Friday’s campaign round-up

March 21, 2008

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:

* In one of the weaker attacks from the Obama campaign in recent memory, the Obama team found and distributed a picture of Bill Clinton shaking hands with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright at a White House prayer breakfast in 1998. The NYT noted, “There is nothing in the picture or the note that addresses whether Mr. Clinton had met Mr. Wright prior to the White House meeting or whether he or Mrs. Clinton knew anything about Mr. Wright’s views.” It’s pretty weak.

* In a more substantive offensive, the Obama campaign is capitalizing on recently-released Hillary Clinton schedules from her time as First Lady that showed her working to help pass NAFTA in 1993. “It’s about trust,” an Obama campaign memo released to the media said. “Working Americans are looking for a president who will be consistent in standing up for American workers – and have the integrity to be consistent in his or her views. Senator Clinton has failed that test…. American workers are already facing the uncertainly of a changing economy. The last thing they need is another president who changes views when there’s an election coming up.”

* Rasmussen tested the candidates’ general-election prospects in Minnesota, historically a Democratic state, but now considered a competitive battleground. The poll found McCain edging Clinton, 47% to 46%, while Obama was ahead of McCain, 47% to 43%.

* Usually, when a political ad uses anti-France animus, it comes from the right. But not every time. The Campaign for America’s Future takes on McCain’s lobbying efforts that benefitted a French company over an American one.

* Obama expects to lose Pennsylvania, but with a month until the election, he’s already on the air in the state.

* John Edwards taped an interview with Jay Leno last night, and there was some interest in whether the former senator might mention which presidential candidate he’s supporting. Apparently, that didn’t happen.

* The McCain campaign finally disclosed what it raised in February: $11 million. For context, Hillary Clinton raised triple that over the same period, and Obama raised quintuple McCain’s total. No wonder he was reluctant to talk about the number.

* The latest national Fox News poll asked voters if they thought Obama shares the social views of his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. By a 57%-24% margin, they said they don’t think so. On a related note, the same poll found that 54% said the controversy did not raise doubts about Obama, while 35% said it did.

* Hillary Clinton’s chief strategist, Mark Penn, released his latest report, which he believes shows a significant “shift to Hillary” based on the results of nine recent polls. Peyton Craighill of the ABC News Polling Unit said five of the nine polls “are not airworthy.” (Jake Tapper noted that “airworthy” is a term used to describe “polls so poorly done we are discouraged from mentioning them on air.”)

Please, Obama, drop the ‘gotcha’ picture.

And keep up the NAFTA attacks. Substance, substance, substance. Let Hillary and the Clintonistas whine about your Grandma and pastor for the next five weeks while you focus on issues.

Meanwhile, Penn is pushing information even the corporate media considers crap. Has he tried Fox News…it may be a better home for lies intended to hurt a Democrat.

  • The latest national Fox News poll asked voters if they thought Obama shares the social views of his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. By a 57%-24% margin, they said they don’t think so. On a related note, the same poll found that 54% said the controversy did not raise doubts about Obama, while 35% said it did.

    Those minority figures in both polls overlap with the dead-enders who still support Bush, people who would never answer positively about any Democrat. Why then are the cable news nets obsessing over this?

  • Please, Obama, drop the ‘gotcha’ picture.

    Yeah, that was crass.

    I suspect they did it to get the Clinton campaign to steer clear of it, but it was petty and unpersuasive. Stick to the high road, Obama.

  • No where is the impact of looming recession and the near-meltdown on Wall Street clearer than on the White House web site. Just days ago, the site boasted about President Bush’s glorious stewardship of the U.S. economy. Now, the White House’s economy web page reflects the mad scramble to ward off the twin crises of the housing market and the financial system.

    For the details, see:
    “White House Scrubs Web Site on the Economy.”

  • With Hillary unwilling to take responsibility for her campaign being the source of all the hoo-rah over Rev. Wright, it’s interesting to take a look at her “spiritual guides.” Particularly since “The Family” is a whole lot scarier and a whole lot more actually dangerous politically than Rev. Wright ever was. This comes from the new issue of “The Nation.”

    Hillary’s Nasty Pastorate
    by BARBARA EHRENREICH

    [posted online on March 19, 2008]

    There’s a reason Hillary Clinton has remained relatively silent during the flap over intemperate remarks by Barack Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. When it comes to unsavory religious affiliations, she’s a lot more vulnerable than Obama.

    You can find all about it in a widely under-read article in the September 2007 issue of Mother Jones, in which Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet reported that “through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as “The “Fellowship,” also known as The Family. But it won’t be a secret much longer. Jeff Sharlet’s shocking exposé The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power will be published in May.

    Sean Hannity has called Obama’s church a “cult,” but that term applies far more aptly to Clinton’s “Family,” which is organized into “cells”–their term–and operates sex-segregated group homes for young people in northern Virginia. In 2002, Sharlet joined The Family’s home for young men, forswearing sex, drugs and alcohol, and participating in endless discussions of Jesus and power. He wasn’t undercover; he used his own name and admitted to being a writer. But he wasn’t completely out of danger either. When he went outdoors one night to make a cell phone call, he was followed. He still gets calls from Family associates asking him to meet them in diners–alone.

    The Family’s most visible activity is its blandly innocuous National Prayer Breakfast, held every February in Washington. But almost all its real work goes on behind the scenes–knitting together international networks of right-wing leaders, most of them ostensibly Christian. In the 1940s, The Family reached out to former and not-so-former Nazis, and its fascination with that exemplary leader, Adolf Hitler, has continued, along with ties to a whole bestiary of murderous thugs. As Sharlet reported in Harper’s in 2003:

    During the 1960s the Family forged relationships between the U.S. government and some of the most anti-Communist (and dictatorial) elements within Africa’s postcolonial leadership. The Brazilian dictator General Costa e Silva, with Family support, was overseeing regular fellowship groups for Latin American leaders, while, in Indonesia, General Suharto (whose tally of several hundred thousand “Communists” killed marks him as one of the century’s most murderous dictators) was presiding over a group of fifty Indonesian legislators. During the Reagan Administration the Family helped build friendships between the U.S. government and men such as Salvadoran general Carlos Eugenios Vides Casanova, convicted by a Florida jury of the torture of thousands, and Honduran general Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, himself an evangelical minister, who was linked to both the CIA and death squads before his own demise. [You’d never imagine that these US-friendly dictators were so bloody from reading the Miami Herald. The US government never did stop supporting them, much less invade, attack, bomb or blockade them, either. klw]

    At the heart of The Family’s American branch is a collection of powerful right-wing politicos, who include, or have included, Sam Brownback, Ed Meese, John Ashcroft, James Inhofe and Rick Santorum. They get to use The Family’s spacious estate on the Potomac, The Cedars, which is maintained by young men in Family group homes and where meals are served by The Family’s young women’s group. And, at The Family’s frequent prayer gatherings, they get powerful jolts of spiritual refreshment, tailored to the already powerful.

    Clinton fell in with The Family in 1993, when she joined a Bible study group composed of wives of conservative leaders like Jack Kemp and James Baker. When she ascended to the Senate, she was promoted to what Sharlet calls the Family’s “most elite cell,” the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast, which included, until his downfall, Virginia’s notoriously racist Senator George Allen. This has not been a casual connection for Clinton. She has written of Doug Coe, The Family’s publicity-averse leader, that he is “a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God.”

    Furthermore, The Family takes credit for some of Clinton’s rightward legislative tendencies, including her support for a law guaranteeing “religious freedom” in the workplace, such as for pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions and police officers who refuse to guard abortion clinics.

    What drew Clinton into the sinister heart of the international right? Maybe it was just a phase in her tormented search for identity, marked by ever-changing hairstyles and names: Hillary Rodham, Mrs. Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton and now Hillary Clinton. She reached out to many potential spiritual mentors during her White House days, including New Age guru Marianne Williamson and the liberal rabbi Michael Lerner. But it was the Family association that stuck.

    Sharlet generously attributes Clinton’s involvement to the under-appreciated depth of her religiosity, but he himself struggles to define The Family’s theological underpinnings. The Family avoids the word Christian but worships Jesus, though not the Jesus who promised the earth to the “meek.” They believe that, in mass societies, it’s only the elites who matter, the political leaders who can build God’s “dominion” on earth. Insofar as The Family has a consistent philosophy, it’s all about power–cultivating it, building it and networking it together into ever-stronger units, or “cells.” “We work with power where we can,” Doug Coe has said, and “build new power where we can’t.”

    Obama has given a beautiful speech on race and his affiliation with the Trinity United Church of Christ. Now it’s up to Clinton to explain–or, better yet, renounce–her long-standing connection with the fascist-leaning Family.

  • Wow. A Faux “News” poll finds that the Wright “controversy” isn’t taken seriously. Despite how much they’ve been flogging it, even their own viewers don’t care (except, as TR notes, those dead-enders who wouldn’t support a Dem anyway).

    Does anyone think that those concern trolls talking about how this is going to kill Obama’s candidacy are going to be convinced by this?

    Yeah, me neither.

  • the same poll found that 54% said the controversy did not raise doubts about Obama, while 35% said it did.

    I guess I would ask where was that 35% at before the controversy?

    I mean, is this 35% “new” doubts? Or did that 35% already have doubts?

  • I agree that the Clinton/Wright photo op is pretty flimsy – but some of the argument I’ve read around the picture is that it proves that Rev. Wright is not some fringe religious crank. He obviously had the stature a decade ago to be invited to an annual White House religious event. Part of the reclamation of Rev. Wright’s sullied repuation – too bad it wasn’t done by some other entity than the Obama campaign…

  • An update to the first post from this morning, CNN is now reporting that both Clinton’s and McCain’s passport files were also breached.

  • From the same FOX news poll:

    All in all, Americans think your choice in friends says a lot about you: Almost 7 of 10 say they think the people you choose to be your friends reflect on you and your values. And 39 percent say your friends reflect on you “a lot.”

    70 percent of the people polled have knowledge of the Jeremiah Wright controversy. This is not going away, it’s going to get a lot worse.

  • Negative campaigning, when successful, has a powerful effect beyond whether people buy it or not. It reframes the election, makes the candidate and his “problem” the issue. Puts a screen between the (low-information, or technically speaking, stupid) voter and other considerations about the candidacy. Assuming the media goes with it, as they happen to have done with Kerry, Gore, Dukakis…

  • Nothing about Barbara Ehrenreich’s vicious attack on Hillary Clinton’s religious beliefs today?

    All Obama news, all the time.

  • With Hillary unwilling to take responsibility for her campaign being the source of all the hoo-rah over Rev. Wright – Tom Cleaver

    So, I guess ABC news is on Hillary’s payroll, and you people call me a troll.

  • The comment that Wright must have been OK 10 years ago doesn’t take into account what might have occurred in the past 10 years. I don’t know if he became more extreme over time, but it seems specious to base a defense of Wright on a decade-old vetting.

    I doubt the White House considered the substance of Wright’s views at all when deciding whether to invite him — just the size of his congregation and the desire to be inclusive of African American religious leaders. After all, lots of folks with views different than the Clintons were invited to functions at the White House, including leaders of undemocratic countries and unsavory movements (e.g., Gerry Adams, Sinn Fein). Attendance at the White House isn’t an endorsement of Wright’s religious views or anyone else’s.

    But, you know Obama — he’ll say or do anything to get elected. (If this statement seems unfair to you, consider that it is what has been said about Clinton repeatedly for “throwing the kitchen sink” at Obama.) Looks pretty desperate to me.

  • Regarding the Clinton/Wright pic, I think it was the right move. Sure it is crass, but by showing the connection it helps to deflect criticism a little. Now if he continue to hit people with it over and over and over, then it will backfire.

    Obama should be talking about Clinton’s recently released schedules as First Lady where several times she was scheduled to argue for NAFTA. Now THAT might get some traction in Pennsylvania.

  • When the French refused to fight in a war of aggression in Iraq there was an uproar because the media told all those stupid , bread and circus morons to be outraged , when GM was talking to Renault not a peep from those corporate media fucks . Boeing loses a contract to Airbus not one call to ban French Fries .
    American dumbasses do not know how to think unless they see it on the idiot box .

  • I don’t think the Clinton-Wright photo was an attack per se but a validation that the Rev. Wright was considered mainstream enough to have participated in White House prayer breakfast during the Clinton years. If he had been viewed as a rabid racist at the time he would have been political poison and not invited to such a function. The photo doesn’t tear down Clinton, it elevatesand mainstreams the Rev. Wright. That’s my opinion.

    The political vetting process is getting more intricate and insane at the same time. Ten years ago it was weather you had an undocumented nanny and whether you paid their social; security taxes. Today’s candidates not only have to pass that but also the opinionated preacher test as well, as well as the “do you have any sex tapes posted on the web” litmus test. What test will becoe the majr issue in the next campaign cycle? I’m sure it will be even goofier.

  • TPM has the first ad of the Pennsylvania primary, with Obama landing the first blow.

    It’s pretty damn good. It’s a positive bio spot, one that highlights themes of patriotism and union support and, not too subtly, reminds voters that he’s half-white (and not as scary a scary black scary man as some would have them believe.)

    http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/obama_now_on_the_air_in_pennsy.php

    This is the first ad of the primary, and it’s bound to tick his numbers upwards, especially when combined with the very positive press coverage of the Phil. race speech. We’ve seen this in state after state — Hillary starts out with a solid edge based on familiarity and name recognition, and then Obama moves in and narrows the gap. I still think she’ll win, but we’re probably looking at a narrower 55-45 win than the current 20-point margin seen in the polls.

  • Ooh, Mary, you’re right. That was a pretty damning article. Let’s share a couple parts:

    At the heart of The Family’s American branch is a collection of powerful right-wing politicos, who include, or have included, Sam Brownback, Ed Meese, John Ashcroft, James Inhofe and Rick Santorum.

    Clinton fell in with The Family in 1993, when she joined a Bible study group composed of wives of conservative leaders like Jack Kemp and James Baker. When she ascended to the Senate, she was promoted to what Sharlet calls the Family’s “most elite cell,” the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast, which included, until his downfall, Virginia’s notoriously racist Senator George Allen.

    Furthermore, The Family takes credit for some of Clinton’s rightward legislative tendencies, including her support for a law guaranteeing “religious freedom” in the workplace, such as for pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions and police officers who refuse to guard abortion clinics.

    http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080331/ehrenreich

  • Disagree that the picture of Wright with Clinton is weak. It shows that Wright is not a fire-breathing racist hate monster that the wingers portray him to be.

    Or, as rational people would agree, there are two sides to every story.

  • Just watched the ad. It was pretty good as an introduction. It does a decent job touching on some of the themes he brought up in his recent speech on race and also his support for labor.

  • TR,

    TPM has the first ad of the Pennsylvania primary

    thanks for posting the link to that ad. Its a good ad. I’d like to see more of those. And when both campaigns start the inevitable attack ads, I sincerely hope that McSame is the target of those attacks.

  • I thought that Bill was ALREADY labeled a RACIST during the South Carolina primary. Is this photo from the Obama people intended to confirm that???

    Looks like Obama is finally throwing Granny AND Uncle Jeremiah under the bus!? How many more family members can he afford to trash???

  • Not only a photo at the invitation only event, there was a thank you note. Who thinks Wright wasn’t vetted before he was invited?

  • Nice to see the loonies are out if force today. Obama supporters need to get over themselves. Obama is the one that belongs to a racist church for 20 years and it isn’t going to change anything to make your hateful snide remarks about Clinton.

    Get another latte and take your pills.

  • Obama had 25 years to distance himself from Wright. He probably didn’t because it was useful to have a megachurch of supporters working his name in his Senate district.

    This, in my opinion, is the sound of a shoe dropping. It’s real. It’s less than good.

    That said, if this is the worst that can be said about Obama? Can you say… “landslide”?

  • Random reactions to a lot of little things in the post and the comments:

    1) The “Wright at Prayer Breakfast” photo is just silly on Obama’s part. Inviting a large large group of diverse clergy to the breakfast is one thing (and even then, the invite was from Bill, not Hill); having him as your “spiritual advisor” is another;

    2) Not to be crassly political when American workers are losing jobs, but. . . Airbus beating out Boeing takes Washington State out of play for McCain;

    3) Sadly, while McCain should “go directly to jail” for busting the caps, there is no one to even slap his wrist so long as the Congressional Minority can keep the FEC from ever having a quorum.

  • TR,

    TPM has the first ad of the Pennsylvania primary

    thanks for posting the link to that ad. Its a good ad. I’d like to see more of those. And when both campaigns start the inevitable attack ads, I sincerely hope that McSame is the target of those attacks.

    Glad you liked. And agreed on all counts.

  • For me, the whole point of the picture of Wright with Clinton wasn’t to suggest that he’s guilty of anything, but rather to show that Wright was obviously such a mainstream religious figure that he was invited to the Whitehouse for an important presidential event with religious overtones and wasn’t considered a radical. This isn’t the “pox on both their houses, they both did something wrong” thing, but rather just to show that Obama didn’t do anything wrong. Unless, of course, we’re to imagine that random pastors get invited to the Whitehouse without being checked at all.

  • One thing I’d like to know is why Comeback Bill imagines labeling us latte sippers has some sort of effect. What does that even mean? And do you real imagine someone will turn away from Obama because you keep saying we drinik lattes? That’s the kind of thing people write as parody.

  • […] it seems specious to base a defense of Wright on a decade-old vetting. — Mary, @17

    But it’s OK to base Obama’s condemnation on 20 (or is it 25?) years of association with the same Wright? Way to go, girl; very logical. Or are Obama’s first 10/15 yrs of friendship OK, but only the last 10 reprehensible?

  • Usually, when a political ad uses anti-France animus, it comes from the right. But not every time. The Campaign for America’s Future takes on McCain’s lobbying efforts that benefitted a French company over an American one.

    It’s about goddamn time! BILLIONS of American dollars going to a company outside of the US (and yes, it’s partially here with Northrop Grumman not just EADS) vs. completely built in America by Americans (granted probably with parts from all over the world).

    This is an abomination and McCain and his lobbyists should be deeply ashamed!

    Thankfully Boeing is fighting it and will hopefully prevail. While they had issues from within the people were taken care of and to punish Boeing and the American workers, ESPECIALLY during this time of crisis for people who are losing jobs left and right, abomination doesn’t start to cut it.

  • Obama had 25 years to distance himself from Wright. He probably didn’t because it was useful to have a megachurch of supporters working his name in his Senate district.

    I find that to be a bit of a stretch. This isn’t the equivalent of Bush buying a ranch shortly before his presidential run. Obama didn’t even run for political office until his 1996 win. It seems odd that you’d attend a church every Sunday for that long on the off-chance you’ll need their political support. And it’s even less likely that if you were only interested in political gain that you’d pick a church you thought was controversial or anti-white. It’s more likely he just liked the church, even if he didn’t agree with everything.

    Let’s not forget that John Kerry was a member of a church he clearly disagreed with on several key issues. And not only did people not force him to denounce Catholic intolerance or their anti-abortion stance, but many people insisted he was a bad Catholic who should be denied communion or even excommunicated. Somehow, Democrats are always attacked for their religion, whether they’re too religious or not religious enough. Republicans, on the other hand, don’t care that Bush or Reagan didn’t attend church, or that McCain isn’t even sure what religion he really is (he attends a Baptist church because his wife and kids are Baptist, but has claimed to be both Baptist and Episcopalian and was raised Episcopalian). And the anti-Obama Democrats are helping push that meme all the way, insisting that any member of Wright’s church is automatically disqualified to be president.

  • Doctor Biobrain, #36: “One thing I’d like to know is why Comeback Bill imagines labeling us latte sippers has some sort of effect. What does that even mean? And do you real imagine someone will turn away from Obama because you keep saying we drinik lattes? That’s the kind of thing people write as parody.”

    I’m wondering about that myself. I mean, it just goes to show what a horribly elitist douchebag he is.

    My hypothesis is that he is just a troll. In other words, the effect he’s aiming for is just provocation. Whether he’s a GOP troll or a Clinton troll is open to argument.

  • I remember fondly when Deaniacs were condemned as “latte sipping, Volvo driving Vermont Liberals” – and the DFA website created a widget that would allow you to upload your photo and create your own “I’m [name] a [blank blank blank] latte sipping [mode-of-transport] [homestate] Liberal, and pround of it” ads.

  • Re: The Barbara Ehrenreich article published in The Nation and posted by Tom Cleaver at 5…

    It got me to Googling things and when I Googled Doug Coe, I very, very unexpectedly ran across an article on The Family by a Presbyterian Pastor by the name of Rev. Ben Daniel. Rev. Daniel is a regular commenter on KQED radio here in the S.F. Bay Area and he’s a reliable voice for the side of social fairness and heeding The Golden Rule.

    I was quite surprised to find a very unequivocal piece by Rev. Daniel emphasizing why The Family should be watched closely and trusted very little.

    “Dysfunction in the Fellowship Family”
    http://www.foothillpc.org/pastor_writings/Dysfunction%20in%20Fellowship.pdf

    It mirrors the Ehrenreich piece in it’s overall assessment of The Family but doesn’t get into current politics. I can’t tell when it was written. It backs up Ehrenreich’s piece completely and, unsurprisingly, highlights another aspect of Hillary’s world that I was ignorant of.

    Why do I get the feeling that Obama is just messing up comfy plans in all directions?

  • GO TO YOUTUBE AND LISTEN TO REVEREND WRIGHT’S ENTIRE SPEECH, FOX NEWS WITH THE CLINTON’S HELP PUT OUT A SMEAR CAMPAIGN, AT NO TIME IN THAT SPEECH DOES HE SAY GODDAMN AMERICA, IN THE SPEECH HE STATED A FOOTNOTE WHICH MEANS THAT IT WAS NOT A PART OF HIS SPEECH, HE WAS QUOTING FORMER AMBASSADOR EDWARD PECK THAT WAS A CONTRIBUTOR TO FOX NEWS, SO PEOPLE READ, LISTEN AND LEARN, THE WHOLE CAST AT FOX NEWS SHOULD BE FIRED F OR RACE BAITING, WITH JUST SOUNDBITES, I AM SHOCKED AT CNN AND MSNBC, GO TO YOUTUBE, YOUTUBE,

  • Oh yes Hillary fans dont want to hear about her sick religious family she belongs to. And furthermore that picture of him and Clinton shaking hands at a breakfast at the White House does mean something. Do you think Wright just waltzed in without an invitation…I am sure Clinton knew who he was. So I guess it;s ok that 10 years ago he was ok…but everyone of you Hillary fans keep saying “he attended that church for 20 years”…hmmm well guess he was the same 10 years ago too then right? So why did Clinton invite him to such a prestigious affair????? Come on people…get a grip…snap into reality…Hillary is a dangerous person…not Obama. The Clintons have always been dangerous. I for one…as I am sure many…will never vote for Hillary…so McCain has the best chance….unfortunately. But Hillary made sure she messed up the party…but it will be to her detriment also.

  • Why should Obama leave his church? Because Caucasian people can’t handle the truth? If you can find one black who disagrees with what the Reverand said, then you will have found a black person who doesn’t live in the USA! We all feel just as he expounded. Caucasian people are acting like he said something that only pertains to him. Whether CNN doctored the video or not, we still understand what he was saying. It’s not that he doesn’t love his country. He could leave if he wanted to. But he just wants the people who hate him, racist Caucasian people, to leave. He doesn’t expect them to understand him. Nor does he care. We were brought here by Caucasian people as slaves and now that we are no longer needed to pick cotton, they don’t want us here anymore.

    As for the uproar by Caucasian people about the “a typical white” statement, let me tell you about being “a typical black”. I live in a city where there are neighborhoods into which I cannot go. Day or night. Caucasian neighborhoods. We “typical blacks” know we are not allowed in those neighborhoods. I rode through one of those neighborhoods one night because my friend and I got lost. We were riding around and low and behold a cop stopped us. He asked what were we doing there. All we were was a lost couple. We had not done anything. Just black people riding around in a Caucasian neighborhood. So, I don’t want to hear about an injustice to you. We live with injustice in this country everyday. This is the point Rev. Wright was trying to make.

  • As for the breaching of Clinton’s and McCain’s passport files, how convenient. I’m not buying it. Obama’s files are looked at so out of nowhere theirs are also? I don’t believe it. Rice looked so flustered. Like she was containing a lie but couldn’t.

  • Oh please! CNN and MSNBC are a joke! Check out the headlines. When it is bad news for Obama, they have it as a sideline. Good news (or their perception of it) it is front and center. I am so disgusted with the journalism that I have permanently switched to Fox. I am a lifelong Democrat, unsure of who to vote for and now will definitely be voting for Hillary. Obama is a liar, shady and “running on a Presidential platform” above political smear? Please, give me a break! The country has lost it’s mind. Vote for the most qualified – please stop trying to prove to the world that we are such a great nation we are willing to reconcile all of our bigotry and vote a black man in the office. Have you all lost your minds? Study, listen and understand where they come from, what they’ve done and what they stand for. I believe you should be judged by your associations – after all, you made those decisions! Does this show good judgement?????? Oh, that’s right, we don’t worry about that with Obama – I forgot about his free pass – he will go down in flames running agains McCain but once again the Democrats have pushed a person into the forefront that is extremely problematic for the country. Here we go again. Another 4 years of Replicans in the White House.

  • I doubt O’Bama can survive this mess he has created. By turning this race into a race about race he attempts to shame the white vote into voting for him, it will work for a short while but it is going to wear really thin. And if he keeps it up, I suspect it will backfire on him big time. The issue has nothing to do with what Wright said, but rather what O’Bama did – he sat thru 20 yrs of American condemnation and other idiocy, and presumably subjected his daughters to the same vitriolic attacks. The racial divide is NOT a major concern or issue during this election cycle; the war is, the economy is, health care is, etc. So why is he dwelling endlessly on race — perhaps because it is at the center of his personal agenda?

    Perhaps more serious, this is only the first challenge the media has presented to O’Bama. They so far have given him yet another pass on the Rezko affair — that won’t continue much longer. Clearly, Rezko helped O’Bama in some significant capacity during the purchase of his Chicago estate (Rezko closed on the next door estage same day as O’Bama, then sold a prime strip of the land to O’Bama – devaluing the Rezko estate but boosting the value of O’Bama’s estate — who does that?). Obviously, as O’Bama admitted, it was a “boneheaded thing to do” and equally obviously there was collusion (no one has admitted that of course), only issue is whether it was illegal. A lawyer will have to settle that one, but if O’Bama were a normal civil servant he would either have been fired on the spot or be awaiting trial. But America holds it’s politicians to a different standard – sadly. Real message here is that more is incoming between now and Nov.

    If the democratic leadership is dumb enough to run him for the presidency they will most likely lose the presidency, and harm their prospects in the house and the seante. And damage their own good standing in the party. No doubt Clinton is tough, and many American’s despise that in a woman, but at least Clinton’s has a track record of integrity and honesty (although the media has done a good 15 yr job of trying to obfuscate that reality). She might be able to beat McCain, in my mind O’Bama has already lost. Harder yet with idiots like Dean and Pelosi leading the party.

  • It surprises me that many people think that in the past 20 years Sen. Obama, Rev Wright and his congregation has been so consumed with white folks. I imagine there are other pressing issues in their community that they have been dealing with over the past 20 years. I’m sure preaching about issues concerning poverty, education and schools, lack of jobs, etc. has taken priority over issues about white America. We can’t afford to make another mistake in electing our President of out fear. Look where that has gotten us.

  • CNN reports “Among Pennsylvania Democratic primary voters, Clinton’s lead over Obama more than doubled from last month, according to polls. Obama’s association with Wright appeared to be hurting him as of last weekend.

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