To you Obama supporters that need to read this: For the good of the campaign that you've worked so hard for, get over yourselves. Obama is now the Democratic nominee for President, and continuing to piss and moan about the past slights against him or you or your pet poodle really doesn't do him any favors. Stop being a sore winner and have a bit of empathy. And if you can't muster up empathy, just realize that continuing to attack other Democrats is the opposite of supporting Obama now. Every moment spent parsing a comment about popular votes or now-suspended campaigns or whatever is a moment wasted on doing something to actually help Obama. It's time to reach out and attract potential Obama supporters the good of our country, children, troops, planet, courts, etc. ... not to stay bitter over past irrelevancies for the good of nobody but your own bitter self.
I mean, Obama has gotten over it. So should you all.
It's seems like we've got a narrative building folks. John McCain is trumpeting his experience, but it seems like all he's done in this campaign is highlight how many times he's shown a lapse in judgment and a failure to understand the facts. And about serious subjects like Iraq, the economy, ethics, and his own damn words.
Wrong judgment, wrong facts.
The following is a list compiled just with a few minutes of web searching. If you know of others, add them in the comments.
This one is a big one. Apparently, while McCain was pretending that the subprime crisis didn't exist, he had a lobbyist and Vice-Chair of a bank facing major subprime exposure "whispering in his ear." Who is the lobbyist? Former Senator Phil Gramm -- the epitome of Washington, D.C.'s revolving door culture of influence peddling.
Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain’s national campaign general co-chair was being paid by a Swiss bank to lobby Congress about the U.S. mortgage crisis at the same time he was advising McCain about his economic policy, federal records show.
I don't see any diaries about John Edwards. Or Joe Biden. Or Chris Dodd. Or, well, you get the picture. It's time to stop spending so much time on every silly bit of spin or desperate piece of nonsense coming from HRC or her surrogates.
I know, I know the difference between all of those other candidates who have lost and this candidate who has lost. The fame, the "inevitability," the ability to destroy the Democrat party, etc. etc. Regardless, she is still a candidate who has lost. Yesterday's news. An also ran. Every diary about her might as well be another diary about Dennis Kucinich.
Surprised I don't see any video up yet. So, here's one great American introducing another.
Part I:
Part II:
I was this close to predicting an Edwards endorsement right after West Virginia -- I just expect big news from the Obama campaign after a rough voting day. Like Teddy after New Hampshire. But now, it's also floodgates time. So, who's going to be the next big endorsement? Webb? Gore? Clinton?
In 2004, John Kerry was urged and finally agreed to add second place finisher John Edwards to the ticket. For whatever you might say about that decision, it was made possible because Edwards had been gracious to the presumptive frontrunner throughout the campaign.
Which leads us to an important rule in picking a vice presidential running mate: Don't pick someone that has repeatedly trashed you recently.
I don't know how much more forcefully I can say it, but I really really really hope that Obama doesn't pick Hillary Clinton as her running mate. I could think of many reasons why he shouldn't.
She'd bring all those negatives that we were trying to avoid in the general, firing up the GOP base the same as if she won the nomination.
She'd be rewarded for her Rovian-style intra-party hatchet-job.
She'd submarine the perfect contrast Obama brings to the inside-the-beltway, same-ol'-same'-ol', right-wing candidacy of John McBush.
She'd remove Obama reality-based advantage, given her recent reality-challenged comments and proposals.
She'd make the whole thing about herself and her family, making her a clear and present risk to Obama being the leader of the party
A D.C. Council member and unpledged Democratic delegate has withdrawn his prominent public support for Sen. Hillary Clinton, preferring instead to be listed as undecided in the race for the nomination.
Ward 5 D.C. Councilman Harry Thomas Jr. was elected last week by the D.C. Democratic State Committee as a delegate to the national convention. Thomas, who had previously endorsed Clinton, was listed as a Clinton backer on a delegate spreadsheet circulated Monday by the committee.
But by the end of the day, the party had retracted that announcement, and Thomas was switched to simply "unpledged."
"He wants to confer with the party," said Vicky Leonard-Chambers, Thomas’ spokeswoman.
I bet he does. In fact, I bet there are a lot of Clinton superdelegates who need to start conferring and backtracking and then, well, you know the rest.
Obama's post-partisan politics is that desire to bring the country together based on common ground to solve problems. However, this political philosophy has often been denigrated by other Democrats (normally his opponents) as being too conciliatory. Such criticism misses the point: working on common ground does not equate to capitulation. I've highlighted how Obama is a fighter in the past. Obama has shown that, while seeking common ground, he can also stand his ground as well. Being able to do both is what will make him such an effective president.
In fact, given their records, I'd argue that it's Obama that understands how to stand his ground when needed. Clinton, on a host of issues, has shown to be quite adept at conciliating where she sees a political need, and acting tough later when she sees a political need: the war, NAFTA, etc.
Former U.S. Sen. John Melcher says he is going to cast his key Democratic Party superdelegate vote for Barack Obama.
Melcher is one of eight Montana superdelegates who can vote for whoever they please at the party's national convention this summer.
Melcher says he chose Obama because he believes the Illinois senator has been against the Iraq war since the start.
That's two in one day. Based on this NBC post after Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal's endorsement, Obama has now picked up 12 superdelegates to Clinton's one since March 4.
Yeah, yeah, you've heard it before. The insurmountable pledged delegate deficit, the dried up finances, the Bosnia flap, etc. etc. But, aside from all of that, Hillary Clinton had a mathematical chance at winning the nomination if the superdelegates were willing to give her the nomination (i.e., thwart the popular will and trigger intra-party civil war).
By appearing as magnanimous as possible toward Clinton, Obama is seeking to reassure these superdelegates that everything is going to be all right in the end. Meanwhile, his campaign in exerting ramped up pressure behind the scenes for superdelegates who are with Obama privately to be with him publicly.
That's right folks. It's just a matter of convincing private Obama fans to come out publicly. In fact, that's exactly what's happening now:
Well, I think it is hurting. Look, we've got five more months to go before the Democratic convention at the end of August and, candidly, we cannot go five more months with the kind of daily sniping that's going on and have a candidate emerge in that convention. My hope is that it will be Barack Obama, but if it's Hillary Clinton, she too will suffer, in my view, from this kind of a campaign that I think is undermining the credibility and the quality of the two candidates that we have. We have two very strong candidates. So I'm worried about this going on endlessly and to a large extent, Linda, the media, a lot of these cable networks, are enjoying this. It's what is keeping them alive financially. The fact that this thing is going on forever, back and forth every day, all night -- I don't think it's really helping the candidates or the political institutions.
Calling out the horse-race obsessed media and looking out for the good of the party....
TPM has put together this killer video detailing the most important happenings in the whole snipers-in-Bosnia flap that's engulfing Clinton right now:
Josh says this controversy is "peaking" -- but I don't think that the "phony" narrative is anywhere near at it's peak. There's FMLA and Northern Ireland and SCHIP and NAFTA and ... anything else? The thread has been pulled, and the whole resume is coming apart.
I just wanted to write a little note to you on this fine Tuesday. I'll use some special font so the message gets through: Americans won't elect a serial exaggerator.
You see, if someone can be depicted as a person who exaggerates their own record over and over and over again, that person is in serious trouble with the electorate. Voters just don't like it when presidential candidates sounds like they are pushing the bounds of reality to make themselves sound better than they are. The GOP attack machine revs into action and soon the media will start tossing around words like "untrustworthiness" and "credibility gap." And then the polling starts. Then it's all over but the concession speech.
And, now, the "serial exaggerator" tag is stuck on Hillary Clinton.
"I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."
The Clinton campaign is claiming she misspoke. U.S. Air Force journalist Don Jackson has a different explanation:
Mrs. Clinton arrived to a flight line full of well-wishers, both military and civilian, accompanied by her staff as well as comedian Sinbad and singer Sheryl Crow who were there to entertain troops. To set the record straight, there was no enemy fire, and no imminent danger. If there had been any danger, "well-wishers" would not have been allowed on the tarmac, much less allowing me to stand above everyone else on the back of a truck. And Sinbad and Sheryl Crow would've been running for their lives instead of taking the time to be interviewed by yours truly, on the tarmac. Mrs. Clinton's [claim] is a lie, plain and simple.
More evidence that Obama's speech on race was a game changer:
Sen. Barack Obama's speech on race was a decisive factor in Bill Richardson's endorsement of his presidential bid, the New Mexico governor revealed Saturday.
"I think what kind of clinched it for me, although I made a decision a week ago, was Sen. Obama's speech on race," Richardson said on ABC's "Good Morning America."
"He had this problem with his pastor. He could have said nothing or glided through it. Instead, he attacked the race issue head-on, talking about stereotypes, taking some very, very tough stances on this issue."
I have a feeling that other superdelegates will follow. This may have been the week that the pundits will single out a few months from now during the postmortem on when the Democratic primary race finally ended.
Think about this for a moment. Right now, the biggest media story so far during this election year hasn't been something a candidate has done during his or her professional life. Or something a candidate has said while on the trail. Or some aye vote or nay vote or failure to vote. Or really something the candidate did in his or her personal life, however irrelevant to the office sought.*
No, the biggest story of the campaign is what someone that a candidate has known said outside of that candidate's presence, despite the fact that the candidate himself has rejected those statements and has never said anything remotely similar.
I didn't know much about these records that were being released, but it appears that this release must have been a response to a FOIA request. In other words, the Clintons were not voluntarily giving up information. They were being compelled by law to do so.
So, not knowing that, I took a quick look expecting to see documents showing Clinton clearing the air and allowing her to be "vetted." I was wrong. The documents are full of redactions based on FOIA exemptions. My quick look showed a large number of (b)(6) redactions, meant to protect another person's privacy. Sorry, to me that's a cop out. Those that meet with the First Lady should not expect "privacy" in all but the most unique cases. If they are meeting with her about policy discussions, trying to make their case for their special interests, or just "make the rounds" for the sake of influence, there is no personal privacy at stake. The invasion of privacy must be "unwarranted" -- and I don't think there's much a privacy interest in the fact that someone had an audience with the First Lady, and it's certainly not unwarranted to release such not-that-private info.
