May 5, 2008
May 4, 2008
Maureen Dowd: This Bud’s for You
Maureen Dowd, The New York Times, May 4, 2008
Barack Obama is going to get down if it kills him.
Bleeding white voters in North Carolina and Indiana, the Illinois senator headed Thursday evening to V.F.W. Post 1954 in North Liberty, Ind., consisting of a bar, a pool table, a Coors Light clock and a couple of dozen curious white guys.
Checking out what the vets were drinking, he announced, “I’m going to have a Bud.” Then, showing he’s a smart guy who can learn and assimilate, he took big swigs from his beer can, a marked improvement on the delicate sip he took at a brewery in Bethlehem, Pa.
Obama is also doing his best to impress hoop-crazed Hoosiers with his passion for basketball. On Thursday night, in shirt and tie, he took on an eighth grader named Aaron at a backyard picnic in Union Mills in an impromptu game of P-I-G. “You know, he’s tough,” Obama laughed about his 14-year-old opponent. “He’s like Hillary Clinton.”
The lioness of Chappaqua is hot on the trail of the Chicago gazelle, eager to gnaw him to pieces, like a harrowing scene out of a George Stubbs painting.
Proclaiming that the upcoming elections in Indiana and North Carolina would be “a game changer,” Hillary and her posse pressed hard on their noble twin themes of emasculation and elitism.
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Brayan Zepp Jamaison: Hillary: No
Bryan Zepp Jamaison, The Lonesome Mongoose, May 4, 2008
If there is one advantage to the protracted campaign of this strangest
of elections, it’s that we’ve gotten to see how either of the Democratic
candidates perform under fire.
This is particularly true of Barack Obama, who has had to face hostile
fire, not only from the far right, but from the sad joke that is known
as “the mainstream media” and the Clinton campaign. So far, it’s been
harsh, but not beyond the normal boundaries of roughhouse presidential
politics. Later this summer, when the right wing smear-and-hate machine
kicks in with the cheerful acquiescence of the mainstream media, acting
as an echo chamber, it will get far worse. But both Democratic
candidates have demonstrated that they can fight.
One sneer from the right that we’ve heard since the early days of the
Clinton presidency is that if they can’t handle the Republicans then
they can’t handle the demands of the presidency. Actually, the opposite
is true; Bill Clinton never had to endure as much animosity, treachery
and savagery from al Qaida, China, or North Korea as he did from the
Republican party.
It was during the Clinton years that we learned that Republicans will
cheerfully destroy their own country in the name of more power and
money. During the Putsch years, they’ve gone a long way toward doing
just that.
If Bill Clinton had one big mistake that hurt his presidency, it wasn’t
Monica Lewinsky or gays in the military. It was that he tried to
accommodate the far right in the first year of his presidency. He wanted
to reach out and embrace them, and pull them into his grand vision for
the country.
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May 3, 2008
A MIRACLE? OR BART?
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, accompanied by North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley, speaks during a campaign stop at John Deere Sales and Service in Kinston, N.C.
In speeches in North Carolina, the two presidential candidates each pledge support if the other wins the nomination.
By Bob Drogin, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 3, 2008RALEIGH, N.C. — Taking a break from recent verbal combat, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama both moved Friday night to ease concerns that their fight for the Democratic presidential nomination has become too divisive and could undercut voter turnout and support in November.
Speaking to a state Democratic rally here designed to promote party unity, the rivals delivered impassioned appeals to about 3,000 cheering party activists but largely ignored each other.
Clinton, who spoke first, mentioned Obama only at the start of her speech, promising that “if he is the nominee,” she would gladly support him. “And if I am the nominee, I know he’ll do the same,” she added.Obama soon returned the favor, vowing to support Clinton “in a heartbeat” if she wins the nomination, and saying he knows she would back him. “Our differences pale in comparison to our differences with the other party,” he said.
DID BART HAVE A HAND
IN CHANGING OBAMA’S MIND???
E. J. Dionne: Fair Play for False Prophets
E.J. Dionne Jr., The Washington Post, May 2, 2008
NEW YORK — Do white right-wing preachers have it easier than black left-wing preachers? Is there a double standard?
The political explosion around the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was inevitable, given Wright’s personal closeness to Barack Obama and the outrageous rubbish the pastor has offered about AIDS, Sept. 11 and Louis Farrakhan.
After Wright’s bizarre and narcissistic performance at the National Press Club on Monday, Obama would have looked weak and irresolute had he not denounced him. But if there was a moment of courage in this drama, it was not Obama’s condemnation of Wright but his earlier and now much-criticized effort to avoid a complete break with his unapologetic pastor.
In March, Obama tried to explain the anger in the black community and insisted that “to condemn it without understanding its roots only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.”
In light of this racial gap, it’s worth pondering why white, right-wing preachers who make ridiculous and sometimes shameful statements usually emerge with their influence intact.
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Clinton Camp Considering Nuclear Option To Overtake Obama’s Delegate Lead
Thomas B. Edsall, The Huffington Post, May 4, 2008
Hillary Clinton’s campaign has a secret weapon to build its delegate count, but her top strategists say privately that any attempt to deploy it would require a sharp (and by no means inevitable) shift in the political climate within Democratic circles by the end of this month.
With at least 50 percent of the Democratic Party’s 30-member Rules and Bylaws Committee committed to Clinton, her backers could — when the committee meets at the end of this month — try to ram through a decision to seat the disputed 210-member Florida and 156-member Michigan delegations. Such a decision would give Clinton an estimated 55 or more delegates than Obama, according to Clinton campaign operatives. The Obama campaign has declined to give an estimate.
Using the Rules and Bylaws Committee to force the seating of two pro-Hillary delegations would provoke a massive outcry from Obama forces. Such a strategy would, additionally, face at least two other major hurdles, and could only be attempted, according to sources in the Clinton camp, under specific circumstances:
First, this coming Tuesday, Clinton would have to win Indiana and lose North Carolina by a very small margin – or better yet, win the Tar Heel state. She would also have to demonstrate continued strength in the contests before May 31.
Second, and equally important, her argument that she is a better general election candidate than Obama — that he has major weaknesses which have only been recently revealed — would have to rapidly gain traction, not only within the media, where she has experienced some success, but within the broad activist ranks of the Democratic Party.
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