Vetting Clinton

Seems rather odd to me that suddenly, Hillary Clinton has to be vetted because she might be considered for the appointment of Secretary of State. What, pray tell, would have happened if the Democrats had selected her as their candidate for the presidency of the United States? Would we not have had the SAME issues with Bill Clinton's connections around the world? Sheesh.

Barack Obama Takes Democratic Party Nomination

MSNBC reports:

Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois claimed the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday night, NBC News projected based on its tally of convention delegates.

By doing so, he shattered a barrier more than two centuries old to become the first black candidate ever nominated by a major political party for the nation’s highest office.

Barack Obama Says 'Good-bye' To Long-Time Trinity Church Membership

My question is: Didn't Mr. Obama hear any of this abhorrent rhetoric from the pulpit in the 20 years he and Mrs. Obama attended Trinity? Surely, he was aware of the views of his pastor prior to this election year? Why did he tolerate it then? Or did he? I think this is the more important question - are we, as members of a church, accountable for the beliefs of our pastors?

Barack Obama Takes Wyoming

The victory [by a very wide margin] while in a state with only 18 delegates, was welcome news for the Obama campaign as it sought to blunt Mrs. Clinton’s momentum coming off her victories in Ohio and Texas on Tuesday.

Hand Over Heart: Is This Really What Makes Us Patriotic?

Asked during a town hall meeting in Lorain, Ohio, about "an attempt by conservatives and Republicans to paint you as unpatriotic," a questioner cited the fact that [Barack] Obama once failed to put his hand over his heart while singing the national anthem.

The questioner also noted that the Illinois senator does not wear an American flag lapel pin, has met with former members of the radical anti-Vietnam War group, Weather Underground, and his wife was quoted recently as saying she never felt really proud of the United States until recently.

Asked how he would fight the image of being unpatriotic, Obama said, "There's always some nonsense going on in general elections. Right? If it wasn't this, it would be something else. If you recall, first it was my name. Right? That was a problem. And then there was the Muslim e-mail thing and that hasn't worked out so well, and now it's the patriotism thing.

"The way I will respond to it is with the truth: that I owe everything I am to this country," he said. Obama said it was a speech about his love for this country that put him in the national spotlight. He shot down the idea that failing to put his hand over his heart during the national anthem makes him unpatriotic.

More Substance And Poetry: Barack Obama

...Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (has) critic(ized) that (Barack's) words offer more poetry than substance.

Yet as he traveled across Wisconsin last week, Mr. Obama seemed to have let loose a little more of his inner-wonk, which his strategists had once urged him to keep on the shelf.

Even as he was dismissing Mrs. Clinton’s criticism, he appeared to be taking it at least mildly to heart — a suggestion that as a line of attack, she might be on to something.

Suddenly, he was injecting a few more specifics into his campaign speeches. Giant rallies that had sustained his candidacy through a coast-to-coast series of contests on Feb. 5, notable for their rhetorical flourishes and big applause lines, were supplemented with policy speeches and town-hall-style meetings, complete with the question-and-answer sessions he abandoned as he roared out of Iowa and into New Hampshire.

Sign A Petition Calling On Democratic Party Superdelegates to Represent Constituents

You've probably heard about the "superdelegates" who could end up deciding the Democratic nominee.

The superdelegates are under lots of pressure right now to come out for one candidate or the other. We urgently need to encourage them to let the voters decide between Clinton and Obama—and then to support the will of the people.

I signed a petition urging the superdelegates to respect the will of the voters. Can you join me at the link below?

http://pol.moveon.org/superdelegates/?r_by=12150-7851719-8VyiFg&rc=paste

Thanks!

Democratic Party Super Delegate System: Why and How

Jockeying for Position: Barack and Hillary

Clinton Paranoia: 'Republican Attack Machine' Will Tear Barack Down?

Maureen Dowd writes:

Hillary’s strategist Mark Penn argued last week that because the voters have “very limited information” about Obama, the Republican attack machine would tear him down and he would lose the support of independents. Then Penn tried to point the way to negative information on Obama, just to show that Obama wouldn’t be able to survive Republicans pointing the way to negative information...

“I have been through these Republican attacks over and over and over again, and I believe that I’ve demonstrated that much to the dismay of the Republicans, I not only can survive, but thrive,” she (Hillary) said.

And on Tuesday night she told supporters, “Let me be clear: I won’t let anyone Swift-boat this country’s future.”

Better the devil you know than the diffident debutante (Barack) you don’t. Better to go with the Clintons, with all their dysfunction and chaos — the same kind that fueled the Republican hate machine — than to risk the chance that Obama would be mauled like a chew toy in the general election. Better to blow off all the inspiration and the young voters, the independents and the Republicans that Obama is attracting than to take a chance on something as ephemeral as hope. Now that’s Cheney-level paranoia.

Bill is propelled by Cheneyesque paranoia, as well. His visceral reaction to Obama — from the “fairy tale” line to the inappropriate Jesse Jackson comparison — is rooted less in his need to see his wife elected than in his need to see Obama lose, so that Bill’s legacy is protected.

Barack Has Routed Hillary in South Carolina Democratic Primary

Associated Press reports:

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - Barack Obama routed Hillary Rodham Clinton in the racially-charged South Carolina primary Saturday night, regaining campaign momentum in the prelude to a Feb. 5 coast-to-coast competition for more than 1,600 Democratic National Convention delegates.

I'm still not certain about this being a racially-charged race, but hey... I also did not realize that Barack had lost momentum, except that the media has been telling us that he has been for the last several days, but hey...

A Game: Setting High Expectations for Barack in South Carolina

AMY CHOZICK writes:

COLUMBIA, S.C. Mr. Obama has been leading rival Sen. Hillary Clinton in polls by as much as 16 percentage points over the past week. He fares particularly well among African-American voters, who make up half of all registered Democrats in the state. By a 5 to 1 margin, they said they would vote for Mr. Obama over Mrs. Clinton.

This may seem like good news for Mr. Obama, who scored a first-place finish in the Iowa caucus but finished second to Mrs. Clinton in New Hampshire and Nevada. But with expectations set so high, political pundits say the Illinois senator faces a dilemma: He will have to win by a double-digit margin in order for voters nationwide to perceive South Carolina as a real victory.

Since when is a victory not a real victory? I am beginning to strongly suspect that any win Barack gains is going to be downplayed across the board.

This struggle to meet expectations has been heightened by the Clinton campaign. For the past week, campaign officials have been publicly lowering expectations in South Carolina while reaching out to the nearly two dozen states that will hold primaries on "Super Tuesday," Feb. 5. Mrs. Clinton spent much of the week campaigning in California, Arizona, New Jersey and New York.


After days of criticizing Mrs. Clinton for ignoring the Palmetto State, the Obama campaign seemed to grasp how this expectations game was playing out. It released a memo Wednesday titled "Hillary Clinton going all out to win in South Carolina" that claims she has invested seven months of on-the-ground efforts and more than $200,000 in TV advertising in South Carolina.

Nevada Election Results Illustrated

Day Before South Carolina Democratic Primary: Look for Bill Clinton to Get Angry

John Dickerson in SLATE writes:

Hillary Clinton has won the Nevada caucus, which means a few things about the Democratic race are now coming into focus. For example, mark on your calendar Jan. 25 for an outburst by Bill Clinton somewhere in South Carolina. He has launched a tirade the day before each of his wife's victories in Nevada and New Hampshire, claiming the process was unfairly stacked against her. If this keeps up, he's going to require a stretcher by the last primary in Oregon come May.

Bill Clinton was so angry because it got ugly at the end in Nevada. Democrats may have cooled down their flash war over race and gender earlier this week, but by the time the vote took place Saturday, each of the two top campaigns was flinging some very ugly charges about the other.

Nevada Election Results

ELECTION RESULTS
Nevada
Democrats Votes
Clinton 5,173
Obama 4,604
Edwards 384
88% reporting

Republicans Votes
Romney 17,749
Paul 4,382
McCain 4,348
78% reporting
Democratic results reflect county delegates won by the candidates.

My goodness! Look how few people actually vote! Actually, I heard that in Nevada the Democratic Party results are not really votes, but number of electorates awarded???

Making Nice: The Democratics in Nevada Debate

Watching the Nevada Democratic Party debates among Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards this evening...ah, they are making nice with each other. They are apologizing to each other over and over again by virtue of the questions being asked: In the light of this or that, do you regret saying this or that about this or that candidate? Oh yes, definitely, says Obama. Clinton says, "clearly we must be clear."

Asked to verbalize their individual strength and weakness, Obama and Edwards answered candidly but Clinton side-stepped the question and talked about the presidency, not about herself.

Oops, Obama is going to tell us "how I am going to end climate change." What a great mis-speak as of course no one can end climate change.

Hillary vs. Barack

by Maureen Dowd

Carolyn Washburn, the phlegmatic editor of the paper (Des Moines Register), once more moderates.

WASHBURN: Senator Clinton, I’d like you to start us off by explaining why your campaign has been getting down and dirty with someone so clean and articulate?

CLINTON: I apologized to Senator Obama. I absolutely did not authorize or condone the remarks made by one of my co-chairs in New Hampshire about my distinguished colleague’s youthful indiscretions. If primary voters don’t care that he did “a little blow,” then my goodness, why should I? Even if he had packed a straw full of the white rabbit and had a snow bunny blow it in his ear, who would care, for Pete’s sake? I only wish I knew all that colorful chasing-the-dragon lingo. Senator Obama certainly has a lot of street cred, even if it isn’t Main Street. We owe it to the good people of Iowa to stick to critical issues like the economy, and how to get a fiscally responsible budget like we had in the ’90s, the ’90s, the ’90s —

WASHBURN: Snap out of it.

CLINTON: Sorry. Anyway, even if Senator Obama were still riding the snow train, I would not allow any revelations about it to sully this campaign. I’m not sure who that young man in a hoodie was that Barack was talking to outside tonight, before the debate. I’d seen the young man earlier, standing around in the shadows outside. But that’s neither here nor there. Even if I had been able to see whether any money was exchanged, or who was selling to whom, I would not allow anyone in my campaign, even that scamp Mark Penn, to use the word cocaine, cocaine, cocaine —

WASHBURN: Senator!

'Oh Obama, You Are So'...'Oh, Oprah, So Are You'

Funny stuff...

Obama: Oprah Says He Should Not 'Wait His Turn'

Katharine Q. Seelye writes:

The Double O Express — Oprah for Obama — drew what is easily the biggest crowd at a campaign event, for any candidate, so far this season. It may have helped that the day was unseasonably warm, above 70 degrees, and gorgeously sunny. But this size crowd is rare even for a general election in the fall. This event, which was moved to the University of South Carolina’s football stadium to accommodate everyone who wanted to come, drew mostly African-Americans and, it seemed, more women than men.

About half of the state’s Democratic primary voters are black, and more than half of them are women. So Oprah certainly seems to have reached the intended audience, one who will be pivotal to the primary.

And she knew her audience. From the moment she stepped on stage — to Aretha Franklin’s “Think” — she established a connection. Referring to her upbringing in Mississippi and Tennessee, she said: “I know something about growing up in the South and know about what it means to come from the South and be born in 1954.”

She did not spell out that 1954 was the year of the landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education that desegregated the public schools, but it is a year with resonance in American racial history.

Nor did she explicitly acknowledge that she was addressing a largely black audience about a black candidate... “It’s just amazing grace that I get to stand here on this South Carolina stage to talk about the man who’s going to be the next president of the United States,” she said. Mr. Obama, she said, “speaks to the potential inside every one of us.”

Oprah noted that some say Mr. Obama should “wait his turn.” But, she said, “I wouldn’t be where I am if I waited on the people who told me it couldn’t be.” The audience erupted with applause.