Pensilvania could slip away from Obama, and take away our future with it. We need this state to keep the dream alive. McCain is gaining in polls people. Please come to barackobama.com and make a few calls. You don't have to worry what to say, the lines are there to read. Call voters and tell them where their voting station is. Call some and ask them to call some. You have free nights and weekends on your cell.
This is it!
We're coming down to the final stretch and Barack Obama needs your help now, more than ever before!
Please bring your cell phone, a charger and a few fun friends who care about change and join with thousands of your neighbors in the largest ever-attempted phone bank effort in New York state history. The Obama campaign is hosting several of these "mega call centers" all over New York, so invite your friends and family to make calls to voters in key battleground states and change America for years to come.
Visit http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/nylastcall to find a location near you.
More than 100 days after Barack Obama clinched the Democratic presidential nomination, Bill Clinton was finally due to share a stage last night with the man who proved to be his wife's nemesis.
The former President, who for months has vacillated between rage, envy, petulance, open scorn and — only lately — solid support when the topic has turned to Mr Obama, at last agreed to campaign with him in the critical battleground of Florida.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5042454.ece
God bless USA
God bless Obama & Biden
The article below goes a long way to show the essentiality and power of judgment and the choices we make. McCain made the wrong choice of a running mate, appealing to just the Republican base when in reality he should have picked a candidate with national appeal.
Further more, the mere fact that he continue to insist that his decision was the best in spite of some of his surrogates suggesting otherwise clearly manifest his limitation and out of touch syndrome.
By and large America is not pragmatically ready for the candidacy of Sarah Palin with due respect to her what she has accomplished and of which I am happy for her.
Last week, Tom Ridge, the former Pennsylvania governor, said that Senator John McCain might now be on the verge of winning Pennsylvania — the mainly Democratic state where McCain is investing considerable time and energy in these final days of his presidential campaign — had he chosen Ridge as his running mate.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/27/america/27webnagourney.php
I am confident in Obama and the Biden ticket.
The need for a fresh start in America has grown markedly in the two years of this presidential campaign, and became imperative as the crippled financial system punishes workers, families and retirees in the country.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2008/10/18/2008-10-18_daily_news_endorses_obama_for_president_-3.html
Sure enough the entire world is anxiously waiting for the USA to once more lead the global effort of making our earth an abode of haven for mankind and in Obama we have the potential to fulfill wholly or partially our dream and and hope.
The other day I ran into an elderly woman who was yet to recover from the Wall Street near collapse, since according to her, she’s been around quite long and never in her life time contemplate that such a thing as Black Monday on the financial market will ever happen! Interestingly too she was kind of shock about how on earth the United States of America got to this point and what role has the government played or did not participate in that might have led to this very inimical and ridiculously inimical scenario.
Yes indeed, here we are faced with too many uncertainties that one is tempted to give up hope, as epitomized by the Californian man that took the lives of his entire family and his own as a result of the economic woes manifested in high rate of joblessness and job loss let alone the inability of borrowers to lend and consequently the credit crunch.
It is in light of the above that I feel the next president will in fact have lots on his plates indeed. However in spite of the prevailing abysmal conditions in the country, I am confident that the candidacy of Sen. Obama and his running mate Sen. Biden have the pragmatic capacity to cushion the detrimental effects of the maladies we are facing and hopefully reverse the trend as they go along.
Americans this is not the time to become personal, not at all on the contrary the fierce urgency of our time if to aggressively and relentlessly support the candidate of change and hope in the country, as opposed to that of McCain who supports in its entirety the maintenance of the status quo.
The Obama- Biden ticket is a formidable one based on authenticity of purpose, commitment to bring about change and hope to millions of Americans in the fashion that Obama did perform as a community organizer helping the poorest of the poor in a country that is blessed with abundant humane and natural resources and also have the pragmatic ability, capacity and capability to repair the country’s battered image overseas.
Unlike in the year 2004, I am convinced Americans will go for pragmatism rather than sensationalism especially in context of the fact that they have been deceived for the past eight years and still those who maintain the status quo want a replica of the same event and scenario. However not again and not in our life time shall we allow the forces of the status quo to overtake that of goodwill, objectivity and prosperity.
I was in Denver and I had a blast.
Check out my Photoblog and see how it went down for me in Denver Colorado.
It was definitely a historic for this country and truly inspiring for me.
OBAMA 08
People walk on a red carpet into a fund raiser for American presidential candidate Barack Obama in Lagos, Nigeria, Monday Aug. 11 2008. The event, held by a group calling itself 'Africans for Obama 08,' drew hundreds of people from the Nigerian business elite. Each paid more than $2,000 to munch on grilled snails, sip from flutes of Veuve Cliquot and Moet & Chandon and join in a lively, if poorly executed, series of the 'fist bumps' popularized by Obama and his wife, Michelle
http://www.thejoymovie.com/
This is dedicated to all those that feel that we can't take on this task, take the time to watch this movie, it will give all of us the inspiration we need to fight the battle that is to come. Never fret our Joy is coming in Janury of 2009.
Living here in THE MEDIA CAPITAL of the world always gives a "hands on" account of what happens when "blips" blow up in the media.
It seems the Jesse Jackson "N-word" comment expose' came from the ultimate Sunday Morning talk radio program host, musician, Mtume'. Once Mtume' told the truth, Jesse said the "N" word hit the airwaves through inside radio channels, media FOX was forced to comply with exposing, and all may not be told.
This morning radio talk show involving a former Judge,a writer, Economist, Media expert junkies of serious skill, keeps life alive twice a day by speaking on Issues not in Mainstream media as it relates to folk, on Sundays on NYC and surrounding airwaves, 98.7 fm.
Now that Mtume came out, FOX had to come out and tell the truth about what he said, issue apologies, Jesse wants to sue the only black radio station in NYC, the only black radio talk show in the northeast by experts on political issues. How dare Jesse.
So all I am saying is brother Jesse, we love you, it's time to move on, we had to learn on our own, and now we gotta seek leaders who will lead all. Barack Obama is our new leader. As Louis Farrakhan has said, under the auspices of Mtume", Peter, Bob Slade, and the former Judge, please Jesse stand aside and enjoy the ride.
Tonigh I received e-mails from one of my groups, I was quite upset to see the contents of this e-mail. It was about the New Yorker magazine, a magazine that I have read for years, at first I didn't want to believe my eyes, of course I wear glasses so I took them off to make sure that I was seeing what was right in front of my face. I am kinda shock, but then again I shouldn't be.
Obama has had more negative articles about him than any president that I can remember, but this one really takes the rag off the bush for me.I have taken the liberty of placing the link in my blog so that anyone that reads it & see the picture of Senator Obama & Michelle are once again being smeared, it wasn't enough that Bill O'Reilly talked about a lynching party for Michelle, it's not enough that Hannity played Rev Wright night after night to prove what point I don't know. Now we have the New Yorker joining in with what I call a huge smear campaign.
I have had enough, but I will continue to fight this battle I won't let them win, I am going to send the link to everyone in my address, along with a note asking them to send to everyone on their list, we have to fight fire with fire, I am writing the advertisers of The New Yorker employing them to supplying this magazine with any of their ads if not they will find themselves losing customers. We have to hit these people in their pocketbooks, let them know that won't stand for this type of negative photos about the man that will be our next president.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/0708/Ya_cant_make_it_up.html
There are some journalists who stand above the rest. I have lost one of the last few favorites of most informed Americans. My favorite of course was Ed Bradley, now Tim Russert. Journalism will suffer as a result of his loss, and I just hope the journalism schools in the nation, in major media will wake up to the professionalism that Tim Russert institutionalized.
I send condolences to his family, the Obama Campaign Family and the world for a great soul gone from the earth to the place where the only the accomplished grace. Godspeed Tim Russert.
Barack,
You need to target Appalachia! These states represent a part of the core of HRC's voting block. If you focus on them, study them and spend time with them then I'm sure that you will turn a weakness into a strength.
My advise to you is to study Sen. Jim Webb's book "Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America." This tals about those very people. It would provide you with the insight that you need to turn Appalachia around and put it in your column rather than a write-off for McCain.Also, It would diminish your need of HRC.
Recently, Jim Webb appeared on MSNBC in which he said that if you study the book and talk to the people, you will be able to get their vote in the general and thereby change the electoral map in your favor. Once you study the book, re-align/tweak your policies to mirror their issues, problems and concerns.
Once you have this information, you need to go on a tour in Appalachia and introduce yourself to them. Spend a month in Appalachia from central Pennsylvania to Georgia/Alabama. Don't do the "rah-rah" speech, make it the Q&A format in order to listen to and engage them.
When you're on this tour, do not wear a tie. Go very casual, wear khakis at best. I recommend wearing jeans, a baseball cap and maybe a plaid shirt. You will have to go to places where they congregate. Go to the bars, drink beer while you visit the bars. Go to the bowling allies (just improve your bowling first). Maybe go to NASCAR and briefly speak to the people before the race begins.
You are going to have to come off the pedestal from seeming aloof. Come down to the ground and engage the people. If you spend time with them, I'm sure that you can count on their supprt in the fall. Many of them did vote Democrat in the primaries, so they will at least listen. Sen. Webb himself said that many of the problems of the African-American community are the same in Appalachia.
Is their any reason why you shouldn't go to the NRA? You are a Constitutional Law professor. Why not talk about the issues and Mccain's hipocrsy in order to address the membership? Hey, McCain has no problem going into your back yard, right? He was recently in Chicago! You may find some Obamacans in the crowd. It would be a very significant show of strength to go before the NRA and speak to them. This would be a significant symbol of your post-partisan aspirations to address them.
After you go to see the NRA, tour Appalachia. The uproar of you going to see them would capture everyone's attention. Appalachia would definitely take notice. That would prime them for you to take that tour.
I know that this was long, but I hope this helps! I really want you to win solidly with an unstoppable coalition. That entails doing things ad going places other Dems wouldn't go or wouldn't think of going.
Peace...
As Hillary Rodham Clinton decries the mainstream media for diminishing her chances of capturing the Democratic nomination, she is turning more to the Internet to make her increasingly urgent case.
She held her first blogger-only conference call on Friday, phoning in to about 40 bloggers from the campaign trail in Oregon.
And the campaign has stepped up its use of Twitter, a social-networking service that sends short, text-based posts, to make real-time calls to arms.
The push on the Internet comes amid signs that Mrs. Clinton is getting less attention these days, both in the blogosphere and the mainstream media. Techpresident.com reports that according to the blog search tool Technorati, Mrs. Clinton is being mentioned less than half as often as Senator Barack Obama in the blogosphere and that mentions of her have even slipped below those of Senator John McCain.
And the Project for Excellence in Journalism, which tracks the weekly coverage of the candidates in various media, reports that Mrs. Clinton was a significant factor in 53 percent of the coverage last week, compared with 68 percent for Mr. Obama.
The purpose of the conference call was to thank bloggers for their support, deliver her talking points and have those talking points conveyed to the blogosphere — and ultimately to the superdelegates who may control the outcome of the race.
“Your voices make a real difference, and your engagement in these incredibly significant ways helps to set the ground for what we are trying to say in the campaign,” she told them, adding that they can “influence the rest of the blogosphere and beyond.”
Her campaign has been reaching out to bloggers for a couple of years now and has exploited the Internet, particularly for fundraising and rapid-response messaging. Her Democratic opponent, Mr. Obama, has been credited with using it better, especially for organizing and social networking. But Mr. Obama himself has yet to join a blogger-only conference call.
(Oddly, perhaps, Mr. McCain — the likely Republican nominee who, at 71, jokes about being older than the Internet itself — holds blogger conference calls regularly, though his online fund-raising lags behind his Democratic rivals. )
While Mrs. Clinton started her campaign with the netroots and many in the blogosphere against her, partly for her vote to authorize the Iraq war, several bloggers have become more sympathetic over the course of the long campaign.
On the call, she apologized to them for the bile they confront for defending her.
“I deeply regret the vitriol and the mean-spiritedness and terrible insults and rhetoric that has been thrown around at you, for supporting me, at women in general, at many of those who support my campaign because of who they are and their stand based on principle,” she said.
“But this too shall pass,” she reassured them. “I don’t have time for their insults. I’m impervious to them. I figure it’s a perverse form of flattery that they would spend so much time and energy trying to tear me down when what we need to be doing is figuring out how we’re going to swear in a Democrat next January 20.”
Peter Daou, Mrs. Clinton’s Internet director, said the call had been planned for a while but had to be postponed a couple of times.
So it was coincidental that her first blogger call came during the first week in which Mrs. Clinton had been edged out of the media’s campaign narrative. Many in the M.S.M .have concluded that mathematically, she can’t win. And on that particular day, most political coverage was devoted to the back-and-forth between Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain.
But the call seemed to signal a more aggressive use of the Internet as time runs out on her quest for the nomination.
All campaigns have been using Twitter, for example, to notify their supporters of campaign events.
Mrs. Clinton is also using it now to gather signatures on a petition urging the Democratic National Committee to count the votes and delegates from Florida and Michigan.
She used Twitter again on Monday to ask her supporters to make calls to voters in Kentucky and Oregon. That message linked them to “the Hillary Clinton volunteer calling tool,” which allows them to call voters through the Internet, read a script, record the answer and submit the answer to the Clinton campaign so it can get out the vote on Tuesday.
The idea is to drive up her popular vote in hopes of bolstering her argument to superdelegates that, as she put it during the blogger call, she will “end the elections on June 3 ahead in the popular vote” (by counting Michigan and Florida, of course) and that she is more electable than Mr. Obama.
The M.S.M. have heard those arguments before and have essentially stopped transmitting them. But on the conference call, Mrs. Clinton gave full voice to them (though she was hoarse).
Heralding the message she would make on the campaign trail on Monday, she elaborated on her electoral argument _ that she can win in the fall because she has won states with a total of 300 electoral votes, while Mr. Obama has won states with only 217 electoral votes.
“I have a cushion on the electoral vote majority, and he has a significant deficit,” she said.
She said it was “especially important that we try to get people to start focusing on this,” adding, “I think that is the appropriate criteria on which to base a decision. I believe that I have a very powerful case there.”
(She was so thrilled to learn on Monday that Karl Rove, President Bush’s erstwhile strategist, had reached a similar conclusion that she trumpeted the news on the campaign trail, even though Mr. Rove is not a credible source for many Democratic primary voters.)
Electoral votes, of course, are irrelevant to the primary process and when her campaign first proposed this metric in March, the MSM dismissed it.
The delegate math is what counts, and it’s against her. Mr. Obama leads by about 150 delegates and is closer to the final number needed.
To help bloggers counter that notion, Mrs. Clinton tried out a new slogan on the conference call: “It is the map, not the math.”
The “map/math” phrase quickly found its way to various blogs, including Talkleft and Riverdaughter. Some, like Jerome Armstrong on MyDD examined the “map/math” argument in detail.
This in turn prompted a wider discussion in the blogosphere. Many rejected it, to put it mildly. Some, like Outsidethebeltway.com were dubious of her logic but still put the phrase in its headline and in the end concluded that it may be a “defensible” point -- if the only one she has left.
Mrs. Clinton started her campaign as the candidate of the establishment. It may be a measure of how far she has come -- or fallen, in the eyes of her critics -- that she is now using the megaphone of insurgents.
International Herald Tribune
Pundits declare the race over
By Jim Rutenberg
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Very early Wednesday morning, after many voters had already gone to sleep, the conventional wisdom of the elite political pundit class that resides on television shifted hard, and possibly irretrievably, against Senator Hillary Clinton's continued viability as a presidential candidate.
The moment came shortly after midnight Eastern time, captured in a devastatingly declarative statement from Tim Russert of NBC News: "We now know who the Democratic nominee's going to be, and no one's going to dispute it," he said on MSNBC. "Those closest to her will give her a hard-headed analysis, and if they lay it all out, they'll say: 'What is the rationale? What do we say to the undeclared super delegates tomorrow? Why do we tell them you're staying in the race?' And tonight, there's no good answer for that."
It was not exactly Walter Cronkite declaring that the Vietnam War would end in stalemate. But the impact was apparent almost immediately, starting with The Drudge Report, the online news billboard that is the home page to many political reporters in Washington and news producers in New York. It had as its lead story a link to a YouTube clip of Russert's comments, accompanied by a photograph of a beaming Obama with his wife, Michelle, and the headline, "The Nominee."
The thought echoed throughout the world of instant political analysis, steamrolling the Clinton campaign's attempts to promote the idea that her victory in Indiana was nonetheless an upset in the face of Obama's heavy spending and his campaign's predictions that he would win there, or that she could still come back if delegates in Florida and Michigan are seated.
"I think there's an increasing presumption tonight that Obama's going to be the nominee," Chris Wallace, the Fox News host, said to Karl Rove, President George W. Bush's longtime political guru, who is now a Fox News analyst. The statement preceded a discussion about what a general election race would look like between Obama and the presumptive Republican nominee, Senator John McCain.
A posting on the DailyKos Web site included a mock memo to Clinton titled, "To-Do List Before Dropping Out."
Speaking on CNN, David Gergen, a former adviser to several presidents, including Clinton's husband, said, "I think the Clinton people know the game is almost up."
Stating it more bluntly, Bob Franken, the political analyst, told the MSNBC host Dan Abrams shortly after 2 a.m. Eastern time, "Let's put it right on the table: It's over. It's over."
And it picked up again on the major morning news programs in a devastating cascade of sound bites for Clinton and her campaign.
Bob Schieffer on the CBS News program "Early Show": "Basically, Maggie, this race is over."
George Stephanopoulos on the ABC program "Good Morning America": "This nomination fight is over."
Matt Lauer on the NBC News program " Today": "Good morning, is it over?"
The commentary was punctuated by some brutal morning newspaper headlines: "Toast!" blared The New York Post; "Hil Needs a Miracle" declared The New York Daily News.
Of course, the political news media have not exactly showered themselves in glory this year. They have frequently made predictions that have been upended by actual votes from actual people.
But their opinions matter as much as ever in this late phase of the primary race, when Clinton and Obama are battling to sway the opinions of the uncommitted superdelegates — the party leaders and elected officials with automatic convention seats, whose support Clinton will need if she is to snatch the nomination from Obama.
The super delegates are a largely elite group that presumably will track the conventional wisdom of Washington's class of political insiders as they weigh their decisions. And the big donors and fund-raisers whose help Clinton will need to continue her campaign are similarly tapped into the news media echo-sphere.
Clinton's campaign indicated early this morning that it would try to prove the commentariat wrong once again. "Pundits have gleefully counted Senator Clinton out before, and each time they have been wrong, because they don't decide this race — voters do," Howard Wolfson, Clinton's communications director, wrote in an e-mail message. "And as the results in Indiana demonstrated, voters are rewarding Senator Clinton with victories, even in states Senator Obama predicted victory in."
Wolfson's statement came in quick response to a request for comment that was sent to him by e-mail after 2 a.m. Eastern time — an indication of the campaign's eagerness to undo the new conventional wisdom before it hardens.
And the campaign held a conference call with reporters this morning to send the clear signal that nothing had changed overnight.
Pointing to Clinton's victory in Indiana, and her inroads with what he called swing voters, Geoff Garin, her lead strategist, told the gathered reporters, "We think the results last night strengthen the case that she will be the strongest candidate for the Democratic Party in November."
Asked if the harsh assessments on television and in the blogosphere would not drive superdelegates to Obama, Wolfson said, "Thankfully for us the punditocracy does not control this nominating process — voters do and voters gave us an important victory in Indiana."
The Clinton campaign initially had some reason for optimism earlier Wednesday.
Many of the gloomier assessments of her chances came late Tuesday night and early this morning, when it appeared that she would not win Indiana as easily as exit polls and early vote tallies indicated earlier in the night. By then, early newspaper deadlines had passed and many voters were probably either asleep or off watching Jay Leno or David Letterman.
If East Coast viewers of "NCIS" saw no news the rest of the night, they certainly went to bed believing that Clinton's campaign was still there to fight another day. CBS, which broadcasts the show, declared that she had won the Indiana primary at 8:09 p.m. Eastern time, and Jeff Greenfield, the CBS analyst, reported, "We go on to June 3, Hillary Clinton got the win she needs to press her case."
Even as Clinton's real-vote lead over Obama in the state dwindled to just 16,000 as later returns came in, the CBS News Web site held on to its headline, "Clinton Wins Ind., Obama Takes N.C."
The headline was vindicated when several other news organizations declared that Clinton had indeed won in Indiana, five hours after CBS made its projection. And it is that view of Tuesday's results that most voters awoke to on Wednesday: A split decision for Clinton and Obama, no matter how narrow.
The question is, will the analysts be talking that way throughout the day — and if not, where does it leave Clinton?
As of this afternoon, the climb for her seemed steeper. Obama's campaign responded to the Clinton conference call with one of its own that included some big-name party leaders and superdelegates, among them the last Democratic nominee, Senator John Kerry, who declared, "Barack Obama took a giant and possibly decisive step toward the nomination." Minutes earlier, CNN had broken in with news from The Associated Press: Another former nominee was breaking for Obama, former Senator George McGovern, of South Dakota, which will vote along with Montana on June 3, the last primaries of the contest.
Notes:
International Herald Tribune Copyright © 2008 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com
