christophe chaumont's Blog

American Prayer Dave Stewart Barack Obama Music Video

french support — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 02:32:45 EDT

American Prayer - Dave Stewart (Barack Obama Music Video) 23:15Source: www.youtube.com

American Player song..so beautiful

french support — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 02:23:56 EDT

AMERICAN PRAYER SONG on iTunes: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=287966214&s=143441 RINGTONE http://www.myxer.com/CHANGE or text "CHANGE" to 69937 to get your "American ...

Michelle Obama's savvy sacrifice

french support — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 01:58:02 EDT

Michelle Obama's Savvy SacrificeMonday, Aug. 25, 2008 By JAY NEWTON-SMALL Callie Shell / Aurora for TimeArticle ToolsPrint Email Reprints Sphere AddThis RSS Yahoo! Buzz

When she takes the stage at the Democratic National Convention Monday evening, Michelle Obama will surely discuss her husband's many achievements and the promise for America that his groundbreaking candidacy represents. What she is less likely to talk about is just how instrumental she has been to launching her husband's political trajectory or that this tough, razor-smart Chicago native had to sacrifice many of her own career ambitions along the way.

From almost the earliest days of their personal and professional partnership, Barack Obama's political aspirations have guided Michelle's path. At the end of the summer of 1989, Obama was an intern at Sidley Austin, a prestigious Chicago law firm that also happened to employ a young intellectual-property lawyer and Harvard Law grad named Michelle Robinson. Obama was offered a permanent job at Sidley, though senior partner Newton Minow wasn't surprised when he turned the firm down; the two had often discussed the intern's political plans, and Minow had pledged to help Obama in his pursuit of a place in public life. But Obama didn't just turn the firm down. Minow, a former Federal Communication Commission chairman, recalls that Obama told him to take a seat: "You may not want to help me after you hear the rest of what I've got to say. I'm taking Michelle with me."

"You no good, worthless —" Minnow said, jumping up angrily. "Hold it," Obama said, raising a hand. "We're going to get married."

Most women might not appreciate their boyfriend's effectively giving notice on their behalf. Michelle, though, didn't seem to mind. Not only were they engaged a year later, but sure enough, Michelle surprised her family and friends and left the law to go into public service. It was a move that would prove fateful for both her and her husband: the contacts she made were invaluable, some say essential, to his state senate and U.S. Senate races.

The child of Marian and Fraser Robinson, a stay-at-home mother and a city pump operator, Michelle was raised in a close-knit family that ate every meal together, played Monopoly and read together. "Nobody emphasized public service. What was emphasized was doing what you love to do and you'll be good at whatever you do," says Craig Robinson, Michelle's brother, who left his banking job after a decade to coach college basketball. That didn't stop Robinson from being surprised when Michelle left Sidley Austin to become an assistant to Chicago mayor Richard Daley. "Her father asked her, 'Don't you want to pay your student loans?' " her mother, Marian, recalls. One of her college roommates, Angela Acree, remembers being stunned. "I'm sure at Sidley she made more money than her parents ever made," says Acree. "It just seemed incredible at the time that she'd leave."

The move was not without its benefits. Michelle Obama's stint at the mayor's office gave her, and her husband, access to Chicago's political class. Combined with her own Southside roots — she went to high school with Santita Jackson, the Rev. Jesse Jackson's daughter — Michelle's job gave her husband entrée into the best political machine in Illinois, augmenting her ties to Jackson's powerful civil rights group, Rainbow Push.

"Michelle is a tremendous asset," says Habitat Inc. CEO Valerie Jarrett, a close friend of both Obamas and a key campaign adviser. As Daley's deputy chief of staff at the time, Jarrett hired Michelle to help troubleshoot for companies having problems navigating the city's bureaucracy. "Her being from Chicago, from the Southside of Chicago, was an asset to Barack in terms of enhancing his ties to the community."

But if Michelle helped give Obama an invaluable new base in Chicago politics, he helped her get back in touch with her home base. It was at the end of her first year as an associate at the law firm that she had been assigned to mentor Obama. In a now famous story, she at first refused to date him, feeling their work relationship would make a romance improper. But Obama's courtship helped her discover anew her childhood home on Chicago's Southside. Dates often took them to church basements and protests. "He could've gone to Wall Street; those offers were available to him. But instead Barack bussed these young mothers down to City Hall to help them find their voice and advocate for change," Michelle told an audience in Orangeburg, S.C., earlier this year.

As Obama gradually moved further away from grass-roots organizing and into business and politics, Michelle seemed to fill the vacuum. After 18 months, she left the mayor's office to head up the Chicago office of a new charity that was forming: Public Allies, which helps place young people at nonprofits.

"Everyone had said at the time that the best young organizer in Chicago was Barack," says Paul Schmitz, CEO of Public Allies. The group invited Obama to join their board. But when they started to look for someone to head up the Chicago office, Obama recommended his fiancée and resigned when the nonprofit began to court her in earnest. "At a time when the average age of our staff was 23, she was like drafting Brett Favre for the Packers," Schmitz says. "Michelle was 29 when we hired her. She had a law degree from Harvard, had worked for the mayor, for a corporate law firm. Comparatively, I'd worked a telemarketing group. Frankly, we were surprised that she wanted to do it."

During her nearly four years with the group, Michelle set fund-raising marks that remain records for the organization. In the process, she developed an unparalleled network of young activists. "She was a connector. They were a power couple. They helped each other along the way," says Craig Huffman, a graduate student from the Southside whom Michelle took under her wing and recommended for the charity's board. Huffman was drawn into Obama's orbit and, like dozens of Michelle's other protégés, volunteered for Barack Obama's campaigns. "Each ally was placed with a not-for-profit, about 20 to 30 a year. When you think of the number of people who got to know who Michelle was, and by extension Barack, that's a whole generation from all over Chicago," Huffman says.

Michelle went on to work as an associate dean of students at the University of Chicago, launching a community-service program for undergrads before moving to the university's medical school to become vice president of external relations, a fancy title for the person who helps the well-endowed school relate to its struggling Hyde Park neighborhood. She sponsored yet more volunteer programs, helped expand the hiring of local labor and launched a program that found ER patients clinics for long-term care.

Eventually, the money she had initially walked away from in corporate law did come. Her salary last year between the university and six boards approached $500,000. In addition to serving on the boards of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, Michelle also worked for Wal-Mart supplier Tree House Foods — a board from which she resigned when her husband criticized the retailing giant's labor practices. Asked in an interview about being the breadwinner of the family, Michelle is shocked by the notion. "Me? No! Barack had, like, four jobs, always," she laughs. "No, really. Barack's a hustler. I shouldn't say hustler, but he's a humper in terms of work."

The division of responsibilities in the Obama household, however, hasn't always been a laughing matter. In his second book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama talks about Michelle's rage at his ever increasing absence: "My wife's anger toward me seemed barely contained. 'You only think about yourself,' she would tell me. 'I never thought I'd have to raise a family alone.' "

Michelle may have envisioned giving her children the idyllic childhood that she'd had, but she had to know that Obama was far from a city pump operator with regular hours, nor did she show any real inclination to be a stay-at-home mom. But it is her connection to traditional middle-class values that drives her still to make an effort to put her children first and seemingly removes any desire to run for public office herself, though many have suggested it over the years. Her hint of nuclear-family nostalgia is also what helps make this very strong woman a much less threatening figure to the audiences who have throughout the campaign warmed to her homespun, sensitive speaking style. That down-to-earth appeal should be on full display Monday night, when she appears in her biggest venue yet. But that is only part of the real Michelle Obama. The country wouldn't get a two-for-one Bill and Hillary presidency if she were to become First Lady, but it would definitely get a lot more than many people realize.

Buzz up!on Yahoo!

McCain Vs The one/thanks for the Memories by J Hay

french support — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 05:08:08 EDT

US PoliticsJohn McCain Vs “The One” / Thanks for the Memories!By John ⋅ August 2, 2008 ⋅ Email ⋅ Print ⋅ Trackback ⋅ Comment

And he is”The One?”the Bush Republicans are offering America?Not a brilliant candidate bearing smart policy proposals. Simply a McCain platter laden with desperation and smear. More old politics I hear?

When I borrowed the famous Australian author Bryce Courtenay’s book and movie title “The Power of One” (his superb works acknowledged, credited and finding new readers around the world as a result), to write in answer to a lady concerned about racial and security issues directed at Senator Obama early in the Primaries, little did I realise that the media and now the McCain campaign would appreciate the appropriateness of that title in describing the qualities attributed to Senator Obama in my response also titled “The Power of One”.

More recently sections of the America media and other outlets, have begun to use the abbreviated version, ”The One” when on occasions, referring to Obama. ( more often since his return from that highly publicised and successful overseas sojourn) . Although Maureen Dowd, on tour with Obama when writing for the New York Times, was possibly the first. Dowd’s clever use of literary sarcasm, contained no malice.

However, Ms Dowd, the Lady in Red, (hair that is) was soon copied by others, with other less intelligent ideas in mind.

Today, the McCain campaign hoping to capitalise politically by way of “satire”, released their amateurish attempt at sabotaging the Obama campaign, with their production of(”The One”), an online advertisement depicting Senator Obama as the so called “Messiah”. The advertisement reeks with colour. The colour of political jealousy - and it’s no more harmful than a really good laugh!

The McCain Campaign Advertisement “The One” (1min 14)

Perhaps John McCain should explain this “blasphemy” to members of the Christian faith to which he professes to belong, and whom he unashamedly courts for votes. Old politics again, ho hum.

While I appreciate the fact that the media and McCain’s people are finally waking up to the fact that Barack Obama is politically smart and intelligent ( is that such a bad thing after eight years of Bush?) surely it is time for the media to get back to concentrating on the pluses and minuses of the actual campaign proposals put forth by the candidates. Policies which need to be examined and explained. America cannot afford another dumb, corrupt President in the Oval Office.

It begs the question of American voters. Is is more important to be a loyal Republican, Democrat, or whatever else? Or is it a citizen’s duty to be a loyal American first, and vote for the person they actually believe is best qualified to deal with their country’s problems. In these troubled times, surely it is America’s good fortune in Obama, to have a candidate contesting this election, who given the opportunity and time, may prove to be - “The One”.

The alternative does not bear contemplating.John McCain placed 795th out of a graduating class of 800 at Annapolis. And he is”The One?”the Bush Republicans are offering America?Not a brilliant candidate bearing smart policy proposals. Simply a McCain platter laden with desperation and smear. More old politics I hear?.

As the author of the Obama profile “The Power of One” in support of Senator Barack Obama, I thank sections of the American media and the obvious unintelligence of the McCain campaign for the opportunity to draw further attention to Senator Obama’s qualifications for Office.

As we say in Australia - You little Ripper!

(A National expression of joy dating back to the first World War) perhaps even longer!

Go Obama - Yes we can

Social:

Tags: Annapolis, Author, Bryce Courtenay, Bush, Candidate, Democrat, John McCain, Maureen Dowd, Messiah, Republican, Senator Barack Obama, The New York Times Discussion

Bad in berlin,Perfect in Paris by Roger Cohen NY TImes

french support — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:29:21 EDT

Bad in Berlin, Perfect in Paris Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/opinion/28cohen.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss Category:Barack Obama

Obama must curb our enthusiasmWhile the world wants to show its support for the Democrats' nominee, foreign popularity is no votewinner in the US

french support — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 01:52:14 EDT

- Jonathan Freedland
- guardian.co.uk,
- Sunday July 20, 2008
- Article history

There will be much jostling for position in the chancelleries of Europe and the Middle East this week, as political types from London to Jerusalem compete for the hottest ticket of 2008: the chance to sit down with Barack Obama. David Cameron's team wasted no time in bellowing their delight that they had bagged a meeting with the Democrats' anointed leader, scheduled for July 26, announcing it before Downing Street had so much as opened its
mouth. The distracted newspaper reader could be forgiven for thinking that Obama is crossing the Atlantic solely to meet the leader of the Conservative party, leaving Gordon Brown out in the cold.

There'll be versions of that little drama played out everywhere the Democratic nominee goes on his grand tour, as local pols compete like kids in the playground to show that they're Obama's bestest best friend.

What of the rest of us? The US media is assuming that we'll be turning out in massive numbers, all but throwing street parades for the new American saviour. Setting the bar high, Obama's team is said to be encouraging parallels between the candidate's upcoming visit to Germany and John F Kennedy's legendary Ich Bin Ein Berliner address in 1963.

Obviously a warm reception can only be good for the Illinois senator. But maybe not that warm. After all, one of the hoariest Republican attack lines deployed against Democratic opponents is that they are vaguely foreign, somehow more comfortable abroad, and therefore likely to put America's interests second – after those of their elitist friends in Europe. Remember the Republican nickname for the Democratic nominee of 2004? They called him "Jean Cherie".

If Europeans really want to help Barack Obama next week they should repress their enthusiasm for him – and stay home. Ensure those crowds are thin and lethargic; maybe even offer the odd heckle, perhaps while brandishing a hostile placard. Let the travelling US press report that Obama is not so popular with foreigners after all: nothing will endear him more to the American public.

For those non-Americans finding it hard to feign coolness towards the Democratic candidate, let me offer two thoughts. First, as I discussed here, Obama is already tacking towards the centre, away from positions comfortable to Europeans and others.

Second, the Nixon to China syndrome works both ways: just as Republicans can afford to risk looking soft towards those deemed America's enemies, so Democrats have to bend over backwards to seem tough. All the pressure would be on a President Obama to prove he was not some patsy appeaser, perhaps by staging an early demonstration of American muscularity.

If it helps, bear all that in mind when Obama hits your neighbourhood. Remember, if you want him to win in November, do your duty – and do nothing

Allemagne: L`Europe entichée d`Obama avant sa visite sur le vieux continent

french support — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 14:15:07 EDT

BERLIN, 20/07 - Le démocrate Barack Obama effectue la semaine prochaine sa première visite en tant que candidat à la Maison Blanche sur le Vieux continent où il suscite autant d`enthousiasme que d`espoirs.

Si les Européens pouvaient voter à l`élection présidentielle américaine de novembre, leur choix se porterait à 52% en faveur du sénateur de l`Illinois contre 15% pour son rival républicain John McCain, selon un sondage publié à la mi-juin par le journal britannique Daily Telegraph.

Ce sont les Italiens qui se montrent les plus enthousiastes à l`égard de M.Obama (70% voteraient pour lui) devant les Allemands (67%), les Français (65%) et les Britanniques (49%).

Les Autrichiens seraient même 81% à vouloir voter M. Obama s`ils le pouvaient, contre à peine 6% pour John Mc Cain, d`après un autre sondage publié fin juin.

Barack Obama, 46 ans, bénéficie aussi de la bienveillance d`une grande partie de la presse européenne qui voit en lui "un Kennedy de notre temps", comme l`écrivait en février l`éditorialiste britannique de renom William Rees-Mogg.

Si la plupart des responsables politiques européens favorables à M. Obama évitent de lui témoigner publiquement leur soutien, certains ont du mal à retenir leur ferveur.

Dans leur discours politique, le chef de la diplomatie allemande, le social-démocrate Frank-Walter Steinmeier, comme le leader de la gauche italienne Walter Veltroni ont adopté son mot d`ordre "Yes we can" (on peut le faire).

En Espagne, le chef du gouvernement socialiste José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero est allé plus loin en affichant ouvertement sa sympathie envers le candidat démocrate. "Je l`aime bien, oui", a-t-il confié en juin à un journaliste du Financial Times qui lui demandait s`il souhaitait voir M. Obama à la Maison Blanche.

En France, où les livres sur M. Obama, né à Honolulu d`une mère américaine et d`un père kényan, se vendent en abondance, la majorité des députés sont séduits par celui qui incarne, à leurs yeux, le changement après les huit ans au pouvoir du président républicain sortant George W. Bush.

En Allemagne, où M. Obama entame sa tournée de campagne européenne jeudi avant de rejoindre la France et la Grande-Bretagne, la venue du candidat démocrate a déclenché des frictions au sein du gouvernement de coalition de la chancelière conservatrice Angela Merkel.

Celle-ci avait exprimé des réserves quant au souhait de M. Obama de faire un discours à la porte de Brandebourg, symbole majeur de la réunification de la capitale, alors que le vice-chancelier Steinmeier avait salué le projet.

A défaut de pouvoir s`exprimer à cet endroit comme l`avaient fait par exemple les présidents américains en exercice Ronald Reagan en 1987 ou Bill Clinton en 1994, Barack Obama devra se rabattre sur un autre haut-lieu de la capitale allemande, la "Colonne de la victoire".

Le candidat démocrate sera reçu jeudi matin par Mme Merkel puis tôt dans l`après-midi par M. Steinmeier.

Un barack Obama pourrait il percer en france?

french support — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 13:04:24 EDT

Un Barack Obama pourrait-il percer en France ?

La vie politique Française pourrait-elle connaître un phénomène comparable à celui de Barack Obama lors d'une présidentielle ?

C'est très peu probable pour trois raisons structurantes qui distinguent la vie politique Française de la vie politique Américaine et qui attestent des blocages majeurs de la première.

Le premier blocage réside dans l'organisation des partis politiques. Aux Etats-Unis, l'appareil est neutralisé dans l'attente du résultat de la primaire. En France, l'appareil est à la disposition d'un candidat. Il n'y a pas de véritable primaire. L'évolution supposerait que la Présidence d'un parti soit occupée par un chairman qui dissocie la vie du parti du cursus de l'un des candidats. Ce n'est pas du tout la culture Française.

Le second blocage réside dans le mode de financement des campagnes. Sans parti politique, il n'y a pas de possibilité pour trouver un financement alternatif. Sans financement, il n'y pas de collaborateur, pas de structure donc pas de campagne.

Le troisième blocage réside dans la culture des médias classiques. Progressivement, les médias sont devenus des supports d'opinion peu ouverts de fait à la diversité. Chaque média conforte son camp et son analyse.

Pour toutes ces raisons, l'émergence d'un "candidat neuf" parait très difficile dans la vie politique française.

Obama and family spend 4th of July in Montana

french support — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 13:27:50 EDT

Obama and family spend 4th of July in Montana

BUTTE, Mont. - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama celebrated the Fourth of July with his family in Montana.

Cheers greeted Obama, his wife, Michelle, and their two daughters as they arrived to watch the town parade. The crowd also broke into song, singing a rendition of "Happy Birthday" for Obama's oldest daughter, Malia, who turned 10 on Friday.

Obama joked that he told the birthday girl not to get caught up in all the fuss.

"All the fireworks and stuff are not just for her," he said to laughs.

After the parade, the Obamas were hosting a "family picnic" for hundreds of people -- part campaign rally, part birthday party for Malia.

They also were to spend part of the afternoon sitting for interviews with such family friendly magazines as People, Essence and Parenting. Aides were seen carting Hula Hoops, coloring books and whiffle balls so the girls could be photographed while playing.

At the parade, Obama praised Montana's beauty, saying he was making a play for every state in November, including reliably Republican ones like Montana. He delivered a shorter version of his campaign speech, and asked the audience to remember those suffering amid all the Independence Day celebrations.

He shook a few hands afterward and then sat in the stands to watch the floats pass by.

Obama apologized for not walking the parade route, citing security concerns that would have required everyone to show their hands to Secret Service agents along the route. He said that might have ruined everyone's fun.

Obama's Respect of Faith: Why Faith-Based Initiatives Make Sense

french support — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 12:23:13 EDT

National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as 'ridiculous', 'out of control,' and just plain 'goofy' ".

-- from "Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction" by David Kuo, former deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives

David Kuo was a man who had somewhat of a problem with the Bush administration's view of people of faith. In fact, anyone who gives value and priority to the concept of 'respect' would have had Kuo's problem at the time, as well. And Kuo elaborated on his problem back in 2006 when he said in an interview to ABC News that high ranking Bush officials often ridiculed Christian leaders. He cited as an example an instance in which Karl Rove referred to evangelical leaders as "the nuts".

Both Bush's campaign and administration oozed hypocrisy in their shameless pandering to evangelicals only to garner their votes. The Bush administration couldn't simply return the favor with respect.

So that brings us to Obama's announcement that he will actively seek to utilize and expand the Bush-created faith based initiatives program. However, unlike the Bush administration, Obama intends to respectfully do more with the program than use it as window dressing. But, of course, this Democrat is not going to extend a show of respect to the Christian community without receiving heavy criticism.

Faith is bedrock of Obama's commitment to helping others and bettering this country--anybody who's been paying attention can tell that this man's faith in a higher power is the main impetus which prompted him to make his historic run for the presidency. And most people of faith know that it's his faith that has carried him and will carry him throughout this election process.

Obama is doing a natural and admirable thing by reaching out to the Christian community in such a way as to say "you do matter" (translation: you're not "nuts" as Rove so eloquently puts it and you are worthy of respect from your elected officials and otherwise). As a Democrat, Obama will probably have more trouble of convincing evangelicals to vote for him than perhaps a Republican would, but it's courageous for him to try anyway.

For him to do so is a testament to his faith in God as well as to the faith of his potential voters.

Now all this God talk might lead one to believe that I'm a devoted member of the Christian flock. I'm not. I struggle with faith often and the church... well, let's just say that it hasn't seen my face in a while. But that doesn't mean that I seek to or ought to diminish and disrespect the faith of others. Furthermore, as a liberal Democrat who isn't overly religious but is more spiritual, I believe it's my duty to not only respect but to encourage the flourishing and dialogue between the variety of faiths plus among the diversity within the Christian community concerning Biblical teachings, as well.

And respect is what this entire issue boils down to. It's actually what most issues boil down to, whether they have to do with race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, etc.

I subscribe to a Rogerian philosophy of focusing on similarities between different beliefs and groups while not overlooking the individual, unique beauty of each of our differences. And anytime someone or some organization wants to utilize faith-- no matter which one-- in an effort to tamper conflict and not to inflame it, I'm in full support of it. So, faith-based initiatives that do good works within communities are outside the realm of what I would criticize. However, there are those people who do criticize them.

But I wonder if those same people wouldn't consider or support the positive and constructive interests of those in the black community, or in the Jewish community, or in environmental organizations etc. These are just some of the many groups who possess unique issues, needs and goals. I have a feeling that the uproar from people wouldn't be as ferocious over groups originating from within these communities as it is over these faith-based programs. Because groups from these communities might oftentimes work together among people like themselves to promote a better culture and society for us all.

However, these groups are in no way exclusive or isolated, the exact same way I suspect Obama plans the newly dubbed Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships to be. Obama is aiming for a cooperation among us all. Even if it is a faith-centered venture, it's no matter the source of the outgrowth of change, as long as intentions are good and all of our humanity is the better for it. And I'm one not-so-religious liberal Democrat who is all for it.

Read ChasingAmerica’s Last Article: McCain vs. Clark on McCain's Military Record: Who's Right?

Obama, rêve américain d’une inexistante diversité française

french support — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 12:08:30 EDT

Obama, rêve américain d’une inexistante diversité française

POLITIQUE – Il n’y avait pas un américain dans la salle. Pas beaucoup d’américanophiles non plus. Et pourtant, jeudi soir, ils étaient près de 200, venus de Lyon, Paris et Marseille, à se rassembler dans un restaurant-bar lyonnais pour une soirée de soutien… à Barack Obama. Parmi eux, beaucoup de militants de la diversité en France, de gauche, comme de droite, qui voient dans le candidat démocrate l’espoir d’un changement qu’ils peinent même à entrapercevoir dans leur propre pays…

« Barack Obama incarne cette capacité d’un pays à dépasser les origines, le poids de l’histoire. Il n’est pas arrivé là grâce à sa couleur de peau, mais par ses compétences », explique Karim Zeribi. L’élu socialiste marseillais se dit « fasciné » par le phénomène Obama depuis qu’il a assisté il y a deux mois à un de ses meetings à Philadelphie. Trouve « très bien » la mise en place des comités Obama franco-français comme celui qui les rassemble ce soir. Mais note que « c’est significatif d’un profond malaise ».

« En France, on est obligé de rêver de diversité par transfert. Quand on voit ce qui se passe au PS par exemple, on se dit qu’il est parfaitement impossible qu’un Obama émerge dans les cinq à venir. Ce n’est pas propre aux socialistes, les élites françaises en général sont prisonnières de la reproduction sociale. Alors, forcément, quelqu’un qui s’impose comme candidat aux présidentielles en quelques années, ça fait rêver », analyse Zéribi.

Lui, ne voit pas dans Obama un « symbôle de la diversité ». « Rachida Dati est un symbôle. Obama, non. Personne ne l’a « autorisé » à être là où il est. Il y est allé tout seul ». Et de prévenir les militants de la diversité « à la française ». « Je ne veux pas un jour voter pour un candidat seulement parce qu’il est noir ou maghrébin. Nous devons être fiers de nos origines, mais il faut transcender nos origines, couper le lien naturel. Nous ne pouvons pas sans cesse regarder vers le passé et ne porter que le poids de l’histoire, de l’esclavage, de notre militantisme ».

Lors de cette soirée, chacun semblait transférer ses propres attentes politique et sociétales dans la figure du candidat démocrate américain. Patrice Schoendorff, président du comité lyonnais de Barack Obama, perçoit dans l’ascension d’Obama l’univers qu’offre l’Amérique. Par opposition aux conservatismes de la société française. Ce déçu de la gauche, note avec amertume qu’il y a là « beaucoup d’anciens de la marche des Beurs en 1981 ». « Et aucun responsable socialiste ». Il remarque que la nouvelle génération issue de la diversité se tourne de plus en plus vers les pays anglo-saxons. Fabienne Levy, élue radicale (de droite) à la région Rhône-Alpes, voit elle un « nouveau Kennedy » en Obama.

Alice Géraud

PHOTO : Roger Tonye

Obama opposes proposed ban on gay marriage

french support — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:28:08 EDT

Obama opposes proposed ban on gay marriage

John Wildermuth, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Printable Version Email This Article Same-Sex Marriage

Obama opposes marriage ban (7/01)

Mormons urged to back November initiative (6/25)

Fight to remove issue off ballot (6/21)

Initiative to ban gay marriage on Nov. ballot (6/03)

Full Coverage

(07-01) 19:35 PDT -- Gay rights moved to the forefront of the presidential campaign Tuesday after Democratic Sen. Barack Obama's announcement that he opposes a November ballot measure that would ban same-sex marriage in California.

In a letter to San Francisco's Alice B. Toklas Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Democratic Club, the presumptive presidential nominee said he opposed "the divisive and discriminatory efforts to amend the California Constitution" and similar efforts in other states.

Obama's position on Proposition 8 was announced at a club event Sunday after a move by Arizona Sen. John McCain, the expected GOP standard-bearer in November, who last week told officials of Protect Marriage, a coalition that gathered 1.1 million signatures for the California measure, that he backs their efforts "to recognize marriage as a unique institution between a man and a woman."

For both campaigns, the decision to get involved in the same-sex marriage debate carries political risks.

California is one of three states with same-sex marriage bans on the November ballot. While the state is seen as Obama country, and Arizona is McCain's home state, Florida, the third state seeking to limit marriage to a man and a woman, is a swing state that will be a major prize in the November election.

Obama is skating gingerly past his previous position on the issue.

The Illinois senator has said repeatedly that he believes marriage should be only between man and a woman. When the California Supreme Court overturned the state's ban on same-sex marriage in May, Obama released a carefully nuanced statement saying he respected the court's decision, believed states should make their own decisions on marriage and "will continue to fight for civil unions as president."

But civil unions, gay activists argue, aren't the same as marriage, and they say his earlier stance would put Obama on the wrong side of what's increasingly seen as a civil rights issue.

Support welcomed

Groups opposing Prop. 8, which would amend the state Constitution to say that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California," were excited to have Obama on their side and more than willing to overlook his mixed record on the same-sex marriage issue.

"It's great to see Sen. Obama's statement, which is consistent with what he has said in the past about allowing each state to make its own decision," said Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality for All, which is heading the Prop. 8 opposition. "Is it ideal that he doesn't support same-sex marriage? No. But it's important when political leaders say gay and lesbian couples should be treated equally."

Still, the Obama campaign didn't go out of its way to announce the senator's position on a controversial California ballot measure that will have repercussions across the nation. Instead of a splashy public endorsement ceremony, complete with beaming supporters of same-sex marriage, Obama announced his support midway in his letter, which was read at the club's annual breakfast.

That didn't bother Julius Turman, co-chairman of the club.

"I was thrilled to see the senator step up to the plate and say how he feels about discrimination," he said. And while Obama might personally oppose same-sex marriage, Turman said the candidate "is well on the way to being educated."

But Prop. 8 supporters accused Obama of trying to have it both ways by coming out publicly against same-sex marriage, but opposing any efforts to ban those unions.

"His position makes very little sense," said Brian Brown, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage, California. "If he's opposed (to same-sex marriage), he should just say so. Instead, he's trying to appease the wealthy elite who support gay marriage."

It's no surprise to see McCain on the side of the same-sex marriage ban. While he opposed a GOP-backed federal constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in 2004, he supported a failed 2006 Arizona initiative that would have blocked domestic partnerships as well as same-sex marriages.

Both Obama and McCain have called for individual states to decide how to handle same-sex marriage, and the November elections will show where voters in those three states stand.

Early polls show that while the Prop. 8 race is likely to be a close contest in California, many of the young and liberal voters who back Obama are strongly opposed to the same-sex marriage ban. But those groups of voters don't have nearly as much clout elsewhere in the nation. A CBS poll taken early in June showed that only about 30 percent of American voters favored legalizing marriage for same-sex couples.

A single loss

Only one of the more than two dozen state ballot measures banning same-sex marriage has ever lost, and that was the 2006 Arizona measure that also would have eliminated domestic partner benefits in the state.

But while the same-sex marriage question will come up during the fall campaign, experts don't believe it will have the same effect as it did in 2004, when politicians like California Sen. Dianne Feinstein suggested that San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's open door to same-sex marriage might have cost Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry the presidency.

Nationwide, the country's economic woes and the war in Iraq are likely to play much more of a role than same-sex marriage in the November election, said Bruce Cain, a UC Berkeley political science professor.

"Obama's position (on same-sex marriage) can be used against him in a few states, like Ohio and Pennsylvania," Cain said. "But same-sex marriage is unlikely to have anything like the impact it did in 2004 since issues like the economy and the war will provide him with a lot more cover than Kerry had."

Ballot measures

Text of measures to amend state constitutions:

California: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

Arizona: "Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state."

Florida: "Inasmuch as a marriage is the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife, no other legal union that is treated as marriage ... shall be valid."

E-mail John Wildermuth at jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Why Obama should visit a Mosque

french support — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 01:13:12 EDT

Columnist
Why Obama Should Visit a Mosque
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By ROGER COHEN
Published: June 26, 2008
ISTANBUL

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Roger Cohen

Go to Columnist Page » Blog: Passages I'll admit it: I'm thin-skinned about the kinds of slurs and innuendo about Muslims that have accompanied Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Years of being subjected to them while I covered the Bosnian war did that.

We heard the whole gamut back then: how the European Muslims of Bosnia and Kosovo were really "Turks" engaged in a "demographic genocide" (through high birth rates) against Christians, and how they were engaged in a plot to establish a "Muslim crescent" looping up from Turkey through the Balkans, and how they roasted enemy prisoners alive on spits.

All the while, of course, said Bosnian Muslims were being herded by Christian Serbs into concentration camps that were centers of torture and systematic killing of a cruelty Europe believed it had forever banished.

That was before 9/11, of course, and before the Egyptian-born writer who uses the pseudonym Bat Yeor popularized the term "Eurabia" to express her vision of a Muslim-infiltrated Europe capitulating Munich-like to Islamism, and before Pat Buchanan's apocalyptic "The Death of the West," and before Americans were encouraged in numberless ways to equate Islam with terrorists plotting Armageddon.

Give Americans the Rorschach test today and what they'll detect in the ink blots are bearded Muslim "suiciders."

I'll admit something else: my own feelings about Islam have veered back and forth in recent years. Most of us were ignorant when the planes-turned-missiles struck. We've been searching for bearings: even the word "jihad" is variously described as a holy war against the infidel and an inner struggle for higher spiritual attainment.

When, in 2005, I talked to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somalian-born Dutch author, in a meeting in The Hague that had to be organized like an undercover operation because of threats to her life from Islamic radicals, I was struck by her words:

"Islam is not a religion of peace, or only of peace with other Muslims. We should acknowledge that it's a very violent religion, instead of pretending, like Bush, that this violence is not true Islam."

Certainly, the threat to her made in its name was violent. Certainly, the Koran is a long way from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Certainly, there are Koranic verses that Al Qaeda and other extremists have been able to use in attempts to sanctify their murderous acts. Certainly Islam, politically expressed, has often proved irreconcilable with modern notions of pluralism, democracy and women's rights.

But a "very violent religion?" No. From Beirut to Baghdad to Cairo to here in Istanbul, I have often felt the wonders of hospitality and generosity and wisdom that seem to well from Islam.

At Obama's old school in Jakarta earlier this year, an establishment scurrilously described as a madrassa" in all the innuendo, a gentle principal showed me the large mosque and small Christian prayer room. He then invoked the words emblazoned on the coat of arms of Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country: "Unity in diversity."

That's what I saw among the kids at the school, 85 percent of whom are Muslim, and the rest Christian. That's also what America's supposed to be about, not religious slurring and stereotyping.

Yet, because he's named Barack Hussein Obama, and because his Kenyan grandfather was a Muslim, and because his commitment to Israel has been questioned, and because the U.S. Rorschach test is Muslim-menace mired, he's had to tread carefully.

As Andrea Elliott chronicled in an important article in The Times, Obama has visited churches and synagogues, but no mosque. He had to apologize after two Muslim women wearing head scarves were barred from appearing behind him at a recent rally in Detroit.

Obama should visit a mosque. He has repeatedly shown his courage during this campaign; Americans have responded to his intellectual honesty. One of the important things about him is the knowledge his Kenyan and Indonesian experiences have given him of Islam as lived, rather than Islam as turned into monstrous specter.

This enables him to break the monolithic, alienating view of a great world religion that is as multifaceted as Judaism or Christianity.

I've no doubt that Obama is a strong supporter of Israel. But what I find as important is that he would come to Islam without prejudice. That's the precondition for dialogue, whether with Iran or between Israel and Palestine.

Here in Turkey, a Muslim country of myth-dispelling permissiveness, I met with Joost Lagendijk, the chairman of the Turkish delegation of the European Parliament. He's Dutch. What he hears at home is: "Fear of Islam and fear of Muslims and fear of immigrants."

Fear-mongering about Islam is a global industry. It thrives on ignorance. Obama has a unique power to break the cycle, not least by emboldening moderate Muslims to denounce terror. Nothing would do more in the long run for the security of the world.

Blog: www.iht.com/passages

Bataille d'image, avantage à Obama

french support — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 02:42:24 EDT

Bataille d'images, avantage à ObamaBarack étudiant, en 1990, à la Harvard University, Cambridge, Mas. | AP L'élection présidentielle dépend d'une bataille d'images autant que de programmes. Barack Obama s'y engage vigoureusement avec une publicité télévisée, "Le pays que j'aime", qui "répond à l'inquiétude de ses conseillers sur le fait que les électeurs ne savent pas s'il partage les valeurs et les convictions des Américains ordinaires", écrit le Washington Post. "Assez de questions ont été soulevées au sujet d'Obama, pendant la longue bataille [des primaires démocrates], pour qu'il soit nécessaire d'y répondre", explique ce quotidien.
Cette publicité est diffusée dans 18 Etats, et l'équipe du sénateur de l'Illinois prévoit de pousser cette campagne "bien au-delà", indique le New York Times. Obama envoie aussi du personnel de campagne dans les 50 Etats, au lieu de se limiter à ceux qui sont considérés comme des "swing-states", où le rapport des forces est incertain. Faire campagne dans des Etats républicains "peut entraîner M. McCain à y consacrer du temps et de l'argent, tout en augmentant l'inscription des électeurs démocrates et en aidant les candidats du parti aux autres élections", observe le journal. 15 points d'avance
Newsweek publie un sondage d'intentions de vote qui donne à Barack Obama une avance de 15 points (51/36) sur John McCain, parmi les électeurs inscrits, avec un écart de 12 points (48/36) chez ceux qui se déclarent indépendants. L'hebdomadaire souligne que cette enquête "reflète le grand avantage dont les démocrates bénéficient en termes d'identification à un parti, 55 % de l'ensemble des électeurs se définissant comme démocrates ou penchant vers ce parti, tandis que 36 % d'entre eux, seulement, se déclarent républicains ou penchant vers ce parti".
Ces indications sont confirmées par un sondage Gallup pour USA Today, à propos duquel Alan Abramowitz, politologue, déclare que, pour McCain, "le plus grand défi est de faire face au climat national", marqué par l'impopularité de George Bush, la situation économique et la guerre. Personnellement, les deux candidats ont une image positive dans l'opinion, plus nette, toutefois, pour Obama (64 %) que pour McCain (59 %).
Le sénateur de l'Arizona, mis en cause pour sa position sur la prospection pétrolière, tente de se rattraper en annonçant que, s'il est élu président, il proposera "un prix de 300 millions de dollars [193 millions d'euros] à quiconque peut développer une batterie pour automobile surpassant de loin la technologie existante", indique l'Associated Press.
Le test du financement public
Obama est critiqué pour sa décision de ne pas adopter le financement public, afin de profiter du trésor de guerre que lui ont fourni ses partisans, notamment par Internet. Le sénateur Joseph Biden, pourtant partisan d'Obama, estime que ce choix "affaiblit le financement public", rapporte l'agence Bloomberg. "Obama a pris une décision pragmatique, mais incohérente avec le soutien qu'il a souvent professé pour le financement public des campagnes, qui limite les dépenses", commente le Roanoke Times de Virginie, l'un des Etats républicains qu'il espère gagner.
Plus indulgent, The Oregonian estime que les deux candidats "font un choix stratégique raisonnable", Obama en refusant le financement public, McCain en en profitant. Pour le Star Ledger du New Jersey, tant que des groupes indépendants seront autorisés à dépenser tout l'argent qu'ils veulent en campagnes pour ou contre un candidat, "il importera peu que ceux-ci acceptent ou refusent le financement

Obama 15 points deavnt Mc Cain!

french support — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 15:38:00 EDT

he Associated Press - 21/06/08 à 20:27:17 - 133 mots

MondeObama 15 points devant McCain, selon un sondage

Le candidat démocrate à l'élection présidentielle américaine Barack Obama compte une avance de 15 points sur son rival républicain John McCain, selon un sondage du magazine "Newsweek" rendu public samedi.

Cette enquête, réalisée les 18 et 19 juin auprès d'un échantillon représentatif national de 1.010 personnes en âge de voter, Barack Obama crédite Obama de 51% des intentions de vote, contre 36% à McCain. La marge d'erreur est de plus ou moins quatre points.

Le précédent sondage "Newsweek" réalisé en mai dernier donnait les deux hommes à égalité avec 46% d'intentions de vote chacun. Toutefois, Barack Obama était encore en compétition avec Hillary Clinton pour l'investiture démocrate. AP

tl/dn

Mes Notes

Blacks in France

french support — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 01:54:07 EDT

Letter Blacks in France

Published: June 20, 2008

To the Editor:

Skip to next paragraph RelatedAbroad: For Blacks in France, Obama’s Rise Is Reason to Rejoice, and to Hope (June 17, 2008)

Re “For Blacks in France, Obama’s Rise Is Reason to Rejoice, and to Hope” (Arts pages, June 17):

When I taught English in France many years ago, I learned that the French have a different sense of identity than Americans do. In the United States we are comfortable with the idea that multiple allegiances can coexist within one person. In France one of my colleagues asked me which I was first, an American or a Jew. Both at once, I answered.

What is disconcerting for the French about “négritude” is that it suggests that people of color have several identities. Immigrants in France from various parts of the francophone world, from Africa to the Caribbean, would ordinarily find little in common. The fact of their being black, however, gives them common experiences of racism, and they are drawn to négritude, a philosophy that includes but also transcends nationality.

Blacks in France are French, but they are of African descent as well. Both at once, and therefore difficult to understand.

Hedy Kalikoff
Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., June 17, 2008

The writer was an adjunct professor of African and Caribbean literature at Pace University and N.Y.U.

Obama and french blacks

french support — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 05:05:53 EDT

MR Obama is stirring up high hopes among black in France!

> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/arts/17abroad.html?8dpc

Barack Obama est le candidat que préfère le reste du monde

french support — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 13:35:54 EDT

Barack Obama est le candidat que préfère le reste du mondeLE MONDE | 14.06.08 | 14h19 • Mis à jour le 14.06.08 | 14h31 Réagir Classer E-mail Imprimer Recommander Partager Partager:

Barack Obama, candidat global ? "L'"obamania" est devenue un phénomène planétaire d'une ampleur peut-être plus grande que celle de la "dianamania"", a écrit Timothy Garton Ash, professeur d'études européennes à Oxford. C'est dire.

Vu de l'étranger, l'homme séduit. D'abord, le sénateur de l'Illinois se distingue par son opposition résolue à la guerre en Irak. M. Obama l'a répété : une fois élu, il retirera les troupes américaines. Il marque les consciences collectives en nourrissant l'idée d'un véritable changement au Moyen-Orient.

SUR LE MÊME SUJET Grand entretien Barack Obama et les cols bleus Zoom Critiques sur l'"opinion changeante" de M. Obama en politique étrangère Les faits Les médias américains ont-ils été sexistes avec Hillary Clinton pendant les primaires ? Les faits Aux Etats-Unis, les deux candidats veulent faire bouger les lignes de la carte électorale Les faits Le conseiller Jim Johnson contraint de quitter le navire Obama Edition spéciale Les élections américaines

Ensuite, ses origines familiales et son parcours, de sa naissance à l'âge adulte, renvoient l'image d'un personnage politique nouveau. C'est un Américain du tiers-monde, un candidat avec une relation personnelle et intime avec d'autres continents. Multiracial, M. Obama - père kényan et mère américaine, né à Hawaï, élevé en Indonésie et diplômé de Harvard - possède un parcours inhabituel qui le rend apte à transcender les barrières culturelles. "Chacun sent chez Obama que l'expérience vécue, le tempérament et les idées ne font qu'un", souligne le New York Times Magazine. N'a-t-il pas dit que le principe fondamental de sa vision internationale est que "la sécurité du peuple américain est inextricablement liée à la sécurité de tous les peuples" ?

D'après une enquête du Pew Research Center réalisée dans vingt-quatre pays et publiée le 12 juin, la candidature de Barack Obama à la présidentielle américaine suscite non seulement de grands espoirs, mais améliore l'image des Etats-Unis dans le monde. Avec lui, l'élection du 4 novembre est perçue un peu partout comme une occasion de tourner la page des années Bush. Comme si M. Obama était capable de remettre un peu d'ordre sur cette planète tourmentée depuis les attaques du 11-Septembre et réconcilier les Etats-Unis avec le reste du monde.

Selon ce sondage, M. Obama inspire confiance et caracole en tête face à son rival M. McCain dans pratiquement tous les pays. Grand favori des européens (84 % des Français lui accorderaient leur vote, 82 % des Allemands, 74 % des Anglais, 72 % des Espagnols), il est également plébiscité en Australie, au Japon, au Brésil, ou encore en Corée du Sud. Au Kenya, un vrai culte est voué "au fils de la nation" comme l'appelle la presse et de nombreux pays africains estiment, comme Le Soleil de Dakar que sa victoire serait "une revanche sur l'histoire".

Certaines déclarations de M. Obama ont pu étonner ou susciter de vives critiques. Des commentateurs voient en lui un candidat difficile à cerner, trop jeune ou manquant d'expérience. Toutefois, en cinq mois de campagne, il a su se forger une stature d'homme d'Etat avec une capacité instinctive à bâtir des ponts et a créer des relations nouvelles. En Israël, par exemple, alors que la majorité de l'opinion publique affichait ouvertement une préférence pour M. McCain, l'engagement et le ton de M. Obama lors de son passage à l'Aipac (American Israël Public Affairs Council), le 4 juin, a surpris. L'alignement du candidat démocrate sur les positions de l'administration Bush concernant le statut de Jérusalem qui doit, selon M. Obama, rester la capitale "unifiée et indivisible" d'Israël a fait reculer les craintes que pourrait provoquer son élection. Ehoud Olmert, premier ministre israélien, s'est même déclaré "impressionné".

Dans le camp palestinien et au sein du monde arabe, les propos de M. Obama ont, d'abord jeté la consternation d'autant qu'ils ont été prononcés par un candidat d'origine musulmane. Certains chroniqueurs arabes ont toutefois décidé de prendre du recul. Dans son billet hebdomadaire publié par le quotidien libanais Al-Safir, l'écrivain libanais Abbas Beïdoune, peu suspect de sympathies pro américaines, a ainsi épinglé ceux qui ont délibérément occulté la singularité du cas Obama, "un homme de race noir et fils d'un musulman". Editorialiste au quotidien saoudien Al-Hayat, Mohammed Salah s'est, lui, interrogé : "Etions-nous en droit de nous attendre à des déclarations différentes d'un candidat à la présidence américaine devant la plus puissante association américaine de soutien à Israël dont il sollicitait le soutien ?"

Dans le cas de Cuba, les déclarations de M. Obama sont également révélateurs de sa capacité à jouer sur différents tableaux à la fois. Lors de son discours de Miami, le 23 mai, dans lequel il a rappelé vouloir dialoguer avec le président Raul Castro et lever les restrictions de voyage, "Obama a proposé des initiatives positives, visant à faciliter les contacts et l'aide économique entre les familles cubaines divisées des deux côtés du détroit de Floride", a estimé Miriam Leiva, une des fondatrices des Dames en blanc, l'association des épouses de prisonniers politiques cubains. Plus étonnant, Fidel Castro partage l'opinion des dissidents : M. Obama est "sans aucun doute le candidat le plus avancé du point de vue social et humain", a écrit l'ancien président cubain le 26 mai.

Les médias russes misent eux aussi en nombre sur la victoire de Barack Obama, "la chance noire de l'Amérique" selon le quotidien Vremia Novosteï du 5 juin. La veille, la radio Echo de Moscou recueillait des impressions sur M. Obama. "Il est frais, pur, jeune et n'a aucun lien avec le complexe militaro-industriel ou le lobby américain du pétrole", s'est réjouit le politicien ultranationaliste Vladimir Jirinovski, le qualifiant de "jeune Gorbatchev de l'Amérique".

En revanche, le Canada et le Mexique, deux pays frontaliers des Etats-Unis s'inquiètent, eux, du vent de protectionnisme qui souffle chez les démocrates, aux Etats-Unis. Au Mexique, certains secteurs libéraux ont peu apprécié les déclarations d'Obama critiquant l'Alena, l'Accord de libre-échange entre le Canada, le Mexique et les Etats-Unis, "en usant les vieux prétextes de la protection de l'environnement et de la défense des droits de l'homme", comme le souligne Antonio Rosas-Landa, dans El Universal. A Ottawa, le sénateur de l'Illinois a été accusé de ne pas prendre la question de l'Alena au sérieux. Son conseiller économique Austan Goolsbee, aurait assuré aux Canadiens que sa position n'était qu'une rhétorique de campagne pour calmer les craintes des "cols bleus" américains. M. Obama ne laisse personne indifférent. Le président iranien Mahmoud Ahmadinejad s'est inquiété dans un entretien à El Pais, le 5 mars, disant qu'une victoire de M. Obama était impossible "à cause des forces cachées qui sévissent aux États-Unis". Même le dirigeant libyen Mouammar Kadhafi a mis en garde le candidat démocrate, mercredi 11 juin : "Nous lui demandons d'être fier de lui en tant que Noir et d'être conscient que toute l'Afrique est derrière lui, parce que s'il ne se débarrasse pas de ce complexe d'infériorité, sa politique étrangère sera pire que celle des Blancs qui l'auront précédé". Obama une révolution ?

Nicolas Bourcier (avec nos correspondants)LE MONDE | 14.06.08 | 14h19 • Mis à jour le 14.06.08 | 14h31 Réagir Classer E-mail Imprimer Recommander Partager Partager:

The good American and Monsieur Obama by R Cohen

french support — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:05:33 EDT

OPINION | June 9, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist: The Good American and Monsieur Obama
By ROGER COHEN
In French eyes, there’s a single good American: the presumptive Democratic Party nominee, Barack Obama.

Un Obama Francais? Coment Bush le vend aux étrangers

french support — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 01:32:21 EDT

Envoyez à un ami Big PictureCroquis d'une campagne, par Corine Lesnes08 juin 2008 Un Obama français

Français, Yes you can !
Le New York Times consacre un papier à la découverte de l’Amérique de Barack Obama par trois ”Young French Muslims”, à l’invitation du département d’Etat (signe des temps: à côté des programmes “Young leaders”, il y a maintenant ”Young Muslims”).

La journaliste Katrin Bennhold a interrogé Karim Zeribi (”a policitician in Marseille”), Mohamed Hamidi (”a well-known blogger”) et Ali Zahi (”a mayoral aide” in Clichy-sous-Bois), après leur séjour américain.

Les trois invités disent avoir appris autant sur la France et ses préjugés que sur l’Amérique (notamment quand on les a soupçonnés à leur retour de participer aux ignobles tentatives d’infiltration des banlieues par la CIA…)
Les trois Young Muslims (YM) estiment que la presse est parano (et anti-YM).
- “Maybe they are afraid of a French Barack Obama”, a dit Ali Zahi.

Effet du pragmatisme américain: le département d’Etat de George Bush “vend” sans états d’âme le rêve américain de Barack Obama.
Pendant toutes les primaires, il a invité des journalistes du Mali, du Niger, d’Afrique du Sud, d’Europe..

   Reste la question: les voyages d’études de trois semaines tous frais payés dans toute l’Amérique, notamment ceux de l’International Visitor Program (dont ont bénéficié nombre d’hommes politiques ou de journalistes) sont-ils “gratuits” ?
   Qu’en attendent les Américains ?
Probablement pas grand chose.
   Mais il suffit de regarder dans les Archives du département d’Etat pour constater que rien ne s’oublie. Les diplomates américains continuent à cultiver ces contacts. Et lorsqu’ils font le récit de leurs conversations dans leurs dépêches diplomatiques, ils n’oublient pas de mentionner s’ils ont bénéficié de bourses ou pas.

the signifiant international appeal of Presidential candidate Obama

french support — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 04:59:57 EDT

Captioned media for Obama
The new campaign song, "Obama Yes we Can" by Andy Fraser has now been made available for the hearing impaired, karaoke, and translated into 15 languages, showing the significant international appeal of Presidential candidate Barack Obama.
http://www.captionedmediaforobama.com/captioned/Obama_Fraser_ipod.mov
http://www.myxertones.com/ringtone:499903/ Also available as free ring-tone. (Standard service charges may apply).
www.ObamaRocks08.com is spearheaded by UK citizen, legendary musician Andy Fraser, with the intent of mobilizing music lovers,
especially the young to support Obama, thru' his hit song-writing talents, urging "the U.S voter to get it right this time, as we have all
witnessed what getting it wrong can mean... to the world at large".
Offered as a free download on Fraser's new politically oriented web site, www.ObamaRocks08.com it encourages voter education
and involvement by providing visitors with links to Barack Obama's official Web site and Rock the Vote.
Administration : Edwin Coolidge
ObamaRocks08 HQ
Temecula CA.92592

714-444 0900
951-302 3339

Barcak Obama has captived the world

french support — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 01:55:50 EDT

Barack Obama has captivated the worldNewspaper front pages and TV newscasts feature photos and footage of 'the political giant slayer,' who is intensely popular across the globe. But not everyone is pleased with all his positions.By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 5, 2008 BEIRUT -- No one's tossing confetti or releasing balloons, but U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's ascent to likely Democratic Party presidential nominee has captivated many of those watching the American political contest abroad.

Newspaper front pages and television newscasts throughout the world Wednesday featured photographs and footage of the smiling Illinois lawmaker, who a day earlier clinched the Democratic nomination by winning enough delegates to edge out Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Photos: Obama: Front-page news around the world

LA PLAZA: News and observations on Latin America

The conservative French daily Le Figaro described him as "the man in a hurry who dethroned Hillary." The left-leaning London-based Guardian called him "a political giant slayer" who defeated his own party's entrenched interest. And in Mexico, an editorial cartoon in the daily Reforma depicted him as a Christ-like figure atop the Democratic donkey on Palm Sunday.

"Obama's America on the doorstep of history," said a headline on the front page of As Safir here in Lebanon.

Obama remains intensely popular throughout the world. According to a poll released this week by the pan-Arab Qatar-based Al Jazeera news channel, more than half of those interviewed in 22 countries preferred Obama over Clinton or Republican John McCain, who was the least recognized and least preferred presidential candidate.

Even in stridently anti-American Iran, state-controlled television showed video of Obama making a speech behind a lectern bearing a placard reading "Change."

"It's a matter of the heart. It's a matter of affiliation," said Radwan Abdullah, a professor of international relations at the University of Jordan in Amman. "He's a minority African American from the Third World. He was the underdog. People identify with his type."

Still, some analysts expressed concern about Obama's foreign policy positions. In Turkey, some worried about his support for Armenians, who are locked in a dispute with Turks over the Armenian genocide of the early 20th century. There has been some nervousness in Tokyo about whether Obama's criticism of the North American Free Trade Agreement hints at possible trade disputes for Japan's export-dependent economy. Many Israelis worry that Obama has been too willing to negotiate with the Jewish state's enemies, especially Iran.

Some Israelis were heartened by remarks he made Wednesday at a conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, where he declared his willingness to confront Iran and support a unified Jerusalem as capital of Israel, a position that appeared to go beyond even the Bush administration's position on Jerusalem.

"He said all options for dealing with Iran are on the table, which means he would negotiate but there would still be a credible military threat," said Michael Oren, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, an independent Israeli think tank.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas rejected Obama's support of a unified Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

"The whole world knows that East Jerusalem, holy Jerusalem, was occupied in 1967, and we will not accept a Palestinian state without having Jerusalem as the capital," Abbas told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Obama's newcomer status has also caused doubt among some trying to gauge his positions on various issues.

"Obama is not a well-established politician," said Abul-Fazel Amoee, a Tehran political scientist close to Iran's conservatives. "He comes out of the blue sky. Obama's slogans are ambiguous and may change. Obama is not coming from a family like the Kennedys. He seems open to pressures."

Despite such concerns, people marveled at Obama's rise and considered it a U.S. milestone. Al Jazeera devoted an hour Wednesday night to a discussion about his prospects.

"The fact that he become the candidate of the Democratic Party proves that there is a change in the public opinion in the U.S.," said Ghassan Ezzi, professor of political sciences at the Lebanese University in Beirut. "He said that he was ready to talk to [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad. This shows a lot of courage. It's like saying I am ready to talk to the devil."

For many, Obama's rise is a global event, regardless of the outcome in November.

"I'm hugely aware of what his achievements mean for the wider world, way beyond America," said David Lammy, a British lawmaker who, like Obama, is of African descent. "It's a huge achievement to come from a place where very few people believed he would be on the ticket."

Even if he loses the presidential election to McCain, he's already won, said an editorial in the English-language Khaleej Times, a daily based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

"If McCain is America's past," it said, "Obama is its future."

daragahi@latimes.com

Times staff writers Richard Boudreaux in Jerusalem, Janet Stobart in London, Achrene Sicakyuz in Paris, Ken Ellingwood in Mexico City and Bruce Wallace in Tokyo and special correspondents Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran and Raed Rafei in Beirut and Noha El-Hennawy of The Times' Cairo Bureau contributed to this report.

Clinton Will Drop Bid Saturday

french support — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 01:26:35 EDT

Clinton Will Drop Bid SaturdaySen. Hillary Clinton will endorse Sen. Barack Obama on Saturday, "bringing a close to her 17-month campaign for the White House, aides said. Her decision came after Democrats urged her on Wednesday to leave the race and allow the party to coalesce around Mr. Obama," the New York Times reports.

"Howard Wolfson, one of Mrs. Clinton's chief strategists, and other aides said she would express support for Mr. Obama and party unity at an event in Washington that day. One adviser said that Mrs. Clinton would concede defeat, congratulate Mr. Obama and proclaim him the party's nominee, while pledging to do what was needed to assure his victory."

June 4, 2008 | Related News

today I cried

french support — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 06:40:56 EDT

From: Dawn Teo� <dawn@rightoffcenter.com>
Date: June 3, 2008 11:03:41 PM MDT
To: Arizona Women for Obama <ArizonaWomenforObama@groups.barackobama.com>
Subject: [ArizonaWomenforObama] Arizona Obama Video Released Today
Reply-To: ArizonaWomenforObama@groups.barackobama.com

Today, one of our local Obama supporters (Rory) released a video that he made. I wrote about it on Huffington Post (also cross-posted to DailyKos). It is a truly beautiful, very touching video. I hope you all enjoy... You will have to click on one of the links to actually see the video because I cannot embed video in an email :)

Today, I Cried http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dawn-teo/today-i-cried_b_104903.html

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/6/4/03932/32867/886/528973

Posted June 3, 2008 | 12:41 PM (EST)

One of my fellow Arizonans has just made a video (which I've embedded after the jump) entitled, I Cried Today.
In the video, Arizonans read a poem (also entitled I Cried Today) and then tell us why it personally matters to them that Barack Obama be elected president.
This is how the video came about:
On April 7th my mother sent me an email forward and the subject line was, "Today I Cried." I remember thinking, "What in the world made my mother cry?" So I opened the email to find the poem (see below). The poem so moved me that I immediately adopted it into a script and began the process of putting together a shoot. The people in the video are not actors; they are simply Barack Obama supporters who responded to the call. Oh, how I wish you could have been there to feel the energy and love in the room the day we taped.
I have embedded the video after the jump. If it does not make you cry, or at least tear up, then you don't have a soul, or a heart, or ok, maybe you're just not the crying type, but I can tell you I cried.
Be sure that you watch the part after the poem. Each of the people in the video talks about why it is personally important to them that Barack Obama wins. That was the part that made me cry.

TODAY, I Cried Today, I cried.....I voted for a black man and, I cried.
I cried for my father and my grandfather and all grandfathers before him.
I cried for my uncles, my four brothers, my seventeen nephews, my two sons, my six grandsons and one great-grand son.
I cried for the black men I have loved and those that have loved me.
I cried for the millions of little black boys (not forgetting the girls) over the centuries that did not, in their wildest dreams, imagine...that they could run for Office.
I cried for their despair...I cried for all the men and boys incarcerated that lost hope in themselves and took the low road. I cried, I cried and I cried..
I know that this was 'just the primary.' But whatever the end result may be, today I voted in the United States of America for a black man, and...
I cried.
If I should die before the presidential election it will be OK,
Because today I voted. I voted for a black man and I cried.
Author Unknown
The author to this beautiful poem is unknown. I have searched the web for a source but to no avail. If anyone knows the source, please post it to the comments so that I can give credit where credit is due.

Today i cried, c'est magnifique!

french support — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 02:06:40 EDT

From: Dawn Teo� <dawn@rightoffcenter.com>
Date: June 3, 2008 11:03:41 PM MDT
To: Arizona Women for Obama <ArizonaWomenforObama@groups.barackobama.com>
Subject: [ArizonaWomenforObama] Arizona Obama Video Released Today
Reply-To: ArizonaWomenforObama@groups.barackobama.com

Today, one of our local Obama supporters (Rory) released a video that he made. I wrote about it on Huffington Post (also cross-posted to DailyKos). It is a truly beautiful, very touching video. I hope you all enjoy... You will have to click on one of the links to actually see the video because I cannot embed video in an email :)

Today, I Cried http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dawn-teo/today-i-cried_b_104903.html

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/6/4/03932/32867/886/528973

Posted June 3, 2008 | 12:41 PM (EST)

One of my fellow Arizonans has just made a video (which I've embedded after the jump) entitled, I Cried Today.
In the video, Arizonans read a poem (also entitled I Cried Today) and then tell us why it personally matters to them that Barack Obama be elected president.
This is how the video came about:
On April 7th my mother sent me an email forward and the subject line was, "Today I Cried." I remember thinking, "What in the world made my mother cry?" So I opened the email to find the poem (see below). The poem so moved me that I immediately adopted it into a script and began the process of putting together a shoot.
The people in the video are not actors; they are simply Barack Obama supporters who responded to the call. Oh, how I wish you could have been there to feel the energy and love in the room the day we taped.
I have embedded the video after the jump. If it does not make you cry, or at least tear up, then you don't have a soul, or a heart, or ok, maybe you're just not the crying type, but I can tell you I cried.
Be sure that you watch the part after the poem. Each of the people in the video talks about why it is personally important to them that Barack Obama wins. That was the part that made me cry.

TODAY, I Cried
Today, I cried.....I voted for a black man and, I cried.
I cried for my father and my grandfather and all grandfathers before him.
I cried for my uncles, my four brothers, my seventeen nephews, my two sons, my six grandsons and one great-grand son.
I cried for the black men I have loved and those that have loved me.
I cried for the millions of little black boys (not forgetting the girls) over the centuries that did not, in their wildest dreams, imagine...that they could run for Office.
I cried for their despair...I cried for all the men and boys incarcerated that lost hope in themselves and took the low road. I cried, I cried and I cried..
I know that this was 'just the primary.' But whatever the end result may be, today I voted in the United States of America for a black man, and...
I cried.
If I should die before the presidential election it will be OK,
Because today I voted. I voted for a black man and I cried.
Author Unknown
The author to this beautiful poem is unknown. I have searched the web for a source but to no avail. If anyone knows the source, please post it to the comments so that I can give credit where credit is due.

TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT

french support — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:11:59 EDT

To: SanFranciscoforObama@groups.barackobama.com
From: ssuleman@stanford.edu
Subject: [SanFranciscoforObama] TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT - hope to see everybody at Tosca

The Huffington PostTONIGHT'S THE NIGHT CLINTON OPEN TO BEING OBAMA'S VICE PRESIDENT...
AP Tally: Obama "Effectively" Has Clinched Nomination... Official Obama Countdown: 30.5 Delegates Until Nomination... President Carter To Endorse Obama Tonight...

Clinton's governors set to sell switch to Obama

french support — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 06:17:45 EDT

Clinton's governors set to sell switch to Obama

By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS – 2 hours ago

Eleven of the nation's governors will have to perform some political sleight of hand if Barack Obama clinches the Democratic nomination for president. After months of supporting Hillary Rodham Clinton, they will have to convince voters they're just as happy with her rival.

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland repeatedly has said Obama is less experienced than Clinton. Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said the election was not about choosing a rock star.

"He needs a little more seasoning," Gov. Mike Beebe of Arkansas said at a rally last August where he announced his endorsement of Clinton.

Other governors supporting Clinton include Jon Corzine of New Jersey and Ted Kulongoski of Oregon, along with the chief executives of Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, New York and North Carolina.

Obama also has 11 Democratic governors, including Bill Richardson of New Mexico, Tim Kaine of Virginia and Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, frequently mentioned as a possible running mate.

She tried to minimize the downside of switching candidates.

"Every colleague that I have in this country will do everything he or she can to make sure we have a Democratic president," Sebelius said.

Six other Democratic leaders are uncommitted, among them Govs. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Brian Schweitzer of Montana.

Putting nasty campaign comments in the past is a political tradition. In 1980, GOP presidential candidate George H.W. Bush dubbed Ronald Reagan's financial policies "voodoo economics," then let bygones be bygones as he became Reagan's loyal two-term vice president.

Governors, whose shared priorities often transcend partisan politics, have a history of playing nice. Few have gone for the jugular in remarks about Obama, whose campaign declined to comment on Clinton's gubernatorial supporters.

Still, this year's long and bitter Democratic primary has given governors and other superdelegates plenty of time to go on the record with remarks about Obama that could come back to haunt them.

"There's a treasure trove of ammunition for Republican campaign consultants to dip into," said Chris Borick, a pollster and political scientist at Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania.

Case in point: a YouTube clip of Rendell appearing on Bill Maher's "Real Time" in February, e-mailed to The Associated Press by the Pennsylvania Republican Party just minutes after being asked about Rendell and Obama.

"We're not electing a rock star," Rendell says on the eight-minute clip. "It's not a vote to see who's the most charismatic."

Expect to see more of the same in the fall campaign, said Michael Barley, spokesman for the Pennsylvania GOP.

"It's going to be very difficult for him to pivot now and support a candidate that he was actively campaigning against," he said, referring to Rendell.

Wanna bet? said Rendell.

"I don't mean to sound lacking in humility, but if they try to make something out of that, I'll kill them," Rendell said. "I'll turn it so they'll wish they never brought it up."

Rendell said he was careful in the primary to avoid going negative on Obama and noted that the race was about a choice, just as the fall campaign will be.

"You can go through issue after issue and the difference between Senator (John) McCain and Senator Obama is absolutely clear and those things transcend any other aspects of the campaign," Rendell said.

Other governors made the same point, playing what might be called the unity card.

"My support remains with Senator Clinton, but I also think that Senator Obama would make a great president," Maine Gov. John Baldacci said in a statement. "What's most important for Democrats is that we all come together to support our nominee in the general election."

"That's politics," said Matt DeCample, a spokesman for Beebe, the Arkansas governor. "He'll have no qualms about being able to confidently support whoever the nominee is and to do so without hesitation."

Not surprisingly, McCain's campaign sees things differently. Governors who took positions at odds with Obama will be fair game in the fall, said Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting.

"Voters do have a memory," he said.

With their statewide bully pulpit, governors play important roles in presidential campaigns, as they rally support for a candidate and energize a party's get-out-the-vote machinery.

Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida, a McCain backer, empathizes with his Democratic colleagues.

"It's got to be a little awkward, let's be honest," said Crist, whose name is on lists of possible McCain running mates.

Perhaps mindful that he waited until three days before Florida's pivotal primary Jan. 29 to endorse McCain, Crist acknowledged the problem is not unique to Democrats.

"There's an awful lot of people that are supporting Senator McCain that may not have been supporting him before he received the nomination because they understand the importance of party unity," he said.

Among those are Texas Gov. Rick Perry, originally a backer of Rudy Giuliani, and Rhode Island Gov. Don Carcieri, who first endorsed Mitt Romney.

A bigger question, says University of Dayton political scientist Grant Neeley, is how Obama's campaign will view the governors who didn't support him.

"Do you really want someone up on the dais with you who was not an ardent supporter to begin with?" Neeley said.

That may be a factor in Ohio, where not only does Strickland support Clinton, voters do, too — by a 53 percent to 45 percent margin in the state's March primary.

Strickland said voters don't care whether he switches from one candidate to another. He said people are more interested in health care, education and ending the Iraq war so troops can come home.

"All of the political arguments and the back and forth regarding who may have said what about some other person, I think will be viewed as a political argument and irrelevant to the lives of most Ohioans," Strickland said.

On the Net:

Obama: http://www.barackobama.com
McCain: http://www.johnmccain.com

Is Hillary Clinton preparing for the end? Signs say yes

french support — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 15:17:39 EDT

« Ex-Rudy Giuliani aides get key Republican posts | Main

Is Hillary Clinton preparing for the end? Signs say yes

For political junkies, part of the fun of watching politics is reading the tea leaves. Admit it. Most of you probably saw friends over the weekend -- a little barbecue, maybe, or a kids' sports match.

And if you talked about politics, chances are good the conversation included a little chatter about how and where the Democrats are going to finish up after Tuesday's final votes in Montana and South Dakota.

Well, three fresh factoids have caught our eye. First, Hillary Clinton announced this morning that she'll spend Tuesday evening in New York, the city that never sleeps and that she represents in the U.S. Senate. Not in Montana or South Dakota, where people are voting, but New York City.

Second, Bill Clinton told folks in South Dakota this morning that "this may be the last day I'm ever involved in a campaign of this kind. I thought I was out of politics, till Hillary decided to run. But it has been one of the greatest honors of my life to go around and campaign for her for president."

Third, the folks at Politico report that Mo Elleithee, a Clinton spokesman, tells them that "we just haven't figured out our schedule past Tuesday," so many members of the advance team are being sent home.

(UPDATE: A fourth factoid, Tom Edsall reports over on Huffington Post that Clinton has taken the "unusual move" of summoning "top donors and backers to attend her speech.")

Barack Obama has scheduled his own election-night event in St. Paul, site of the September Republican National Convention, and his event can be read as a salvo across the bow for the fall election. What can be inferred from Clinton's picking New York City? Well, it is close to home, and it would be a symbolic place to announce that she is ending her historic run for the White House and devoting her full attentions to the Senate job.

Of course, it could be she just wants to repack a suitcase to start visiting superdelegates in person. But after the Democratic rules committee decision Saturday, the steady seepage of superdelegates Obama's way, and the campaign telling its advance people to take some time off, you gotta wonder.

-- Scott Martelle

Sur la Toile, Mme Clinton est comparée à "une fleur qui pique comme une guêpe"

french support — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:42:10 EDT

Réagir (2) Classer E-mail Imprimer Partager Partager:

Même si la sénatrice de New York se bat becs et ongles, la blogosphère est unanime : Barack Obama sera le candidat démocrate. En revanche, cette lutte fratricide met en relief les divisions au sein du Parti démocrate, relève babs22. Ce sera d'ailleurs la première mission de Barack Obama en tant que candidat des démocrates, analyse moderateleft : réconcilier les membres du Parti après de longs mois de campagne.

Conservez cet article dans votre classeur.
Abonnez-vous au Monde.fr : 6€ par mois + 30 jours offerts SUR LE MÊME SUJET Vidéo Chaleur chez les démocrates "Elle ressemble à une fleur, mais elle pique comme un guêpe", plaisante moderateleft. L'ex-First lady n'a pas exclu de contester la façon dont le parti démocrate a décidé de répartir les délégués du Michigan, une manoeuvre qui pourrait s'éterniser, mais quoi qu'elle entreprenne, Hillary Clinton ne pourra pas empêcher l'inévitable. Bien sûr, la sénatrice est opposée à toutes les règles la pénalisant, analyse Mylamppost mais elle s'accrochera à tout ce qui est porteur d'espoir, même le plus infime. Sa victoire à Porto Rico est un autre exemple pour brooklynforbarack : elle s'en sert déjà pour invoquer le respect du vote populaire.

Cependant, Hillary Clinton mérite le plus grand respect estime moderateleft : même si sa persévérance commence à lasser, la candidate veut aller jusqu'au bout. Pour Timegoesby en revanche, Mme Clinton offre le spectacle d'une candidate égoïste. Elle occulte les problèmes cruciaux, comme l'économie, la guerre en Irak, la hausse du pétrole, le prix des matières premières au bénéfice de sa propre victoire, de ses primaires et de ses délégués. Dymaxionworld éprouve même de la pitié pour Hillary Clinton et ses supporters. Le spectacle de certains partisans outrés par la décision du Comité National Démocrate, samedi 31 mai, montre la colère et la déception qu'ils éprouvent. Mais c'est une étape vers l'acceptation de sa défaite, analyse le blog. Aller jusqu'à Denver et se battre jusqu'au bout ? "Une humiliation" selon lui.

Mardi 3 juin ou mercredi 4 juin ? Pour moderateleft, Hillary Clinton annoncera son retrait dans la course juste après les dernières primaires. Pour Dymaxionworld en revanche, la date fatidique sera le lendemain. Quoi qu'il en soit, la fin se rapproche pour Hillary Clinton, pense angelicmoo.

Clinton Demonstrators Threaten to Vote for McCain

french support — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 10:10:36 EDT

Clinton Demonstrators Threaten to Vote for McCain By WeNeedObama - Saturday, May 31st, 2008 at 12:36 PM Send to Friend | Report Abuse | RSS Feed Friend's Email(s)*
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[Cross-Posted on my Blog]

This is exactly the wrong sentiment to be spreading for the national news media to grab onto.

Regardless of your support for either of the Democratic candidates, it is unhelpful for the Democrats' changes in November to be repeating the wounded "I'll take my toys and go home" canard that if someone can't have their candidate nominated, they'll go vote for the other party.

I have seen this sentiment echoed on sites like MyDD.com for months. And now, a bunch of Clinton supporters demonstrating outside the DNC Rules & Bylaws Committee meeting are continuing and heightening the threat:

"We are all a nation together, there are 50 states, not 48," said Constanta Nour-Hinkle, 35, who traveled by train from Reading, Pa. today to attend the rally. "I felt I needed to make my voice hear and I wanted to show solidarity with the 2.3 million voters [in Florida and Michigan] whose voices were not heard."
Mrs. Nour-Hinkle said she would rather vote for Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, than for Mrs. Clinton's rival, Sen. Barack Obama -- echoing the sentiments of many protesters.
"It would be the first time in my life I would vote Republican for president," said Mrs. Nour-Hinkle, 35. "I think Obama is an empty shirt, the same as [President] George W. Bush but only a Democrat."
John Overton, who shouted pro-Clinton slogans outside the hotel, said he would leave the party if Obama receives the Democratic nomination for president.
"I can't stand for the Democratic Party if they don't stand for voters' rights," said Mr. Overton, who traveled from his home in Chapel Hill, N.C., to attend the rally. The party "would no longer exist to me as a party."
"I don't scream like this normally, I'm a rational guy, but I've never felt like this before," he added. "This had been a travesty of democracy."

Look, I know a lot of bad things have been said and done by supporters of both candidates in this campaign.

But, the simple fact is that Clinton OR Obama would do a LOT more for progressive issues, like ending the war in Iraq, universal health care and reversing the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy, than John McCain and the Republican Party ever would.

We really need to stop this madness. The race will be decided soon, the RBC will make their decision, and the last primaries will be held. We will have a nominee and we need to focus on unity, not childish threats.

Update: Here's more commentary on the insanity:

Howard Dean may hope that the "healing will begin today," but two blocks away from the northwest Washington Marriott where the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee is meeting right now to try to figure out Florida and Michigan, the Hillary protesters are occupying an utterly alternate (and healing-free) universe: a universe in which one of the big lawn rally's speakers yells that the Democratic Party no longer is in the business of "promoting equality and fairness for all"; in which a Hillary supporter with two poodles shouts, "Howard Dean is a leftist freak!"; in which a man exhibits a sign that reads "At least slaves were counted as 3/5ths a Citizen" and shows Dean whipping handcuffed people; and in which Larry Sinclair, the Minnesota man who took to YouTube to allege that Barack Obama had oral sex with him in the back of a limousine in 1999, is one of the belles of the ball.
Snip.
Clusters of people in Hillary shirts ask to take their photo with him, one woman covered in Clinton buttons introduces him to Greta Van Susteren, and he estimates he has handed out 500 fliers. "You could improve your credibility if you downplayed the gay sex and focused on the drugs," sagely advises one Hillary supporter with auburn hair and elegant makeup. But in this universe, Sinclair's credibility doesn't seem to be suffering too much. In fact, he's treated nearly as well as he might be at a meeting of the Vast Right-wing Conspiracy. In the thirty minutes I stand with him, only one woman expresses disgust at his fliers and his willingness to chattily discourse on whether Obama is "good in bed."
Snip.
It's easy to sink into despair here. Standing and watching all these Democrats chat up Sinclair--who's retained Montgomery Blair Sibley as his lawyer and says the Republican National Committee has also been in touch with him--makes me want to fall to my knees, rend my garments, and start insanely screaming, "Wake up! Wake up! You'll hate a President John McCain!" But the rhetoric from the top has imparted its poison below, and the bitterest criticisms of Obama gain traction as they circulate through the virulently-pro-Hillary echo chamber. "Would you rather have a president who had an affair [Bill Clinton] or one who was a murderer [Obama]?" Jeannie, the Greensboro Democrat, asks a fellow in a floppy Tilley hat and Hillary buttons. "That's a good point," he replies.

Read WeNeedObama’s Last Article: Cluster Bomb Ban Opposed By McCain/Clinton Passed by 100 Countries

Clinton Demonstrators Threaten to Vote for McCain

french support — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 10:07:16 EDT

[Cross-Posted on my Blog]

This is exactly the wrong sentiment to be spreading for the national news media to grab onto.

"We are all a nation together, there are 50 states, not 48," said Constanta Nour-Hinkle, 35, who traveled by train from Reading, Pa. today to attend the rally. "I felt I needed to make my voice hear and I wanted to show solidarity with the 2.3 million voters [in Florida and Michigan] whose voices were not heard."
Mrs. Nour-Hinkle said she would rather vote for Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, than for Mrs. Clinton's rival, Sen. Barack Obama -- echoing the sentiments of many protesters.
"It would be the first time in my life I would vote Republican for president," said Mrs. Nour-Hinkle, 35. "I think Obama is an empty shirt, the same as [President] George W. Bush but only a Democrat."
John Overton, who shouted pro-Clinton slogans outside the hotel, said he would leave the party if Obama receives the Democratic nomination for president.
"I can't stand for the Democratic Party if they don't stand for voters' rights," said Mr. Overton, who traveled from his home in Chapel Hill, N.C., to attend the rally. The party "would no longer exist to me as a party."
"I don't scream like this normally, I'm a rational guy, but I've never felt like this before," he added. "This had been a travesty of democracy."

Look, I know a lot of bad things have been said and done by supporters of both candidates in this campaign.

Update: Here's more commentary on the insanity:

Howard Dean may hope that the "healing will begin today," but two blocks away from the northwest Washington Marriott where the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee is meeting right now to try to figure out Florida and Michigan, the Hillary protesters are occupying an utterly alternate (and healing-free) universe: a universe in which one of the big lawn rally's speakers yells that the Democratic Party no longer is in the business of "promoting equality and fairness for all"; in which a Hillary supporter with two poodles shouts, "Howard Dean is a leftist freak!"; in which a man exhibits a sign that reads "At least slaves were counted as 3/5ths a Citizen" and shows Dean whipping handcuffed people; and in which Larry Sinclair, the Minnesota man who took to YouTube to allege that Barack Obama had oral sex with him in the back of a limousine in 1999, is one of the belles of the ball.
Snip.
Clusters of people in Hillary shirts ask to take their photo with him, one woman covered in Clinton buttons introduces him to Greta Van Susteren, and he estimates he has handed out 500 fliers. "You could improve your credibility if you downplayed the gay sex and focused on the drugs," sagely advises one Hillary supporter with auburn hair and elegant makeup. But in this universe, Sinclair's credibility doesn't seem to be suffering too much. In fact, he's treated nearly as well as he might be at a meeting of the Vast Right-wing Conspiracy. In the thirty minutes I stand with him, only one woman expresses disgust at his fliers and his willingness to chattily discourse on whether Obama is "good in bed."
Snip.
It's easy to sink into despair here. Standing and watching all these Democrats chat up Sinclair--who's retained Montgomery Blair Sibley as his lawyer and says the Republican National Committee has also been in touch with him--makes me want to fall to my knees, rend my garments, and start insanely screaming, "Wake up! Wake up! You'll hate a President John McCain!" But the rhetoric from the top has imparted its poison below, and the bitterest criticisms of Obama gain traction as they circulate through the virulently-pro-Hillary echo chamber. "Would you rather have a president who had an affair [Bill Clinton] or one who was a murderer [Obama]?" Jeannie, the Greensboro Democrat, asks a fellow in a floppy Tilley hat and Hillary buttons. "That's a good point," he replies.

Read WeNeedObama’s Last Article: Cluster Bomb Ban Opposed By McCain/Clinton Passed by 100 Countries

CHAOS FUELS FEAR OF SCHISM

french support — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 06:34:22 EDT

Audience becomes an unruly mobCHAOS FUELS FEAR OF SCHISMBy Dana Milbank
Washington PostArticle Launched: 06/01/2008 01:33:15 AM PDT

WASHINGTON - Leave it to the Democrats to make a hash of democracy.

When the Democratic Party's Rules and Bylaws Committee met at the Marriott in Washington's Woodley Park neighborhood Saturday to decide what to do with the contested primary results in Florida and Michigan, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean kicked off the session by suggesting they avoid a "food fight."

Good luck with that.

"Alice in Wonderland."

"Willy-nilly."

"Totally incorrect."

"This way lies chaos."

"An arbitrary formula."

"My mama always taught me to play by the rules."

"Cheating."

"Let's cancel 2012."

And that was just from the members of the committee. The Floridians and Michiganders were equally unruly ("My state has already suffered enough!") and the audience became a mob, answering the participants with boos, hisses, cheers and commentary: "Revote! . . . Answer! Answer! . . . Go, Donna! . . . Shut up!"

"I'm reminded," said witness Jim Blanchard, the former governor of Michigan, "of the old Will Rogers adage, which was, 'I belong to no organized party. I'm a Democrat.' "

The committee took its lunch break - at 3 p.m., 5 1/2 hours after it began morning arguments that were supposed to last just over three hours. The panelists finally returned from their lunch break, and backroom deliberations, at 6:15, as wedding guests were expected to arrive at the Marriott for an evening

Advertisementreception in a nearby ballroom.

The lack of decorum in the hall was barely elevated from that of the sidewalk outside the hotel, where several hundred Hillary Clinton supporters chanted "Count every vote!" and waved signs announcing "Count my vote or count me out." A smaller number of Barack Obama supporters kept their distance. One woman, passing by a 4-year-old girl and her mother carrying pro-Clinton signs, shouted at them: "Cheater!"

The chaos and vitriol seemed to confirm Democrats' fears that they might blow an election that should otherwise be an easy victory for them. Nor did the party's compromise fit well with the Democrats' oft-voiced commitment to voting rights. They decided they would give Florida and Michigan half of their voting rights - one of the more arbitrary compromises since the 1787 decision that a slave should count as three-fifths of a person - and voted to award Obama 59 Michigan delegates even though his name wasn't even on the ballot in the state.

Gold-colored ropes (along with some hired DNC muscle), kept the public and the press at a distance from the committee members. "We are strong enough to struggle and disagree and to even be angry and disappointed and still come together at the end of the day and be united," Dean told his troops. But not this day.

Arguing for Obama, Rep. Robert Wexler of Florida insisted that his state's delegates should get only half of their votes. This produced a bitter comeback from committee member Harold Ickes, a Clinton adviser, who asked whether Wexler agreed that delegates should be a "fair reflection" of the popular vote.

"Mr. Ickes, you'll have to educate me on what the concept of fair reflection is," Wexler replied, acidly.

Only Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan had an irrefutable point. "We've got a totally irrational system of nominating our president," he said.

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Clinton Will Have Abundant Career Choices, All With Obstacles

french support — Sat, 31 May 2008 05:39:43 EDT

Clinton Will Have Abundant Career Choices, All With Obstacles

By Kristin Jensen

May 31 (Bloomberg) -- Hillary Clinton will emerge from the Democratic presidential nomination fight against Barack Obama with no shortage of attractive career choices. All have considerable obstacles.

The New York senator has come closer than any woman in history to occupying the Oval Office. That's vaulted her onto the list of possible running mates for Obama; if that doesn't happen, she could run for governor of New York or Senate majority leader, or try to become a legislative power in the mold of Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts.

There are hurdles along each path, such as the presence of the current Democratic majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, who has no plans to give up his post. Then there's the issue of which job Clinton, 60, who's still arguing she can win this year's presidential nomination, would want.

``She will pursue whichever course will help her achieve her ultimate goal: becoming president,'' said David Primo, a political science professor at the University of Rochester in New York. ``All of her roles from here on in, just like her job as senator, are steppingstones to the Democratic presidential nomination, whether in 2012 or 2016.''

Clinton's strengths among important Democratic constituencies -- women, seniors and blue-collar workers -- have led party leaders such as Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and former New York Governor Mario Cuomo to call for a joint ticket.

`Short List'

Obama, 46, an Illinois senator, has said Clinton would be ``on anybody's short list.'' Even so, his campaign hasn't expressed much enthusiasm over the prospect, and prominent Obama supporters including Kennedy, 76, say a coming-together is unlikely because of the campaign's sometimes sharp tone.

``I know it's called a dream ticket,'' said another Obama backer, Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson. ``I'm not hearing a lot of people back here touting that as a dream ticket.''

Another problem is Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton.

``She'd bring along Big Daddy, and he would overshadow the president,'' Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, a supporter of Hillary Clinton's White House bid, said in a May 22 interview.

Absent a job in another branch of government, Clinton would return to her second term in the Senate. Of the 30 senators who have lined up for either her or Obama, 16 are supporting Obama. Obama's supporters include some longtime allies of the Clintons such as Senators Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut.

`Sheer Folly'

The immediate consolation prize of a leadership job seems unlikely; Reid said in an April interview that the idea of him stepping down as majority leader in favor of Clinton was ``sheer folly.''

And an overthrow of Reid isn't likely. ``That position isn't open,'' said North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan, when asked about the possibility of Clinton taking over.

A more likely path for Clinton is a higher-profile role in the Senate, political analysts and fellow senators say. In that way, the role model may be Kennedy, who became a legislative heavyweight in the decades after his failed 1980 bid to challenge President Jimmy Carter.

Clinton is considered one of the most knowledgeable leaders on health care, a strength that's evident on the campaign trail. At a recent campaign stop at a home in Oregon, she perked up when talk turned to the minutiae of education and health policy.

Leadership

``Senator Clinton will bring back a great deal of experience from being on the campaign trail,'' Nelson said. ``And, of course, whether you're in an official leadership role or you help unofficially in various ways, it's still providing leadership.''

Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said he could see Clinton as a vice presidential nominee, Cabinet member or governor of New York.

``But I believe that she would be better off staying in the United States Senate, because I think she has become an effective member,'' Grassley said.

If that's what she decides, she'll have a long way to go to achieve anywhere near Kennedy's clout.

When he returned to the Senate after his unsuccessful White House bid, he was just 48 and already had 18 years of service in the body. Even then, it took some time to develop into the ``legendary lawmaker'' that he has become in the words of presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain. Clinton, who will turn 61 this year, began her second six-year term in 2007.

Chance in New York?

A run for the statehouse in New York is a possibility, ``given the relative vacuum at the top post'' after former Governor Eliot Spitzer was forced to resign, said Rogan Kersh, a public-service professor at New York University. The job would offer executive experience, though it might be less of a national stage for policy work that so attracts Clinton.

Another issue: Spitzer's successor, David Paterson, is the first black governor of New York, which may present problems should Clinton challenge him.

``The politics around nudging out Paterson are only more complicated by her shaky position on race after the contest with Obama,'' Kersh said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Kristin Jensen in Washington at kjensen@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: May 31, 2008 00:01 ED

By Kristin Jensen

`Short List'

``I know it's called a dream ticket,'' said another Obama backer, Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson. ``I'm not hearing a lot of people back here touting that as a dream ticket.''

Another problem is Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton.

``She'd bring along Big Daddy, and he would overshadow the president,'' Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, a supporter of Hillary Clinton's White House bid, said in a May 22 interview.

`Sheer Folly'

The immediate consolation prize of a leadership job seems unlikely; Reid said in an April interview that the idea of him stepping down as majority leader in favor of Clinton was ``sheer folly.''

And an overthrow of Reid isn't likely. ``That position isn't open,'' said North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan, when asked about the possibility of Clinton taking over.

Leadership

Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said he could see Clinton as a vice presidential nominee, Cabinet member or governor of New York.

``But I believe that she would be better off staying in the United States Senate, because I think she has become an effective member,'' Grassley said.

If that's what she decides, she'll have a long way to go to achieve anywhere near Kennedy's clout.

Chance in New York?

Another issue: Spitzer's successor, David Paterson, is the first black governor of New York, which may present problems should Clinton challenge him.

``The politics around nudging out Paterson are only more complicated by her shaky position on race after the contest with Obama,'' Kersh said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Kristin Jensen in Washington at kjensen@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: May 31, 2008 00:01 ED

La France vote Obama

french support — Fri, 30 May 2008 17:19:22 EDT

La France vote Obama

Par Henri Haget, mis à jour le 29/05/2008 - publié le 29/05/2008

De ce côté-ci de l'Atlantique, le candidat démocrate réconcilie l'opinion avec l'Amérique. Il bénéficie d'une forte cote dans tous les milieux.

t. dudoit/l'express

« Le président des Etats-Unis est le président du monde. » Etudiant à Nanterre, Samuel Solvit a lancé un comité de soutien au candidat.

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Il y a des chips au cheddar dans les saladiers et des sourires d'enfant sur les visages de ces couples d'Américains expatriés. Ce soir-là, une soixantaine de partisans de Barack Obama arrosent le succès de leur champion dans l'Oregon. La fête se déroule sous le ciel étoilé d'un atelier d'artiste parisien, à deux pas de la place des Vosges. Dans le staccato des conversations en VO se glisse, ici et là, une pointe d'accent français. A côté d'un seau à champagne, une pile de tracts pose la question : « Why Obama ? » Pourquoi lui ? Il est un « citoyen du monde », le « fils de trois continents », l'incarnation de la « fraternité des hommes », tambourine l'argumentaire. Bref, c'est Jésus.

Redescendons sur terre : il est aussi le candidat préféré des Français, et ce n'est pas une mince affaire que de réconcilier les gamins des banlieues et les élites germanopratines. John Morris, l'hôte de la soirée, en viendrait presque à regretter que l'élection du président américain ne soit pas l'affaire des Parisiens. « Dès que j'épingle sur ma veste le badge Obama 2008, les gens, dans la rue, me sourient, lèvent le pouce, m'accostent en amis », dit cet ancien photographe, ravi.

« On a besoin de croire en l'Amérique »

Retrouvez notre dossier: Obama peut-il changer l'Amérique?

Et venez chatter avec Olivier Richomme (co-auteur de L'Amérique de Barack Obama), jeudi 29 mai, de 11h à 12h. Vous pouvez dès maintenant lui poser vos questions, en cliquant ici.

L'obamania souffle sur la France comme un vent tiède et enivrant. A Cannes, sur le plateau du Grand Journal de Canal +, la palme de la branchitude a été décernée au sénateur de l'Illinois par un expert en la matière, Frédéric Beigbeder. Tandis que Michel Denisot questionnait, en vain, Steven Spielberg sur ses penchants électoraux, le romancier a recentré le débat sur l'essentiel, c'est-à-dire lui-même : « Eh bien, moi, je vote pour Barack Obama comme président de la République ! » s'est-il exclamé, en exhibant un superbe tee-shirt à l'effigie du candidat démocrate.

Ils ont tous fait un rêve. Celui d'avoir démasqué le fils caché de Martin Luther King sous les traits du candidat métis. A la sauterie pro-Obama de John Morris, Christophe Chaumont, 42 ans, employé à la mairie de Paris, se sent soulevé par l'Histoire, même si ce n'est pas tout à fait la sienne. « Obama réinjecte des idéaux et de l'affectif dans la politique, dit-il. 95 % de ses fonds de campagne proviennent de dons ne dépassant pas les 15 dollars. C'est quand même un beau symbole, non ? » Il habite le Paris coloré de Belleville. Ces temps-ci, dans les conseils de quartier, on y parle moins des tags sur les murs et des crottes sur les trottoirs. « Obama est dans toutes les conversations, poursuit-il. Je pense qu'on a besoin de croire en l'Amérique. »

Samuel Solvit, 22 ans, étudiant en école de commerce, à Nanterre, ne milite dans aucun parti : « La vie politique française et ses chapelles sont tellement ennuyeuses... » S'il colle ses affiches dans le métro, ce n'est donc pas pour Sarko, encore moins pour Ségo, mais pour Barack : « Je me sens hyperconcerné car le président des Etats-Unis est, avant tout, le président du monde. » Son karma, à Samuel, c'est donc Obama. Le 3 juin, il organise une conférence-débat à Sciences po avec une foultitude d'experts pour disserter de « l'effet Obama en France ». Les 600 places se sont arrachées. L'étudiant qui, en janvier, a lancé son comité français de soutien au candidat démocrate se trouve désormais à la tête d'un bataillon d'un bon millier d'admirateurs. Des intellos, des métallos, des supporters de toutes les couleurs, blacks, blancs, beurs, comme on le chantait en juillet 1998.

En 2008, le pays d'Obama, lui, n'a rien d'un royaume enchanté. La guerre en Irak a fossoyé son image à l'international. Son économie, minée par la crise des subprimes, est moribonde. « Mais le mythe ne demande qu'à ressusciter », assure le politologue Olivier Duhamel, membre d'honneur du comité français de soutien à Barack Obama, au côté de personnalités aussi diverses que Bernard-Henri Lévy, Sonia Rykiel ou encore le député UMP Axel Poniatowski. Selon lui, l'avènement du sénateur de l'Illinois montre que l'opinion française n'est pas antiaméricaniste. Elle est seulement anti-Bush. « Au fond, les Français aiment Obama, car ils adorent aimer les Etats-Unis », estime Duhamel. Cela fait juste une quarantaine d'années qu'ils l'avaient oublié.

Pour Rupert Murdoch, Barack Obama est une "rock star"

french support — Fri, 30 May 2008 06:03:54 EDT

Pour Rupert Murdoch, Barack Obama est une "rock star"LEMONDE.FR | 29.05.08 | 17h39 • Mis à jour le 29.05.08 | 19h31 Réagir (10) Classer E-mail Imprimer Recommander Partager Partager:

Ses propos vont certainement en étonner plus d'un, chez les démocrates, comme chez les républicains. Rupert Murdoch, bien connu pour ses allégeances politiques conservatrices, prédit une écrasante victoire démocrate en novembre prochain. Pire : un "raz-de-marée".

A l'occasion d'un interview accordée au Wall Street Journal jeudi 29 mai, le patron de News Corp. ne tarit pas d'éloges envers le candidat démocrate Barack Obama qu'il qualifie de "rock star" et de personnage "fantastique". "Nous sommes probablement en présence d'un véritable phénomène dans ce pays", estime-t-il.

M. Murdoch a, en revanche, peu d'égard pour le candidat républicain John McCain qu'il juge "imprévisible", ne sachant "pas grand-chose sur l'économie". Même si c'est un "patriote", estime M. Murdoch, "il n'a pas l'air de vraiment savoir comment on organise une campagne".

Rupert Murdoch, qui dit vouloir en savoir un peu plus sur les ambitions et l'entourage de Barack Obama, n'a officiellement apporté son soutien à aucun des candidats, mais il avoue ne pas être étranger à la décision du New York Post de soutenir la candidature du sénateur de l'Illinois.

Sorry Hillary-we're crazy for Obama

french support — Fri, 30 May 2008 01:53:08 EDT

Sorry, Hillary - we're crazy for Obama

Mark Morford

Thursday, May 29, 2008

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Are you paying attention to this moment in time? Are you reading bits and hints about the transformation, the shift, the unusual and slightly surreal energy coursing through the nation? Are you younger than 50? Then there's been nothing else like this in your lifetime. And there probably never will be again.

Because it wasn't that long ago, not even a year, that Hillary Clinton's presidential nomination was pretty much a given. Indeed, going into this race, Clinton was perfect, strong and smart as hell, and even I was relatively thrilled for her candidacy, especially given how she was so ahead in the polls, fundraising and public opinion that her imminent nomination felt much like a foregone conclusion.

Just a bit beyond incredible, then, what has happened since, in one of the more fascinating turning points in American history.

Barack Obama's steady, astounding rise to become the presumptive Democratic nominee, but also to overtake one of the strongest, smartest, most well-funded candidates in American history - and also to outpoll his deeply connected Republican opponent - is remarkable on a number of fronts.

But no matter how you try to analyze the components that made Obamapalooza happen, there appears to be something just beyond the logic, outside the normal machinery, that makes you shake your head in amazement

Clinton Crosses a Line

french support — Thu, 29 May 2008 01:27:17 EDT

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Clinton Crosses a Line

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By Robert D. Novak
Thursday, May 29, 2008; Page A19

When Hillary Clinton said, "We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California," she was not saying anything she had not publicly declared earlier. Yet those words sparked a political firestorm, raising among Democrats new levels of anti-Clinton sentiment and concern about Barack Obama's viability in the general election.

After Clinton cited the 1968 murder of Robert F. Kennedy as reason for remaining a candidate for the presidential nomination, I contacted many activist Democrats -- both pro-Clinton and pro-Obama. Without exception, they felt Clinton had crossed a line and inflicted a grievous wound on the party that will be difficult to heal.

This recalls Milton's 17th-century tragic poem "Samson Agonistes" -- portraying Samson as a battler. "Eyeless in Gaza" was the poet's reference not only to physical blindness but also to failure to comprehend reality. As "Hillary Agonistes," she threatens to bring down the temple of the country's oldest political party.

Clinton's infamous comments to the editorial board of the Sioux Falls (S.D.) Argus Leader last Friday came when she was asked why she was still competing in the South Dakota primary June 3. In March, when Time magazine asked her whether remaining in the race would hurt the party, she replied: "Primary contests used to last a lot longer. We all remember the great tragedy of Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June in L.A." According to campaign sources, that has been a commonplace observation made in private by Bill Clinton.

Poor taste by the Clintons is matched by their poor knowledge of history. Kennedy's campaign against Hubert Humphrey 40 years ago is not comparable to the Clinton-Obama marathon. When he was killed, Kennedy had been a candidate for only 2 1/2 months and Humphrey for two months. Contrary to the impression given by Sen. Clinton, Kennedy was not a presumptive nominee stopped by an assassin. Humphrey enjoyed a decisive lead in delegates that Kennedy surely would have been unable to erase. As for 1992, Bill Clinton clinched the nomination in April -- not June, as his wife's claim implied.

Her recent performance has led loyal Democrats to talk to me about Clinton in the same terms that Republicans have used for 16 years, branding her as untruthful, deceitful and unscrupulous. This condemnation is not limited to Obama partisans. One seasoned Democratic operative, who voted for Clinton in his home state's primary but was not part of her campaign, said of her comments about Kennedy, "I think it was about as hideous as it gets."

The defection of famous Clinton supporters continues. The New York reformer Sarah Kovner, an ardent Clintonite and close associate of Clinton strategist Harold Ickes, turned up at an Obama rally. Investment banker (and former deputy Treasury secretary) Roger Altman, a charter "FOB" (Friend of Bill), is reported by Democratic sources to be advocating an end to the Clinton campaign despite the former president's vigorous protests.

But not all Clinton supporters have given up. Her labor backers from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the American Federation of Teachers and the International Association of Machinists continue the fight. On Monday, AFSCME President Gerald McIntee elicited booing of Obama at a Clinton rally in Ponce, Puerto Rico.

The noxious atmosphere contributes to counterintuitive results in a national Newsweek-Princeton poll last week. Despite plunging Republican support thanks to an unpopular war and president and a declining economy, the survey showed a tie -- 46 percent to 46 percent -- between Obama and John McCain.

Most startling was that 19 percent of Democrats said they would vote Republican. "Will 60,000 old white women in Ohio vote for McCain and make him president?" asks a prominent Democrat.

Many Democrats, not all of them Obama supporters, feel a need to end the contest for the nomination to reduce that 19 percent slice of apostates. But it won't happen Saturday, when Democratic National Committee members meet to determine whether to seat Michigan and Florida delegates. The Clinton camp this week rejected a contemplated compromise, promising more struggle rather than reconciliation. It looked like Hillary Agonistes, eyeless in Gaza.

Obama Says Clinton Focus on Florida Is Her `Last Slender Hope'

french support — Tue, 27 May 2008 07:13:47 EDT

Obama Says Clinton Focus on Florida Is Her `Last Slender Hope'

By Kim Chipman

May 25 (Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said his rival Hillary Clinton is trying to incite anger in Florida because it's her last hope to justify claims that she can still win her party's nomination.

``The Clinton campaign has been stirring this up for fairly transparent reasons,'' Obama, 46, told reporters on his campaign plane yesterday when asked about anger in Florida over not having votes in the state's Democratic primary count toward determining the party's nominee.

In Miami earlier this week, Clinton pressed the case for counting her victories both in Florida and Michigan. The two states were stripped of their delegates after holding primaries in January in violation of party rules. Clinton this week compared the situation to a recent post-election dispute in Zimbabwe that's threatening to provoke a military coup.

``This is, from their perspective, their last slender hope to make arguments about how they can win,'' said Illinois Senator Obama, referring to the Clinton campaign. ``I understand that.''

Obama dismissed suggestions that bitterness over the matter might unravel the likelihood of Democratic voters uniting behind a single presidential contender in November.

Once delegates are seated ``this is going to be a story nobody is thinking about in August,'' Obama said. The senator's campaign said yesterday he is 56 delegates short of the 2,026 needed to secure the nomination.

Rules Decision

Aides for New York Senator Clinton, 60, argue that no claim on the nomination can be made until the Democratic National Committee settles the dispute over Florida and Michigan. The DNC's rules committee is scheduled to meet May 31 to discuss how to handle the two delegations.

``I just want them to decide how to approach this in a way in which the Florida and Michigan delegates are seated and they are happy,'' Obama said yesterday. ``I want to be looking at them when I'm standing on stage in Denver in August,'' he said, referring to the Democratic National Convention.

Separately, Obama said he doesn't believe there were any sinister political motives behind Clinton's remark linking Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 assassination to the current election.

Clinton apologized yesterday after she made the comment, to justify her continuing campaign, during a meeting in South Dakota with the editorial board of the Sioux Falls Argus Leader newspaper. A video of the interview was posted on the publication's Web site.

``My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right?'' she said in response to a question about calls for her to end her campaign. ``We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand'' calls to drop out, she said.

`Unfortunate Remark'

Obama, when asked about the incident yesterday, said it was an ``unfortunate remark.'' He also said he empathizes with misstatements made while under the stress of campaigning.

``When you are on the campaign trail for 15 months you are going to make some mistakes,'' he said. ``I don't think that Senator Clinton intended anything by it and I think we should put it behind us.''

Obama ducked a question on whether he believed there was any way for Clinton to win the Democratic nomination at this stage.

``I think you should address that to her,'' he said. ``We are just going to finish up.''

The U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, where both Obama and Clinton campaigned yesterday, holds its primary on June 1. Montana and South Dakota hold the last two Democratic nominating contests on June 3.

``We've got three more contests,'' said Obama, who has already started campaigning in key general election battleground states such as Missouri. ``We've got to hit a certain number in order to achieve the nomination and that's what we are going to be shooting for over the next couple weeks.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Kim Chipman traveling with the Obama campaign at kchipman@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: May 25, 2008 00:02 EDT

Fow News Commentator critized for remarks newswoman jokingly wishes for assassination of Barack Obama

french support — Tue, 27 May 2008 05:16:45 EDT

Fox News Commentator Criticized for RemarksNewswoman jokingly wishes for assassination of Barack Obama Dominic Ambrose (Nicangelo) Email Article Print Article Published 2008-05-27 05:17 (KST) Liz Trotta, a commentator for the Fox News Channel in the United States has become the target of a firestorm of criticism for lumping together Osama Bin Laden and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in a comment on Sunday in which she talked about "knocking them off." "Well, both of them, if we could!"

The controversy comes just weeks before the 40th anniversary of the assassination of another presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy, in a hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Senator Hillary Clinton's reference to that assassination in an interview she gave last week caused her much trouble, since it was taken as an oblique reference to Barack Obama.

While discussing the Clinton controversy, Trotta went far beyond the New York senator's innuendo and into the grey area approaching actual incitement. In a chummy live discussion with another Fox News commentator, Trotta mixed up the names Osama and Obama in a facetious way that has become familiar on this right-of-center news channel and laughingly talked about her wish that "we" could knock them both off.

The clip was soon on the Huffington Post Web site, YouTube and dozens of other political blogs. A petition for the sacking of Trotta was soon up on Thepetitionsite, and easily flew past its goal of gathering 2,000 signatures. The Fox News Channel is one of the most important assets in Rupert Murdoch's media empire. A list of its corporate sponsors was soon on screens across the Internet, and included the sponsors' telephone numbers.

Fox News has tried to contain the damage, downplaying its significance while at the same time airing a stagey offhand apology by Trotta. First thing Monday morning, they trotted her back out again to engage in yet another analysis of Senator Clinton's earlier gaffe. At the very end of the discussion, she was asked about her own far more explicitly inflammatory faux pas. After giving a little show of surprise at being asked about it, she recited the following carefully worded apology:

"I am so sorry about what happened yesterday and the lame attempt at humor. I fell all over myself, making it appear that I wished Barack Obama harm, or any other candidate, for that matter, and I sincerely regret it and apologize to anybody I have offended. It is a very colorful political season, and many of us are making mistakes and saying things we wish we had not said."

However, with the ever-present eye of the Internet, it is impossible for her to erase the evidence. Her comment, which slipped out in an unguarded moment in the Sunday chat, has been slipping out repeatedly on screens around the world. It remains to be seen what the outcome will be. ©2008 OhmyNews

Hillary s’autodétruira dans 5, 4, 3,…

french support — Mon, 26 May 2008 06:37:51 EDT

Nathalie Collard

La Presse

Il faudra sans doute attendre l’autobiographie d’Hillary Clinton pour mieux comprendre les raisons profondes qui la motivent à s’accrocher comme elle le fait aujourd’hui.

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De l’extérieur, toutefois, son comportement ressemble beaucoup à une œuvre d’autodestruction.

La semaine dernière encore, plusieurs signes lui indiquaient poliment mais fermement la sortie. Ses conseillers allaient peut-être la convaincre de quitter la tête haute.

Mais non, la revoilà à la une des journaux. Non pas parce qu’elle remonte dans les sondages ou parce que les superdélégués ont annoncé qu’ils la choisissaient en bloc.

Non, si Hillary Clinton fait les manchettes ces jours-ci, c’est à cause de déclarations si troublantes qu’elles ne peuvent traduire qu’un désespoir profond, une déroute totale.

Il y a d’abord le cas de la Floride et du Michigan, ces deux États qui ont devancé la tenue de leurs primaires, ne laissant même pas aux candidats le temps de faire campagne. Le jour J, le nom d’Obama ne figurait même pas sur les bulletins de vote du Michigan. Le parti démocrate, en accord avec ses règlements internes, a donc choisi d’invalider les résultats.

Depuis, Hillary se bat inlassablement pour que le parti revienne sur sa décision, alléguant que ces résultats lui assurent un plus grand nombre de votes que son rival. Au cours des dernières semaines, elle en a fait une question de principe, allant jusqu‘à comparer sa lutte à celle contre l’esclavage aux États-Unis. Dans le même souffle, elle a osé faire un parallèle entre cette situation et la crise qui règne au Zimbabwe à la suite des dernières élections présidentielles!

C’est clair, Hillary Clinton ne pèse plus ses mots.

Ce sentiment de déroute ou de déconfiture monumentale s’est accentué la semaine dernière lorsque la candidate a expliqué son obstination à rester en selle, déclarant que tout n’était pas joué, que son mari avait remporté l’investiture seulement une fois la primaire de la Californie gagnée. Et d‘ajouter, pour mieux illustrer son propos, que Robert Kennedy avait été assassiné en juin, alors qu’il faisait campagne en Californie…

Les mots avaient à peine franchi ses lèvres que ses plus fervents adversaires interprétaient la déclaration de Mme Clinton comme un souhait à peine voilé de voir Obama disparaître. C’est ridicule, bien entendu. Sauf que l’exemple était vraiment mal choisi. À quelques jours de l’anniversaire de la mort de Robert Kennedy, alors qu’on apprend que son frère cadet est atteint d’un cancer, le timing ne pouvait être plus mauvais. Surtout, cette déclaration laisse l’impression désagréable d’un calcul, d’un cynisme sans nom. Or en politique, les impressions comptent pour beaucoup et peuvent s’incruster longtemps…

Cette fin de campagne chez les démocrates est pénible. Et tout indique que la déconfiture de Mme Clinton va se poursuivre sous nos yeux jusqu’au 3 juin, date à laquelle se tiendront les primaires du Montana et du Dakota-du-Sud. Ce qui laisse à l’ex-première dame encore deux semaines pour se mettre plusieurs fois les deux pieds dans les plats…

Hillary Clinton dit qu’elle persiste car elle veut montrer qu’elle est tenace, qu’elle se bat jusqu’au bout. Elle vit plutôt dans le déni. Son attitude n’est plus celle d’une battante mais plutôt d’une femme incapable de regarder la situation en face. Une femme qui est prête à monter au front alors que le bon sens et l’intérêt commun lui commandent de se retirer. Voilà un trait de personnalité qu’on ne souhaite surtout pas voir chez quelqu’un qui aspire à diriger une puissance mondiale comme les États-Unis.

HILLARY RAISES ASSASSINATION ISSUE

french support — Sat, 24 May 2008 02:27:41 EDT

HILLARY RAISES ASSASSINATION ISSUEDEFENDS LONG-RUNNING CAMPAIGNBy GEOFF EARLE Hill: We Remember When RFK Was AssassinatedClinton cites the Bobby Kennedy assassination while defending her long-running campaign.

May 23, 2008 --

Hillary Clinton today brought up the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy while defending her decision to stay in the race against Barack Obama.

"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it," she said, dismissing calls to drop out.

Obama's camp immediately fired back.

"Sen. Clinton's statement before the Argus Leader editorial board was unfortunate and has no place in this campaign," Obama campaign spokesman said in a statement.

Clinton made her comments at a meeting with the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader's editorial board while campaigning in South Dakota, where she complained that, "People have been trying to push me out of this ever since Iowa."

Obama, the first African-American to advance so far in the race for the White House, has faced threats, sources have said.

Robert Kennedy, the younger brother of President John F. Kennedy, was gunned down in 1968 after winning the California primary. He had been a hero on the left for his civil rights agenda and calls to end the war in Vietnam.

Barack Obama, who leads Clinton by nearly 200 delegates and has already secured a majority of pledged delegates, has been the subject of threats. Early in the campaign, the Secret Service gave him a security detail at the request of Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Illinois).

Clinton criticized an "urgency" to end the campaign prematurely, saying, "Historically, that makes no sense."

She later issued an apology for the remark.

"I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation and in particular the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. I certainly had no intention of that whatsoever," the former first lady said.

Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson defended the comments to The Post, "She was talking about the length of the race and using the '68 election as an example of how long the races in the past have gone -- she used her husband's race in the same vein."

I support Barack Obama for President because

french support — Thu, 22 May 2008 11:16:41 EDT

WHY OBAMA? I support Barack Obama for President because: • he is truly a man of the world, a son of three continents; he exemplifies “the brotherhood of man”; • his humble heritage lends hope to all; • his mixed race is testimony to America’s diversity; • he knows what it means to suffer racism but has risen above it; • he is a man of faith but does not boast that he does God’s work; • he respects the American constitution and has taught its principles; • he insists that we “transform mere power into justice”; • he builds consensus from conflicting viewpoints; • he has refused the support of those who attempt to buy legislation; • he is nevertheless an experienced legislator, with a record of accomplishment; • he writes with eloquence, speaking from the heart but to the mind; • he has already shown that he can be elected; He CAN BE ELECTEDPresident of the United States in 2008

John McCain, vainqueur du duel Obama-Clinton

french support — Thu, 22 May 2008 10:48:07 EDT

RebondsJohn McCain, vainqueur du duel Obama-Clinton Romain Huret maître de conférences à l’université Lyon-II, membre du Centre d’études nord-américaines (EHESS-CNRS). QUOTIDIEN : jeudi 22 mai 2008

Many Florida Jews Express doubts on Obama

french support — Thu, 22 May 2008 08:52:25 EDT

Many Florida Jews Express Doubts on Obama Eric Thayer for The New York Times

Shirley Weitz, right, talking to Ruth Grossman in Boynton Beach, Fla. The Jews she knows will not vote for Senator Barack Obama, Ms. Weitz said, because of “his attitude toward Israel.”

By JODI KANTORPublished: May 22, 2008

BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. — At the Aberdeen Golf and Country Club on Sunday, the fountains were burbling, the man-made lakes were shining, and Shirley Weitz and Ruth Grossman were debating why Jews in this gated neighborhood of airy retirement homes feel so much trepidation about Senator Barack Obama.

Skip to next paragraph RelatedConfronting Questions, Obama Assures Jews of His Support (May 13, 2008) Obama Walks a Difficult Path as He Courts Jewish Voters (March 1, 2008) Times Topics: Barack Obama BlogThe Caucus

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Joyce Rozen of Pompano Beach said she believed that the Obama campaign was deliberately keeping Michelle Obama out of sight — one of many false rumors floating around Florida.

“The people here, liberal people, will not vote for Obama because of his attitude towards Israel,” Ms. Weitz, 83, said, lingering over brunch.

“They’re going to vote for McCain,” she said.

Ms. Grossman, 80, agreed with her friend’s conclusion, but not her reasoning.

“They’ll pick on the minister thing, they’ll pick on the wife, but the major issue is color,” she said, quietly fingering a coffee cup. Ms. Grossman said she was thinking of voting for Mr. Obama, who is leading in the delegate count for the nomination, as was Ms. Weitz.

But Ms. Grossman does not tell the neighbors. “I keep my mouth shut,” she said.

On Thursday, Mr. Obama will court Jewish voters with an appearance at a synagogue in Boca Raton, Fla. A longtime Democratic constituency with a consistently high turnout rate, Jews are important to his general election hopes, particularly in New York, which he expects to win; in California and New Jersey, which he must keep out of Republican hands; and, most crucially, here in Florida, where Jews make up around 5 percent of voters.

This is the most haunted state on the electoral college map for Democrats, the one they lost by hundreds of votes and a Supreme Court decision in 2000, and again in 2004.

“The fate of the world for the next four years,” mused Rabbi Ruvi New as his Sunday morning Kabbalah & Coffee class dispersed in East Boca Raton.

“It’s all going to boil down to a few old Jews in Century Village,” he added, referring to a nearby retirement community.

Jews, of course, are just one of the many constituencies Mr. Obama must persuade: Latinos, women, working-class whites and independents are vital as well. Thanks in part to enthusiasm from younger Jews, he won 45 percent of the Jewish vote in the primaries (not counting the disputed ones in Florida and Michigan), a respectable showing against a New York senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

But in recent presidential elections, Jews have drifted somewhat to the right. Because Mr. Obama is relatively new on the national stage, his résumé of Senate votes in support of Israel is short, as is his list of high-profile visits to synagogues and delis. So far, his overtures to Jews have been limited; aside from a few speeches and interviews, he has left most of it to surrogates.

American Jews hold two competing views of Mr. Obama, said Rabbi David Saperstein of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington. First, there is Obama the scholar, the social justice advocate, the defender of Israel with a close feel for Jewish concerns garnered through decades of intimate friendships. In this version, Mr. Obama’s race is an asset, Rabbi Saperstein said.

The second version is defined by the controversy over his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., worries about Mr. Obama’s past associations and questions about his support for Israel and his patriotism.

“It’s too early to know how they will play out,” Rabbi Saperstein said.

Alan M. Dershowitz, a professor at Harvard Law School, said he had been deluged with questions from Jews about the race, especially about what to think of Mr. Obama. “I have gotten hundreds of e-mails asking me, ‘Who should we vote for?’ ” he said. Mr. Dershowitz, who supports Mrs. Clinton, says he tells voters that Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton and Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, are all pro-Israel and to reject false personal attacks on Mr. Obama.

Because of a dispute over moving the date of the state’s primary, Mr. Obama and the other Democratic candidates did not campaign in Florida. In his absence, novel and exotic rumors about Mr. Obama have flourished. Among many older Jews, and some younger ones, as well, he has become a conduit for Jewish anxiety about Israel, Iran, anti-Semitism and race.

Mr. Obama is Arab, Jack Stern’s friends told him in Aventura. (He’s not.)

He is a part of Chicago’s large Palestinian community, suspects Mindy Chotiner of Delray. (Wrong again.)

Mr. Wright is the godfather of Mr. Obama’s children, asserted Violet Darling in Boca Raton. (No, he’s not.)

Al Qaeda is backing him, said Helena Lefkowicz of Fort Lauderdale (Incorrect.)

Michelle Obama has proven so hostile and argumentative that the campaign is keeping her silent, said Joyce Rozen of Pompano Beach. (Mrs. Obama campaigns frequently, drawing crowds in her own right.)

Mr. Obama might fill his administration with followers of Louis Farrakhan, worried Sherry Ziegler. (Extremely unlikely, given his denunciation of Mr. Farrakhan.)

South Florida is “the most concentrated area in the country in terms of misinformation” about Mr. Obama, said Representative Robert Wexler, Democrat of Florida, the co-chairman of the Obama campaign in the state. His surrogates can put these fears to rest, Mr. Wexler said, by simply repeating the facts about Mr. Obama — his correct biography, his support for Israel, his positions on other important issues.

But the resistance toward Mr. Obama appears to be rooted in something more than factual misperception; even those with an accurate understanding of Mr. Obama share the hesitations. In dozens of interviews, South Florida Jews questioned his commitment to Israel — even some who knew he earns high marks from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which lobbies the United States government on behalf of Israel.

“You watch George Bush for a day, and you know where he stands,” said Rabbi Jonathan Berkun of the Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center.

Many here suspect Mr. Obama of being too cozy with Palestinians, while others accuse him of having Muslim ties, even though they know that his father was born Muslim and became an atheist, and that Mr. Obama embraced Christianity as a young man. In Judaism, religion is a fixed identity across generations

Un dirigeant de la campagne Mccain préfére démissionner que d"aller contre la canditature historique d'Obama!!!

french support — Thu, 22 May 2008 02:15:56 EDT

MondeLe match McCain-Obama a commencé PHILIPPE GRANGEREAU QUOTIDIEN : jeudi 22 mai 2008

Clinton Desperate to Count Votes, Compares Fla. Primary to Zimbabwe

french support — Wed, 21 May 2008 18:49:12 EDT

Clinton Desperate to Count Votes, Compares Fla. Primary to ZimbabwePosted by Fernando Suarez| 7

(CBS)From CBS News' Fernando Suarez:

SUNRISE, FLA. -- Desperate to get attention for her cause to seat Florida and Michigan delegates, Hillary Clinton compared the plight of Zimbabweans in their recent fraudulent election to the uncounted votes of Michigan and Florida voters saying it is wrong when “people go through the motions of an election only to have them discarded and disregarded.”

“We’re seeing that right now in Zimbabwe," Clinton explained. "Tragically, an election was held, the president lost, they refused to abide by the will of the people,” Clinton told the crowd of senior citizens at a retirement community in south Florida.

“So we can never take for granted our precious right to vote. It is the single most important, privilege and right any of us have, because in that ballot box we are all equal. You’re equal to a billionaire. You’re equal to the president, every single one of us.”

In just one day, Clinton has used a variety of arguments to convince her party to seat Florida and Michigan delegates, going as far as comparing the struggles of the voters in Florida and Michigan to those of abolitionists, suffragists, to the plight of Zimbabweans. Clinton even warned that if a resolution is not reached, Democrats in these two states would feel abandoned and likely jump ship to Republican John McCain.

“I think people across Florida and Michigan are thinking to themselves, ‘Well if the Democrats don’t want my vote, maybe John McCain and the Republicans do?’ We can’t let that happen,” she told the small crowd .

Clinton pointed out that unlike the Republicans, the Democrats have not been able to solve the Florida issue in a timely fashion saying, “We have allowed ours to go on.”

Clinton Wins Her Faithful in Ky., But Obama Gains Whites in Ore.

french support — Wed, 21 May 2008 04:01:06 EDT

By Jon Cohen and Jennifer AgiestaWashington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, May 21, 2008; Page A07

Kentucky's Democratic electorate proved tailor-made for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, as her most reliable voters turned out in large numbers, giving her a win of better than 2 to 1 over Sen. Barack Obama. But Obama scored a rare double-digit win among white voters in Oregon, capitalizing on that state's more liberal electorate.

In Kentucky, white women -- core Clinton supporters -- made up half of all Democratic primary voters, and whites without college degrees made up 59 percent. According to the network exit poll, Clinton beat Obama by overwhelming margins among both groups, and she carried those age 65 and older by 60 percentage points, her second-best showing among older voters in any of the primaries or caucuses so far.

Obama scored sporadic wins among these voters in previous contests, but in Oregon, a swing state in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, a telephone survey of voters in the mail-only Democratic primary showed him doing well among Clinton's base.

In Oregon, Obama scored his first victory among white voters since March 4, in Vermont. In both Oregon and Vermont, about six in 10 Democratic voters described themselves as liberal. By contrast, liberals made up fewer than four in 10 election-day voters in Kentucky. Clinton won white voters in Kentucky by 49 percentage points.

White women in Oregon split their votes evenly between the candidates, as did white voters without college degrees. Clinton beat Obama by 11 percentage points among all seniors in Oregon, but that was only half her average margin in all Democratic contests.

In Kentucky, Obama also lost white voters who are younger than 30 by 34 points, his second-worst showing among the group to date. Among white men, a pivotal voter group this year, Clinton won by 44 points in Kentucky, and Obama won by 31 points in Oregon, one of his best showings among that group. In Oregon, he won white men who called themselves liberal by more than 40 percentage points.

In Kentucky, Obama won by better than 9 to 1 among black voters, but they made up just 9 percent of the electorate. He also had a 14-point advantage among voters in large cities, but they were only an eighth of the electorate. Nearly six in 10 Kentucky voters live in rural areas or small cities, and they went for Clinton by a wide margin, 77 to 19 percent. (Rural white voters were about three times more apt than those in cities to say that race was an important factor in their decision.)

Clinton's big win in Kentucky in many ways mirrored her 41-point victory in West Virginia one week ago, as significant numbers of Democrats in both states appear resistant to having Obama atop the party's ticket in the general election.

Only about four in 10 Kentucky voters said they would be satisfied with Obama as the Democratic nominee, nearly matching a primary season low that was set in West Virginia. Among Clinton backers in the Bluegrass State, 21 percent said they would be happy with Obama as the party's candidate. And in a hypothetical matchup against Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, only half of all Kentucky Democratic voters said they would vote for Obama (it is 33 percent among those voting for Clinton in the state's primary).

And as he did in West Virginia, Obama faced an honesty and a values gap vis-¿-vis Clinton in Kentucky. Fewer than half of the state's voters said the senator from Illinois is honest and trustworthy, and a similarly low percentage said he shares their values.

There also appears to be little enthusiasm among Kentucky voters for a combined Democratic ticket in the fall: About four in 10 of each candidate's supporters said their top choice should tap the other for vice president.

In Oregon, however, majorities of Democratic voters said they would be satisfied with either Democrat's leading the party into the fall election, and more than eight in 10 picked either in match-ups with McCain. And nearly two-thirds of Oregon voters said they would prefer the election to continue, even if their top choice does not win; 28 percent want it to end as soon as possible.

In both Oregon and Kentucky, the economy topped the list of issues important to voters, as it has in nearly all previous contests. In Kentucky, 67 percent of voters called the nation's economy the country's most pressing problem; only in Indiana has it been that high. Nearly six in 10 Kentucky Democrats said a proposed suspension of the federal gasoline tax is a good idea; nearly two-thirds in Oregon said it is a bad one.

In Oregon, a majority said both candidates would be good on the environment.

Change was again the top candidate quality that voters in both states were looking for, and Obama won these voters by a huge margin in Oregon. But he won "change voters" by 10 points in Kentucky, a narrower advantage than he has had in most other contests.

The polls were conducted by Edison-Mitofsky for the National Election Pool, and included 1,407 interviews with Democratic voters as they exited polling places in Kentucky, and 1,201 telephone interviews with voters in Oregon, where all votes are cast by mail. Results have an error margin of plus or minus four percentage points in Kentucky, and it is three points in Oregon.

Mom forced to live in car with dogs..It's a part of America today!!

french support — Wed, 21 May 2008 01:49:40 EDT

May 20, 2008 -- Updated 2032 GMT (0432 HKT)

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Mom forced to live in car with dogs

Story Highlights
Mother of three grown children says, "This is my life in this car right now"
Santa Barbara, California, allows homeless to sleep in cars in 12 parking lots
Affluent city has seen a rise in homelessness during California's housing crisis
Advocate: "It's just amazing the people that are becoming homeless"
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By Thelma Gutierrez and Wayne Drash
CNN

SANTA BARBARA, California (CNN) -- Barbara Harvey climbs into the back of her small Honda sport utility vehicle and snuggles with her two golden retrievers, her head nestled on a pillow propped against the driver's seat.

Californian Barbara Harvey says she is forced to sleep in her car with her dogs after losing her job earlier this year.

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A former loan processor, the 67-year-old mother of three grown children said she never thought she'd spend her golden years sleeping in her car in a parking lot.

"This is my bed, my dogs," she said. "This is my life in this car right now."

Harvey was forced into homelessness this year after being laid off. She said that three-quarters of her income went to paying rent in Santa Barbara, where the median house in the scenic oceanfront city costs more than $1 million. She lost her condo two months ago and had little savings as backup.

"It went to hell in a handbasket," she said. "I didn't think this would happen to me. It's just something that I don't think that people think is going to happen to them, is what it amounts to. It happens very quickly, too."

Harvey now works part time for $8 an hour, and she draws Social Security to help make ends meet. But she still cannot afford an apartment, and so every night she pulls into a gated parking lot to sleep in her car, along with other women who find themselves in a similar predicament. Watch women who live in their cars »

There are 12 parking lots across Santa Barbara that have been set up to accommodate the growing middle-class homelessness. These lots are believed to be part of the first program of its kind in the United States, according to organizers.

The lots open at 7 p.m. and close at 7 a.m. and are run by New Beginnings Counseling Center, a homeless outreach organization.

It is illegal for people in California to sleep in their cars on streets. New Beginnings worked with the city to allow the parking lots as a safe place for the homeless to sleep in their vehicles without being harassed by people on the streets or ticketed by police.

Harvey stays at the city's only parking lot for women. "This is very safe, and that's why I feel very comfortable," she said.

Nancy Kapp, the New Beginnings parking lot coordinator, said the group began seeing a need for the lots in recent months as California's foreclosure crisis hit the city hard. She said a growing number of senior citizens, women and lower- and middle-class families live on the streets. See how foreclosure filings are up 75 percent »

"You look around today, and there are so many," said Kapp, who was homeless with her young daughter two decades ago. "I see women sleeping on benches. It's heartbreaking."

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She added, "The way the economy is going, it's just amazing the people that are becoming homeless. It's hit the middle class."

She and others with New Beginnings walk the streets looking for people and families sleeping in their cars. The workers inform them about the parking lot program.

New Beginnings screens people to make sure they won't cause trouble. No alcohol or drugs are allowed in the parking lots.

"What we are trying to do is we pull bad apples out, and we put good apples in the parking lots and really help people out," said Shaw Tolley, another coordinator with New Beginnings.

Most of the time, the lots are transition points. New Beginnings works with each person to try to find a more permanent housing solution.

"It saddens me when they live in their vehicles," Tolley said. "It is not the most ideal situation for senior citizens and families, but it is reality."

He added, "We need to engage this problem. This is reality."

John Quigley, an economics professor at the University of California-Berkeley, said the California housing crisis has left many middle-class families temporarily homeless or forced them to go to food banks to feed their families.

"Part of the reason why it's so painful in Santa Barbara is, there's so little in the way of alternative housing," Quigley said. "If there were alternative low and moderate housing and rental accommodations that were reasonably close by, you can imagine it wouldn't have this desperate look to it as people living in their cars."

At the only lot for women in Santa Barbara, it's a tough existence. There are no showers or running water. On the night CNN visited, a half-dozen women were in the parking lot before nightfall.

Linn Labou, 54, lives in her car with four cats. She used to be in the National Guard and is on a waiting list for government housing, but the wait is a year long.

"I went looking for family, but I couldn't get them to help me," she said.

As for Harvey, she begins each day by walking her two dogs before going to her part-time job. She leaves the dogs in her car with its windows cracked while she works.

It's another chapter in her life that she's certain she'll get through. Her 19-year-old daughter moved in with friends to avoid being homeless. Her other children live overseas, and she didn't want to tell them about her living status.

Even if her children offered to help, she said, she wouldn't accept it. "They know me well enough to know that I will get through this."

"My daughter especially is very unhappy. Sometimes she'll cry, and she'll call and say, 'Mom, I just can't stand it that you are living in a car,' " Harvey said. "I'll say, 'You know what? This is OK for right now, because I'm safe, I'm healthy, the dogs are doing OK, and I have a job, and things will get better.' "

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CNN's Gregg Canes and Traci Tamura contributed to this report.

Barack Obama annonce qu'il a obtenu la majorité des délégués élus dans les primaires

french support — Wed, 21 May 2008 01:23:57 EDT

Barack Obama annonce qu'il a obtenu la majorité des délégués élus dans les primairesLEMONDE.FR avec AFP et AP | 21.05.08 | 05h07 • Mis à jour le 21.05.08 | 07h08A 9 heures par e-mail, recevez les titres du journal à paraître l'après-midi.
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"Les bureaux de vote ont fermé dans le Kentucky et le dépouillement est en cours dans l'Oregon, et il est clair que ce soir nous avons franchi une étape majeure", a écrit mardi M. Obama dans un courriel à ses partisans. Le sénateur de l'Illinois a ainsi revendiqué la majorité absolue des délégués du parti démocrate élus lors des primaires l'opposant à Hillary Clinton, "étape majeure", selon lui, dans sa course à l'investiture démocrate. "Nous avons conquis la majorité absolue de tous les délégués choisis par les électeurs dans ce processus des primaires démocrates", a-t-il ajouté.

La campagne américaine en un coup d'œil, avec une sélection des meilleurs blogs à Washington, New York ou Toronto.

Richard Hétu Les élections américaines
Jérôme Bernard Ici Washington
Marc Albert En Amérique
Corine Lesnes Big Picture
Damien Leloup @meric@

[-] fermer

"Vous nous avez placés à portée de main de l'investiture démocrate pour la présidence des Etats-Unis", a lancé quelques minutes plus tard M. Obama devant des milliers de partisans rassemblés dans l'Iowa (nord), le site de sa première victoire électorale le 3 janvier. A cette annonce, des milliers de partisans en liesse rassemblés en plein air ont longuement scandé "Obama 08".

"NOUS NOUS BATTRONS POUR TOUS LES DÉLÉGUÉS POSSIBLES"

Selon les chaînes CNN, Fox et NBC, le sénateur de l'Illinois a remporté mardi la primaire démocrate dans l'Oregon (nord-ouest). Peu avant, les médias américains, sur la base de projections, avaient donné Hillary Clinton gagnante dans le Kentucky (centre-est) avec 65 % des voix contre 30 % à son adversaire. Elle remporte 33 délégués contre 10 pour Barack Obama.

M. Obama devrait, au terme de ces primaires capitaliser largement plus de la moitié (1 627) des 3 253 délégués en jeu dans les primaires. Il comptait déjà avant ces scrutins 1 898 de ces délégués, selon l'agence Associated Press. Toutefois il faut avoir gagné le soutien d'au moins 2 025 délégués du parti démocrate au total pour s'assurer de l'investiture, en gagnant aussi le soutien de "super-délégués", des cadres et élus du parti libres d'endosser le candidat de leur choix. 213 superdélégués n'ont pas encore fait leur choix.

C'est pourquoi il n'a pas officiellement revendiqué la victoire finale. "Nous devons encore travailler dans les Etats [où des primaires doivent encore être organisées], où nous nous battrons pour tous les délégués possibles", a souligné M. Obama dans son courriel. Dans son discours de victoire en Iowa, entouré de sa femme Michelle et de ses filles Malia et Sasha, radieuses, M. Obama s'est appliqué à rendre un hommage appuyé à Mme Clinton, ses "35 ans au service du public", son "courage" et sa "persévérance".

Il a également donné le ton de son affrontement attendu contre le républicain John McCain pour la présidentielle de novembre, "la bataille la plus dure et la plus importante". M. Obama a présenté la campagne qui s'amorce comme l'opposition entre "toujours la même chose contre le changement, le passé contre l'avenir" - et encore la fidélité aux politiques du très impopulaire George W. Bush, contre la promesse du "changement" et du "rassemblement". "Le camp adverse sait qu'ils ont embrassé les politiques d'hier, et donc ils vont aussi embrasser les tactiques d'hier (...) jouer sur nos peurs et nos doutes et nos divisions, pour nous détourner de ce qui compte, pour vous et votre avenir", a encore prévenu M. Obama, visiblement préparé à un affrontement très pugnace.

2 210 DÉLÉGUÉS, CE "CHIFFRE MAGIQUE"

De son côté Hillary Clinton ne s'avoue pas vaincue. Devant ses partisans à Louisville (Kentucky), elle a remercié ses électeurs pour leur "impressionnant vote de confiance" tout en reconnaissant que le combat qu'elle mène face à M. Obama sera difficile. "Ni le sénateur Obama ou moi n'avons les 2 210 délégués nécessaires pour obtenir la nomination", a-t-elle dit. Ce chiffre de 2 210 tient compte des primaires de Floride et du Michigan, organisées en janvier mais non reconnues par la direction du parti en raison d'un différend sur leur date d'organisation.

Selon Mme Clinton, ni elle, ni M. Obama n'atteindront ce "chiffre magique" à la fin du cycle des primaires le 3 juin et ce sont les "super délégués" qui devront faire un "choix difficile" pour déterminer "qui est prêt à être le candidat, qui est prêt à battre McCain dans les Etats-clefs".

Cliton is posturing for 2012

french support — Tue, 20 May 2008 17:19:41 EDT

Clinton is Posturing for 2012 By Stonecipher - Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 at 7:25 AM Send to Friend | Report Abuse | RSS Feed Friend's Email(s)*
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This will most likely be my last anti-Hillary Clinton post.

As I wrote earlier this month, Obama will clinch a pledged delegate victory tonight in Oregon which will render Sen. Clinton even more irrelevant than she has been for the past two weeks. When we wake up on Wednesday morning, as Obama supporters, there will no longer be a need to worry about Hillary Clinton. The focus will be squarely on John McCain and the Republican Party.

By now we all know the magic number of delegates required to win the Democratic Nomination is 2,025, but with 798 superdelegates factored into that number, the magic number of pledged delegates is 1,627. Obama enters tonight's contests in Oregon and Kentucky with 1,610.5 pledged or elected delegates.

With 103 pledged delegates at stake tonight Clinton would need to win 83% of them in order to put off the inevitable until the 1st of June in Puerto Rico. Given Oregon's vote-by-mail system, chances are there have already been enough ballots cast to give Obama the 17 remaining elected delegates he needs to clinch.

After Oregon, Clinton's only possible path to the nomination will have to include either the unelected superdelegates overruling the will of the elected delegates or Clinton somehow managing to get the Democratic Party to suddenly change the method for keeping score after the game has already been played.

There is no chance The Democrats will allow either of those scenarios to play out. It would destroy The Party and squander a golden opportunity to take control of both Congress and the Presidency.

The question then, is what is Hillary Clinton still doing in this race? Why is she desperately hanging on and frantically attempting to move the goal posts to any position which may help her? Why is she even going as far as to invoke the name and logic of the man known as Bush's Brain, Karl Rove? What is she up to?

The answer to all of these questions is a number; 2012.

While the Clinton's may be smart enough to understand that 2008 is out of reach they also happen to be stubborn enough to not give up on their ultimate goal of getting back into the White House.

A desire to achieve her loftiest goal is not a bad thing in itself, but the problem is that the Clinton's ambitions to return to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. place them in an awkward position within their own political party.

The fear of many Clinton supporters is that eight years from now, in 2016, Clinton will be too old to run for President. Not only would the then 69-year-old Clinton continue to face the challenges of being a female candidate for president, but she would also face the same age related criticism now being dished out to 72-year-old John McCain.

Many in the Clinton camp feel that the Senator's window of opportunity will not extend all the way into 2016. But they believe that window might be open in 2012 and that's what makes her ambitions awkward.

With Sen. Obama as the nominee of the Democratic Party in 2008, the only way Clinton can win the Presidency in 2012 is either to run against her own party's incumbent president or to root for McCain to win this year. Either way, she needs damage to be inflicted on the Democratic Party in order to achieve her ultimate goal.

While Clinton claims she wants to see a Democrat win the Presidency in November, regardless of who the nominee is, her actions do not match her words.

Sen. Clinton has adopted a scorched earth policy in this campaign which has shown little regard for the health or well-being of The Party or her opponent. That being said, she has toned down her anti-Obama rhetoric a notch or two, not because it is the right thing to do, but because her and her staff are intelligent enough to understand that running a tough campaign against Obama at this point puts her rapidly declining credibility at even greater risk.

This leaves Clinton in a tough spot. She wants Barack Obama to lose the General Election against McCain this year, but she doesn't want anyone to know that she wants that.

So instead of directly attacking Obama, she takes a more subtle approach to damaging Sen. Obama as he heads into the fall with the Democratic Nomination under his belt.

In the past day or two Clinton's surrogates have been clawing for any tiny piece of air time they can still get their hands on. They are using that time to make a desperate plea to the superdelegates to recognize Karl Rove's analysis of the situation that she is the stronger candidate to win in November than Barack Obama is.

The beauty of this is that it works on two levels for her. First, it plants those treasured seeds of doubt that any salesman trying to take a sale away from his opponent cherishes. Second, if all of Clinton's attacks do in fact end up doing considerable damage to the Obama campaign, Democrats will begin second guessing themselves. Many of them will start to think "Hmm...maybe we should have given Hillary a chance after all."

That thought is what gives Clinton a ticket to the 2012 nomination, or at least so she thinks.

Before she gets to 2012 however, there is still more fighting to be done here in 2008. Once again, Clinton can't be seen as the one perpetuating any anti-Obama sentiment, so the timing is perfect to send out the wacky Geraldine Ferraro to play the gender card against Obama.

Ferraro and the lunatic fringe of Team Clinton are claiming that Obama is sexist. But please, someone explain this to me. At what point in this campaign has Barack Obama acted in any manner that could be interpreted as sexist?

As Hillary Clinton knows all too well, the answer to this question is irrelevant. All that matters is that the current reality is manufactured in a way which benefits her. And right now that means a re-branding of Hillary Clinton as an underdog and a fighter.

She has taken many steps in this direction already and some have pointed to Clinton's ability to morph into whatever the politics of the moment want her to be and called it a strength. But really it is just one more indication that Clinton is stuck in the politics of yesterday.

All of these subtle attacks on Obama would not be as effectively pulled off if Sen. Clinton had to launch them from the sidelines. A continued campaign provides her with just enough of a veil to cover up her true intentions while at the same time giving her the reputation as being the little engine that could.

The problem is Hillary Clinton's window is not going to be open until 2012. In fact it has already closed and it is time for the Clintons to come to grips with the fact that as much as they wanted to move back into the White House it isn't going to happen.

The window was still open in early 2008, but the latch keeping it open had already been undone. The greatest mistake of Hillary Rodham Clinton's political career was not running in 2004. She would have had to break a campaign promise not to run in order to do so, but that's exactly what her husband did when he first ran in 1992.

In 2004 Hillary Clinton's window was wide open and for the past half decade I have wondered why she never jumped through it. She would have been a far better candidate than John Kerry and if she had run back then we probably wouldn't have even had a Democratic primary in 2004. Instead Clinton/Edwards would be gearing up to take on John McCain in a battle for their second term.

So even though we had to deal with the cloud of George W. Bush for four more years, the silver lining we got out of the deal, Barack Obama, almost makes up for it.

On that note, happy poll watching tonight. My prediction for Kentucky is that Clinton wins by 20% - 27%. Obama will win Oregon between 12% and 14%. Stay tuned. I'll be hanging out in the forums section again tonight, please feel free to drop by and say hello.

Read Stonecipher’s Last Article: Hunter S. Thompson On O

Obama: 'Be nice' to Clinton backers

french support — Sun, 18 May 2008 12:29:28 EDT

Obama: 'Be nice' to Clinton backers Posted May 18, 2008 11:23 AM

by Jim Tankersley

PORTLAND, Ore. - Barack Obama had some fightin' words for Republicans George W. Bush and John McCain at a late fundraiser here last night - and some kind ones for fans of his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

At the University Club of Portland, where he raised an estimated $350,000, Obama he raised his recent back-and-forth with Bush and McCain over foreign policy and Bush's "appeasement" comments in Israel. "They though they had a good thing going," he said, referring to what he has called their attacks on his foreign policy approach, per a pool report from Matthew Mosk of the Washington Post. "Now they're, sort of, trying to figure out what happened. I mean, we went right back at 'em. And we'll keep going right back at 'em."

Obama predicted a victory in Oregon, and said he believed the resulting delegate haul would "put us over the top," adding: "We will be able to say we have won a majority. But we have a lot of work to do ahead of us."

He said to win in November would require a unified Democratic Party, adding: "That means all of you have to be nice to Clinton supporters."

Here are full details from the fundraiser:

About 300 guests gathered in a large, wood-paneled club room, with open bar, a few cookies and pastries, and small silver bowls of pretzels. The front of the room, near the riser, was jammed elbow to elbow. In the back, several small children scampered around. While guests mingled upstairs, Obama spent about 30 minutes downstairs posing for photographs at a private reception. Price list is as follows:

Event Chairs: Raise $10,000

Host Committee: Raise $5,000

Private Reception: $2,300 per person

General Reception: $1,000 per person

Rough estimate is that the event brought in about $350,000.

Michelle Obama introduced her husband, expressing surprise at the position 15 months of campaigning has now put them in. "So here we are," she said. "Probably not where we were supposed to be, ever. No one put their money on Barack Obama."

At which point, a woman in the crowd shouted, "I did!"

"And look what you've done," Michelle Obama smiled.

Sen. Obama was warmly received, and appeared at ease as he spoke from a lecturn. He singled out for greetings former Oregon Gov. Barbara K. Roberts, the state's first woman governor, who served from 1991 to 1995, Hall of Fame basketball coach and player Leonard Randolph "Lenny" Wilkens, Air Force Gen. Tony McPeak, and the state's treasurer and secretary of state.

After touching on the main points of his stump speech, he raised the scrape over appeasement with President Bush and McCain. "They though they had a good thing going," he said, referring to what he has called their attacks on his foreign policy approach. "Now they're, sort of, trying to figure out what happened. I mean, we went right back at 'em. And we'll keep going right back at 'em."

Obama predicted a victory in Oregon, and said he believed the resulting delegate haul would "put us over the top."

"We will be able to say we have won a majority," he said. "But we have a lot of work to do ahead of us."

He said to win in November would require a unified Democratic Party, adding: "That means all of you have to be nice to Clinton supporters."

Not everyone in attendance was firmly sold on Obama. Christine Cha, 41, a radiation oncologist at the Oregon Clinic, said her husband was solidly with Obama, but she continued to relate to Clinton. She said she appreciates "how hard it is for a woman to try and break the ultimate glass ceiling." She didn't mind the tough primary, saying "I think the process is very important. It's good she's giving him a real run for it so he is tested now."

On the other hand, there were many who said they had fallen for the senator, including Jeff and Annie Strain, both in their late 30s, who drove more than three hours from Seattle to attend the event.

And there was Julia Brim-Edwards, 46, who became a Republican in 1979 and worked on Capitol Hill for Republicans including former Sen. Bob Packwood of Oregon. She ran her husband's campaign for state treasurer (he's Randall Edwards, a Democrat), and said he won the primary by only a few hundred votes. She had not changed parties to help him. But in April, she says she switched parties for Obama. "He will fundamentally change the country," she said. "He's very unique."

As Clinton chances wane, old slights come due

french support — Sun, 18 May 2008 05:41:52 EDT

As Clinton chances wane, old slights come dueSome prominent Democrats recall past grievances Email|Print|Single Page| Text size – + By Susan Milligan Globe Staff / May 18, 2008

WASHINGTON - When Democratic superdelegate Jim Cooper, a Tennessee congressman, pondered the choice between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, his thoughts wandered back to 1993. That year, Clinton was trying to change the nation's health system, and Cooper, a moderate Democrat, had a bipartisan healthcare bill of his own that, unlike Clinton's proposal, did not require employers to provide health coverage.

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Obama picks up delegates in Kan., Md., Nev.

french support — Sat, 17 May 2008 18:19:00 EDT

Obama picks up delegates in Kan., Md., Nev.

52 minutes ago

WASHINGTON — Sen. Barack Obama inched closer to securing the Democratic presidential nomination with delegate pickups in Nevada, Kansas and Maryland.

In Nevada, Obama stole a delegate from rival Hillary Rodham Clinton by drawing more supporters at the state Democratic convention Saturday.

A vote of more than 2,500 convention delegates broke 55-45 percent in Obama's favor, giving Obama 14 of Nevada's 25 pledged delegates to the National Democratic Convention in Denver this summer to Clinton's 11.

The shift is a gain of one pledged delegate for Obama over the split calculated after the state's January caucuses.

Although Clinton won the support of 51 percent of the caucus-goers in January, under the complicated system of awarding delegates Obama was put on track to winning 13 delegates to Clinton's 12.

Nevada Democrats were also scheduled to select an additional unpledged, or "add-on," delegate later in the day.

In an attempt to draw supporters, the Clinton campaign sent the New York senator's most popular surrogate to speak on her behalf, former President Clinton.

Faced with a vocal crowd of Obama backers, Bill Clinton all but abandoned typical campaign rhetoric. He mentioned his wife's candidacy only briefly, and instead focused his comments on a call for party unity against the Republicans in November.

"Don't you forget why you came here. You did not go to all this trouble to have an argument with each other," Clinton said. "The argument is necessary so we can pick the best president and the most electable one. Those are the only two things that matter ... After that, we have to get the show on the road, folks. We have a country to change and a future to secure."

Kansas Democrats also held their state convention Saturday, selecting Lt. Gov. Mark Parkinson as an add-on delegate. He endorsed Obama in February.

Obama also won the endorsement of a Maryland superdelegate Saturday. Superdelegates are the elected officials and party leaders who are automatic delegates to the national convention due to their positions.

Greg Pecoraro, a city council member in Westminster, Md., praised Clinton, but called Obama "the right leader for our time."

"I strongly believe that Senator Obama offers us the best opportunity we have had for many years to turn away from the politics of division and despair, and look toward an America of opportunity and progress," Pecoraro said in a statement released by the Obama campaign.

The pickup brings Obama's delegate total to 1,907 to Clinton's 1,718. The number needed to secure the nomination is 2,026.

Clinton’s Criticism of Obama Nearly Vanishes Overnight

french support — Sat, 17 May 2008 14:38:23 EDT

Clinton’s Criticism of Obama Nearly Vanishes OvernightPosted by Ryan Corsaro| 4

(CBS)

From CBS News’ Ryan Corsaro:

PORTLAND, ORE. -- Hillary Clinton had the stage all to herself. With an hour of local television time, just four days before the Oregon primary, she stood next to a chair that was borrowed last minute from the bar across the street.

She was introduced by a local television anchor, who added that only Clinton, and not Barack Obama, had accepted the invitation to participate in a town hall meeting. But it was the only time in the entire hour that his name would be mentioned.

It appears that Clinton, after a week when former candidate John Edwards gave his support to Obama and his superdelegate count passed hers for the first time, has backed down from attacking her rival for the nomination.

Not only that, but Clinton has shifted her focus in the past 24 hours to crediting Obama. It appeared yesterday that she stood by Obama when it was perceived that he was the brunt of President Bush’s remarks to Knesset, Israel’s parliament, where Bush compared an engagement of talks with Iran’s leader as being analogous to Nazi appeasement.

Tonight, the only reference Clinton made before the Portland audience to Obama was complimentary – pointing to how he voted for measures that lessened the strain from high fuel prices on consumers. “There were two state of examples of this in the last seven or eight years, both Illinois and Indiana -- in fact, my opponent voted for it when he was in the Illinois state senate – had a gas tax holiday, and consumers got the benefits of it,” she said.

Clinton also released three ads today – two in Kentucky and one in Oregon – that did not mention anything about Obama.

In the town hall, she shifted her attacks back to the Republican opponent. “Senator McCain is a good person. He has a great record of service. But his ideas about what are best for America are just wrong and we saw that again yesterday,” Clinton said. “His proposed victory by 2013 in Iraq was not based on any realistic assessment or based on any new strategy. It was an assertion. It sounded a lot like ‘Mission Accomplished’ only postponed into 2013. And so from my perspective, it’s just more of the same. It’s a continuation of the Bush policies which have been failures.”

Linking McCain to President Bush, a large part of what Democrats believe they must do to win in November, appeared to fall in line with the conversation that Democrats who want Clinton to bow out want now, rather than a continuation of the supposed “kitchen sink” strategy Clinton’s campaign had against Obama in the past month.

Her only other reference to Obama during the night was that of neutrality – claiming that while he led in delegates, she led in the popular vote (which is contestable) and won states with more electoral votes than Obama. They both won some, lost some.

There was a silence on the telephone line as well, with Clinton’s campaign holding no conference calls with the press – a main source of the trench warfare between Obama and Clinton’s camps in recent weeks. What could be seen as too negative to be said by Clinton herself in public was told to the press by her communications team – Howard Wolfson, Phil Singer, and Geoff Garin – all of whom remained strangely quiet.

In the final moments of the town hall meeting, Clinton was asked what her highs and lows had been in the last year of campaigning. Hillary told the audience that the high had been campaigning alongside her daughter, Chelsea.

The low – “sleep deprivation.”

But it also appears that when it comes to Obama, the Clinton campaign might have reached that low for one of the last times. Looking forward to catching up on their rest and exhausted by the campaign, Clinton might finally be starting to save strength for defending her Democratic Party.

Obama Girl takes on Hillary ! funny and great!

french support — Fri, 16 May 2008 14:18:06 EDT

Time for your coffee break: http://www.youtube.com/v/axxooGIgOKs&hl=en

Obama beats McCain

french support — Fri, 16 May 2008 08:52:38 EDT

Community Blogs Welcome, Christophe.
Manage | Logout | Search Blogs Post from christophe chaumont's Blog: Obama beats McCainBy french support - May 16th, 2008 at 4:10 am EDT Also listed in: 10 groups Comments | Mail to a Friend | Report Objectionable Content Obama Beats McCain

By Stonecipher - Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 at 1:03 PM

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We all knew this was coming. Clinton was expected to beat Obama in West Virginia by as many as 40-points and she did. She won by 41-points to be exact and to give credit where it is due.

But as a post this morning on the Daily Kos argues, it's a little too late for momentum and symbolism. This race is over.

Once again, we all know that, but since we'll be subject to headlines like "Maybe Obama Should Worry" for the next few days. And since we all personally know some of those delusional Clinton supporters who still think this thing is up for grabs it is worth noting that despite a landslide victory for Clinton last night Obama had a victory of his own.

There's no need to hash out Obama's four 40%-plus victories here, we all get it. Instead, what was interesting about last night was that Obama scored his first victory against the Republican John McCain.

And it wasn't in West Virginia. It was in Mississippi of all places.

Democrat Travis Childers defeated Republican Mayor Greg Davis 54% - 46% in a runoff special election for Congress in Mississippi's 1st Congressional District.

The seat was vacated when Trent Lott resigned and Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour appointed Republican Congressman Roger Wicker to the seat. Childers defeated Davis in the initial election but failed to obtain the requisite 50% of the vote in order to avoid a runoff election.

So with the field narrowed down to two candidates Childers and Davis squared off again and Childers came through with an 8-point victory.

What does this have to do with Obama? As it turns out, quite a bit.

The Davis campaign and the Republican Party fought tooth and nail for this election. It was in a heavily Republican Congressional District and the goal was to paint Childers as a raging liberal. Dick Cheney even showed up in Mississippi to help out and Davis latched himself to Bush III.

Davis's ads attacked Childers as being close to Obama and cut from the same cloth. While Clinton was never mentioned in these ads, Davis and the NRCC made every effort to paint Childers as an Obama Liberal, a case that should have been a slam dunk in a heavily Republican district like MS-01.

What this shows is that Obama's coattails are not a liability. Instead the Obama coattails are strong and the superdelegates will take notice. They will notice the groundswell of youth voters and new voters that the Obama Campaign have registered across the country who are obviously putting their new found power to good use helping to elect Democrats other than Obama.

The past week or so we have seen Clinton's arguments fall apart one by one. Yesterday in Mississippi voters proved that Obama is not only electable, but he is capable of bringing brand new seats to Congress for Democrats across the country.

There are many places throughout this country that an anti-Clinton campaign will work. That has been proved over and over again. But, if an anti-Obama campaign didn't work in MS-01 where in this country can it work?

Read Stonecipher’s Last Article: More Electoral Delu

Florida, Michigan cannot save Clinton

french support — Fri, 16 May 2008 06:23:50 EDT

Florida, Michigan cannot save Clinton

By NEDRA PICKLER – 1 hour ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sorry, Sen. Clinton. Michigan and Florida can't save your campaign.

Interviews with those considering how to handle the two states' banished convention delegates found little interest in the former first lady's best-case scenario. Her position, part of a formidable comeback challenge, is that all the delegates be seated in accordance with their disputed primaries.

And even if they were, it wouldn't erase Barack Obama's growing lead in delegates over Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The Democratic Party's Rules and Bylaws Committee, a 30-member panel charged with interpreting and enforcing party rules, is scheduled to meet May 31 to consider how to handle Michigan and Florida's 366 delegates.

Last year, the panel imposed the harshest punishment it could render against the two states after they scheduled primaries in January, even though they were instructed not to vote until Feb. 5 or later. Michigan and Florida lost all their delegates to the national convention, and all the Democratic candidates agreed not to campaign in the two states, stripping them of all the influence they were trying to build by voting early.

But now there is agreement on all sides that at least some of the delegates should be restored in a gesture of party unity and respect to voters in two general election battlegrounds.

Clinton has been arguing for full reinstatement, which would boost her standing. She won both states, even though they didn't count toward the nomination and neither candidate campaigned in them. Obama even had his name pulled from Michigan's ballot.

The Associated Press interviewed a third of the panel members and several other Democrats involved in the negotiations and found widespread agreement that the states must be punished for stepping out of line. If not, many members say, other states will do the same thing in four years.

"We certainly want to be fair to both candidates, and we want to be sure that we are fair to the 48 states who abided by the rules," said Democratic National Committee Secretary Alice Germond, a panel member unaligned with either candidate. "We don't want absolute chaos for 2012.

"We want to reach out to Michigan and Florida and seat some group of delegates in some manner, at least most of us do. These are two critical states for the general (election) and the voters of those states who were not the people who caused this awful conundrum to occur deserve our attention and deserve to be a part of our process and deserve to be at the convention," she said.

Just as Democrats across the country have been divided over which candidate would make the better nominee, most of the panel members also bring personal preferences and political allegiances to the table.

Many are long-standing party officials with close ties to the Clintons. The former first lady has 13 members publicly supporting her, including campaign advisers Harold Ickes and Tina Flournoy who are working to build her delegate count. Eight are openly aligned with Obama. Nine others are officially undeclared.

"We have to have delegates, and they have to be delegations that reflect the opinions of those two states," said former DNC Chairman Don Fowler, a committee member supporting Clinton. "How we get there is very different because everyone sees these questions of who it helps and who it hurts. I don't think the formulation has been found that will get around the piece at this point." But he said a solution is probably possible among the diverse interests.

Because Obama is in the lead for the nomination, his camp heads into the meeting in a position of strength. It is possible the Illinois senator could clinch the nomination by the time the panel meets if he picks up the pace of superdelegate endorsements in the next two weeks.

But Obama has such a lead that he may be able to afford to be generous and give Clinton most of the delegates. That would help put the issue behind them and help him build good will in Michigan and Florida heading into the November election.

Still, some of Obama's supporters think the fairest solution is to disregard the primary votes and split the delegations evenly between the two candidates.

"It has to be a fair process for both candidates," said member Yvonne Gates, an Obama supporter from Nevada who said she wasn't sure what position she would support at the meeting. "My definition is a 50-50 split is something that is fair. It cannot be a situation where you give one candidate more votes than the other. In my opinion that wasn't an election when they didn't have a chance to get out and talk to the people of that community."

It's also possible that any vote that recognizes the Michigan and Florida results would legitimize their elections. Clinton has been arguing that she leads in the popular vote, but that's only when both states are included and it is very slim — fewer than 5,000 votes out of 34 million cast.

Her accounting also doesn't include some caucus states that favored Obama and where the popular vote wasn't tallied. The measure of winning the nomination is not the popular vote but the delegate count, and Obama leads 1,898 to 1,718, with 2,026 needed for the nomination. Still, Clinton is trying to use the popular vote argument to win over some delegates.

So far, Obama's campaign has not been giving direction publicly or privately to panel members. The Clinton campaign's official position has been full reinstatement, but her advisers acknowledge they are considering an idea before the panel to seat the delegates with half a vote each. Clinton campaign Chairman Terry McAuliffe said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" that they "certainly might" accept a compromise to seat half the delegates.

If their elections had been held according to party rules, Michigan and Florida would have allocated a total of 313 pledged delegates based on the outcome of the vote. Using the results of the January elections, Clinton would get 178 to Obama's 67, giving her a 111-vote advantage. As of Thursday, she was behind 180 delegates, so that would not catch her up even under that unlikely scenario.

The plans before the committee will be more generous to Obama. The Michigan Democratic Party has proposed giving 69 of its 128 delegates to Clinton and 59 to Obama, an advantage of 10 delegates for Clinton.

A proposal from Florida would halve its 185 delegates. From that, Clinton would get 52.5 and Obama 33.5, a 19-delegate advantage for Clinton.

"I think it's a reasonable solution to the problem that was created, and my hope is that we'll be able to get past this and move on," said Allan Katz, an Obama supporter who serves on the panel but won't be able to vote on any Florida solution because he is from the state.

The committee is not bound to select the proposals offered and has authority to reinstate any number of delegates and divide them in any way.

An open question is how to handle the other type of delegates each state lost — the superdelegates who are party leaders not bound by the outcome of the vote and are free to support whatever candidate they personally choose. Michigan has 28 superdelegates, and Florida 25. A total of eight have declared for Obama, seven for Clinton and the rest are undeclared.

Germond said she hopes the meeting will begin the process of unifying the party.

"Probably what we will come up with will not make everybody or anybody completely happy, which will mean that we did a good job," she said. "It is mighty unfortunate that at this point in our nominating process we are talking about people who did not abide by the process instead of talking about (beating Republican presidential candidate) John McCain."

On the Net:

Democratic National Committee: http://www.democrats.org

wetst Virginia? who cares?

french support — Wed, 14 May 2008 10:42:22 EDT

Home West Virginia? Who cares?May 14, 2008 - 6:07am

By DOUG THOMPSON

So, Hillary Rodham Clinton won the West Virginia Democratic primary by a huge margin.

And your point is?

Of course she won West Virginia. Hillary was in her element, pantsuit deep in old, uneducated, white people – the kind of people who hate blacks and change and will vote for anyone as long as they’re white and willing to pander to their needs.

West Virginia is a state where family trees don’t branch, where a virgin is any eight year old who can outrun her brothers, where it takes two people to eat possum because one has to watch for traffic.

Sorry: Couldn’t resist. I grew up in Southwestern Virginia and West Virginia jokes flowed like moonshine (which was, at the time, our best cash crop). Do you know why West Virginia University put Astroturf in its football stadium? So the cheerleaders won’t graze at halftime.

Now that we have all the state stereotypes out of the way, let’s look at some more rational reasons why Clinton’s win in wild, wonderful West Virginia doesn’t really mean all that much.

The Clinton argument that she, and only she, can win swing states is stupid. You can’t compare primary results to what might or might not happen in a general election. Plus, claiming to be the candidate of choice in West Virginia is hardly a claim to fame. The state went for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. The last Democrat to win West Virginia was her husband. Looks like the state loves bubbas, dumb ass faux Texans and bleached blonds in pantsuits.

She will probably win Kentucky and Puerto Rico, another meaningless primary because PR is not a state and doesn’t count in the general election.

But it doesn’t matter. Politics is a game of numbers and even a classic rules-bender like Clinton can’t make the numbers work in her favor. Obama has an insurmountable lead in all the numbers that count and no amount of posturing by her and her loudmouth campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe can change the facts.

Superdelegates continue to break in Obama’s favor and a win in a hick state like West Virginia won’t change their minds. Besides, many of them are sick of Clinton and her husband.

So why stay in? Numbers come into play again – numbers like $20 million in campaign debts and she needs superficial wins in West Virginia, Kentucky and Puerto Rico to try and convince enough gullible idiots to waste more money in contributions to her failed campaign.

Clinton’s logic defies reality but that shouldn’t surprise anyone. She has become the George W. Bush of the Democratic Party, the serial liar who ignores the facts and tries to impose her will on a nation that has long tired of her.

Clinton is history and the longer she continues her charade the more she will become an embarrassing body on the body politic.

Technorati Tags: The Rant Doug Thompson Barack Obama Hillary Clinton John McCain politics elections Democrats superdelegates»

At this point, Mrs. ClintonSubmitted by keith on May 14, 2008 - 9:26am.

At this point, Mrs. Clinton is only remaining in the race for a stroked ego and/or to raise enough money from yet more horrifically ignorant people to pay off her massive campaign debt.

Right now, by all accounts, she owes nearly $10 Million to various people and businesses as far back as the New Hampshire primary. She's also put upwards of $12 Million of her own (and Bill's) cash into her (now clearly dysfunctional) campaign, which means, without more cash, those "loans" from her own pocket will never be paid back.

So, all the while she can continue convincing enough ignorant idiots to keep pouring money into her "sinking ship", the better her chances of completely covering her monetary losses will be.

As P.T. Barnum is reported to have once said, "There's sucker born every minute". And, the Clintons just LOVE to take advantage of suckers!

An open letter to HillarySubmitted by ekaton on May 14, 2008 - 9:45am.

An open letter to Hillary and Bill Clinton:

Please go away. The country is tired of you. We've had 12 years of the Bushes (20 if you count the Reagan years while Ronnie slept). We've had 8 years of their cousins, Clintons. Three decades is enough. Please, all of you two clans, please, please, just go away and leave us alone.

-- Kent Shaw