looked frightened. It must have taken some courage to withstand that type of pressure. Being the fashion statement Mr. Obama is, it's not hard to see why he did so well at caucuses around the country. Is this really the way we should be picking our leaders? Looks more like mob rule to me. And for you Obama supporters, no that's not meant as a racial slur.
Can you imagine the elderly people or shift workers having to go through this process? Iowa will probably never change their caucus system, but why can't we just have a private, one-person, one-vote everywhere else?
Many in the Barack Obama camp, having outfoxed the apparently not-so-formidable Hillary Clinton machine, can't seem to get the hang of winning gracefully. They feel a need to drive a stake in Hillary Clinton's reputation, then dance. If they were smart, they'd heap praise on Clinton and let her finish out the race, however she chooses to do so.
That's sage advice, even though offered by Republican mastermind-turned-pundit Karl Rove. Treat Clinton shabbily, he says, and many of her supporters "will remember it by November."
Nonetheless, Obamites are throwing victory parties over the impending defeat of a fellow Democrat who has thus far pulled in more than 47 percent of their party's primary and caucus participants. Some take a more direct approach. In anticipation of the West Virginia primary, college students for Obama were hurling insults at farmers and truck drivers holding signs for Clinton.
Meanwhile, Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, unable to contain himself, administered one last kick to Clinton's dignity by opining that the New York senator lacks the "real leadership" needed for the job of vice president. He said that Obama should pick someone who is "in tune with his appeal for the nobler aspirations of the American people."
So much for the nobility of aspirations held by his own state's Democratic primary voters, who preferred Clinton over Obama by 15 percentage points. Next door in Rhode Island, Rep. Patrick Kennedy dittoes Dad as an unwavering superdelegate for Obama — this despite Clinton's 18-point win in that state's primary. It's as if the voters are invisible.
Disrespecting the nearly 17 million who have supported Clinton is politically unwise, but turning them into "the enemy" is insane. Last week's enemy was working-class white people. The Democrats can win without a majority of white voters — as Obama strategists undiplomatically note — but they can't win without a strong showing among them.
So Obama partisans do not help their cause by willfully misrepresenting Clinton's reference to "hard-working Americans, white Americans" as racist rather than as a poorly worded observation made in a state of utter exhaustion. The fervor of their outrage suggests that some regard the mere consideration of white people, particularly white men, as a demographic needing a special message is an act of bigotry. (That's as opposed to a thousand other racial and socio-economic groups that politicos routinely slice and dice.)
We now hear pained remarks from the Obama camp that many white men won't vote for any black. Oh really? No one was complaining during the early races in Iowa, Maryland, Virginia and Wisconsin, when most of the white male participants backed Obama. That was before the Rev. Jeremiah Wright ugliness became public.
Weirdly, Obamite triumphalism seems to be merging with the festivities on the Republican side. You can understand why the right would welcome what it prays is "the end of the Clinton era." Bill Clinton presided over the longest peacetime expansion since World War II. His budget surpluses put his so-called conservative predecessors and successor to shame. Wouldn't a vow to build on the Clinton legacy, rather than dismantle it, be a better tack for the Obama campaign?
By the way, Clinton's continued sparring with Obama does not hurt the Illinois senator's chances in November. It only crowds out Republican efforts along that line. Believe me, you'd rather have the Clinton version.
Obama can't beat John McCain without large chunks of Clinton's core constituency: women, Hispanics and the white working class. Dumping on their candidate is one step removed from dumping on them — and some of the Obama people don't even bother with that step. Rove must be enjoying the show.
Providence Journal columnist Froma Harrop's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. Her e-mail address is fharrop@projo.com
For all the hope and excitement [Barack] Obama's candidacy is generating, some of his field workers, phone-bank volunteers and campaign surrogates are encountering a raw racism and hostility that have gone largely unnoticed -- and unreported -- this election season. Doors have been slammed in their faces. They've been called racially derogatory names (including the white volunteers). And they've endured malicious rants and ugly stereotyping from people who can't fathom that the senator from Illinois could become the first African American president.
The Post story does lack some context, though. At times it's difficult to tell whether the aggressors in the anecdotes Merida relays are Democrats or Republicans. For all we know, some could just be jerky kids out to prove they're big by saying something shocking and stupid, rather than truly representative of feelings in their larger community.
The reaction to Merida's article from bloggers on the right has been fascinating to read. Their primary feeling, apparently, is that this is just another example of liberal media bias covering for Obama -- and that this proves Democrats are racist. The former sentiment was summed up at the Jawa Report, where one poster headlined his discussion of the article "Obama General Election Strategy Taking Shape" and wrote:
When a story hits this many outlets simultaneously it's pretty clear that there is a coordinated effort to establish a new "meme." This meme: if you're white and vote against Obama, you're an ignorant racist.
This will be a common theme right through the election in November: racism may cost Barack, the post-racial candidate, the election (white racism that is, blacks voting over 90 percent for Obama isn't "racism." It's payback, just like the verdicts in the Reginald Denny case were payback).
This is what decades of affirmative action and racial victimhood politics have done to American society.
Writing at the National Review's Campaign Spot blog, Jim Geraghty said, "The Washington Post picks an interesting day to run a front-page feature story on volunteers for the Obama campaign encountering blatant racism ... the timing of the article, coupled with its relentless portrait of voters driven by ferocious, unmitigated bigotry, certainly feels like a prepared excuse for a blowout loss for Obama tonight."
This is something you're starting to hear often. The latest attack on Clinton supporters is that they are not voting for Obama because they are racists. I've heard this claim first hand from African-American, Obama supporters. There's no doubt, as the Washington Post article points out, that there are legitimate bigots out there. Let's face it, racism still exists. But here's a couple of things to remember; first of all, racism goes both ways. There are plenty of African-Americans that are bigots themselves. When someone like Tavis Smiley gets death threats and is called a traitor to his race because he chooses not to endorse the Black candidate, what else can that be called but racism. Another thing the article doesn't mention are the attacks that Clinton supporters have endured while campaigning. Believe me, I had my share of rude behavior from Obama supporters while campaigning in downtown Philly. So, i think the article is incredibly disingenuous.
The fact is, when you are sure about your own character and you know what's really in your heart, you don't feel the need to go out and support a candidate on the basis of race in order to prove to others that you are not a bigot. The liberal guilt you see from some in the party is shameful. People like John Kerry for example (who I supported in 2004), have clearly stated that they are supporting Obama and believe he's the best candidate because he's African-American. What you're seeing from the Clinton side, to a very large degree, are people who for one, are not burdened with what Shelby Steele calls white guilt. They know their heart and don't have anything to prove to anybody. And the smart asses over at places like Daily Kos would never admit to it, but deep down many of them know this is the reason they are supporting Obama.
The other thing you are seeing from the Clinton side is they just don't feel Obama is a good candidate, and they don't feel like they should be pushed to support him just because he's today's fashion statement or today's media darling. They are voters who are used to choosing candidates on the basis of substance and experience. I'm not really sure at this point if I'll be voting for Obama myself. It really doesn't matter for me since I have to vote in NJ. If I don't vote for him, it will not be because he's black; I can assure you. It's amazing how some Obama supporters can't fathom the idea of somebody not supporting their candidate and not being a racist. If anybody is playing the race card, it's the other side. If the strategy in November is to call everybody who does not support Obama a racist, I think these charges will just galvanize Republicans and help McCain become the president.
Hi Donna!!!! I am emailing you on behalf of many people. I am, as you may know, a Hillary Clinton Supporter. You have probably gotten a lot of emails from her supporters, and I understand from the blogs I often frequent that you have responded to many of them. I want you to know that I read bits and pieces of your autobiography, Cooking With Grease, and thought it was wonderful and well written. I came to understand from your book and from a lot of what I have witnessed in this election cycle that to simply put groups of people in Demographics and Exit polls is a misunderstanding of both America and the Democratic Party. What I have learned is that people often vote based on their experiences. You, as an Undeclared Obama supporter, probably identify strongly with his candidacy because of the struggles you went through during a time when race relations in this country were in turmoil. I voted for Hillary Clinton, not only because I relate to her strongly as both a person and a woman who is very spiritual and devoted to her family and to helping others, but also because she is the greatest candidate to lead this country out of the mess we're in, and because her policy proposals have been phenominal and close to my heart, because it proves to me that she is not simply talking and promising change, she is telling me how she is going to make it happen. It proves to me that she actually cares. As a young person, I have a big future ahead of me, and I also have dreams and ambitions, and strong opinions and many other things. CNN tells me every day that I should be supporting Barack Obama, because his freshness and newness should appeal to my fickle nature. But I support Hillary, and like many of her supporters, I feel sad and dissappointed and hurt and many other things by what I see, based on rationality and facts, as the poor and undeserved treatment she and her husband have received by the DNC party elite and the Chicago Style Campaign tactics of Senator Obama's Campaign that I have witnessed with my own eyes and heard a number of stories about. I understand that many of the emails you have received by Clinton Supporters urging you to do the right and ethical thing by seating Michigan and Florida delegates have been angry and often probably obnoxious. But you cannot possibly understand how frustrated they are. And while you may say that they are "the reason" Hillary is losing, whatever her supporters have done or said pale in comparison to the abuse and mistreatment we have suffered from some supporters of Senator Obama. You may use Roe V Wade as a trump card for accusing them of being petty in their vows to not support Senator Obama, should he be the nominee, but I assure you that using something like that as a threat will not work, because there are few (actually, no) politicians I have seen that are as devoted to a woman's right to choose than Hillary Clinton, and you know that as well as I. Ms. Brazille, I urge you not to disclude and disenfranchise millions of voters from every walk of life from this nominating process simply for the sake of one candidate, because doing so would be an awful mistake. I have respect for you as a person, Ms. Brazille, but I would implore you to make the right decision and seat Florida and Michigan . I would also implore you to stop encouraging super delegates to force Senator Clinton out of the race, because the more they do this, the stronger she gets. Ms. Brazille, I cannot pretend to understand what you have gone through in your life, nor what you are going through now. It would be ignorant of me to try. But many people feel angry when they are stereotyped or put in a box because if what candidate they support. I support Hillary Clinton, and I love all of my friends. Including the great African American friends I have that I adore. and all of the African American women at my mother's church who embrace me and always tell me how "pretty" I look every time I see them. I also love my Latino friends, my Italian friends, my Jewish friends, my Catholic friends. As I said, I cannot pretend to understand your experiences, but nor can you understand mine. Just because a person's skin may be paler that yours, does not mean their lives are without suffering. I, for one, cry at night wondering what my republican mother will do if anything happens to her, because she doesn't have Health Insurance. And because of this, my mother may just support Hillary Clinton over John McCain come this fall. She is a Republican who supports Hillary Clinton not because Rush Limbaugh told her to, but because she believes that Hillary Clinton is a Candidate that may actually care about her. So Ms. Brazille, I would yet again urge you to do everything you can to seat Michigan and Florida properly, and also, I would ask that you stop saying you are "undeclared" on CNN's panels when clearly you know which candidate you support. Thank you very much for reading this email. Like you, I am very emotionally invested in this Campaign, (as is Stephanie Tubbs Jones, a Congresswoman from the district next to mine who also supports Hillary :D) and wish you all the luck in the world. respectfully, A young female voter from Ohio
I urge all of you to go to Natalie's site, Little Isis. Here was the response from Donna Brazille to Natalie Bryan's beautifully worded, polite, carefully measured letter:
Thanks Natalie,
As of today, I am not going to respond to any more anti American, Anti Democratic emails. Have a nice day.
I am sorry because you are sincere, but the Hillary forces are uncivil, repugnant and vile. When you come up for air and would like to email a person who cares about America and not just a personality, I will respond.
Thanks for your time and your interest.
Donna
I'm sure Donna must know how uncivil and vile Obama supporters are toward Hillary supporters throughout the blogosphere. I can't imagine she is unaware of the antics of many Obama supporters at caucuses all over the country. I think her response is disingenuous at best and totally reckless. Is this how Obama supporters intend to bring unity to the party? Despite the fact that Brazille has worked hard for the Democrats, and she feels that she is a valuable asset (if you check out some of my YT vids, you'll see the arrogance in full display), there are very few people I can think of that have done more to destroy our party this past year. Her hyper-sensitivity, which unfortunately is getting all too common throughout this country, makes her react by pointing the finger at the Clinton's and accusing them of race baiting. For saying some simple truths, like the fact that White middle-class voters are still an important constituency in the Democratic party, she is practically branded a racist. And Brazille has led the charge against the Clinton's on this point. Her and other party fat-cats, as well as the rest of the fawning media are not only trying to shut her bid down, but they are trying to completely destroy the Clinton's. We can't let this happen.
Let's make CNN at the very least, force Brazille to finally declare her support for Obama.
Senator Obama's break with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. – who officiated at his wedding and baptized his two daughters – could turn off some poorer and older, civil rights-era blacks who may already wonder about Obama's ability to identify with their lives, say experts in black politics and some black voters.
But younger and more affluent blacks say that whether or not they agree with Mr. Wright, they see the rupture as a political necessity for a man seeking to become the first African-American president.
"I felt like what he did today, he had to do," Timothy Perry, a project manager at Reliant Energy in Houston who is an Obama supporter, said Tuesday in a phone interview. "You have a limb that's rotting and you've got to cut it off."
But Michael Durrah, a third-shift security guard at a Washington hotel, says Obama has more explaining to do.
"Your pastor is your No. 1 man in the neighborhood," says Mr. Durrah, a Democrat who says neither Obama nor Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton had inspired him enough to vote in the District of Columbia primary.
Is there anybody on TV right now, more biased toward Obama than Rachel Maddow? Now, I know Keith Olbermann is Obama's biggest mouth piece, but Maddow's reaction toward negative Obama stories is so visceral and over the top, it makes you wonder if she's a pundit or an Obama campaign operative.
Here's an exchange from yesterday's "Race For The White House":
SHUSTER: Rachel Maddow, Jay Carney says he wasn‘t angry enough. I thought he was exceptionally angry, especially when he talked about how Reverend Wright has taken up three or four consecutive days in the middle of this major debate. Was he not angry enough for you.
MADDOW: I thought he seemed angry. As I said before, so far Barack Obama has said—and I‘ve made notes of it as he‘s done it—he vehemently disagrees with him. He strongly condemns him. He categorically denounces him. He rejects him outright. Today we got that he‘s appalled by him, that he‘s outraged by him.
I find it incredible that we‘re all sitting here going, why won‘t the Jeremiah Wright controversy go away. You know what, today, John McCain unveiled his health care plan. We got three different statements, three different policies on gas prices. We got the president of the United States making a huge economic speech and speaking to reporters for 40 minutes. We have got four U.S. soldiers who are announced to have been killed in Iraq yesterday.
What else has to happen in the news to push Jeremiah Wright out of the headlines before we do it for six straight headlines on every politics show in the country? This is all we‘re capable of talking about.
I've never seen her have this kind of reaction when the negative stories were about Hillary. She's actually counting the news cycles here. Unbelievable!
Promising on-air fireworks, the spokesman said that Obama "is going on their Sunday show to take Fox on."
Instead, Obama was decidedly non-combative, and calmly addressed all of the issues thrown his way by the show's host. He even highlighted some of his differences with liberal blogs, singling out Daily Kos by name while discussing John Roberts' nomination to the Supreme Court.
"Although I voted against him, I strongly defended some of my colleagues who had voted for him on the Daily Kos, and was fiercely attacked as somebody who is, you know, caving in to Republicans on these fights," Obama told Wallace.
The reaction from the blogosphere was quick, and largely critical.
"To be clear, Obama wasn't obliged to go after Fox," wrote TPM's Greg Sargent. "But a senior adviser said Obama would, as a way of quieting criticism of him. And he didn't.
"This will likely further dismay liberal bloggers who had worked very hard to get Dems to boycott Fox as a way of delegitimizing the network and who already criticized Obama for agreeing to appear in the first place," Sargent continued.
"If you don't like that Obama steps on you, speak out," agreed Matt Stoller of OpenLeft.com."It was a mistake for us to endorse Obama, just as it was a mistake for us to do nothing against Clinton after she accused Moveon of intimating her supporters at caucuses."
"By going on Fox News, Obama made the right-wing press legitimate," wrote Daily Kos diarist "Bonddad" Sunday morning. "Simply put, I cannot vote or support anyone who participates in this medium."
Some liberal bloggers, though, didn't find fault with Obama's placid approach. "Well, I can't speak for all liberal bloggers, but this one quickly came to peace with Obama's decision," wrote the anonymous blogger behind the Jed Report. "This all is just another reason I'm looking forward to the primary ending -- there's a much bigger fish to fry."
Blogger Jerome Armstrong at MyDD thinks Obama may have highlighted his disagreements with liberal bloggers in order "to make room for the pivot to 'the center,'" and to erase the perception that he's an angry, combative, netroots-endorsed, left-of-left political candidate.
In context, though, Obama's Fox News appearance seems part of a wider plan to cultivate a conciliatory tone, as he faces an ongoing controversy over pastor Jeremiah Wright's combative sermons.
History suggests that's a wise course. Howard Dean lost the presidential nomination in 2004 because of his perceived rage. Voters, it turns out, are turned off by anger, even if bloggers are craving a little ire from their candidate.
emphasis added above This has got to be the funniest story I've heard all day. It looks like the honeymoon is over. Or at least in trouble. We've been trying to tell those starry-eyed, pinheads over at Kos and the rest of the Obamabots that he was just a politician, like any other politician, and not some divine gift to politics. In the end he will do what is best for him politically. Hey, remember what happened to LaMont in 2006 when he tried to distance himself from the extreme-left netroots. The Daily Kos diarist mentioned above has the whole community in a frenzy with a diary titled, "Obama Lost My Vote By Going on Fox." He's closing in on 400 comments and many of them negative as you can imagine. It's just hilarious to view that whole community in such disarray as soon as one of them says something off script. It's like seeing the Borg trying to re-assimilate Seven of Nine on Star Trek. Check it out for a good laugh.
Wilder said he isn't surprised that Obama has run behind New York Senator Hillary Clinton among white voters in some states. Obama has faced more ``ingrained difficulty'' as a black candidate than Clinton has as a woman, Wilder said.
Bias against Clinton, 60, may have more to do with specific incidents that have reinforced stereotypes, he said. ``Hillary's reactions to things conjure up images that are not necessarily the healthiest in terms of hissy fits or reactions because of emotions, like the crying and the weeping and then forgetting somewhat that she did that,'' he said.
In Pennsylvania's April 22 Democratic primary, Obama lost by 10 points to Clinton, as white Democrats voted for her by a 65- to-35 percent margin. In exit polls, 19 percent of Pennsylvania Democratic voters said race was important in making their choice.
``I've told him to keep the high ground,'' he said. ``Let the rest of us do what needed to be done'' in responding to attacks.
``I told him it's going to be very difficult, particularly running against a woman,'' he said. ``And racially it's going to be even more difficult.''
Politically, there seem to be a lot of Democrats out there who think that Clinton is a really, really bad person. There are very few Democrats out there who think that Obama is a bad person.
As an amateur observer of human social behavior, I am quite impressed by the steel wall of aversion that some Obama supporters put up whenever they're confronted by something that does not fit with their established perception of Hillary Clinton -- namely that there is just NO way that Hillary can raise that much money in such a short period of time...because she is, well, Hillary. The fundamental attribution error is at work: it must be a lie because Hillary is a liar; the situation -- a 9 point victory in Pennsylvania, or the roughly half of the Democratic electorate who supporters her -- well, it matters much less. Many Clinton supporters exhibit the same behavior. I exhibit the behavior when it comes to defending members of my tribe -- journalists.
Anyway, here's a representative e-mail from a reader:
Dear Marc, I have enjoyed your campaign coverage, in large part because you generally are a difficult person to dupe. The Clinton campaign got you this time though. I would suggest that you run a few numbers: the Clinton campaign says that it has raised $10 million online, by attracting 100,000 donors, 80% of whom are new donors. That is a tall tale for an incredible number of reasons but here are the most obvious: if Clinton really raised an average of $100 per internet donor, that's about 5 times higher than the typical average internet donation. The claim is specious, but possible--especially given that the Clintons say they directed their large donors towards their website. That begs the obvious question, though: how many "big" donors have the Clintons left untapped? The thousands that it would take to raise that average? That seems unlikely. What also seems unlikely is that they raised money from 80,000 new donors yesterday. That would be increasing their online donor base by 30 to 40 % in one day. The likelihood of that happening is absolutely miniscule, and you know it. The Clintons have had an awfully poor track record of lying about donations over the past three months. And I don't blame them--they have every incentive to lie. The official reports will not come in until the 15th of next month (I believe, though you should know), and by that time how much money they have will be wholly irrelevant because a new storyline should have taken hold in the press; but, if their lies are passed on now, it will create the appearance of momentum, which in turn creates momentum, and may give their campaign a few more weeks of life. So the Clintons have an incentive to lie; your incentive to pass on that lie, without putting a critical eye to it, is what I question. There isn't one. So, with all due respect Marc, dig a little deeper. There's a story there, and you're too smart to miss it. Best, Patrick Moore
Wow...when I look at the comments for the videos I put up on YouTube, the Obama supporters usually have something equally ignorant to say. Usually, it's something like "you're grasping at straws." Well, judging from the above post, it looks like it's Obama's supporters who are now beginning to grasp at straws.
posted by Marc1A at 11/22/2008 04:56:00 PM
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