USA Presidential Politics - 2008

[melliedee]

Abortion rights group NARAL endorses Obama:

"Pro-choice Americans have been fortunate to have two strong pro-choice candidates in Senator Obama and Senator Clinton, both of whom have inspired millions of new voters to participate in this historic presidential race," NARAL president Nancy Keenan said in a statement. "Today, we are proud to put our organization's grass-roots and political support behind the pro-choice candidate whom we believe will secure the Democratic nomination and advance to the general election. That candidate is Senator Obama."

Obama picks up endorsement of leading abortion rights organization - International Herald Tribune

[ryberg]

Must be a rotating position, this lying with the numbers thing, because McAuliffe seems to have handed off to Karen Wasserman Schultz of FL, who was first on The NewsHour and then on CNN with John King saying that Clinton had as of last night taken the lead in the popular vote.

Course you only get there by counting FL & MI but simultaneously ignoring IA, NV, ME & WA, but then I guess the motivation to count every vote again extends only to every vote that is good for you.

John King called her on it and she naturally avoided anything resembling an answer to the question.

How good is it for Democrats at this point to have a variety of Clinton hench(wo)men on the national TV circuits arguing that Obama is not the legitimate leader in this campaign? 'Cause maybe it's just me, but that seems to undercut his credibility in the eyes of the (I believe) many Americans who may well not recognize these claims as lies...

Steve

[Jacko]

From RCP

Popular Vote Count


Popular Vote Total 16,104,613 49.3% 15,511,003 47.5% Obama +593,610 +1.8%

Estimate w/IA, NV, ME, WA* 16,438,697 49.3% 15,734,865 47.2% Obama +703,832 +2.1%

Popular Vote (w/FL) 16,680,827 48.4% 16,381,989 47.6% Obama +298,838 +0.8%

Estimate w/IA, NV, ME, WA* 17,014,911 48.5% 16,605,851 47.3% Obama +409,060 +1.2%

Popular Vote (w/FL & MI)** 16,680,827 47.6% 16,710,298 47.7% Clinton +29,471 +0.08%

Estimate w/IA, NV, ME, WA* 17,014,911 47.7% 16,934,160 47.5% Obama +80,751 +0.22%


*(Iowa, Nevada, Washington & Maine Have Not Released Popular Vote Totals. RealClearPolitics has estimated the popular vote totals for Senator Obama and Clinton in these four states. RCP uses the WA Caucus results from February 9 in this estimate because the Caucuses on February 9 were the “official” contest recognized by the DNC to determine delegates to the Democratic convention. The estimate from these four Caucus states where there are not official popular vote numbers increases Senator Obama’s popular vote margin by 110,224. This number would be about 50,000 less if the Washington primary results from February 19th were used instead of the Washington Caucus results.)

**(Senator Obama was not on the Michigan Ballot and thus received zero votes. Uncommitted was on the ballot and received 238,168 votes as compared to 328,309 for Senator Clinton.)

[ryberg]

Good morning, everyone.

Insomnia.

If you're like me, you occasionally skip through comments posted at the end of each article on some sites. And if you're like me, you wonder at such times what some people carry between their ears. To wit: I was bored enough to look at this article this morning, and to scroll downward a bit, and to see such misinformation from a character named Balrog (who must have gotten home early from the D&D session or something) to the effect that Edwards is a superdelegate (misinformation according to DemConWatch, at least), and then to go farther down, where I discovered the illuminating comments of the oddly named LibsWarnedU, in his/her inimitable style. Comments such as

And Obama isnt even a US citizen, at least Clinton is.

and the follow-up

What is so racist about wanting the President to be a US Citizen? At least Clinton is a full-fledged American.

Or for example

Clinton: lifetime of experience

McCain: lifetime of experience

Hussein Obama: a speech he gave

Yikes. Does Clinton know how her previous comments are being used, and by whom? One does wonder...

Then there's

Clinton: salutes flag

McCain: salutes flag

Hussein Obama: burns it

Yes, I remember at the time saying that that flag-burning stunt before the -- which primary was it, again? -- was going to haunt Obama later!

But perhaps my favorite -- and it must have been a favorite of LibsWarnedU him/herself, as s/he posted it twice, in 2 different sections of the (ahem!) "discussion" -- was this one:

National Language under Clinton: AMERICAN

National Language under McCain: AMERICAN

National Language under Hussein Obama: MUSLIM

One wonders if the slip on "AMERICAN" is really not reflective of the intention to equate it as a religion with "MUSLIM".

Or indeed if one should laugh or cry about such people behaving in this way in this country and in this age. As more racist aspects of our country have surfaced over the course of this marathon campaign, I have begun to wonder if a position parallel to my late father-in-law's might not be accurate: he thought Fox would be good for Mexico if for no other reason than that the country should have a non-PRI president and break that stranglehold that had lasted a (by comparison, short) 70 years or so, even if he didn't in other ways turn out to be effective in office. Some Americans, it appears, need to have a black president, and possibly more than the country needs any president to help resolve its current difficulties. (And I harbor no doubt that the argument would be any weaker if you replaced black with female in that sentence, just for the record.)

Thankfully some keep their wits about them and respond appropriately in cases where I'd be more likely to throw things. Such a one we find in The Elitist, in the given discussion:

LibsWarnedU: In the immediate future I plan on steering my Volvo XC70 into your shins. As you lay on the ground writhing and mumbling underneath my Pirella tire I will then proceed to pour my triple shot, free-trade bean soy latte across your Cro-Magnon brow. Then I plan on fashioning some sort of rudimentary club (similar to that your people use to hunt with--only mine will be fashioned from sheafs of my innumerable advanced college degrees) to bludgeon you. You are certainly accustomed to dealing with conflict in such a manner (that is, involving clubs, degree-forged or otherwise--in your case, obviously you fall into the latter category) so I hardly foresee any issues. And as I drive off, wailing Vivaldi over my Bose system, I will leave you with a (complimentary) copy from my personal library (I just had the cherry paneling installed last week--it looks maaahvelous, I must say), a book of world languages in which you will find no such entry for "Muslim" or "American," since, as I shan't need to extrapolate for someone as clearly informed as you undoubtedly realizes their ghastly folly.

Steve

[ryberg]

Wow, is this photo ever dying for a caption contest!

(Oriiginally appeared on Ben Smith's blog at Politico with the caption, "Obama visits a Chrysler plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan.")

Knock yourselves out! And let's keep it at least moderately clean, folks!

Steve

[melliedee]

Originally Posted by ryberg

Wow, is this photo ever dying for a caption contest!

(Oriiginally appeared on Ben Smith's blog at Politico with the caption, "Obama visits a Chrysler plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan.")

Knock yourselves out! And let's keep it at least moderately clean, folks!

Steve

Sure do love Jeeps, just like you regular folk. Anyone wanna go bowling?

[ryberg]

I was thinking something like, "The Rambis look really does have something on the Worthy style." But maybe that's a stretch...

Steve

[See Turtle]

Originally Posted by ryberg

Wow, is this photo ever dying for a caption contest!

(Oriiginally appeared on Ben Smith's blog at Politico with the caption, "Obama visits a Chrysler plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan.")

Knock yourselves out! And let's keep it at least moderately clean, folks!

Steve

Barack Bullies Blue Collar Vote with Angry Black Man Bit

[See Turtle]

George Bush, in a speech this morning to the Knesset in Jerusalem, compared Barack Obama's willingness to engage in diplomacy with Iran to Neville Chamberlin's appeasement of Nazi Germany.

Even Pat Buchannan called it outrageous.

Watch it here.

MSNBC - Breaking News, Weather, Business, Health, Entertainment, Sports, Politics, Travel, Science, Technology, Local, US & World News - msnbc.com Front Page

[ryberg]

Originally Posted by See Turtle

George Bush, in a speech this morning to the Knesset in Jerusalem, compared Barack Obama's willingness to engage in diplomacy with Iran to Neville Chamberlin's appeasement of Nazi Germany.

Even Pat Buchannan called it outrageous.

Watch it here.

MSNBC - Breaking News, Weather, Business, Health, Entertainment, Sports, Politics, Travel, Science, Technology, Local, US & World News - msnbc.com Front Page

Is it just me? Or are Republicans peeing in their pants all over the place?

Sen. John McCain envisions that by 2013, the Iraq War will be won but the threat from the Taliban in Afghanistan won't yet be eliminated, even though Osama bin Laden will have been captured or killed... [source]

Meanwhile, poor Clinton can't win for losing, it seems:

Hillary Clinton's decisive win in West Virginia caused John Edwards to throw his support to Barack Obama, the Illinois senator's aides said . . .

Edwards was concerned that the Clinton storyline -- that Obama can't win white, working-class voters -- was becoming too damaging to Obama and the party, aides said . . .

Wednesday's endorsement could help Obama reach the blue-collar voters who have been reluctant to embrace his candidacy. On his flight from Grand Rapids to Chicago, Obama told reporters he has no doubt Edwards will help him in every demographic.

And the signs are beginning to show with Thursday's endorsement by the powerful United Steelworkers Union.

"When the presidential primary contests began last year, our Union felt strongly that because of Senator John Edwards's deep commitment to working people and because of our shared beliefs, he deserved our strong endorsement," the union said in a press release. "Today, by virtue of a unanimous vote of our International Executive Board, we find ourselves once again in agreement with Senator Edwards, this time with his decision last evening to endorse Senator Barack Obama."

The union's leaders took aim with Sen. John McCain's "lock-step commitment to four more years of the broken Bush economy and the broken Bush foreign policies" . . . [source]

A Repulican strategist and acknowledged McCain supporter even said last night on CNN that one less of the GOP loss in MS is that you won't beat Obama with the same old tactics of things like trying to smear him via his connection with Wright, you'd have to beat him with better ideas and policies, instead.

So I guess those were McCain's attempts at better ideas and policies!

Steve

[ryberg]

Not seeing Obama's white vote problem, myself.



4 more superdelegates today, so far...

Steve

[melliedee]

Add the United Steel Workers!

[ryberg]

The aforementioned battle of the eyewear:





Steve

[ryberg]

Biden for VP, anyone?

“This is bullshit, this is malarkey. This is outrageous, for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, to sit in the Knesset ... and make this kind of ridiculous statement." . . .

Democrats have interpreted the comments as an attack on Sen. Barack Obama, and Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that the president was out of line.

“He is the guy who has weakened us,” he said. “He has increased the number of terrorists in the world. It is his policies that have produced this vulnerability that the U.S. has. It’s his [own] intelligence community [that] has pointed this out, not me.” [source]

Steve

[ryberg]

Hey, another photo in need of a captioning contest!

Recalling one of my favorite old Ernie Pook's Comeek strips from the wonderful Lynda Barry, I suggest, "You're dead meat on a stick."

But I'm sure there are many wonderful options!

Steve