and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.posted by Jimbob at 9:40 PM on March 18, 2008 [15 favorites]
I am the son of a black man from Nigeria and a white woman from Bristol. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Churchill's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line in Grenwich while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in England and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black Jamaican who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.posted by Jimbob at 9:58 PM on March 18, 2008 [9 favorites]
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.I'm not certain how that could be construed as 'real cheap politicking'. Care to elaborate?
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
Cortex will probably delete this post, but nevertheless he can not silence the amazing phenomena which is Obama.That was a joke, right? Because I can't seem to tell anymore given the adoration I have been seeing.
Another suprising defender of Obama this morning on MSNBC — Gov. Mike Huckabee:I think it's premature in the immediate 24 hours following the speech to speculate on its historicality. But from its rich resonance across many unusual corners of the political landscape (including the many personal anecdotes in this thread and elsewhere), it's undeniable that Obama's speech was, in a very literal sense, quite remarkable. His speech was a salient moment in American political discourse, just as his 2004 convention speech was, but with a wholly different tenor. And any rhetorician would've given their left nut to have delivered one, never mind both of these speeches.
He was impressed by the speech and how Obama is handling the race issue. He brought up Jerry Falwell, and said that Falwell said plenty of things that his parishoners would likely not agree with, and that we shouldn’t hold someone accountable for every statment of their pastor. Lastly, he said that he grew up in the segregated south, and that a guy like Wright who has been discriminated against for most of his life, would rightfully have a “chip on his shoulder.”
[...]
Huckabee also said that had he gone through what he saw blacks go through he would probably be even more resentful.
Chicago Times: "The cheeks of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat, and dishwatery utterances."posted by pracowity at 8:38 AM on March 19, 2008 [1 favorite]
In this reviewer's opinion, the only really coherent position on the abortion issue is one that is both Pro-Life and Pro-Choice.posted by shakespeherian at 8:46 AM on March 19, 2008 [23 favorites]
Argument: As of 4 March 1999, the question of defining human life in utero is hopelessly vexed. That is, given our best present medical and philosophical understandings of what makes something not just a living organism but a person, there is no way to establish at just what point during gestation a fertilized ovum becomes a human being. This conundrum, together with the basically inarguable soundness of the principle "When in irresolvable doubt about whether something is a human or not, it is better not to kill it," appears to me to require any reasonable American to be Pro-Life. At the same time, however, the principle "When in irresolvable doubt about something, I have neither the legal nor the moral right to tell another person what to do about it, especially if that person feels that s/he is not in doubt" is an unassailable part of the Democratic pact we Americans all make with one another, a pact in which each adult citizen gets to be an autonomous moral agent; and this principle appears to me to require any reasonable American to be Pro-Choice.
This reviewer is thus, as a private citizen and an autonomous agent, both Pro-Life and Pro-Choice. It is not an easy or comfortable position to maintain. Every time someone I know decides to terminate a pregnancy, I am required to believe simultaneously that she is doing the wrong thing and that she has every right to do it. Plus, of course, I have both to believe that a Pro-Life + Pro-Choice stance is the only really coherent one and to restrain myself from trying to force that position on other people whose ideological or religious convictions seem (to me) to override reason and yield a (in my opinion) wacko dogmatic position. This restraint has to be maintained even when somebody's (to me) wacko dogmatic position appears (to me) to reject the very Democratic tolerance that is keeping me from trying to force my position on him/her; it requires me not to press or argue or retaliate even when somebody calls me Satan's Minion or Just Another Shithead Male, which forbearance represents the really outer and tooth-grinding limits of my own personal Democratic Spirit.
I guess it's probably because they're mostly under 40, or have never voted in a general electionGo fuck yourself.
I'm starting to become more and more convinced that Jim Webb needs to be his running mate.As attractive as this is, Webb has always struck me as a "party above self" guy, and it's undeniable that him leaving his seat would put the Democrats in a bind. Don't get me wrong: I'd love to see it, too, but the plain fact is that Webb put up a hell of a fight to win that seat, with a lot of activist help on the ground, and he undoubtedly feels like he has a duty to those people and that district. Does anyone know what would happen if Webb actually did this, in terms of special elections or replacement?
When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"To hear it from the mouth of a white football coach, that's interesting. To hear it from an African-American man in the middle of one of the most contested presidential campaigns in generations, that's incredible. And only he can give it. Bill, Hillary, McCain, Kerry, Edwards, it's an interesting speech, but it's coming from the majority. Obama is speaking from the minority, downtrodden and beaten down, enslaved, lynched, discriminated, and ignored. He's saying to White America, of course we're angry, but it's time for all of us to move on.
It is true that video streaming is becoming more common over the Internet, and true as well that cheap storage of streamed video is making it possible for many young television viewers to engage in what the industry calls "time shifting" and personalize their television watching habits. Moreover, as higher bandwidth connections continue to replace smaller information pipelines, the Internet's capacity for carrying television will continue to dramatically improve. But in spite of these developments, it is television delivered over cable and satellite that will continue for the remainder of this decade and probably the next to be the dominant medium of communication in America's democracy. And so long as that is the case, I truly believe that America's democracy is at grave risk.So I'd say that comes close at least.
Is there any other politician who could quote Faulkner and mention Youtube in the same speech?
it won't just go back to chaosGo back to?
Does no one else think that Obama is going to have a problem with running on a platform of constant and immediate troop withdrawal from Day 1 when he is running against a hawk like McCain?
In ‘73 the Courts said weposted by delmoi at 1:27 PM on March 19, 2008
Could take the unborn lives
The choice is yours don’t worry now
It’s not a wrong, it’s your right
But just because they made it law
Does not change God’s command
The most that we can hope for is
God’s mercy on our land
Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation: conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.Well, since we're comparing.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war... testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated... can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate... we cannot consecrate... we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be here dedicated to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us... that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion... that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain... that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom... and that this government of the people... by the people... for the people... shall not perish from the earth.
November 19, 1863
Ask that same question with 'even if that means the complete destabilization of Iraq' tacked on at the end,
Which is to say, and I hope Obama repeats it all the way to the white house: the Iraq war has made the USA less secure.
I think that many or most people are like me -- people who think we should not have gone, but now that we're here we should try to get things to as stable a position as possible before we flee.
"The release of 17,000 pages of then-first lady Hillary Clinton's daily schedule in the White House has raised questions about her ability to answer the 3 a.m. phone call she talks about in her commercials.posted by ericb at 7:10 AM on March 20, 2008 [1 favorite]
'Maybe because I have had the great honor and privilege of seeing that really hard job up close that I know that there is a big difference between speeches and solutions and talk and action,' Sen. Clinton said in her commercials before the Texas and Ohio primaries.
But the daily schedules released today show many of her overseas trips to be the standard first lady tourist fare, hospital visits and blinis with caviar.
On the day U.S. cruise missiles hit Serbia, the schedules show the former first lady was touring Egyptian ruins.
On the day when her husband announced attacks against al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, the schedules show she stayed in Martha's Vineyard on vacation."
“The early days of 1996 were tense times inside the Clinton White House. On Jan. 4, the First Couple's top personal aide reported that she had stumbled upon Hillary Clinton's long-lost Rose Law Firm billing records—documents that had been requested by Whitewater prosecutors two years earlier. Ken Starr quickly subpoenaed the First Lady to testify before a federal grand jury, leading to her historic four-hour appearance at the U.S. District Courthouse in Washington on Jan. 26 of that year.posted by ericb at 7:43 AM on March 20, 2008
But anybody looking through Hillary Clinton's newly released White House records for clues as to how she handled this personal crisis will find … absolutely nothing. The more than 10,000 pages, released by the National Archives in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, purport to be the New York senator's daily schedules for her entire eight-year tenure as First Lady—the first major ‘document dump’ from the Clinton Library in Little Rock.
But the documents include only Hillary Clinton's public schedules, not her private calendar. And even those appear to be heavily redacted to exclude almost anything that might be of interest to historians and the inevitable posse of ‘oppo’ researchers. [more]”
"Barack Obama told CNN Wednesday the recent uproar over his former pastor's sermons has reminded him of the odds he faces in winning the White House.posted by ericb at 7:50 AM on March 20, 2008
'In some ways this, this controversy has actually shaken me up a little bit and gotten me back into remembering that the odds of me getting elected have always been lower than than some of the other conventional candidates,' the Illinois senator told CNN's Anderson Cooper in an exclusive one-on-one interview.
Obama declined to speculate on whether the controversy surrounding the Rev. Jeremiah's Wright's sermons may damage him politically, but said his campaign does best when it doesn't follow the 'textbook.'"
"...[Safire is]...the first to acknowledge that our vocabulary shapes, as much as it reflects, the way we think about the world. The names of laws ('death tax,' 'Clear Skies Initiative') and the characterizations of would-be leaders ('bull moose,' 'amiable dunce') have unconscious effects on even the savviest voters. It's why spinmeisters stay in business and why a politician's word choice can make a legend (FDR's 'nothing to fear but fear itself') or break a career (George Allen's 'macaca' blooper in 2007)....[B]oth the wildly successful and the widely derided of American political argot are included in his 829-page dictionary. What began in 1968 as a Beltway junkie's labor of love has turned into an authoritative collection of whistle-stopping campaign slogans and vicious slings and arrows of partisan attacks that stretches all the way back to the Founding Fathers (who came up with terms like 'electioneer' and the party 'ticket')."*posted by ericb at 11:13 AM on March 20, 2008
"1. Destroy Obama so that the Superdelegates overthrow him and give her the nomination.posted by ericb at 11:38 AM on March 20, 2008
2. Destroy Obama so that, even if he wins the nomination, he will be so severely damaged that he loses the election, and the day after the election the Clinton people say 'see, we told you that you should have picked us,' and four years later, Hillary will be able to run again and get the nomination, if because of nothing else, because the party will feel sorry for 'cheating' her out of of it this time.
If we lose the election in the fall, it will be all Hillary's fault. It's time for Howard Dean and the party leaders to step in and stop Hillary before she starts a civil war (and one is coming) and destroys our party."
I think there are a lot of African-Americans who would love to be able to not worry about race, but somehow it encroaches upon them....and a reaction.
You know, it's the classic example -- and this is a common experience. I think most African-Americans will share it. If there is some horrendous crime out there, black people are always a little nervous until they see the picture, hoping that it's not a black person who committed it.
A white person never thinks that way, because you, Terry Moran, would never assume that if there is some white male who fits your description who, you know, went on a rampage that somehow people are going to think of you differently. Black people, they worry about that.
So that's an example of how those realities are different and it means that the African-American community views these things in a different way and feels as if talking about it is important.
Take a look at Hillary's comments and actions re: national security, in contrast to the bumbling by Obama. She can hold her own in any debate with John McCain about national security.
Senator Clinton says that she and Senator McCain have passed a “Commander in Chief test” – not because of the judgments they’ve made, but because of the years they’ve spent in Washington. She made a similar argument when she said her vote for war was based on her experience at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. But here is the stark reality: there is a security gap in this country – a gap between the rhetoric of those who claim to be tough on national security, and the reality of growing insecurity caused by their decisions. A gap between Washington experience, and the wisdom of Washington’s judgments. A gap between the rhetoric of those who tout their support for our troops, and the overburdened state of our military.Obama's March 19 Iraq speech
It is time to have a debate with John McCain about the future of our national security. And the way to win that debate is not to compete with John McCain over who has more experience in Washington, because that’s a contest that he’ll win. The way to win a debate with John McCain is not to talk, and act, and vote like him on national security, because then we all lose. The way to win that debate and to keep America safe is to offer a clear contrast, and that’s what I will do when I am the nominee of the Democratic Party – because since before this war in Iraq began, I have made different judgments, I have a different vision, and I will offer a clean break from the failed policies and politics of the past.
Metaman's rehashing of the 1960s political term "Camelot" (which he seems to want us to view as a disparaging term)
"A day after federal archivists released 11,000 pages of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's schedules during her time as first lady, a federal judge today allowed a conservative group to question the National Archives about the process of dealing with requests for more documents.posted by ericb at 1:20 PM on March 20, 2008
U.S. District Judge James Robertson today authorized a lawyer for the conservative group, Judicial Watch, to question the archives about why it processes some requests before others. Judicial Watch is seeking Clinton's telephone logs.
There are hundreds of requests pending for release of records from the period when her husband was president. The archives has said it wanted to place Judicial Watch's lawsuit on hold for a year before the agency considers how soon to begin reviewing the telephone logs for possible release, a process the Justice Department lawyer estimated would take six to eight months.
The requests have taken on a greater urgency as Hillary Clinton battles for the Democratic nomination for president. On Wednesday, archivists released 11,000 pages of schedules, but the material offered little to support her assertion that her White House experience left her best prepared to become president.
The records show she was an active first lady who traveled widely and was deeply involved in healthcare policy, but they are rife with omissions, terse references and redactions that obscure many of her activities and the identities of those she saw."
MetaMan: Like I said, there's a daze of hypnotism about this guy.Wait, wait, wait. So you're saying all I needed to do was to read that article to truly understand who I'm voting for? Why didn't you say so earlier?! I'll do so right away!!!
MetaMan: Silly people.
MetaMan: Obama followers I've encountered are the ones who need rescuing, because their belief in a guy they knowo so little about is almost cult-like.
MetaMan: You are in for a goddamn shock if this guy gets elected.
MetaMan: I think most of the peoplep here need a persistent dose of reality
MetaMan: We haven't seen what Obama is really all about
MetaMan: Read this
Faint of Butt: Thank you, MetaMan, for responding to my questions. You've given me some useful information. In particular, you suggested that I read this article, which I have done, and with no reservations I say that everybody should read that article. It describes the pragmatic, reality-based positions and plans of Obama's economic and foreign policy advisers, and places them in stark contrast to the at-times pie-in-the-sky idealistic theories of the Bill Clinton administration and the by-the-numbers trickery of the post-Nixon Republican party. I now feel even more certain that Barack Obama is the best candidate to lead this country out of these dark times, and that it is absolutely vital he prevail over the dangerous influences of Hillary Clinton and John McCain. I have donated an additional $25 to the Obama campaign. Thank you, MetaMan!
MetaMan: You are perfectly welcome! Noe, at least, you know what you're voting for!!!
I would like to see the person with the largest amount of popular votes carry the day.
[The NY Times reports that] her long-shot candidacy has “grown a little longer.” That’s putting it mildly.There's more; the link is worth following.
[...]
Now that revotes in Florida and Michigan are off the table (Michigan’s legislature is mere hours away from recessing), Clinton is not going to win the popular vote. Period. Obama currently leads by 700,000 votes, or more than 800,000 if you count caucus estimates.
[...]
The fundamental fact [is] that Clinton can win only by overturning Obama’s pledged delegate lead—a truism that still has not gotten the traction it deserves. Ominous warnings about 1968-like riots aside, the prospect that Clinton would accept the nomination over the head of the people is fundamentally at odds with everything the party represents. She talks about wanting to enfranchise the people of Florida and Michigan. But then, inevitably, she would turn around and seek to revert the people’s decision, expressed through the pledged delegate count. Call me naive, but I find it inconceivable that the party would want this to happen, or that a candidate would want to win that way.
All this being a long way of saying, Hillary’s path to the nomination is not “narrow.” It’s barricaded. Yet still there seems to be a hesitation among the media to declare Clinton dead. Maybe it’s her zombielike ability to rise again—first in New Hampshire, then in Nevada, then most recently in Texas and Ohio. But people have to understand there will be no knockout blow, no head shot. Rather it will be a long, slow exit that causes pain to everyone involved.
The question is, who is going to tell Hillary it’s over?
Voter DisqualificationThere just isn't a very good way to put another vote together, and although there are clear political reasons why Obama would want to resist a revote, I don't think it's really fair-minded to lay the blame for that on him. Both MI and FL knew what they were doing when they sought an early primary, and they miscalculated, figuring that the primaries would be over by this point. That their selfish choice backfired should not be used to tar either candidate.
Although Michigan has always run open elections, which allow voters to vote in whatever primary they prefer, voters who participated in the Republican primary in January could not vote in the June election under the proposed law. This class of voters includes Democrats and Independents who chose not to vote in the invalid Democratic primary at the time because the majority of active candidates did not appear on the ballot and the results would not be accepted under party rules.
"The Cuyahoga County Board of Elections has launched an investigation that could lead to criminal charges against voters who maliciously switched parties for the March 4 presidential primary.Will Rush Limbaugh Be Indicted for Voter Fraud? -- "As Ohio election officials investigate illegal crossover voting in the 2008 primary, questions arise on Limbaugh's role."
Elections workers will look for evidence that voters lied when they signed affidavits pledging allegiance to their new party. And at least one board member, Sandy McNair, a Democrat, wants the county prosecutor to review the findings.
...The investigation comes 10 days after The Plain Dealer reported that more than 16,000 Cuyahoga County Republicans changed parties before voting March 4.
After the election, some local Republicans admitted they changed parties only to influence which Democrat would face presumed Republican nominee John McCain in November. One voter scribbled the following addendum to his pledge as a new Democrat: 'For one day only.'
Such an admission amounts to voter fraud, said McNair, who pushed for the investigation.
'I'm looking for evidence,' McNair said. 'I'm not interested in a witch hunt. But I am interested in holding people accountable, whether they're Democrat or Republican.'
Lying on the signed statement is a fifth-degree felony, punishable by six to 12 months in jail and a $2,500 fine."
He began to build a progressive narrative that Democrats, and the progressive movement more broadly, have had difficulty developing. He offered a progressive vision of patriotism, integrating a more traditional view -- referring to his grandfather's service under General Patton, and the military service of Reverend Wright -- with the notion that love of country is not blind love, that forming a more perfect union -- the essence of progressivism -- is part of what it means to love one's country.Bill Richardson's endorsement of Obama:
[Obama] asked us to ponder the weight of our racially-divided past, to rise above it, and to seize the opportunity to carry forward the work of many patriots of all races, who struggled and died to bring us together.Richardson has been making the media rounds in recent weeks, alternately promoting the necessity for Democrats to honor the delegates representing the voters' will while promoting and defending the legacy of the Clinton administration during the 90's, an administration he had a large hand in. It seemed like he was vacillating between the two camps and Obama's speech finally pushed him over the top for Obama. His support might have been instrumental had it come earlier before Texas, but nonetheless still represents an unexpected "ripple" of the speech that will help Obama shore up Hispanic support in the general election.
[...]
As a Hispanic, I was particularly touched by his words.
I have been troubled by the demonization of immigrants--specifically Hispanics-- by too many in this country.
Hate crimes against Hispanics are rising as a direct result and now, in tough economic times, people look for scapegoats and I fear that people will continue to exploit our racial differences—and place blame on others not like them.
We all know the real culprit -- the disastrous economic policies of the Bush Administration!
Senator Obama has started a discussion in this country long overdue and rejects the politics of pitting race against race.
Mrs. Clinton is fond of mocking her adversary for offering “just words.” But words can matter, and Mrs. Clinton’s tragedy is that she never realized they could have mattered for her, too. You have to wonder if her Iraq speech would have been greeted with the same shrug if she had tossed away her usual talking points and seized the opportunity to address the war in the same adult way that Mr. Obama addressed race. Mrs. Clinton might have reconnected with the half of her party that has tuned her out.The Republican Resurrection
She is no less bright than Mr. Obama and no less dedicated to public service. It’s not her fault that she doesn’t have his verbal gifts — who does? But her real problem isn’t her speaking style. It’s the content. Mrs. Clinton needn’t have Mr. Obama’s poetry or pearly oratorical tones to deliver a game-changing speech. She just needs the audacity of candor. Yet she seems incapable of revisiting her history on Iraq (or much else) with the directness that Mr. Obama brought to his reappraisal of his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
On Monday she once again pretended her own record didn’t exist while misrepresenting her opponent’s. “I’ve been working day in and day out in the Senate to provide leadership to end this war,” she said, once more implying he’s all words and she’s all action. But Mrs. Clinton didn’t ratchet up her criticisms of the war until she wrote a letter expressing her misgivings to her constituents in late 2005, two and a half years after Shock and Awe. By then, she was not leading but following — not just Mr. Obama, who publicly called for an Iraq exit strategy a week before the release of her letter, but John Murtha, the once-hawkish Pennsylvania congressman who called for a prompt withdrawal a few days earlier still.
What if Mrs. Clinton had come clean Monday, admitting that she had made a mistake in her original vote and highlighting her efforts to make amends since? John Edwards, arguably a more strident proponent of invading Iraq in 2003 than Mrs. Clinton, did exactly that also in the weeks before her 2005 letter. He succeeded in lifting the cloud, even among those on the left of his party.
Instead Mrs. Clinton darkened that cloud by claiming that she was fooled by the prewar intelligence that didn’t dupe nearly half her Democratic Senate colleagues, including Bob Graham, Teddy Kennedy and Carl Levin. Even worse, she repeatedly pretends that she didn’t know President Bush would regard a bill titled “Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002” as an authorization to go to war. No one believes this spin for the simple reason that no one believes Mrs. Clinton is an idiot. Her patently bogus explanations for her vote have in the end done far more damage to her credibility than the vote itself.
That she has never given a forthright speech on Iraq is what can happen when your chief campaign strategist is a pollster. Focus groups no doubt say it would be hara-kiri for her to admit such a failing. But surely many Americans would have applauded her for confessing to mistakes and saying what she learned from them. As her husband could have told her, that’s best done sooner rather than later.
It’s too late now, and so the Democratic stars are rapidly aligning for disaster. Mrs. Clinton is no longer trying to overcome Mr. Obama’s lead in the popular vote and among pledged delegates by making bold statements about Iraq or any other issue. Instead of enhancing her own case for the presidency, she’s going to tear him down.
“You'll recall that earlier this month, the comedian Sinbad challenged Hillary Clinton's version of the dangers she - and Sinbad and singer Sheryl Crow - faced together on a trip to Bosnia in 1996.posted by ericb at 4:24 PM on March 23, 2008
Today, the Washington Post is backing him up.
In a piece headlined ‘Sniper fire, and holes in Clinton's recollection,’ the Post ‘fact-checks’ Clinton's campaign-trail claims that she landed amidst sniper fire on that trip and that her group ran with its heads down.
In fact, the Post says, the airport where Clinton landed that day was one of the safest in Bosnia at the time. The article continues: ‘Had Hillary Clinton's plane come 'under sniper fire' in March 1996, we would certainly have heard about it long before now. Numerous reporters, including The Washington Post's John Pomfret, covered her trip. A review of nearly 100 news accounts of her visit shows that not a single newspaper or television station reported any security threat to the first lady. 'As a former AP wire-service hack, I can safely say that it would have been in my lead had anything like that happened,' Pomfret said.’”*
"Last week, an important Clinton adviser told Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen (also of Politico) that Clinton had no more than a 10 percent chance of getting the nomination. Now, she’s probably down to a 5 percent chance.posted by ericb at 11:18 AM on March 25, 2008
Five percent....For the sake of that 5 percent, this will be the sourest spring.
....When you step back and think about it, she is amazing. She possesses the audacity of hopelessness.
Why does she go on like this? Does Clinton privately believe that Obama is so incompetent that only she can deliver the policies they both support? Is she simply selfish, and willing to put her party through agony for the sake of her slender chance? Are leading Democrats so narcissistic that they would create bitter stagnation even if they were granted one-party rule?
The better answer is that Clinton’s long rear-guard action is the logical extension of her relentlessly political life.
....No wonder the Clinton campaign feels impersonal. It’s like a machine for the production of politics. It plows ahead from event to event following its own iron logic. The only question is whether Clinton herself can step outside the apparatus long enough to turn it off and withdraw voluntarily or whether she will force the rest of her party to intervene and jam the gears.
If she does the former, she would surprise everybody with a display of self-sacrifice. Her campaign would cruise along at a lower register until North Carolina, then use that as an occasion to withdraw. If she does not, she would soldier on doggedly, taking down as many allies as necessary."
Poll: Obama Regains Big Lead In North Carolina.posted by ericb at 11:21 AM on March 25, 2008
When I asked for other pastors to talk to, several gave me the name of Revered Wright...Younger ministers seemed to regard Revered Wright as a mentor of sorts, his church a model for what they themselves hoped to accomplish. Older pastors were more cautious with their praise, impressed with the rapid growth of Trinity's congregation but somewhat scornful of its popularity with young black professionals. ("A buppie church," one pastor would tell me.)posted by Miko at 12:14 PM on March 25, 2008 [1 favorite]
...Revered Wright smiled and led me into a small, cluttered office. "Sorry for being late," he said, closing the door behind him. "We're trying to build a new sanctuary, and I had to meet with the bankers. I'm telling you, doc, they always want something else from you. Latest thing is another life insurance policy on me. In case I drop dead tomorrow. They figure the whole church'll collapse without me."
"Is it true?"
Revered Wright shook his head. "I'm not the church, Barack. If I die tomorrow, I hope the congregation will give me a decent burial. I'd like to think a few tears will be shed. But as soon as I'm six feet under, they'll be right back on the case, figuring out how to make this church live up to its mission."
He had grown up in Philadelphia, the son of a Baptist minister. He had resisted his father's vocation at first, joining the Marines out of college, dabbling with liquor, Islam, and black nationalism in the sixties. But the call of his faith had apparently remained, a steady tug on his heart, and eventually he'd eneter Howard, then the University of Chicago, where he spent six years studying for a Ph.D. in the histroy of religion. He learned Hebrew and Greek, read the literature of Tillich and Niebuhr and the black liberation theologians. The anger and humor of the streets, the book learning and occasional twenty-five-cent word, all this he had brought with him to Trinnity almost two decades ago. And although it was only later that I would learn much of this biography, it became clear in that very first meeting that, despite the reverend's frequent disclaimers, it was this capacious talent of his -- this ability to hold together, if not reconcile, the conflicting strains of black experience -- upon which Trinity's ssuccess had ultimately been built.
"We've got a lot of different personalities here," he told me. "Got the Africanist over here. The traditionalist over here. Once in a while, I have to stick my hand in the pot - smooth things over before stuff gets ugly. But that's rare. Usually, if somebody's got an idea for a new ministry, I just tell 'em to run with it and get outta their way."
His approach had obviously worked: the church had grown from two hundred to four thousand members during his tenure; there were organizations for every taste, from yoga classes to Caribbean clubs. He was especially pleased with the church's progress in getting more men involved, although he admitted that they still had a way to go.
"Nothing's harder than reaching young brothers like yourself," he said. "They worry about looking soft. They worry about what their buddies are gonna say about 'em. They tell themselves church us a woman's thing - that it's a sign of weakness for a man to admit that he's got spiritual needs."
The revered looked up at me then, a look that made me nervous, I decided to shift the conversation to more familiar ground, telling him about DCP and the issues we were working on, explaining the need for involvement from larger churches like his. He sat patiently and listened to my pitch, and when I was finished he gave a small nod.
"I'll try to help you if I can," he said. "But you should know that having us involved in your effort isn't necessarily a feather in your cap."
"Why's that?"
Revered Wright shurgged. "Some of my fellow clergy don't appreciate what we're about. They feel like we're too radical. Others, we ain't radical enough. Too emotional. Not emotional enough. Our emphasis on African history, on scholarship --"
"Some people say," I interrupted, "that the church is too upwardly mobile."
The reverend's smile faded. "That's a lot of bull," he said sharply. "People who talk that mess reflect their own confusion. They've bought into the whole business of class that keeps us from working together. Half of 'em think that the former gang-banger or the former Muslim got no business in a Christian church. Other half think any black man with education or a job, or any church that respects scholarship, is somehow suspect.
"We don't buy into these false divisions here. It's not about income, Barack. Cops don't check my bank account when they pull me over and make me spread-eagle against the car. These miseducated brothers, like that sociologist at the University of Chicago, talking about 'the declining significance of race.' Now, what country is he living in?"
But wasn't there a reality to the class divisions, I wondered?...
Afterward, in the parking lot, I sat in my car and thumbed through a silver brochure that I'd picked up in the reception area. It contained a set of guiding principles - a "Black Value System" - that the congregation had adopted in 1979. At the top of the list was a commitment to God, "who will give us the strength to give up prayerful passivism and become Black Christian activists, soldiers for Black freedom and the dignity of all humankind." Then a commitment to the black community and black family, education, the work ethic, discipline, and self-respect.
A sensible, heartfelt list...There was one particular passage in Trinity's brochure that stood out, though, a commandment more self-conscious in its tone, requiring greater elaboration. "A Disavowal of the Pursuit of Middleclassness," the heading read. "While it is permissible to chase "middleincomeness" with all our might," the text stated, those blessed with the talent or the good fortune to achieve success in the American mainstream must avoid the "psychological entrapment of Black 'middleclassness' that hypnotizes the successful brother or sister into believing that they are better than the rest and teaches them to think in terms of 'we' and 'they' instead of 'US'!"
My thoughts would often return to that declaration in the weeks that followed as I met with various members of Trinity. Reverend Wright was at least partly justified in dismissing the church's critics, for the bulk of its membership was solidly working class, the same teachers and secretaries and government workers one found in other big black churches throughout the city. Residents from the nearby housing project had been actively recruited, and programs designed to meet the needs ot the poor -- legal aid, tutorials, drug programs -- took up a substantial amount of the church's resources.
Still there was no denying that the church had a disproportionate number of black professionals in its ranks: engineers, doctors, accountants, and corporate managers. Some of them had been raised in Trinity; others had transferred in from other denominations.Many confessed to a long absence from any religious practice - a conscious choice for some, part of a political or intellectual awakenening,but more often because church had seemed irrelevant to them as they'd pursued their careers in largely white institutions.
At some point, though, they all told me of having reached a spiritual dead end a feeling, at once inchoate and oppressive, that they'd been cut off from themselves. Intermittently, then more regularly, they had returned to the church, finding in Trinity some of the same things every religion hopes to offer its converts: a spiritual harbor and a chance to see one's gifts appreciated and acknowledged in a way that a paycheck never can; an assurance, as bones stiffened and hair began to gray, that they belonged to something that would outlast their own lives - and that, when their time finally came, a community would be there to remember.
But not all of what these people sought was strictly religious, I thought; it wasn't just Jesus they were coming home to. It occurred to me that Trinity, with its African themes, its emphasis on black history, continued the role...[of] redistributor and values and circulator of ideas. Only now the redistribution didn't run in just a single direction from the schoolteacher or the physician who saw it as a Christian duty to help thesharecropper or the young man fresh from the South to adapt to big-city life. The flow of culture now ran in reverse as well; the former gang-banger, the teenage mother, had their own forms of validation -- claims of greater deprivation, and hence authenticity, their presence in the church providing the lawyer or doctor with an education from the streets. By widening the doors to allow all who would enter, a church like Trinity assured its members that their fates remained inseparably bound, that an intelligible "us" still remained.
It was a powerful program, this cultural community, one more pliant than simple nationalism, more sustaining than my own brand of organizing. Still, I couldn't help wondering whether it would be enough to keep more people from leaving the city or young men out of jail. Would the Christian fellowship between a black school administrator, say, and a black school parent change the way the schools were run? Would the interest in maintaining such unity allow Revered Wright to take a forceful stand on the latest proposals to reform public housing? And if men like Reverend Wright failed to take a stand, if churches like Trinity refused to engage with real power and risk genuine conflict, then what chance would there be of holding the larger community intact?
Sometimes I put such questions to the people I met with. They would respond with the same bemused look...Revered Wright had given me. For them, the principles in Trinity's brochure were articles of faith no less than belief in the Resurrection. You have some good ideas, they would tell me. Maybe if you joined the church you could help us start a community program. Why don't you come by on Sunday?
And I would shrug and play the question off, unable to confess that I could no longer distinguish between faith and mere folly, between faith and simple endurance; that while I believed in the sincerity I heard in their voices, I remained a reluctant skeptic, doubtful of my own motives, wary of expedient conversion, having too many quarrels with God to accept a salvation too easily won.
MARCH 17: Clinton: "There Was No Greeting Ceremony, And We Basically Were Told To Run To Our Cars. Now, That Is What Happened."What really happened at Tuzla -- video.
"Everyone else was told to sit on their bulletproof vests," Clinton said. "And we came in, in an evasive maneuver....There was no greeting ceremony, and we basically were told to run to our cars. Now, that is what happened." [CNN, 3/1708]
MARCH 17: Clinton, Speaking About Her Trip To Bosnia, Said "I Remember Landing Under Sniper Fire. There Was Supposed To Be Some Kind Of A Greeting Ceremony At The Airport, But Instead We Just Ran With Our Heads Down To Get Into Vehicles To Get To Our Base."
Clinton: "Good morning. I want to thank Secretary West for his years of service, not only as Secretary of the Army, but also to the Veteran's Administration, to our men and women in uniform, to our country. I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia, and as Togo said, there was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor, or too dangerous, the president couldn't go, so send the First Lady. That's where we went. I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base. But it was a moment of great pride for me to visit our troops, not only in our main base as Tuzla, but also at two outposts where they were serving in so many capacities to deactivate and remove landmines, to hunt and seek out those who had not complied with the Dayton Accords and put down their arms, and to build relationships with the people that might lead to a peace for them and their children." [Clinton speech (remarks as delivered), 3/17/08]
FEBRUARY 29: Clinton Said That The Welcoming Ceremony In Bosnia "Had To Be Moved Inside Because Of Sniper Fire."
"At the rally, she belittled the idea that Mr. Obama's 2002 speech 'at an antiwar rally' prepared him to serve as commander in chief. She said he was 'missing in action' on the recent Senate vote on Iran and as chairman of a subcommittee responsible for NATO policy in Afghanistan. Contrasting that with her own experience, she evoked foreign battlefields, recalling a trip to Bosnia as first lady, when the welcoming ceremony 'had to be moved inside because of sniper fire.' She said she had traveled to more than 80 countries and was 'on the front lines' as the United States made peace in Bosnia and Northern Ireland and helped save refugees from ethnic cleansing in Kosovo." [NYT, 3/1/08] VIDEO
DECEMBER 29: Clinton That When She Went To Bosnia, "We Landed In One Of Those Corkscrew Landings And Ran Out Because They Said There Might Be Sniper Fire."
Clinton, in Dubuque, Iowa on December 29, 2007, said "I was so honored to be able to travel around the world representing our country. You know, going to places that often times were, you know, not necessarily a place that a president could go. We used to say in the White House that if a place was too dangerous, too small or too poor, send the first lady. So, I had the time of my life. I was the first, you know, high- profile American to go into Bosnia after the peace accords were signed because we wanted to show that the United States was 100 percent behind the agreement. We wanted to make it clear to the Bosnians of all backgrounds. Plus we wanted to thank our American military and our allies for a great job. So, we landed in one of those corkscrew landings and ran out because they said there might be sniper fire. I don't remember anybody offering me tea on the tarmac. We got there and went to the base where our soldiers were and I went out to a lot of the forward operating bases to thank our young men and women in uniform and to thank the Europeans, including the Russians who were part of that effort." [CNN, 1/1/08]"
To Tell the Tuzla: Breaking news tonight...For the first time, Hillary Clinton herself is calling her claim about landing in Tuzla under sniper fire... a "misstatement"... reversing her past defense of her account, even as she told Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News today this was, quote, "a minor blip." But in our fourth story tonight, that minor blip... a major point in Clinton's narrative about herself as a crisis-ready candidate... her own campaign staff earlier today acknowledging only that it was "possible" she misspoke last week about coming under sniper attack so heavy that a 1996 greeting ceremony at the airport at Tuzla in Bosnia, had to be cancelled. That acknowledgment coming after videotape of the ceremony that wasn't at all cancelled, re-appeared on the internet... and even then, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson insisted today that she was still, quote, "on the front lines." Clinton's war stories first started unraveling when they came under fire from her former comrade-in-arms... Sinbad, the comedian, also on that Tuzla trip...posted by ericb at 2:15 PM on March 25, 2008
MATT LAUER: I still remember winning a Little League championship singlehandedly when I was ten, probably didn't happen. But this isn't the little league. This is someone running for President. There were reporters on the trip and she's using her experience as a deciding factor. How could this happen?posted by ericb at 2:38 PM on March 25, 2008
CHUCK TODD: It's worse than that, Matt. there have been reporters questioning her story on this a few weeks ago. One even reached out to the comedian Sinbad, who was also on this trip to get his recollection of it and it differed the First Lady. So somebody didn't scrub that speech. It was in prepared remarks last week. Not only did she say it with certitude, but it was in her prepared text. So this was a real sort of bone-headed mistake on the campaign's part at a time when everybody is looking at everything so carefully.
LAUER: And does it make people go back and start to question everything she said?
TODD: Right. She's been talking about her role in the Irish Peace process, she's been talking about her role in children's health care. So I think all of this is going to invite some renewed scrutiny on some of her claims of experience. And it's at a time when she wants the focus to be on Barack Obama and questions about him.
“l just spoke with a Democratic Party official, who asked for anonymity so as to speak candidly, who said we in the media are all missing the point of this Democratic fight.posted by ericb at 6:05 PM on March 25, 2008
The delegate math is difficult for Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, the official said. But it's not a question of CAN she achieve it. Of course she can, the official said.
The question is -- what will Clinton have to do in order to achieve it?
What will she have to do to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, in order to eke out her improbable victory?
She will have to ‘break his back,’ the official said. She will have to destroy Obama, make Obama completely unacceptable.
‘Her securing the nomination is certainly possible - but it will require exercising the 'Tonya Harding option.’ the official said. ‘Is that really what we Democrats want?’
The Tonya Harding Option -- the first time I've heard it put that way.
It implies that Clinton is so set on ensuring that Obama doesn't get the nomination, not only is she willing to take extra-ruthless steps, but in the end neither she nor Obama win the gold.”
“Long before Obama's relationship with Wright created a political firestorm, Clinton raised eyebrows at the very beginning of her campaign with the hiring of Burns Strider, a strategist on winning values-driven voters, as director of faith-based operations and the six-page talking points memo he produced for members of Clinton's Faith Steering Committee.posted by ericb at 6:28 PM on March 25, 2008
The memo highlighted Clinton's ‘strong Methodist family’ and childhood, how the principles of the Methodist church were ‘the guiding light’ of her life, how she ‘learned the value and power of prayer’ at an early age, how her faith is ‘deeply personal and real’ and how she often finds ‘inspiration from scripture.’
Attention to Clinton's religious faith reached a high point at the Sojourners forum when she was asked about how she coped with her marital problems and the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal that nearly toppled the presidency of her husband, Bill Clinton. ‘I had a grounding in faith that gave me the courage and the strength to do what I thought was right, regardless of what the world thought,’ she answered, crediting an ‘extended faith family’ that had come to her spiritual aid.
Subsequently, in its September 2007 issue, the liberal Mother Jones magazine described Clinton's this ‘faith family’ as a confederation of ‘conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as 'The Fellowship,'‘ a connection reprised this week under the headline ‘Hillary's Nasty Pastorate’ in The Nation, a liberal magazine that has endorsed Obama. The group reportedly included such notable right-wing politicos as former Attorney General Ed Meese, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Sens. Sam Brownback of Kansas and James Inhofe of Oklahoma.”
"I think the issue that the Clinton campaign has seized on is that Barack Obama, you know, never once raised his voice to his pastor and said, `I think your language is quite extreme here, and I think you language is probably wrong.' Because let's turn this around. If this was David Duke and he was preaching on behalf of, and Hillary Clinton was in the pew, there would be outrage about this. And there can't be this double standard. Barack Obama has used race where it suited him, but when it doesn't suit him he backs away from it."David Duke. Classy.
"Clinton said she was 'sleep-deprived' and 'misspoke' when she said last week that she landed under sniper fire during a trip to Bosnia in 1996, when she was first lady." *But, Hillary, your exaggerated claims were made on four separate occasions ... and in one instance, the words you recited were part of your prepared speech!
"Rev. Wright controversy seems to have done little damage to Obama among likely Democratic voters, but Clinton's negative ratings have reached a new high, NBC/WSJ poll finds."posted by ericb at 4:12 PM on March 26, 2008
I don’t have an answer for this manufactured hysteria, which reminds me of nothing so much as two small children left unsupervised in a room. Blame it on the media (I do), blame it on the campaigns (them, too), blame it on all of us—on a political culture that requires trivial combat to feel alive (plausible; needs more reflection). But before you decide that there has never been a smaller, meaner, dirtier, lower, more dishonest Presidential campaign, pour yourself a drink and read a history of the 1988 race. Or the one in 1972. Or 1968. Or 1952. Or 1864. Or 1828. And then try to calm down.posted by LooseFilter at 9:28 AM on March 27, 2008
In sum, I don’t see a 2012 strategy here. I see a woman who’s incredulous at finding herself in the losing position and who hasn’t shaken the assumption that the nomination is her destiny, reality and consequences be damned.posted by LooseFilter at 9:32 AM on March 27, 2008
One big fact has largely been lost in the recent coverage of the Democratic presidential race: Hillary Rodham Clinton has virtually no chance of winning.OK, I feel very defiled now. I'll shower obsessively, go to confession and fast for 40 days.
Her own campaign acknowledges there is no way that she will finish ahead in pledged delegates. That means the only way she wins is if Democratic superdelegates are ready to risk a backlash of historic proportions from the party’s most reliable constituency.
Unless Clinton is able to at least win the primary popular vote — which also would take nothing less than an electoral miracle — and use that achievement to pressure superdelegates, she has only one scenario for victory. An African-American opponent and his backers would be told that, even though he won the contest with voters, the prize is going to someone else.
“While Hillary Clinton tries to fight her way from behind in the Democratic presidential race, pouring millions of dollars into a last-ditch effort in the Pennsylvania primary, some of her supporters have begun suggesting a novel approach to selecting the nominee—and ending the current political deadlock. Instead of relying on the number of delegates the candidates have won (where Obama enjoys a small lead), the popular vote (which Obama leads by about 700,000 votes), or the number of states won (Obama's 27 trumps her 14), Sen. Evan Bayh, a Clinton backer, suggested this week that the nominee should be selected using another measure: the number of electoral votes the candidates have acquired. ‘Who carried the states with the most Electoral College votes is an important factor to consider because, ultimately, that's how we choose the president of the United States,’ Senator Bayh of Indiana said on CNN recently. Using this standard, Clinton, by carrying states like Texas, Ohio, and California, would have tallied a total of 219 Electoral College votes at this point in the race. Obama's wins in smaller states would have garnered him only 202.posted by ericb at 11:25 AM on March 27, 2008
A poll released today in California, the home of 55 electoral votes, the most of any state, underscores some of the weaknesses of this new electoral methodology—and serves as a reminder, experts say, of just how difficult it may be to determine a clear winner in the divided Democratic race, even in the states that have already voted.
….The Bayh approach, in other words—which assumes that because Clinton won the primary in California, she not only still enjoys the support of most voters in the state but would be more likely to win the state's electoral votes in the general election—seems flawed. ‘There's been a shift, no question about it,’ says Jaime Regalado, executive director of the Edmund ‘Pat’ Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State University-Los Angeles. ‘A lot of Democrats, who were once supporters of Hillary's—not bedrock supporters but voted for her on February 5—now they're leaving her.’
It's worth noting, experts say, that the poll was conducted during the week of March 11, one of the roughest stretches Obama has experienced in his campaign, as he faced a barrage of questions about race and his relationship with his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. In spite of all the bad publicity, California voters still seem to be moving toward him—or at least away from Clinton. ‘That makes it all the more remarkable,’ says Regalado.
The Clinton campaign can't be blamed for trying to swing for the electoral fences, analysts say, but the challenges it faces appear to be growing ever more formidable, even, it seems, in some of the states she's already won. ‘People are getting tired of the contentiousness of the campaign,’ says Regalado. ‘Almost nobody except for Clinton supporters and Clinton herself wants to see this play out all the way into August.’”
"Pollster Peter Hart calls the NBC/WSJ poll a 'myth buster' survey; it really breaks down a lot of the myths we've been hearing over the last week like:posted by ericb at 11:34 AM on March 27, 2008(1) The Wright controversy was the beginning of the end for the Obama campaign -- certainly not the case, but there’s no telling how much more Wright stuff comes out.
(2) It was surprising how few people knew who Wright was (about half). People who followed story, though, were really disturbed (55%).
(3) The premise that the Clinton campaign would turn out to be a stronger campaign or stronger among independents.
(4) That the bar facing a black candidate would be higher than for a woman or a person over 70; There's a bar, but not higher.
(5) That somehow this Wright story is over. If you look at it overall numbers, you can be misled. Among 29% of ALL voters, they need more answers from Obama. They have hesitations and uncertainties; they want to know, 'Is he safe?' -- both in the sense of credentials/experience but also in terms of life story. The Wright controversy, the poll indicates, has taken a bit of the shine off Obama, brought him out of the stratosphere, notes pollster Bill McInturff. Clinton also faces a similar amount of uncertainties, but among a different group of people."
"ABC News' Political Director David Chalian reports that a Democratic operative unaffiliated with either campaign and familiar with the reaction to the letter [which Clinton "Fat Cat" suppporters sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi] among Members of Congress says, 'Members of Congress - who are superdelegates - make up the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee' or DCCC from which the donors seemed to be threatening to withhold funds.posted by ericb at 12:40 PM on March 27, 2008
'Threatening the DCCC is equal to threatening the superdelegates Sen. Hillary Clinton's trying to court. The Clinton donor letter will just push undeclared superdelegates in Congress leaning toward Obama to endorse him sooner. It also reinforces the narrative that she'll destroy the party to win.'"
It should also be noted that there are only 263 superdelegates left to be determined, and that 455 of the 718, or more than 63%, of the superdelegates have already endorsed. This is because 76 of the superdelegates are actually "add-on" delegates, that are basically the same as pledged delegates in terms of campaign vetting and intense loyalty to a given candidate. Because he has won more states, currently Barack Obama is projected to win 40 add-on delegates, Clinton 24, and 12 are still to be determined by states that have yet to hold primaries or caucuses. Overall, this means that Barack Obama only needs 42.7% (359.5 of the 841) of the remaining pledged, add-on, and undecided superdelegates in order to reach 2,024, at which point he can dictate favorable delegations from Michigan and Florida and secure the nomination.I find these procedural narratives politically stultifying, since we should be talking about policies (in an effort of expanding electability) rather than electability itself, but I guess attention to procedure is where is it's own kind of virtue, so there it is.
"... it's clear that the poll MSNBC is pushing, compliments of Clinton haters Matthews and Olbermann, isn't worth the paper it's printed on. They've even got a representative of the polling company on MSNBC touting how good the poll is for Obama, and how bad it is for Clinton"The quote comes from "Clinton hack" Taylor Marsh (known for recycling Republican talking points against Obama) and not from US News & World Report (to which you hyperlink just above her quoted comment).
While it's true that the two remaining Democratic candidates have few substantive differences, they have very different approaches to campaigning, which give us clues about the differences in how they would govern—and that, after all, is what this whole thing is, or should be, about. It's useful to try to imagine these people in the White House, and, from their campaigning, to try to figure what they will be like there: how they will use power; how well they would sustain their appeal over a considerable period of time.posted by OmieWise at 6:21 PM on March 27, 2008
[...]
Hillary Clinton is employing conventional politics, while Obama is trying to create a new kind of politics. Similarly, as they respond to the country's desire for change, they have very different concepts of what "change" means: briefly, for Obama it means changing the very zeitgeist of Washington, creating a new way to get things done by building coalitions that transcend longstanding political divisions. For Clinton it means passing bills—though sometimes she has suggested that it means electing a woman president. ("I embody change," she said in a debate in New Hampshire.)
According to the best available count, Obama currently leads among pledged delegates 1,415.5 to 1,253.5, a margin of 162 with 18 delegates currently for Edwards and 566 left to be determined. In terms of percentages, this translates to Obama 52.7%--46.7% Clinton, with 82.6% reporting. In any other campaign, if a candidate led by 6% with 83% reporting, all major news outlets would project that candidate as the winner. 6.0% is greater than the margin by which Bill Clinton won the 1992 election, and also greater than the margin by which Republicans won the 2002 midterms.Chris Bowers on Delegate Myth and Fact
The fact is that there will be no revote in Michigan and Florida. The fact is that any pre-June deal on the Michigan and Florida delegations will have to be approved by the Barack Obama campaign. The fact is that after June 10th, the credentials committee takes jurisdiction over the matter. The fact is that Barack Obama will control the credentials committee, since its members are elected by pledged delegates. The fact is that even if the credentials committee submits a minority report on the Michigan and Florida delegations to the floor of the convention, Florida and Michigan delegates will not participate in that vote. In other words, the fact is that unless Clinton catches Barack Obama in non-Florida and Michigan delegates, then Obama will be able to dictate how Florida and Michigan are seated at the convention. As such, Clinton cannot use Florida and Michigan as a means to catch up unless the Obama campaign allows her to do so.From the same Chris Bowers link
“In an interview on Vermont Public Radio, said ‘There is no way that Senator Clinton is going to win enough delegates to get the nomination. She ought to withdraw and she ought to be backing Senator Obama. Now, obviously that's a decision that only she can make frankly I feel that she would have a tremendous career in the Senate.’posted by ericb at 10:38 AM on March 28, 2008
Leahy said he was fretting about the impact of the protracted Democratic race.
‘I am very concerned,’ he said. ‘John McCain, who has been making one gaffe after another, is getting a free ride on it because Senator Obama and Senator Clinton have to fight with each other. I think that her criticism is hurting him more than anything John McCain has said. I think that's unfortunate.’”
The score so far: roughly 17,000 words typed into the FPP & this thread. At an average of 40 wpm, that amounts to 425 minutes of typing, which I will round down to 7 hours...I don't feel like doing the count for this and that, but it would be like comparing the volume handled by the sewers of Dubuque, Iowa to that of Tokyo.
"Today's Gallup Poll Daily tracking update finds Barack Obama with an eight percentage point advantage over Hillary Clinton (50% to 42%), this gives him a statistically significant advantage for the first time since before the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy....Obama clearly has weathered the Wright storm, while the dark clouds have shifted to Clinton over whether she has exaggerated her foreign policy credentials. This week she has had to defend her repeated claim that she came under sniper fire while visiting Bosnia as first lady, which news video clearly disputed."posted by ericb at 4:07 PM on March 28, 2008
"I think we've reached a signal point in the campaign. This is the point where, with Hillary Clinton, either you get it or you don't. There's no dodging now. You either understand the problem with her candidacy, or you don't. You either understand who she is, or not. And if you don't, after 16 years of watching Clintonian dramas, you probably never will.posted by ericb at 4:12 PM on March 28, 2008
That's what the Bosnia story was about. Her fictions about dodging bullets on the tarmac -- and we have to hope they were lies, because if they weren't, if she thought what she was saying was true, we are in worse trouble than we thought -- either confirmed what you already knew (she lies as a matter of strategy, or, as William Safire said in 1996, by nature) or revealed in an unforgettable way (videotape! Smiling girl in pigtails offering flowers!) what you feared (that she lies more than is humanly usual, even politically usual).
But either you get it now or you never will. That's the importance of the Bosnia tape.
Many in the press get it, to their dismay, and it makes them uncomfortable, for it sours life to have a person whose character you feel you cannot admire play such a large daily role in your work. But I think it's fair to say of the establishment media at this point that it is well populated by people who feel such a lack of faith in Mrs. Clinton's words and ways that it amounts to an aversion. They are offended by how she and her staff operate. They try hard to be fair. They constantly have to police themselves.
Not that her staff isn't policing them too. Mrs. Clinton's people are heavy-handed in that area, letting producers and correspondents know they're watching, weighing, may have to take this higher. There's too much of this in politics, but Hillary's campaign takes it to a new level.
It's not only the press. It's what I get as I walk around New York, which used to be thick with her people. [more]."
posted by dawson at 11:39 AM on March 29, 2008
POLITICAL CONNECTIONS
The Cost Of Stalemate
[...]
If the past month is any guide, while McCain lays down these markers, Obama and Clinton will be gouging each other. In the past few days, Democrats have witnessed one prominent Obama supporter liken former President Bill Clinton to Joseph McCarthy and one prominent Clintonite liken New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to Judas (for endorsing Obama). The Clinton campaign says that Obama can't be trusted as commander-in-chief, and the Obama campaign says that Hillary Clinton can't be trusted, period. Each Democratic candidate is now providing so many lacerating quotes about the other that Republican ad-writers may not need to do much more this fall than cut and paste. Even more important, by focusing so relentlessly inward, the Democrats are providing McCain an open field to re-introduce himself.
This spring might have looked very different, as a new study of the candidates' finances from George Washington University's Campaign Finance Institute suggests. In February alone, Obama and Clinton collected a combined $90 million, dwarfing McCain's $11 million. [...]
It is hard to relate what it feels like to see Mrs. Clinton (I wish she felt self-assured enough to use her own name) referred to as “a woman” while Barack Obama is always referred to as “a black man.” One would think she is just any woman, colorless, race-less, past-less, but she is not. She carries all the history of white womanhood in America in her person; it would be a miracle if we, and the world, did not react to this fact.posted by OmieWise at 11:28 AM on March 31, 2008 [1 favorite]
In Oregon alone, in the past seven weeks, nearly 10,000 voters have refiled as Democrats, more than 1 percent of the state's 764,000 registered Democrats. More than 3,500 of them were Republicans; almost all of the rest had been nonaffiliated voters.posted by Kirth Gerson at 10:28 AM on April 1, 2008
In Pennsylvania, where the primary is set for April 22, the Democrats have registered a staggering 235,000 new voters since last fall, pushing their numbers to more than 4.1 million for the first time. In West Virginia, which votes on May 13, the increase has come in the form of a swell in nonaffiliated voters, said Democratic Party executive director Tom Vogel, after the Democratic primary was opened to independents for the first time in recent history.
"We are sure there are Republicans who are switching to vote in our primary, whether they honestly want to vote or if they have more malicious purposes to try to get the candidate of their choice to run against," Vogel said.
A key Hillary Clinton supporter appeared to be a bit off message during a recent interview with a Canadian radio station.posted by aqhong at 3:08 PM on April 1, 2008
"If I had to make a prediction right now, I'd say Barack Obama is going to be the next president," Missouri Rep. Emanuel Cleaver said in a Canadian public radio interview this weekend. "I will be stunned if he's not the next president of the United States."
[...]
In the Canadian radio interview, Cleaver made clear he doesn't expect Clinton to overtake Obama, comparing his support of the New York Democrat to that of his hometown losing football team.
“Even though I don't expect the Kansas City Chiefs to beat the Indianapolis Colts, I cheer for the Kansas City Chiefs,” he said.
He also pushed back on the notion Clinton should take her fight for the party's nomination all the way to the August convention — though he acknowledged that is not the position he is supposed to take.
"If I do the party line, I'm supposed to say — and maybe I'll say, just so if anybody hears it they can say well, 'Cleaver did the party line before he told the truth' — we believe that a contest going all the way to the convention is good for America."
But, he added, an actual convention fight would be a “tragedy of tragedies.”
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posted by Artw at 9:35 PM on March 18, 2008 [2 favorites]