Boston Globe (Editorial Board Endorsement) “For Democrats: Barack Obama”
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2007/12/16/for_democrats_barack_obama/
THE FIRST American president of the 21st century has not appreciated the intricate realities of our age. The next president must. The most sobering challenges that face this country - terrorism, climate change, disease pandemics - are global. America needs a president with an intuitive sense of the wider world, with all its perils and opportunities. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has this understanding at his core. The Globe endorses his candidacy in New Hampshire's Democratic presidential primary Jan. 8.
Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier: Candidates Court Black Vote
http://www.wcfcourier.com/articles/2007/12/16/news/top_story/c1bb0bb3679e5ea8862573b3001c35c3.txt
A diverse field of presidential candidates, combined with aggressive, tailored outreach, has generated exceptionally high interest in the caucuses in the black community. African-Americans in Waterloo so far seem to mirror Democrats in the rest of the state --- they're mulling the three leading presidential candidates, but leaning toward Barack Obama. While people are quick to praise Hillary Clinton, the buzz in churches, barber shops and beauty salons seem to favor Obama less than three weeks before the caucuses.
Des Moines Register Rates the Candidates: Senator Obama
http://beta.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071215/NEWS/71215022/0/caucusHe’s smart. He’s crafted sharp policy proposals. He’s worked across the aisle as both an Illinois state senator and in the U.S. Senate. He’s done solid work on needed but thankless legislation such as requiring videotaping of police interrogations in capital-punishment cases in Illinois and reforming ethics laws at the state and federal levels. In the U.S. Senate, he’s burnished his foreign-policy credentials on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. So there’s far more to Barack Obama than inspiring oratory, his optimistic messages of hope and change, and his symbolism of youth and multiculturalism. Take all of that as a package, and oh the possibilities.
His election would signal to all Americans, especially young black men, that our nation still holds opportunities for them. And it would signal to the world that America is more attuned to the international community. Obama says it like this: From the day I’m elected, this country will look at itself differently, and the world will look at us differently.
Tom Joyner Morning Show w/ Senator Obama
http://homepage.mac.com/rossalan305/filechute/BARACKOBAMA121407.mp3
Tom Joyner: Yeah man they are coming after you now. So the story about the Clinton campaign putting out this statement not to vote for Barack Obama because he used drugs and then yesterday I understand that she apologized and the campaign worker quit.
Obama: Well I think everybody knows because I wrote about it in a book ten years ago… and part of the reason I wrote about it and I talk about it in schools is because I want young people out there to know that if they make the same kinds of mistakes that I made that they can get over it and that they can move on…right now the American people are trying to figure out their future. They're not worried about my past, they're not worried about my kindergarten papers. They’re not worried about what I did when I was a teenager. What they're trying to figure out is how is this guy going to help me get a job or make sure my kids can go to college or make sure I got healthcare. So, I take it as a compliment because it shows me that folks are getting a little worried about our campaign.
Washington Post (Kevin Merida) “The Ghost of a Father”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/13/AR2007121301784_pf.html
Sometimes the trigger will be a newspaper story he is reading about Africa. Or he may spot a group of boys on a street corner on the South Side of Chicago and think that one or more of them "could be me, they may not have a father at home." At other moments, he will be playing with his daughters -- Malia, 9, and Sasha, 6 -- and begin to wrestle with what kind of father he has become, what a career in politics has meant to their lives and how to guard against his father's mistakes. Thoughts of his father "bubble up," as Barack Obama puts it in an interview, "at different moments, at any course of the day or week." "I think about him often," he says.
Chicago Defender (Glenn Reedus) Obama is our only choice during these troubled times
http://www.chicagodefender.com/page/commentary.cfm?ArticleID=10115
Over the years Black folk have overcome tremendous odds and slews of naysayers (many of them Black) to achieve. We are now on the precipice of what may be our greatest achievement - electing a Black man to the highest office in the nation.
The Tennessean (Dwight Lewis) “'We're in this thing to win,' Obama tells journalists”
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071213/COLUMNIST0107/712130365/1101
Barack Obama had just gotten off the campaign trail with television talk show star Oprah Winfrey and he had a message for anyone who thinks his campaign for president is simply a symbolic run: "We're in this thing to win and govern. This has never been a symbolic campaign. My life was too good before I got into this race to want to engage in something for the sake of symbolism. "I am in this race because I think we have an urgent set of problems that have to be dealt with and I believe I can lead this country in dealing with them. "If you look at how the race is playing itself out right now, we have an excellent chance to win the primary and if we win the primary, I believe we will win the general election.''
Washington Post (Eugene Robinson) “Oprah the Believer”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/10/AR2007121001563_pf.html
Is it foolish to think that a nation stained by centuries of slavery and racism is prepared to elect a black president? Rarely phrased so bluntly, that's the central question posed by Barack Obama's candidacy -- especially for many African American voters, whose doubts are informed by having seen many an oasis turn out to be a mirage. Oprah Winfrey, as is her wont, cut to the heart of the matter. Campaigning on Obama's behalf this weekend, she echoed the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in offering permission to believe. "Dr. King dreamed the dream," Winfrey told a predominantly black crowd of 29,000 in Columbia, S.C. "But we don't have to just dream the dream anymore. We get to vote that dream into reality."
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