Already Senator Clintons surrogates have come out to start attacking Barack for an answer he gave on "Meet The Press" last Sunday: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/11/14/466224.aspx
On Sunday, Tim "Timmeh" Russert never read the full answer Barack gave in a previous interview they had in 2004 at the Democratic Convention, but instead used an incomplete quote to try and stump Barack with his question. Barack inturn (through no fault of his) gave what might be a mis-construed answer.
I have a feeling that Hillary Clinton will try to bring this up in the debate tomorrow night and I want Barack to be ready for it. Personally I would put the entire answer he gave Tim Russert (back in 2004) on an mini-audiotape player and play it live when Hillary brings it up. This was his answer and I quote:
'But, I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports,' Mr. Obama said. 'What would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made.' But Mr. Obama said he did fault Democratic leaders for failing to ask enough tough questions of the Bush administration to force it to prove its case for war. 'What I don't think was appropriate was the degree to which Congress gave the president a pass on this,'
So as you can see, although Barack was obviously protecting John Kerry and Edwards as best he could, he still stressed that he felt the case for War had not been made, and still critisized congress for giving Bush a free pass by authorizing the war.
SOMEONE PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO BARACK!
I haven't hit the panic button just yet, but I think this article from Jim Geraghty at NRO is insightful: Link hope the campaign takes note. I'm aware that the time to rev into high gear is in the fall, We can definitely still win Either Iowa or New Hampshire & South Carolina. It can be done. Happy reading:
How to Save BarackAvoiding a crushed presidential campaign.By Jim Geraghty
When a somewhat racy music video of a woman with the hots for a presidential candidate causes the biggest stir in about two months, as in the case of Barack Obama recently, it’s a sign that a campaign has hit a plateau. Polls over the last month have consistently shown Senator Obama a strong second, but still considerably behind frontrunner Hillary Rodham Clinton. The Illinois Democrat performed fine in both debates so far, but nothing he said or did those evenings changed the dynamics of the race. Jerome Armstrong, the former Dean campaign staffer who is one of the most influential voices among liberal bloggers, concluded, “Obama’s running a well-funded, traditional presidential campaign that’s safely pointed toward finishing a strong second based on his personal appeal. I can see Obama getting a lot of points in the game, but never the lead.”So how does Obama get out of his current nice-but-not-enough blahs? How does he overtake Hillary?The Washington Post conducted a usefully detailed poll on how Democratic-primary voters feel about their three leading candidates, Clinton, Obama, and John Edwards. They found voters felt that Hillary was the strongest leader, the most experienced, the most trusted to handle a crisis, and the one with the best chance of winning.So what’s left? Well, Obama ranked just behind Hillary on “understands the problems of people like you,” was ranked the “most inspiring,” and led solidly on “most honest and trustworthy.” Those areas represent Hillary Clinton’s soft underbelly, and that is where Obama is going to have to heighten the contrast.Obama has to do this while not appearing to go negative. And it’s not clear that he can count on any other Democratic candidate to do any real damage to the frontrunner. Edwards has hit Clinton pretty consistently since he entered the race, with limited results. Some of the other candidates, like Bill Richardson, actually defend Hillary (a.k.a auditioning for veep). The ones who truly go after her, like Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, are too far out on the fringe to make an effective attack.And the no-negative-campaigning rule in the Democratic primaries is pretty serious: When Dick Gephardt went after Howard Dean before the Iowa primaries, both candidates saw their numbers plummet, an act that campaign wags called “a murder-suicide.”“Promises made, promises kept”Democratic-primary voters pretty much like what Hillary is saying, but they’re nervous about how much she’ll compromise once in office. “Triangulation,” the strategy of compromise embraced by her husband during her presidency, is a dirty word in liberal circles.Obama’s campaign has done a nice job of telling his unusual and inspiring life story; now they need to showcase him as an effective political leader. Ideally, they would point to the centerpiece of his state legislative campaign in 1996, and how he enacted that key piece of legislation, and similar cases in 1998 and 2002. Finally, they need to show that since he’s gotten to the Senate, he played “a key role” in passing the expansion of Nunn-Lugar to cover landmines and missiles and the Coburn-Obama Transparency Act, which disclosed and organized all organizations receiving federal funds… The over-arching message for this front in the fight against Hillary has to be, “He says what he means and he means what he says.” The contrast with Hillary will be unspoken but clear.“The humility to admit when wrong, the conscience to make amends”It’s a bit odd that the biggest gripe the antiwar crowd has with Hillary isn’t so much her view of what to do in Iraq now, so much as her steadfast refusal to apologize for her war vote. But they’ve picked their priority. Obama has ridden his antiwar stance from 2002 about as far as it can take him. Now he needs to take Hillary’s refusal to apologize — interpreted by the base as obstinacy and intractability, and compare her traits to what they hate about Bush.
Obama could, and should, spotlight some time in his career when he made the wrong decision, learned from it, and made amends. After talking about it in speeches, imagine the ad
Sometimes I get things wrong. But I’m proud that I get the big things right, like the decision to go to war in Iraq. I thought it was a bad idea, and I’ve never had to say “I was for it before I was against it.” If I’m nominated, you won’t hear anything about flip-flopping. It’ll be a straight contest between a Democrat who thinks we need to get out and face the real threat from al Qaeda verses a Republican who disagrees.
Democrats still have nightmares about the 2004 Kerry campaign; suggesting that nominating Hillary would mean a rerun of those confusing and contradictory stances on the war could shake their confidence in her.“I can elect Democrats that Hillary can’t”There is already at least one red state Senate Democrat up for reelection in 2008 complaining about the difficulty of running with Hillary at the top of the ticket. We also know that in 2008 will feature a significant number of red-state House Democrats running their first reelection campaigns. Sixty-one Democrats represent districts George W. Bush carried.Would Nancy Boyda rather run for reelection in Kansas’s second district with Hillary on the top of the ticket? Would Heath Shuler, in North Carolina? If Jim Webb isn’t willing to make this argument, then perhaps Virginia governor Tim Kaine, who has already endorsed Obama, can say something in this vein:
We knew we were facing a tough race. Our opponent had more money and more name recognition. A lot of Washington Democrats had written us off. We asked Barack Obama for help. It wasn’t so much the money as the people he brought in. We had people who hadn’t voted in years came to see him. People were asking, “who is this guy?” In a tight race, he helped make the difference. And now, thanks to Barack Obama, this district/state now has a Democrat fighting for our values. There aren’t a lot of other politicians who can say that.
Flip side: Later in the campaign, if and when Hillary is perceived to have gone negative, Team Obama could utilize A) the sensitivity of this argument and B) Democrats’ fears of reprisal from crossing the Clintons, by featuring an ad that features Democrats with their identities obscured:
If Hillary gets the nomination, we lose all kinds of down-ticket races in red states.If we run Hillary, we lose white working-class men.If we run Hillary, we have to fight all the old fights and go over all of the old scandals, instead of focusing on the future.Everybody knows this, but nobody’s willing to say it, because we know she’ll come after us.
And then the tagline, to win-hungry Democrats who switched from Dean to Kerry overnight four years ago: “Hillary: Can the Democrats Afford the Risk?”Spotlight “Republicans For Obama” It’s very counterintuitive, and obviously, you don’t want to do this while there is still a mass of liberal voters who might switch to Edwards or some other candidate. But when George W. Bush’s former communications strategist Matthew Dowd says the only candidate he would work for in 2008 is Obama, and when McCain adviser Mark McKinnon announces he won’t work for a Republican if Obama wins the nomination, advocates for the Illinois senator can justifiably argue that something special is happening. (Could we imagine any other Democratic presidential candidate seeking advice from Colin Powell?)It’s an inside-baseball argument, but the Obama team can persuasively argue that their man increases the number of votes (and states) in play, while Hillary would be seeking the Kerry states plus Ohio, with little margin for error (and enormous voter turnout among Republicans).Unless Barack Obama is comfortable being considered (and most likely, passed over) as Hillary’s running mate, he will have to make some effort to sharpen the contrast between himself and the frontrunner. For now, a crush on Obama isn’t enough.
From the blue Oregonian: Link
Obama and the audacity of my hope (confessions of a former Republican)guest column
By Sue Emmett of Milwaukie, Oregon. Sue describes herself as a "lifelong conservative Republican, recently converted Progressive Democrat, mother of 7, grandmother of 24."
I am a life-time Oregonian, born and raised in Portland, now back in Portland after 25 years in Salem (love this city!). I grew up in a VERY Republican home, and in a religion that virtually required “Republican” on your precinct card to be on the rolls. I was white, I was middle-class, and everyone in my family's social circle was a dedicated conservative.
But I have hope in Barack Obama.
How did I get from “there” to “here”? How did a believer in uber-conservative Republican values and policies for over 50 years come to change her political registration three years ago? How did I get to this place wherein I proudly wear an Obama button, and plaster bumper stickers on my car for maybe the second time in my life!
Even as a young child, social activism was brewing deep inside me. I was often in trouble for asking questions and talking about “issues” that made others uncomfortable. And... I attended multi-racial Washington High School in the 50's – which I still consider a privilege in my life. Whites, Blacks, Chinese, Japanese – we were far ahead of our time. We were in clubs together, we served in school politics together, we led cheers on the rally squads together, and we played sports together. Yes, as a white girl, I really didn't have a clue about the black kids, but for those times, we were FAR past the prejudices of our parents. Blacks were still being lynched in the South, and we were having integrated slumber parties – and never gave it a second thought!
I spent the next 30+ years living the conservative, right-wing life that my parents and my religion had inculcated in me. But all those years failed to produce a complete and mindless neo-con. I was definitely “in the closet” – a liberal at heart, faking her Stepford-like allegiance to all things conservative. I even convinced myself – yet, I never voted a straight party ticket except when required to do so by Oregon's primary rules.
Fast forward to the first “Bush” election. I voted for George Bush (she says, head lowered in shame). By the middle of that first four years, I was coming to terms with my life-long affliction! When the talk began of invading Iraq, I knew I was done! I was against the war from the very beginning, and within weeks had changed my registration to Democrat in order to find a political community that more closely mirrored my beliefs about many issues. I started to get involved in volunteering, and today I find myself with an audacity of hope because of the candidacy of Barack Obama.
There is no point in hashing over all of the mindless, self-serving, criminal and unconstitutional acts that have occurred with the present administration. Coupled with the complete hijacking of the Republican Party by the Fundamentalist Christians, we are staring down a tunnel of despair and fear. I believe the only thing that is going to put this country back to some semblance of being a “beacon of hope” for it's own citizens (as well as the world) is a leader who has the skills to bring people together, the diversity in his background to make him credible to the world, and the intelligence to see through the manipulations that take place in Washington D.C.
That's why I have hope in Barack Obama.
After studying his life, hearing his speeches, and getting a sense of the depth of his character, I have come to the conclusion that maybe – just maybe – a leader has finally appeared who can bring people together, and mend the wounds that George Bush has caused throughout the world.
When I view the videos of his rallies, and see the faces of all colors showing up because of the hope this man has generated, I remember my days at ole' Wa-Hi, where I learned that diversity was a gift -- and I have hope that with Barack's leadership this country has a chance to heal from many wounds. I have the audacity to hope that this country will become a different place if this man is elected, and I have dedicated whatever time and money I can give to his campaign.
Join me and some other ardent Oregon supporters of Obama who have organized a fund-raising event to be held on June 28th at McMenamins – Edgefield. Meet people from all parts of Portland who have this same hope. If you'd like to join us for a great evening, link here to get information and sign up.
I thought this: Link pretty amazing
New from Newsweek magazine:
I'm a McCain Man, Through and Through--Unless the Democrats Nominate Obama. Then, Forget the McCain Thing
Barack Obama cultivates an image as a politician whose appeal reaches across party lines. But even he might be surprised to learn that one of his biggest admirers works for GOP Sen. John McCain--a Republican rival for the presidency in 2008. Mark McKinnon, a senior media adviser to McCain--who led George W. Bush's ad efforts in 2000 and 2004, and remains one of the sitting president's closest friends--has told the McCain campaign that he would quit if Obama wins the Democratic nomination. McKinnon, a lifelong Democrat until he decided to team up with Bush, developed a bond with McCain over their shared belief in the need to remain committed to the troops in Iraq. McKinnon helped organize McCain's last book tour and has traveled extensively with the senator, offering media advice to the candidate for much of the last year. But he wrote a memo to the campaign in January, explaining that he would quit if the general election pitted McCain against Obama. McKinnon wrote that while he opposed Obama's policies, especially on Iraq, he felt that the Illinois senator--as an African-American politician--has a unique potential to change the country. Therefore, McKinnon argued, he wanted no part in any efforts to tear down Obama's candidacy. (McKinnon, who has previously told friends he was inspired by Obama's autobiography, refused to comment on the memo, as did Brian Jones, McCain's communications director; Obama's campaign said that the senator had never met McKinnon.) But McKinnon's views have not stopped McCain from launching attacks on Obama. Last month, the two senators traded personal barbs over Iraq. McCain accused Obama of having a policy of surrender on Iraq, while Obama accused McCain of being out of touch with reality in Iraq. The skirmishing at the staff level was fiercer still; an unnamed McCain aide suggested that Obama wouldn't know the difference between a bomb and a bong.
Hello,
I'm a huge supporter of B.O. Huge Supporter! But he made a mistake when he accused Anderson Cooper (during his speech at Hampton University) of moving on from covering Hurricane Katrina and it's aftermath. If there is one person in all of the MSM who never budged, it was Anderson Cooper. AC360 has maintained a laser like focus on Katrina and regularly goes back in his "we will not forget" segment.
Tell B.O. to retract his statement!!
'Wale
I recently stumbled onto the following time article: Link . It is an excerpt from Bob Shrum's (policitical consultant extraordinaire) book and it illustrates John Kerry's regret over picking John Edwards as his running mate and how disingenous Kerry feels Edwards turned out to be. Here's a cut:
----------------------------------------------------
Kerry talked with several potential picks, including Gephardt and Edwards. He was comfortable after his conversations with Gephardt, but even queasier about Edwards after they met. Edwards had told Kerry he was going to share a story with him that he'd never told anyone else—that after his son Wade had been killed, he climbed onto the slab at the funeral home, laid there and hugged his body, and promised that he'd do all he could to make life better for people, to live up to Wade's ideals of service. Kerry was stunned, not moved, because, as he told me later, Edwards had recounted the same exact story to him, almost in the exact same words, a year or two before—and with the same preface, that he'd never shared the memory with anyone else. Kerry said he found it chilling, and he decided he couldn't pick Edwards unless he met with him again. When they did, Kerry tried to get a better personal feel for his potential number two; as rivals for national office since 2000, shortly after Edwards had entered the Senate, the two men hadn't spent a lot of time together. Kerry also wanted a specific reassurance. He asked Edwards for a commitment that if he was chosen and the ticket lost, Edwards wouldn't run against him in 2008. Edwards agreed "absolutely," as Kerry recalled him saying. If Kerry had shared this at the time, I would have told him what I did later: it was naive to think he could rely on a promise like that. Unlike Joe Lieberman, who'd been plucked from relative obscurity by Gore, Edwards had made his own mark in the primaries. He was ambitious—and if he saw his chance the next time, he was likely to go for it.
On the day the Edwards pick was made public, Edwards and I talked for the first time since I had informed him of our decision to work for Kerry and he had reacted angrily. He said he knew I'd helped get him on the ticket and he was grateful. I told him that I welcomed the possibility that we might be friends again, but that wasn't the reason for my preference. I believed it was the right move for Kerry. Kerry's relationship with Edwards would sour after the election—and mine would simply fade away. When Elizabeth discovered she had breast cancer, John and Teresa reached out to help the Edwardses find the best doctors they could. Marylouise and I called—but afterward, never heard from John again. Maybe we shouldn't have expected to. Kerry told me that the Edwardses simply stopped returning calls or talking to him and Teresa. Within months, Edwards started preparing for a bid in 2008. Kerry said that he wished he'd never picked Edwards, that he should have gone with his gut.
B. O. today released the following statement in response to Senator John McCain’s speech on Iraq. The meat: -
“Progress in Iraq cannot be measured by the same ideological fantasies that got us into this war, it must be measured by the reality of the facts on the ground, and today those sobering facts tell us to change our strategy and bring a responsible end to this war."
"No matter how much this Administration wishes it to be true, the idea that the situation in Iraq is improving because it only takes a security detail of 100 soldiers, three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships to walk through a market in the middle of Baghdad is simply not credible or reflective of the facts on the ground."
"What we need today is a surge in honesty. The truth is, the Iraqis have made little progress toward the political solution between Shiia and Sunni which is the last, best hope to end this war. I believe that letting the Iraqi government know America will not be there forever is the best way to pressure the warring factions toward this political settlement, which is why my plan begins a phased withdrawal from Iraq on May 1st, 2007, with the goal of removing all combat troops by March 31st, 2008."
Preach on Barack......
Check out this link and click on the video. Meet some of the IT guys behind the Obama campaign:
Link
P.S. Another 400k raised today alone. Great job guys....
All I can say is wow!
When Barack spoke yesterday about how his father had beneffited from an educational airlift program started by The Kennedy's, I squinted. I knew Barack's father came to the States in 1959 and Kennedy was inaugurated in 1961. So how could this be? Was Barack lying? I pondered all night and even this morning coming into work. I had just bought his first novel "Dreams from my Father" and had all of a sudden lost the motivation to read it.
Then I scoured through some right-wing blogs and discovered that some there were blasting Barack as a liar. I was dissapointed. Couldn't defend it. Couldn't even concentrate at work. But then I decided to research a bit on the web.......
And oh my what I found was profound. It turns out that The Kennedy's, JFK to be precise, did start a program called the "Kennedy-Kenyan Airlift" in 1959 before JFK became President. They ran it for 3 years (through the Kennedy Foundation) up until JFK's first year as President. Barack's father was among the first batch of students airlifted from Kenya to come study here. In fact Wangari Muta Maathi - A prominent Kenyan and first Black African to receive a nobel peace prize, also beneffited from the program when she was airlifted in 1960 to study in Kansas.
It never dawned on me that the Kennedy's were wealthy enough to run such a program as private citizens. So what has this done to my spirits? I've been uplifted. My belief in Barack has been renewed. I'll continue to scour through the details of his words but I'll never doubt again (for a while at least..hehehe). I've gone ahead and set the record straight on the right wing blogs. I love responding to them with fire and brimstone(I've tried conversing in civil tones, but those wingnuts just don't understand civility and scoff at logic-based conversations). I just need Barack to keep providing me with ammunition so as to maintain my rapid-response vigilance.
Here's a link to check out one of the articles i found (do a search on "Kennedy Airlift"):
Obama '08!!!!
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I could go on and analyze the speech Barack gave today in Selma. However I wouldn't do it justice. I think you need to see it for yourself. It brought me to tears. I've never cried EVER for any political speech in my life, I just had this feeling that this man IS going to be the next President of the United States. It was the best speech he's given since the 2004 DNC speech (which remains the standard in my eyes). It was fluid, substantive and had a lot of flair. Try to watch it.
As some of you may know there is currently a Presidential Poll (amongst ALL the candidates) at ABC news: Link where Barack is currently running a close second to Hillary Clinton. I received an email from an Obama group to go and vote to show support for Barack. He was 400 + votes behind at the time at 5200 votes, Hillary Clinton was on top at 5500 votes. Within the last 30 minutes we've pulled to within 26 VOTES!! Testament to the power of the grassroots. If you haven't voted, go and vote NOW.
It's an unscienctific vote but always nice to have your candidate on top.
Update: He eventually won by over 3000 votes. A wrap!
Hehehehe, so are they this scared? Hillary Clinton is bringing Bill Clinton down to Selma, Alabama this weekend to counter Sen. Obama for the "Black" vote. wow. How is this going to play out? Bill's prob. the most talented politician in modern history, Obama's no slouch either though.
Hillary might be making a mistake bringing Bill out because he's going to over-shadow her as he always does. But this show's that Barack is instilling real fear into the Clinton's. I bet she never planned to bring Bill out this early. In fact she wasn't even meant to attend initially. It wasnt' until she learned that Barack was attending that she agreed to also attend.
As a fellow Black American from Africa, I couldn't agree more with this write-up. Excellent.
Also it must be noted that none of my Black American friends have ever raised this question as to weather Barack was "Black Enough". It's like telling me I'm not "Christian Enough" because I wasn't one of Jesus Christ's 12 disciple's!!
Anyway...read on
Black American from Africa - Willis Shalita - offers his view on Obama's 'blackness'
Black America better wake up and smell the coffee. Time for playing the race card in national politics is over, but much more than that, it is a disgrace, especially coming from victims of racism.
The recent rumblings from some quarters of the black community that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., is not black enough or that "he has not lived our experience" because his ancestors have no ties to slavery, are utter nonsense.
Stanley Crouch, a black columnist, wrote in November, "When black Americans refer to Obama as 'one of us,' I do not know what they are talking about."
Well, let me tell Crouch in no uncertain terms what they mean: Obama was born here to an African father, and in that sense he is probably more African American than Crouch is.
As a reflection of the changing political and social landscape, black Americans have gone from being called colored, to Negro and then to African Americans. So now, Obama is ostracized because his father is African? What part of being African American are these people proud of? It takes more than wearing a dashiki to be an African.
The black author an essayist, Debra J. Dickerson, said, "His father was African. His mother is a white woman. He grew up with white parents." And then she goes on to say; "But there's a lot of distance between black Africans and African Americans." You don't say!
All of these years, those of us who emigrated from Africa have strived to narrow this gap by reaching out, but our efforts have not been always successful whenever we have tried to interest black America in the values and traditions of Africa. We who were born in Africa are still seen through the Tarzan mythology, our accents mistaken for lack of education and our clinging to African ways as a sign of backwardness. Yet these are the values that help us, and other immigrants, to move ahead through hard work, education and maintaining solid family lives.
I was born in Uganda, and I am a proud American citizen because this country has given me the chance to live the good life. I am black and proud of it, but there is so much more than my ethnicity that defines me. I, too, have been told that I am not a true black American. But who sets the bar? Who defines what it means to be a black American?
Surely connections to slavery should not define our identity and our destiny. Africa, too was colonized, but Africans have moved on. They don't continue to try to make hay from that chapter of their history. African Americans should take heed.
It breaks my heart that it is black Americans who are bringing up the issue of Obama's ethnicity. To challenge the first black presidential candidate with a realistic shot at winning the White House as somehow not black enough, because he has a white mother and an African father, baffles the mind. If this demand for ethnic purity is not confronted, it will remain a sad commentary on the state of black America.
If the credential for being black enough is growing up in the "hood" and experiencing the ugly side of our race-conscious society, Lord have mercy. Obama has lived the American experience, has worked hard for his community, has never denied his people and he is uniquely qualified to run for president.
Interesting enough, many great black Americans, such as Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress, civil rights activists W.E.B. Du Bois and Stokely Carmichael, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, -- to mention but a few -- are, like Obama, descendants of African immigrants.
White America never questions those white immigrants who have paid their dues and made it to the top, such as former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, retired U.S. Gen. John Shalikashvili, former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and others of European descent. Leave it to black America to lay the land mines that will sabotage meritocracy.
Black America ought to heed Martin Luther King Jr.'s words and not judge Obama by the circumstances of his birth, but by the content of his character.
Willis Shalita
Willis Shalita was born in Uganda, but is now a naturalized U.S. citizen. He works for the State Bar of California as a special investigator.
Here's the link:
Click here:
In fact there are a bunch of video's from Barack's Indonesian public school mates :
