Blue Spot

"Only On The Web": In an exclusive "CBS Evening News" interview, Katie Couric speaks with Barack Obama about his foreign policy objectives and his position on the war in Iraq.

Labels: Iraq War, Obama

US Election: Senior aide to Barack Obama says Obamamaniacs' hopes unrealistic - Telegraph

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."

Labels: Obama, Obama supporters

Obama pledges second stimulus package | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press

WASHINGTON -- On the same day Republican presidential contender Sen. John McCain held a town hall in Warren, Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama pledged to UAW members his support for a second economic stimulus plan with funding for low-interest loans to automakers, saying "America cannot truly prosper unless Michigan prospers."


"By providing tax credits and loan guarantees for our automakers and by expanding consumer tax incentives for ultra-efficient vehicles, I will provide real solutions necessary to help this industry compete and win in the global economy," Obama said in the letter released by his campaign today.

Obama and other Congressional Democrats have said they would push for a second stimulus plan in September that could reach $50 billion, an idea that the Bush administration has not favored so far. McCain opposes the loan program, as his campaign says his proposals -- a $5,000 consumer tax credit for efficient vehicles, a $300 million prize for electric vehicle batteries and strict goals for flex-fuel vehicles -- would accomplish the same goals.

Labels: Economy, Obama

Obama website's opposition to successful surge gets deleted | Top of the Ticket | Los Angeles Times

A funny thing happened over on the Barack Obama campaign website in the last few days.

The parts that stressed his opposition to the 2007 troop surge and his statement that more troops would make no difference in a civil war have somehow disappeared. John McCain and Obama have been going at it heavily in recent days over the benefits of the surge.

The Arizona senator, who advocated the surge for years before the Bush administration employed it, says the resulting reduction in violence is proof it worked with progress on 15 of 18 political benchmarks and Obama's plan to withdraw troops by now would have resulted in surrender.

When President Bush ordered the surge in January, 2007, Obama said, "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse," a position he maintained throughout 2007. This year he acknowledged progress, but maintained his position that political progress was lacking.

Tuesday, while Obama gave a speech on foreign policy, the New York Daily News was first to notice the removal of parts of Obama's campaign site listing the Iraq troop surge as part of "The Problem." An Obama spokeswoman said it was just part of an "update" to "reflect changes in current events," as our colleague Frank James notes in the Swamp. The update includes a new section on the rise of al-Qaeda violence in Afghanistan.

But some might see the updating as part of Obama's skip to the political center now that he's secured the Democratic nomination. "Today," McCain said Tuesday, "we know Sen. Obama was wrong" to oppose the troop surge.

An old quote of Obama's criticizing the "rash war," which helped him with the left wing of his party and helped differentiate his stand from that of Sen. Hillary Clinton, a primary opponent who voted for the use of force in Iraq, has been replaced on his site by one saying that ending the Iraq war will make America safer. That's more of a general election message.

Labels: Iraq War, McCain, Obama, Surge strategy, Troops

Obama takes show onto global stage | csmonitor.com

Washington - Barack Obama is about to embark on high-profile foreign travel that could have a powerful influence on how US voters judge his ability to act as the nation's commander in chief.

The question is, what sort of presumptive Democratic candidate will his domestic audience see? Will it be someone reminiscent of John F. Kennedy – cool, articulate, and the center of cheering foreign crowds?

Or will it be a traveler more like candidate Jimmy Carter – an inexperienced, provincial politician on a learning tour?

For the Illinois senator, the inherent risks in his travel are intensified by the fact that he will visit the Middle East, a place where, for American politicians, every word counts and the smallest misstep can become a huge gaffe.

"For Obama this trip is essential," says Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. "If anything trips him up, other than race, it is going to be his lack of foreign experience."

Next week, Senator Obama is scheduled to travel to Europe, Israel, and the West Bank. Many details of the trip have been kept secret for security reasons, but he is expected to meet with both Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. In Berlin, he will deliver what his aides are billing as a major address on transatlantic relations.

He is also planning to soon take a separate trip to Iraq and Afghanistan as part of a small congressional delegation.

On July 15, Obama reiterated his vow to withdraw US combat troops from Iraq within 16months of becoming president, and said that if he were elected, Al Qaeda and Afghanistan would be his top foreign-policy priorities.

"By any measure, our single-minded and open-ended focus on Iraq is not a sound strategy for keeping America safe," said Obama in a speech at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington.

Labels: Afghanistan, Europe, Foreign Policy, Iraq War, Israel, Obama, World news

New Yorker Obama Cover Sparks Uproar, Politico: Campaign Calls Magazine Cover Art "Tasteless And Offensive" - CBS News

Barack Obama's campaign is condemning as “tasteless and offensive” a New Yorker magazine cover that depicts Obama in a turban, fist-bumping his gun-slinging wife.

An American flag burns in their fireplace.

The New Yorker says it's satire. It certainly will be candy for cable news.

The Obama campaign quickly condemned the rendering. Spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement: “The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Sen. Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree."

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds quickly e-mailed: “We completely agree with the Obama campaign, it’s tasteless and offensive.”

The issue, which goes on sale Monday, includes a long piece by Ryan Lizza about Obama’s start in Chicago politics.

Labels: Obama, Obama critics

Obama backers on the left are doing the wincing now -- chicagotribune.com

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.

Labels: flip-flop, Obama, Obama critics, Obama supporters

Sunday Herald: International: International

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.

Labels: FISA, Obama, Obama supporters

Will the real Obama please stand? The headline in The Washington Post was intriguing: "Obama's Ideology Proving Difficult to Pinpoint." The article turned out to be a charitable discussion of whether the Democratic nominee is moving away from leftist positions he took during the primaries and toward the political center for the general election.

Of course he is. Enough to produce, as someone put it, whiplash. So let's give the topic a headline that directly addresses the doubts: Just who is Barack Obama?

Is he the inspirational juggernaut of the early primaries, the man who promised "change we can believe in" and a new era in American politics? Or is he one more politician whose actions often contradict his words?

Put another way, what does he believe in?

Damned if I know.

Once upon a time, I thought I did. Obama was the graceful rookie from Illinois who came out of nowhere to become the rock star of '08. His biracial heritage, Harvard Law School education and vast ambition created the perfect image of a post-racial, post-ideological agent of change. He would not be tied to the old ideas or the old ways of doing things.

It was a promise, exquisitely delivered, that allowed him to grab an early delegate lead and hold on to narrowly defeat Hillary (The Invincible) Clinton.

But there were hints Obama was not what he claimed.

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright was a big one. By the end of the primaries, Obama was stumbling and on the defensive. And now he has become yet another candidate altogether in the post-primary period.

On defining issues - security wiretapping, gun control, campaign finance, Iran and Iraq - he has done partial or full about-faces. Hardly a day goes by that he doesn't attack John McCain in typical partisan fashion.

And when he denies with a straight face that he's changing anything, Obama gives new meaning to chutzpah.

The changes have been so dramatic that many liberal activists are expressing buyers' remorse. Some are demanding their contributions back and vow not to support Obama until he adopts his old positions.

For me, a centrist Democrat and a hawk on security, most of his new positions are better than those he abandoned. But they're not believable. They create doubts about whether he has core beliefs.

Someone who can shift positions so quickly on so many important issues that will face the next President comes off as a man who doesn't have fixed convictions. Pragmatism has to be guided by principles. A man who believes in everything believes in nothing, and that's a formula for chaos in the White House.

Labels: Obama, Obama critics

Obama overstates his role on immigration :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Lynn Sweet

WASHINGTON -- No matter if you are—or are not — voting for presumptive GOP nominee Sen. John McCain (R-Az.), he deserves credit for trying to forge a bipartisan deal on immigration in 2005 and 2006 at great personal political risk, a situation unfamiliar to rival Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)

McCain put his comeback presidential bid in peril because of his leadership role with Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) to find a path for millions of illegal immigrants to stay in the U.S.

The Kennedy-McCain legislation stalled in 2006, because the hardline pro- and anti-immigration forces preferred the status quo to a compromise. Another try in 2007 — in a bill backed by McCain and Obama — also failed.

McCain and Obama, wooing Hispanic voters, each has made clear in recent appearances before the National Association of Latino Elected Officials and the League of United Latino American Citizens a few days ago that he would make immigration reform — and legalizing the status of millions of illegal immigrants — a priority if elected president. I expect each to send the same message at the upcoming National Council of La Raza conference in San Diego, where Obama speaks Sunday and McCain on Monday.

In the meantime, Obama on the campaign trail inflates his leadership role — casting himself as someone who could figure out how to get something done. Obama “did not absolutely stand out in any way,’’ said Margaret Sands Orchowski, the author of “Immigration and the American Dream: Battling the Political Hype and Hysteria,” and a close follower of the legislation.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a McCain ally and a key player on immigration, said Obama was around for only a “handful” of meetings and helped destroy a 2007 compromise when he voted for making guest worker visa programs temporary. A permanent guest worker program was to be a trade for a legalization program to cover many illegal immigrants.

“When it came time to putting that bill together, he was more of a problem than he was a help. And when it came time to try to get the bill passed, he, in my opinion, broke the agreement we had. He was in the photo op, but he could not execute the hard part of the deal,” Graham said,” Graham said.

Labels: Immigration, Latino community, McCain, Obama

Newsweek: Obama's Lead Slips - Real Clear Politics - Elections 2008 - TIME

Newsweek turned heads with a poll two weeks ago touting a massive 15-point lead for Obama. Their newest survey has heads turning in the other direction, showing Obama's lead dwindling to just 3 points over McCain:

Obama 44 (-7)
McCain 41 (+5)
Undecided 15 (+2)

In the Newsweek poll, Obama's support among Republicans and Democrats was basically unchanged, but his support among Independents dropped 14 points, to 34% from 48% two weeks ago.

McCain increased his support among Republicans by five points (to 83% from 78%) and among Independents by five points (to 41% from 36%).

Slicing the data by race and gender, Obama lost nine points among white voters (dropping from 45% to 36%) and nine points among women (dropping from 54% two weeks ago to 45% in the most recent poll).

Overall, Obama's lead in the RCP National Average is now 4.8%.

Labels: General Election 2008, McCain, Obama, polls

Obama's surveillance vote spurs blogging backlash - CNN.com

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."

Labels: FISA, Obama, Obama supporters

Here's Keith Olbermann last week, with another Murrow impersonation, urging Obama to take advantage of a "second chance" on FISA. Since Obama didn't take his advice, I wonder what he's going to say now. What possible defense can Obama's no. 1 cheerleader come up with now? I'll have to wait for another clip since his show is banned in my house.

Labels: FISA, Obama, Olbermann

Washington Wire - WSJ.com : Obama, Clinton Split on FISA Vote So much for unity? New York Sen. Hillary Clinton split with former rival Sen. Barack Obama today, voting against a controversial surveillance measure the expected Democratic nominee supported.

Obama has taken considerable flack from liberal activists since announcing a couple weeks ago that he would support the measure, which expands government surveillance powers in the United States.

Obama said he would work to eliminate a provision to grant conditional immunity to phone companies alleged to have participated in the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance program, but amendments attempting to pare back or strip immunity from the surveillance bill were defeated Wednesday, as expected.

Obama won the nomination, in part, by running to Clinton’s left, but he has been tacking right since clinching the nomination in early June–which today landed him to Clinton’s right on the spy bill, which overhauled the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Obama’s own campaign Web site has become a hotbed of debate over his support for the compromise bill, spawning four groups in which opponents of Obama’s position vastly outnumber supporters—22,957 to 38. The “Get FISA Right” group blog on MyBarackObama.com was flooded with disappointed supporters after Wednesday’s vote, with more than 60 writing in within 90 minutes of the vote.

Labels: Domestic spying, FISA, Hillary, Obama, Obama critics, Surveilance

Tale of two speeches: Latino crowd gives polite applause to McCain, standing ovation to Obama

(07-08) 18:39 PDT Washington - -- Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has called on his Democratic rival Barack Obama to meet him face to face in town hall-style debates across the country. It was easy to see why today after the two gave competing speeches to crowd of prominent Latinos.

McCain, a four-term Arizona senator well known and respected by Hispanics, gave a stock economic speech repeated word for word from the day before. He won only polite applause.

Obama, largely an unknown among Latino votes only months ago, drew a standing ovation after delivering a rousing populist speech aimed directly at their core concerns - immigration, education and health care.

Lidia Pope, a Cuban American who lives in Virginia and works for the federal government, said she was leaning toward McCain before hearing Obama address the League of United Latin American Citizens. She said she would be listening to Obama very carefully, looking for specific plans and ideas. "This is not any old election," she said. "People are worried."

After hearing Obama, Pope was more than impressed. "He was so energetic," she said. "I think he understands the issues."

McCain finds himself pinched between his sponsorship of a major immigration overhaul that failed last year in the Senate and his need to disown his own immigration bill that was loathed in his party.

The legislation would have offered a path to citizenship for the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. When the bill came up for a vote, McCain largely left the fight to others as he devoted his time to running for president. He finally said in a Republican debate this year that he would not vote for his own bill now but would work on border security first.

That left him today with a three-paragraph addendum to his speech, seemingly tacked on for his audience, where he addressed his admiration for the "patriotism, industry and decency" of the nation's Hispanic citizens and read over a line where he promised "to honor their contributions as long as I live."

Obama, who struggled to win Hispanics during the primaries and played a minor role in the immigration debates, said he had "reached across the aisle in the Senate to fight for comprehensive immigration reform." In fact, while Obama sponsored some amendments, he was not a key negotiator and mainly stuck to the party line. If anything, his amendments and others he supported undermined the fragile bipartisan coalition backing the bill.

His claim that he was deeply involved sends Republicans who were there into apoplexy. "Obama was consistently, absolutely AWOL" during negotiations over the bill, said Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Florida Republican, on a McCain campaign conference call.

A recent Gallup survey showed Obama making huge inroads into the Latino electorate, which gave an estimated 40 percent of its vote to President Bush in 2004. Republicans have long argued that their party has a natural appeal to Hispanics, the nation's largest and fastest growing minority group, who are mostly Catholic and culturally conservative with a strong entrepreneurial streak. McCain's outspoken support of citizenship for illegal workers and intimate familiarity with border issues in Arizona gave him a strong base to build on. Yet as of July 2, Obama was leading McCain 59 percent to 29 percent among Hispanic registered voters.

Obama promised to enact immigration reform by the end of his first term, and reminded the crowd today that he had backed controversial positions on immigration during the Democratic debates, referring to his support for giving drivers' licenses to illegal immigrants "when it was uncomfortable" to do so. Calling Hispanics an "aspirational community," he said there is no conflict between "excellence and diversity," touting his youthful work among poor minority groups in Chicago.

The election, he said, is "about making sure our government knows that when there's a Hispanic girl stuck in a crumbling school who graduates without learning to read or doesn't graduate at all, that isn't just a Hispanic-American problem. That's an American problem."

Cries of "si se puede" rang out from the crowd. Click here to read more.

Labels: General Election 2008, Immigration, Latino community, McCain, Obama

McCain, Obama court Latino group - Los Angeles Times

Each will speak today at a convention of the nation's oldest Latino advocacy organization. Changes to immigration policy will be a topic for both candidates.

POWDER SPRINGS, GA. -- Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama will speak today at a convention of the nation's oldest Latino advocacy organization as each eyes a key voting group in the November general election.

The pair will speak at different times before the League of United Latino American Citizens in Washington. Both will speak about the need for a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and the need for secure borders.

McCain angered many fellow Republicans by helping lead efforts to pass a bill that opponents derided as amnesty for as many as 12 million illegal immigrants. In recent weeks, McCain has stressed the need for secure borders, a nod to his hard-line critics on immigration issues.

According to an advance copy of his speech provided by the campaign, McCain plans to tell the Latino advocacy group that the nation must secure its borders "while respecting the dignity and rights of citizens and legal residents of the United States."

The Obama campaign is hoping that the Latino vote will help him, especially in the Southwest, which backed President Bush in 2004.

Obama began his day in Georgia, whose 15 electoral also votes went to Bush in 2004. With a boost from a large turnout of African American voters in the state, the Obama campaign is hoping to switch that outcome. Click here to read more.

Labels: General Election 2008, Latino community, McCain, Obama

Bloomberg.com: Politics July 8 (Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is trying to claim the political center, following in the footsteps of previous nominees including Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980. Yet the Illinois senator has a higher hurdle than most: a consistently liberal voting record.

In recent weeks, Obama said he supports gun-ownership rights, backs legislation giving immunity to telephone companies that participated in an anti-terrorism surveillance program and would consider cutting corporate taxes. On July 3, he said he would ``continue to refine my policies'' on the Iraq War.

Obama built his candidacy on the support of his party's liberal base, which favors restrictions on guns and wiretapping, raising taxes for companies, and pulling U.S. forces from Iraq. As an Illinois state legislator, he voted against a law carving out self-defense exceptions to local handgun bans; as a U.S. senator, he opposed business tax cuts and extending warrantless eavesdropping, and backed tougher gun laws. On Iraq, he has long focused on ending the war and withdrawing troops.

The candidate is now trying to fend off Arizona Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, who needs to try to ``unmask Obama as an old-style liberal in a flashy new costume,'' said Trent Duffy, a former aide to President George W. Bush and a partner at the Washington communications firm HDMK.

`Seeming Authenticity'

At the same time, changing positions may present risks by endangering one of Obama's biggest assets, his ``seeming authenticity,'' said Mark Corallo, a strategist who worked on Republican Fred Thompson's presidential bid.

Obama, 46, rejects the notion that he is trying to move to the center.

``I get tagged as being on the left and when I simply describe what have been my positions consistently, then suddenly people act surprised,'' Obama told reporters in Ohio on July 1. There haven't ``been substantial shifts,'' he said.

Gun control emerged as an issue last month after the Supreme Court struck down Washington's handgun ban. McCain, 71, quickly praised the decision.

Obama was on the defensive because of past support for more restrictive laws. In addition to the 2004 state vote on the self- defense bill, which critics said might eviscerate local handgun bans, Obama in 2005 voted as a U.S. senator to expand the types of banned ammunition and against a measure protecting gun makers and sellers from lawsuits.

Click here to read more.

Labels: General Election 2008, Obama, Obama critics

Clinton's Convention Role Being Negotiated - WSJ.com

Hillary Clinton won a hefty 1,600 convention delegates in six months of primaries. A big question now is whether to let them vote at the Democratic convention.

High on the list of matters that Sen. Clinton and likely Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama are negotiating as her campaign closes down is whether and how her name is put into nomination at the August convention in Denver, said party activists in both camps.

A full roll-call vote that reminds everyone how close she came to being the nominee could reveal party rifts going into the fall campaign, they said. But keeping her name off the roll call could anger her supporters.

It is a "bone of contention" in the negotiations between the Clinton and Obama camps, said Democratic consultant Donna Brazile.

The Obama campaign said Monday that the Illinois senator would accept the nomination at the 76,000-seat stadium where the Denver Broncos football team plays so that thousands of nondelegates could attend. But the campaign hasn't settled other key questions about the convention, including whether Sen. Clinton's name will be put into nomination, said Obama spokesman Bill Burton.

Sen. Clinton's campaign office didn't answer emails seeking comment.

Under party rules, Sen. Clinton's huge delegate count gives her the right to put her name into nomination. "But do you do it?" asked Ms. Brazile. "Politically, does it heighten tensions?"

Labels: Election 2008, Hillary, Obama

AFP: US Senator Webb rules out Obama VP nod

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Virginia Senator Jim Webb, a gruff marine veteran and military expert with blue collar appeal, on Monday definitively ruled out serving as Barack Obama's Democratic vice presidential running mate.

Webb, who could have brought national security heft to Obama's ticket, and may have been able to help deliver his home swing-state to the Illinois Democrat's column, said he owed it to his constituents to stay put.

"Last week I communicated to Senator Obama and his presidential campaign my firm intention to remain in the United States Senate, where I believe I am best equipped to serve the people of Virginia and this country," Webb said in a statement.

"Under no circumstances will I be a candidate for Vice President," he said, though vowed to proudly campaign for Obama who is gearing up to take on Republican John McCain in the general election.

The plain-spoken Webb was seen as one of the favorites for the vice presidential nod, in that he would have balanced Obama's comparative inexperience and is an expert on military affairs and national security.

Other possible Democratic running mates include Obama's vanquished party rival Hillary Clinton, Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell.

Labels: General Election 2008, Obama, Sen. Webb

Obama Fails to Put Out the FISA Fire in His Own House | Rights and Liberties | AlterNet

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.

Labels: Domestic spying, FISA, Intelligence, Obama, Obama critics, Obama supporters

Got the following in my inbox yesterday from Justin Krebs of Drinking Liberally. Sounds like Justin is not very happy with either candidate.

Conventional wisdom says that Obama
caved on FISA & talked up faith-based programs
because he's appealing to "Independents."

Who knew independents oppose the Constitution?

Obama HAD to disavow Wes Clark's comments --
though Clark only questioned his experience as leader
& specifically honored his courage and will --
since "dishonoring" McCain would turn off independents.

Who knew independents are so ill-informed?

And McCain keeps saying he's a "maverick"
as he continues his "Straight Talk Express"
because these words appeal to independents.

Who knew independents liked slogans so much?!

If "independent" voters read only the spin,
& don't read the Constitution or the news,
maybe we shouldn't ask them to decide elections.

Or maybe "independent" really means something else.

And maybe "independent" candidates
who shy away from principled stands
aren't what we're looking for either.

It's time we take strong positions,
stop listening to the media's darling tales,
and Declare our Independence...from "Independents."

Celebrate the holiday in the most American way:
sharing an evening of spirited discussion
as you share a few pitchers of liberal libations
at your local progressive social club.

Labels: General Election 2008, McCain, Obama

After putting up with Rachel Maddow tag teaming with Eugene Robinson and Olbermann to fawn over Obama for over a year, it gives me great pleasure to see her get beat up by three conservatives here. I only hope there's more to come, but I only know from clips like these since I don't watch the network any longer.

Labels: Iraq War, Media bias, Obama

I and many others tried to warn the Obamabots that he was just a typical politician and they wouldn't believe it. "No, he's different...he's going to change everything. Hillary is a political machine." Well, at least Hillary was upfront about her centrist positions.

Labels: General Election 2008, Obama

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Powell meets with McCain and Obama « - Blogs from CNN.com

(CNN) — Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who remains a popular figure among Democrats and Republicans, recently sat down with both presidential candidates, CNN has confirmed.

The Hotline first reported the meeting earlier Tuesday.

According to an associate of Powell's, the former Bush administration member and onetime chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had "pleasant, private conversations" recently with both Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain. An Obama campaign source confirms the Illinois senator recently met with Powell. McCain's campaign has not returned a request for comment.

Watch: Powell says he's undecided

Powell has long praised Obama's candidacy and he told reporters recently in Vancouver he "would listen carefully to what both [candidates] have to say" before deciding whom to support.

Labels: endorsement, General Election 2008, McCain, Obama

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - New CNN Poll: Obama, McCain in a statistical dead heat « - Blogs from CNN.com

(CNN) — With the dust having finally settled after the prolonged Democratic presidential primary, a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll shows Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama locked in a statistical dead heat in the race for the White House.

With just over four months remaining until voters weigh in at the polls, the new survey out Tuesday indicates Obama holds a narrow 5-point advantage among registered voters nationwide over the Arizona senator, 50 percent to 45 percent. That represents little change from a similar poll one month ago, when the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee held a 46-43 percent edge over McCain.

CNN Polling Director Keating Holland notes Tuesday's survey confirms what a string of national polls released this month have shown: Obama holds a slight advantage over McCain, though not a big enough one to constitute a statistical lead.

"Every standard telephone poll taken in June has shown Obama ahead of McCain, with nearly all of them showing Obama's margin somewhere between three and six points," Holland said. "In most of them, that margin is not enough to give him a lead in a statistical sense, but it appears that June has been a good month for Obama."

But the new CNN/ORC polls shows the race gets even tighter when the two most prominent third-party presidential candidates are considered. In a four way match-up that includes independent candidate Ralph Nader and Libertarian candidate Bob Barr, Obama's lead over McCain dwindles to 3 percentage points, 46 percent to 43 percent. (Nader registers 6 percent while Barr gets 3 percent.)

Labels: General Election 2008, McCain, Obama, polls

CNN discusses McCain setting up a Truth Squad and responding to remarks by Wesley Clark and other Obama surrogates.

Labels: General Election 2008, McCain, Obama, Obama supporters, Veterans, Wesley Clark

The residents of Unity, NH gear up for the honeymoon.

Labels: General Election 2008, Hillary, Obama

Netroots feel jilted by Obama's FISA stand - Carrie Budoff Brown - Politico.com

When former Sen. John Edwards dropped out of the presidential race, the progressive Netroots took their affections to Barack Obama, defending him against attack from Hillary Rodham Clinton and others.

But with his support of a government surveillance bill that offers retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies — a bill that he vowed last year to filibuster — the honeymoon has ended.

Disappointed over his position on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the online activists feel jilted and betrayed and have taken to questioning his progressive credentials. One prominent blogger, Atrios, has even given him the moniker “Wanker of the Day.”

“He broke faith,” said Matt Stoller, a political consultant and blogger at OpenLeft.com. “Obama pledged to filibuster, and he is part of that old politics, in this case, that he said he wasn’t. It will spur us to challenge him.”

The FISA debate marks the presumptive Democratic nominee’s first serious break from the liberal Netroots in the general election. He is still their candidate, but the FISA issue has reignited skepticism among major bloggers, who had largely pushed aside doubts about Obama when Edwards, their favored candidate, ended his bid in February.

Obama’s post-partisan persona hasn’t always meshed so well with the noisy and contentious Netroots, and his rise to prominence has come without their full-throated support. He told reporters in February that he doesn’t read blogs and has long been viewed as cool to the Netroots — a notion that the candidate’s new media director, Joe Rospars, disputed this week at the Personal Democracy Forum in New York, saying Obama was a favorite of the readers of the major bloggers.

Either way, the Netroots eventually took Obama’s side against Clinton, and some came to view him as a champion of progressive causes.

His stance on the FISA bill, however, has brought Obama back down to earth, in part because the liberal blogosphere cares more about civil liberties than many of the other traditional issues that have long dominated the Democratic agenda. While the mainstream media fixated on Obama’s decision to opt out of the public financing system — and newspaper editorial boards eviscerated him — the Netroots commended Obama for showing political savvy. After all, the readers of liberal blogs are many of the small donors who gave Obama reason to reject public financing.

FISA, however, was different. Many of the most popular progressive blogs built their following by mining anger toward President Bush, the Iraq war and what bloggers view as his disregard of the Constitution and the civil liberties guaranteed by it. By granting immunity to telecom companies, civil courts will likely dismiss lawsuits that might unearth details about the administration’s activities, eliminating an opportunity to hold Bush accountable.

“It angers the blogosphere to its core,” said Jane Hamsher, founder of the popular blog Firedoglake.com. “We want to be able to know: What did you do? If we can get that information, we can make sure they don’t do that again. We can get the public engaged.”

Obama’s decision to support the bill with the immunity provision was not surprising, she said. Republicans frame critics of such security measures as soft on terrorism, and the presumptive Democratic nominee probably does not want it used against him.

“[A] lot of people tried to convince themselves that he was a progressive hero, and I think they were disappointed,” Hamsher said. “You can feel a real shift in the zeitgeist online.”

Still, the disillusionment goes only so far. The liberal blogosphere’s most recognizable name, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, founder of Daily Kos, said Monday on MSNBC’s “Countdown With Keith Olbermann”: “Let’s be honest, it is either Obama or John McCain. So we really don’t have much of a choice.”

Labels: Netroots, Obama

The GOP made Obama do it

It was no surprise when Barack Obama flipped on public financing last week. When it suited his goals last year, he pledged, "If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election." When it didn't suit his goals, he ditched the pledge. And get this: Apparently he did it because the Republicans made him do it.

Obama has raised an impressive $296 million to date - dwarfing John McCain's $122 million. He stands to raise a lot of money - certainly more than the $84 million he would have received from the federal presidential public financing system - for the nine weeks following the Democratic convention. So forget "change we can believe in."

I cannot get as indignant as some critics seem to be. After all, public financing never was about reforming politics. It always was about helping Democrats get into the White House - which is why so many alleged reformers have not only accepted Obama's flip-flop, but praised it. Even the goo-goo Center for Responsive Politics Web site featured an opinion piece that suggested that the $1.2 million per day of public financing "just might not be enough" for a presidential candidate.

In a video e-mailed to supporters last week, Obama floated the argument that his huge war chest was akin to public financing because of all the $5, $10 and $20 checks his team has cashed. But, as the New York Times reported, Obama already "has collected more money in contributions of $1,000 or more than even Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's once-vaunted team of bundlers of donations." This week, Obama is trolling for big checks from Clinton fat cats.

Team Obama set up fightthesmears.com ostensibly to fight misinformation. Site visitors are invited to send viral e-mail that charges, "Rush Limbaugh and his fellow right-wing attack dogs have been spreading baseless rumors about a nonexistent video tape showing Michelle Obama using a racial epithet." It was a vile, baseless rumor.

You could applaud Team Obama for setting the record straight, if it did not gloss over the starring role of Larry C. Johnson, identified simply as a "blogger," not a supporter of Hillary Clinton, as David Weigel reported in the American Prospect online. Instead, it targeted Limbaugh for saying "a tape exists of Michelle Obama using the word 'whitey' from the pulpit of Trinity United."

Thing is, Limbaugh stipulated, "There's a rumor that there's a tape" - two weeks after Johnson's first blog alleging that Republicans were hoarding a "whitey" tape. (Limbaugh should not have repeated the rumor, but he did so as many political editors and reporters were grappling over whether to report the unsubstantiated but widely trafficked Internet rumor, or just ignore it.)

Then, Obama pulled the race card. At a fundraiser - where else? - Obama told supporters that he had to turn down public financing so that he can raise enough money to fight GOP 527s. As the New York Times reported, he said, "They're going to try to make you afraid of me. 'He's young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black?' "

Who does Obama think he is kidding? He has raised buckets of cash - but rather than be up front about opting out of public financing because of the math, he stooped to blaming other people for his decision to cash in. He also blamed the system and played the race card.

Labels: Campaign financing/contributions, General Election 2008, Obama, Race

AFP: Obama moves to solve his 'Latino problem'

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Barack Obama's presidential campaign has recently increased its efforts to reach Latino voters by appointing two veteran operatives to key outreach positions.

During the Democratic Party primary, rival Hillary Clinton attracted more than two-thirds of the Latino, or Hispanic, vote, making it brutally clear that Obama has problems winning over the community.

After Obama's crushing defeat in the June 1 primary in Puerto Rico, Clinton's campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe told reporters the results "shows that he (Obama) has a problem with the Latino community," the Politico website reported.

The Hispanic community -- 45 million people, or 15 percent of the US population -- is the largest racial minority group in the country. Many live in states expected to be hotly contested in the November 4 presidential election.

In a bid to reach Hispanic voters, Obama on Monday appointed Patti Solis Doyle, a Chicagoan of Mexican descent, to be chief of staff to his still-to-be-named vice presidential choice.

Solis managed Clinton's campaign until she was ousted in February amid a wave of acrimony following the New York senator's less-than-stellar showing on February 5, Super Tuesday primary night.

In a less visible but equally important move, Obama appointed Cuauthemoc Figueroa, a California-born former union organizer and the son of Mexican farmworkers, as the point man in his effort to attract Hispanic votes.

Obama's campaign "has been moving the pieces in a positive way over the last weeks" in an effort to attract Hispanic voters, said Sergio Bendixen, a former Clinton campaign adviser on Hispanic issues.

"In the primaries, Obama spent a lot of money campaigning for Hispanic votes, but he had little experience with the community," Bendixen told AFP.

"No offense, but his Latino outreach team was a bit limited. Now however the indications are that this is going to change," he said.

Millions of Hispanic voters live in the key battleground states of New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, and Florida, as well as Republican John McCain's home state of Arizona.

Whoever gains their support could carry the state, said Daniel Restrepo from the Center for American Progress, a think-tank with close ties to the Democrats.

"The Latino vote will be especially important, mainly in the southeastern states," said Restrepo.

Historically, the large Cuban-American community in Florida has voted for Republican candidates, while Hispanics in New York and California have voted Democrat. Hispanics in the southwest are mixed, with strong regional Democratic pockets.

Labels: General Election 2008, Latino community, Obama