Barack Obama Wins
http://www.jcer.info/
http://www.jcer.info/candidates
http://www.jcer.info/about_us
http://www.jcer.info/media_center
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1015396.html
This is an interesting site - see http://www.fivethirtyeight.com Lots of good statistical info - predicting a close election with Obama winning. Very close in the popular vote according to this. But a slam dunk on the electorial votes.
The only thing that makes sense to me (regarding the close popular vote) is that the false garbage being spewed about Obama is actually being taken seriously. It's embarrassing to be part of the human race sometimes. Geesh.
*********** YAY and HOORAY!! ***************HOPE is alive and well in the United States of America!Now we need to put aside the bitter residue of the agonizing preceding months, and take a deep breath ... relax, take a vacation. Then we need to come together and get some work done!HRC can continue her drama ... sooner or later she has to sit down.Meanwhile, we have a VISION -- Americans working together to clean up some of the Washington corruption, end the war, improve the economy, and make so many more changes to better our lives and our country's international image.WE ARE ON OUR WAY! CONGRATULATIONS, SENATOR OBAMA, for running a clean, classy, phenomenal campaign. Millions of people have been inspired to become involved in the voting process - many for the first time. This movement of HOPE will continue all the way to the White House and beyond.GOD BLESS THE U.S.A.
LINK -- Enjoy! This is an incredibly proud moment in the history of our country.
By TOM RAUM and NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writers
ST. PAUL, Minn. - Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois sealed the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday, a historic step toward his once-improbable goal of becoming the nation's first black president. A vanquished Hillary Rodham Clinton maneuvered for the vice presidential spot on his fall ticket.
Obama's victory set up a five-month campaign with Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a race between a 46-year-old opponent of the Iraq War and a 71-year-old former Vietnam prisoner of war and staunch supporter of the current U.S. military mission.
Both men promptly exchanged criticism over the war in Iraq and sought to claim the mantle of change in a country plainly tired of the status quo.
"It's not change when John McCain decided to stand with George Bush 95 percent of the time, as he did in the Senate last year," Obama said in remarks prepared for delivery in St. Paul, Minn.
"It's not change when he offers four more years of Bush economic policies that have failed to create well-paying jobs. ... And it's not change when he promises to continue a policy in Iraq that asks everything of our brave young men and women in uniform and nothing of Iraqi politicians." In a symbolic move, he spoke in the same hall where McCain will accept the Republican nomination at his party's convention in September.
McCain spoke first, in New Orleans, and he accused his younger rival of voting "to deny funds to the soldiers who have done a brilliant and brave job" in Iraq. It was a reference to 2007 legislation to pay for the Iraq war, a measure Obama opposed citing the lack of a timetable for withdrawing troops.
McCain agreed with Obama that the presidential race would focus on change. "But the choice is between the right change and the wrong change, between going forward and going backward," he added.
One campaign began as another was ending.
On the final night of the primary season, Clinton won South Dakota, leaving Montana yet to be settled.
The former first lady praised her rival, whom she said "has inspired so many Americans to care about politics and empowered so many more to get involved. And our party and our democracy is stronger and more vibrant as a result."
"I am committed to uniting our party so we move forward stronger and more ready than ever to take back the White House in November," she said in a final-night rally in New York.
Only 31 delegates were at stake, the final few among the thousands that once drew Obama, Clinton and six other Democratic candidates into the campaign to replace Bush and become the nation's 44th president.
Obama sealed his nomination, according to The Associated Press tally, based on primary elections, state Democratic caucuses and delegates' public declarations as well as support from 19 delegates and "superdelegates" who privately confirmed their intentions t/o the AP. It takes 2,118 delegates to clinch the nomination at the convention in Denver this summer, and Obama had 2,129 by the AP count.
Obama, a first-term senator who was virtually unknown on the national stage four years ago, defeated Clinton, the former first lady and one-time campaign front-runner, in a 17-month marathon for the Democratic nomination.
His victory had been widely assumed for weeks. But Clinton's declaration of interest in becoming his ticketmate was wholly unexpected.
She expressed it in a conference call with her state's congressional delegation after Rep. Nydia Velazquez, predicted Obama would have great difficulty winning the support of Hispanics and other voting blocs unless the former first lady was on the ticket.
"I am open to it" if it would help the party's prospects in November, Clinton replied, according to participants who spoke on condition of anonymity because the call was private.
Clinton's comments raised anew the prospect of what many Democrats have called a "Dream Ticket" that would put a black man and a woman on the same ballot, but Obama's aides were noncommittal. "We're not in the presidential phase here. We're going to close out the nominating fight and then we'll consider that," David Axelrod, Obama's top strategist, told reporters aboard the candidate's plane en route to Minnesota.
McCain's criticism of Obama referred to a vote last year in which the Illinois senator came out against legislation paying for the Iraq war because it did not include a timetable for withdrawing troops. At the time, Obama said the funding would give President Bush "a blank check to continue down this same, disastrous path."
Obama previously had opposed a deadline for troop withdrawal, but shifted position under pressure from the Democratic Party's liberal wing as he maneuvered for support in advance of the primaries.
Bill Burton, a spokesman for Obama, responded tartly. "While John McCain has a record of occasional independence from his party in the past, last year he chose to embrace 95% of George Bush's agenda, including his failed economic policies and his failed policy in Iraq. No matter how hard he tries to spin it otherwise, that kind of record is simply not the change the American people are looking for or deserve."
The young Illinois senator's success amounted to a victory of hope over experience, earned across an enervating 56 primaries and caucuses that tested the political skills and human endurance of all involved.
Obama stood for hope, and change. Clinton was the candidate of experience, ready, she said, to serve in the Oval Office from Day One.
Together, they drew record turnouts in primary after primary — more than 34 million voters in all, independents and Republicans as well as Democrats.
Yet the race between a black man and a woman exposed deep racial and gender divisions within the party.
Obama drew strength from blacks, and from the younger, more liberal and wealthier voters in many states. Clinton was preferred by older, more downscale voters, and women, of course.
Obama's triumph was fashioned on prodigious fundraising, meticulous organizing and his theme of change aimed at an electorate opposed to the Iraq war and worried about the economy — all harnessed to his own gifts as an inspirational speaker.
With her husband's two White House terms as a backdrop, Clinton campaigned for months as the candidate of experience, a former first lady and second-term senator ready to be commander in chief.
But after a year on the campaign trail, Obama won the kickoff Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3, and the freshman senator became a political phenomenon.
"We came together as Democrats, as Republicans and independents, to stand up and say we are one nation, we are one people and our time for change has come," he said that night of victory in Des Moines.
As the strongest female presidential candidate in history, Clinton drew large, enthusiastic audiences. Yet Obama's were bigger. One audience, in Dallas, famously cheered when he blew his nose on stage; a crowd of 75,000 turned out in Portland, Ore., the weekend before the state's May 20 primary.
The former first lady countered Obama's Iowa victory with an upset five days later in New Hampshire that set the stage for a campaign marathon as competitive as any in the past generation.
"Over the last week I listened to you, and in the process I found my own voice," she told supporters who had saved her candidacy from an early demise.
In defeat, Obama's aides concluded they had committed a cardinal sin of New Hampshire politics, forsaking small, intimate events in favor of speeches to large audiences inviting them to ratify Iowa's choice.
It was not a mistake they made again — which helped explain Obama's later outings to bowling alleys, backyard basketball courts and American Legion halls in the heartland.
Clinton conceded nothing, memorably knocking back a shot of Crown Royal whiskey at a bar in Indiana, recalling that her grandfather had taught her to use a shotgun, and driving in a pickup to a gas station in South Bend, Ind., to emphasize her support for a summertime suspension of the federal gasoline tax.
As other rivals fell away in winter, Obama and Clinton traded victories on Super Tuesday, the Feb. 5 series of primaries and caucuses across 21 states and American Samoa that once seemed likely to settle the nomination.
But Clinton had a problem that Obama exploited, and he scored a coup she could not answer.
Pressed for cash, the former first lady ran noncompetitive campaigns in several Super Tuesday caucus states, allowing her rival to run up his delegate totals.
At the same time, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., endorsed the young senator in terms that summoned memories of his slain brothers while seeking to turn the page on the Clinton era.
Merely by surviving Super Tuesday, Obama exceeded expectations. But he did more than survive, emerging with a lead in delegates that he never relinquished, and he proceeded to run off a string of 11 straight victories.
Clinton saved her candidacy once more with primary victories in Ohio and Texas on March 4, beginning a stretch in which she won in six of the next nine states on the calendar, as well as in Puerto Rico.
It was a strong run, providing glimpses of what might have been for the one-time front-runner.
Personality issues rose and receded through the campaign:
Clinton's husband, the former president, campaigned tirelessly for her but sometimes became an issue himself, to her detriment.
And Obama struggled to minimize the damage caused by the incendiary rhetoric of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, an issue likely to be raised anew by Republicans in the fall campaign.
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Check out this video as CNN and MSNBC project Barack Obama as the winner of the democratic nomination!!! OBAMA 08!!! YES WE CAN!!!--not only that, but YES WE DID!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf4Pywy7iQg
I believe we can achieve wins in Puerto Rico, South Dakota and Montana. If we do, then we will need about a couple of dozen delegates to secure the nomination. We have performed well so far. We expect things to be much tougher with McCain. We will prevail. We won't let fear get the better of us. Obama is in this race to win. I believe he stands a fantastic chance.
From NBC's Domenico MontanaroNBC News has allocated the remaining nine Texas caucus delegates, 7-2, in favor of Obama. That means the Illinois senator has won the most delegates, 99-94, as a result of both the Texas primary and caucuses.
Obama now leads by 129 in the overall delegate count, 1637-1508. Obama leads by 162 pledged delegates, 1415-1253. (There remains just one delegate unallocated from Democrats Abroad.) Clinton leads among superdelegates, 255-222, per the NBC News Political Unit count. Also note, the Obama campaign has passed around that it has picked up two delegates in Mississippi, showing Obama with a 20-13 lead. NBC News' count remains 19-14 for Obama so far.
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/04/01/846611.aspx
here are pa addresses to push OBAMA WINS TX-- IT"S SUPER EASY JUST POST THE LINK AND EMAIL it TO THEM WITH A SHORT COMMENT - such as "please start reporting on this win! and then include the link"
Reinforcing how polarized the racial climate is in Mississippi, Barack Obama won the state while painting a county by county map of the totally segregated state demographics. I couldn't believe some of the numbers so I Googled the county names and found out that some counties in MS are over 95% White. Sounds like the Fair Housing Act is routinely enforced there, eh? I never knew that the North East corner of the state was COMPLETELY lily-white but nowhere nearly as receptive to the Obama candidacy as, say, Vermont.
Speaking of obnoxious comments of a racial nature, just what in MLK's name is G. Ferraro, the first ever woman candidate for VP, doing spouting such political potty-mouthed garbage as she's been spewing?!? Is she trying to pull a "Ralph Nader" and go from revered hero-pioneer to reviled sh*t-for-brains weirdo in a moment of venal narcissism? Just exactly what is going on here??
James Carville made a spirited defense of Hillary's refusal to axe Ferraro from the campaign, but it ultimately came up short. Hill-Hill, Gerry must go. Sorry. Don't worry, she wasn't much help when she was ON the ticket, so she won't be missed much, sadly.
Barack Obama is rocking the house DESPITE, instead of BECAUSE OF, he's a black man. If he was white and as articulate as he is and as good a manager as he is, he'd ALREADY be President (only kidding...) But seriously. I took a long time to warm up to him, and I've got black folk in my own family, lots of them in fact. I was an early "Draft Gore" guy, and then I was supporting Edwards. But Barack has won me over, and I'm now a vigorous advocate.
Go Barack Go! Congratulations on winning Mississippi.
According the CNN Exit Polls, Obama just won Mississippi by a wide margin.
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/#MSDEM
Well according to CNN, the results are all in... Barack won Vermont! Hillary won Rhode Island and eeked by in Ohio and Texas!
The truth, however, is that besides the Vermont primary, Barack has won another victory... Barack Obama continues to win on the Battlefield of High Moral Values.
Obama has refused to fall prey to Hillary's tenacious attempts to lure him into her world of mudslinging, false advertising and ALL OUT LIES! I SALUTE YOU BARACK, for taking the high road and not being influenced by the Clinton camp's bad behavior! Barack has maintained that he is "uncomfortable" with retaliating to the type of negative campaigning to which Hillary Clinton has resorted. Nor is Barack comfortable with stooping even lower by diffusing lies about Hillary Clinton to manipulate voters.
As last night saw Barack's first losses after twelve (12) straight primary wins, one can only postulate that Hillary's negative campaigning did take a bit of a (temporary) toll on Barack's momentum. What I do know, is that Barack Obama's REFUSAL to waiver on 'fighting back with negative campaign tactics --even at the possible cost of narrowly losing some of last night's primary states--further speaks to why we MUST do everything in our power to ensure that Barack Obama is our next President of the United States of America.
Hillary's cheap political tactics are temporary, but Barack's strength of character, high moral values and overall consistency are enduring.
BE ALERT!!!!!!!!!!
Source: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8596.html
Obama win sets stage for showdown
By: Ben Smith Feb 20, 2008 12:01 AM EST
Senator Barack Obama picked up steam with ninth straight victory in Wisconsin, beating Senator Hillary Clinton in a state where she had no clear excuse for defeat, and leaving her no leeway at all for further major losses. His win sets the stage for showdowns in Texas and Ohio on March 4, two states Clinton's supporters acknowledge she must win. The timing of the two candidates' evening speeches indicated that both are readying for a bruising two weeks. In a small breakdown of political etiquette, Clinton stepped to the podium in Youngstown, Ohio, soon after polls closed in Wisconsin, to open what her campaign billed as a major new front against Obama. And Obama began his own speech in the middle of hers, causing cable networks to interrupt her talk and cut to his. "The American people have spoken out and they are saying we need to move in a new direction," he told an overflow crowd at the 18,500 seat Toyota Center in Houston. "We have a unique moment that we have to seize." Clinton's speech broke little new ground after a month of largely ineffective attacks on her rival.
She said she would be "a president who relies not just on words but on work." And she questioned Obama's readiness to lead the American military. "One of us is ready to be commander in chief in a dangerous world," she said. Those have been the themes of Clinton's steady assault since her defeat last month in Iowa jarred her onto offense. But she also launched a new attack on Obama in the days before her Wisconsin defeat: Her chief spokesman, Howard Wolfson, charged Obama with "plagiarism" for using whole phrases from a political ally, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. "Both Deval Patrick and Senator Obama have the same consultant and adviser, who is apparently putting words in both of their mouths," she said, referring to consultant David Axelrod in an interview with the Honolulu CBS affiliate. "And I think that's a serious question to be raised because, obviously, we're asking the people of Hawaii to hire us for the toughest job in the world." Her campaign's focus on the question was an attempt to attack Obama on what is perhaps his greatest strength - a perception of authenticity and freshness that has eluded Clinton. Obama's aides said they viewed the Wisconsin win as a specific rejection of Clinton's attacks. Axelrod called Obama's strength among late-deciding voters "a repudiation of the negative campaign we saw in Wisconsin." Clinton's campaign, however, is unlikely to back down. She needs to stop Obama's momentum now, and Wolfson rejected Axelrod's contention. "They predicted they would win two weeks ago," he said. "They did. On to Ohio and Texas." The results in Wisconsin, like those in Virginia, suggest that the next two states are an uncertain firewall for Clinton. Wisconsin has only half the African-American population of Ohio, and shares some of its characteristics, with a large white working class, and broad disenchantment with trade and globalization. And Obama won a broad mandate in Wisconsin, according to exit polls. He won among every age group of voters, except those over 60. He tied Clinton among voters who had only a high school education. He beat her among men and nearly tied her among women, winning in every income bracket, and among white voters and black. It was African-Americans who, again, widened his margin by giving him the vast bulk of their support. He won 90 percent of the black vote, according to exit polls, which found that African-Americans made up 8 percent of primary voters - up from 6 percent in the 2004 presidential primaries. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that some polling places in that city ran out of ballots because of unexpectedly high turnout. Obama's frontrunner status was solidified in the moments after polls closed when John McCain, declared the Republican victor, attacked him as "inexperienced" and his words as "empty" — without even mentioning Clinton. And after Obama interrupted Clinton's speech - which mixed attacks on Obama's allegedly empty rhetoric with her own policy proposals - he gave a comfortable, loose, and policy-heavy speech of his own, breaking little ground and running an unusually long time, about 45 minutes. "We have lift-off," he told the Houston crowd. Kenneth P. Vogel and Carrie Budoff Brown contributed to this report.
For the first time in my 31 years, I feel like an American thanks in part to the Obama campaign.
Today, I went to the Houston for Obama HQ to help register voters in 3rd Ward. I have never been apart of a grassroots movement ever until. Canvasing the community and talking to people about Obama and dispelling doubts was the most amazing thing I have ever done in my life. I have never felt as if I was a bearer of hope.
Tho see the light go in in many young Black American men's eyes, the eyes of men with no hope, no purpose, no direction was enlightening. I met some old school folks as well who are big supporters of Obama. Those who weathered the storm with King and Kennedy. These old timers--and I use that term with much respect--understand the world and its promises that never come true and for some reason they this man is not full of hot air.
At the HQ I met a woman named Yolanda who for some reason fell in love with on the spot. She told me of her experience of walking with Dr. King in Louisville, Kentucky when she was only 12 years old. Mind you the woman didn't look a day over 35, I even got up close to see if she had wrinkles--she didn't.
She said to me and my mom who were apart of the group--that "your daughter has something amazing in her. I can see why she is supporting Obama, they have the same spirit." She is right, we do. We have both been through the identity struggle--mind you I am as black as they come--but I had different interest then my black counterparts in Houston that ostracized me from the group early on--my being pegged as "too white." He and I have traveled all over the world, he and I see the world through different eyes--it isn't black and white but a beautiful rainbow. Yes, I support Obama because, it is in him that I see myself and the change I wish for this country.
Being in such wonderful company today encouraged me--University of Houston Students united again. Doing things that other candidates do not encourage their supporters to do--like unifying from the ground up, working in the community to endorse a candidate--has made me feel like I am apart of the process and not outside of the process.
I must say that Obama is ingenious in how he has organized his supporters. I believe many of us have walked away feeling more American, and more empowered just because we were able to actually "touch" our candidate and the people around us.
After Obama's win today--mind you he took the white vote just as much as the black (so much for race baiting)--I am again starting to believe in this process, believe in this nation and believe in its people.
I do believe that change starts from the bottom up, if governments can be tyrannical without meeting oposition from the people then it will, but the fact that Obama is holding the people accountable and in turn the people will hold him accountable to push forth that change is brilliant.
Change has always come in the face of fierce opposition and through grassroot movements-- Civil Rights Movement, Women's Right to Vote, Emancipation of Slavery, and the end of Apartheid-- all of these movements came about because the people spoke loud and as one voice. Their clear voice was heard throughout their nation and could not be ignored by their governments.
Congrats Obamas for the win and the Kennedy endorsement. Here's to many more wins during Super Tuesday.
