You won the debate hands down.

 

No question about it!!!

 

You would not be distracted by the Ayers and the other non-sense; you were right on point with the things that matter; housing; the war; the economy and the other stuff.

 

{{{{DRUDGE POLL}}}}WHO WON THE DEM DEBATE IN PA?...

HILLARY CLINTON

40%

38,117

BARACK OBAMA

60%

56,967

Total Votes: 95,084

 

 

Arianna Huffington

Posted April 14, 2008 | 01:41 PM (EST)

Clinton supporters say the darndest things.

Here's Sen. Evan Bayh, commenting on the political firestorm surrounding Barack Obama's remarks -- broken here on HuffPost's OffTheBus -- about economically-depressed small town voters: "The far right wing has a very good track record of using things like this relentlessly against our candidates, whether it's Al Gore or John Kerry. I'm afraid this is the kind of fodder they might use to harm him."

They? They? It's not the far right wing relentlessly using these comments for political gain, Senator. It's your candidate, Hillary Clinton, adopting the frames, lies, stereotypes and destructive clichés long embraced by the likes of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove. She has clearly decided that the road to victory runs through scorched earth.

The question is, if she succeeds, what kind of Party will she be left to lead? She's burning down the village to save it -- or to prove that she would make the best fire chief. But the village won't be saved; only one house will be left standing. A house with room for just two occupants. Hill and Bill.

Clinton's cynical distortion of Obama's remarks is in keeping with her campaign's modus operandi. On the foreign policy front, we've been fed a steady diet of her RNC-patented attacks: No Democrat can be trusted with national security -- except her. Obama hasn't crossed the threshold to be commander-in-chief. Etc.

Now she's turned to the domestic policy section of the RNC playbook, twisting Obama's words in a way that confirms every right-wing demagogic caricature of her own Party.

Yes, as Obama himself admits, he certainly could have chosen his words more artfully. Perhaps he should have borrowed Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign riff about "economically insecure white people who are scared to death." Maybe "scared to death" is less "elitist" than "bitter." But telling the truth, however inartfully, makes you "out of touch"? Give. Me. A. Break.

It has been an article of faith in the Democratic Party over the last twenty years that when small town, working class whites vote for Republicans they're voting against their economic self-interest. And why do they do that? Because every four years the Republican Party comes into those small towns and, to distract folks from the worsening economic situation, trots out a bunch of divisive, hot button social issues: "Let's not talk about why you don't have a job, can't afford health care, or can't send your kids to college; let's talk about gay marriage, school prayer, illegal immigration, and flag burning amendments." And Hillary is following the blueprint.

John McCain may as well take the next six months off, raise some money, maybe take a vacation -- because Hillary Clinton is out there doing his work for him.

This weekend she tried to paint herself as a good old boy, the kind of gal you'd want to have a beer with -- not like that "elitist" Barack Obama: "You know, my dad took me out behind the cottage that my grandfather built on a little lake called Lake Winola outside of Scranton and taught me how to shoot when I was a little girl." After she said this, she took a shot of whiskey. What's next, ads of Obama windsurfing? At 3 a.m.

But before Hillary Oakley runs out and bags her a few more ducks, Andrew Sullivan points out that of the top ten gun-owning states in the country, Obama has won six -- Hillary has won one. Cling to that.

But, of course, this isn't about guns or religion or fear of foreigners. It's about, as David Axelrod says, the (pardon the expression) bitterness and mistrust that stem from voters being "tired of politicians who come around at election time and express their solicitude as part of a tactic and don't follow through on it."

Jumping on the GOP talking points bandwagon, Clinton's new Mark Penn, Geoff Garin said: "These are the kinds of attitudes that have created a gulf between Democrats and lots of small-town and heartland voters that we've been working very, very hard to bridge." Karl Rove, who has devoted his life to making people believe that such a gulf exists, couldn't have scripted it better himself.

If Clinton's Rovian stoop-to-anything tactics succeed -- not at beating Obama but at making him an easier target for McCain -- the price will be paid by the very small-town Americans she is now pandering to. Americans already banished to economic oblivion by the same cynical tactics she's employing will be rewarded with four more years of downward economic mobility.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/john-mccain-should-go-on_b_96577.html

Today both Donnelly, an Atlanta attorney, and Brown, a retired schoolteacher living in the North Carolina mountains, look back at that time with regret. Like many Americans, they've built new perceptions of race on top of a foundation cracked by prejudices past — and present. Yet they rarely speak of the subject.

 

 

Michelle addresses 'elitism and all of that'

Carrie Budoff Brown emails from Haverford, PA:

Michelle Obama took an almost mocking tone as she laced her speech today at Haverford College with references to her husband's remarks about small-town America.

Rather than address the controversy head-on, Obama made subtle references to the issue, rebutting the charges of elitism with details about their life: his mother's use of food stamps, her father supporting a family of four on one city salary, and their school loan debt into their 40s.

"We are struggling like we have never struggled before in my lifetime," Obama said. "I haven't been around very long, but when I look at the life I had growing up, things have gotten hard. But I think of the life through the lens of how I grew. There's a lot of people talking about elitism and all of that.

"So let me tell you who Barack and are, so you are not confused," she continued. "Yeah, I went to Princeton and Harvard, but the lens through which I see the world is the lens I grew up with. I am the product of a middle class upbringing, I grew up on the south side of Chicago, in a working class community."

The crowd in this wealthy suburban community received her message well, at one point giving her a standing ovation when she said there were "no miracles in my life. There nothing miraculous about how I grew up. I want people to know when they look at me to be clear they can see what an investment in public education can look like."

At another point, she said "maybe I am out of touch" when she talked about the dim economic outlook.

 

 

 

Bill Clinton: Older voters too savvy to fall for Obama

QUAKERTOWN, Pa. -- Older voters gravitate to Hillary Clinton because they're too wise to be fooled by Barack Obama's rhetoric, former president Bill Clinton told Pennsylvania voters today.

 

MSNBC called Super Tuesday for Obama, (Chuck Todd is in a class all by himself), but the AP's Singleton  did not call the winner until four days later.  He just could not stand to see a black man win!!!

 

Now he calls Osama, Obama as if that was an error.

 

That was no error.  It's all a part of Clinton's Operation Overlord attack on Obama.

***

 

After the event, an embarrassed Singleton could be heard off camera, but on microphone, telling an unidentified man: "Can't believe I did that. I didn't think I did. But he said it so I assumed I did. So, certainly wasn't on purpose."

 

 

 

 

 

 The Clinton evil attacks on Obama continue unabated.  This time in minstrel black-face-Robert Johnson.

Posted on Tue, Apr. 15, 2008

Johnson cites race in Obama's surge

JIM MORRILL

Wading back into the Democratic presidential race, billionaire businessman Bob Johnson said Monday that Sen. Barack Obama would not be his party's leading candidate if he were white.

Johnson's comments to the Observer echoed those of former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro. She stepped down as an adviser to Sen. Hillary Clinton last month after saying Obama wouldn't be where he is if he were white.

"What I believe Geraldine Ferraro meant is that if you take a freshman senator from Illinois called `Jerry Smith' and he says I'm going to run for president, would he start off with 90 percent of the black vote?" Johnson said. "And the answer is, probably not... ."

"Geraldine Ferraro said it right. The problem is, Geraldine Ferraro is white. This campaign has such a hair-trigger on anything racial ... it is almost impossible for anybody to say anything."

Johnson, who made a fortune after founding Black Entertainment Television and now owns the Charlotte Bobcats, is a longtime friend of Clinton and her husband, the former president.

It was during a January appearance for the New York senator in Columbia that he first stepped into controversy, referring to Obama and "what he was doing in the neighborhood."

Many took that as a reference to Obama's acknowledged drug use in his youth. But in a statement, Johnson said he'd been "referring to Barack Obama's time spent as a community organizer and nothing else. Any other suggestion is simply irresponsible and incorrect."

On Monday, Johnson alluded to the incident.

"I make a joke about Obama doing drugs (and it's) `Oh my God, a black man tearing down another black man'," Johnson said.

The Obama campaign dismissed Johnson's comments.

"This is just one in a long line of absurd comments by Bob Johnson and other Clinton supporters who will say or do anything to get the nomination," said spokesman Dan Leistikow. "The American people are tired of this and are ready to turn the page on these kind of attack politics."

Johnson disputed the notion that Obama has built a broad coalition. Most of his support, he said, comes from African Americans and white liberals but not white, working-class Democrats.

"I don't think he has that common -- what I call `I-want-to-go-out-and-have-a-drink-with-you -- touch," Johnson said.

An Observer/WCNC Poll this month found Obama and Clinton splitting the votes of white North Carolinians who say they'll vote in the May 6 primary. Obama led 59 percent to 7 percent among African Americans.

Johnson said Obama is likely to win the nomination and has had the support of "the liberal media."

"They sort of dislike Hillary for her vote on the war. They don't want to see Bill and Hillary in power again," he said. "So Obama comes in and runs a smart campaign. But that's not the Second Coming, in my opinion, of John F. Kennedy, FDR or the world's greatest leaders."

http://www.charlotte.com/559/v-print/story/581394.html

 

 

Michael Steele-If you want to stand by and let Sean (McCarthy) Hannity, trash Obama, then that's your choice, but are you also going to standby and let him trash Michelle too?

 

If you have any decency at all, I call on you and Larry Elder to publicly rebuke Hannity, for hurling insult after insult at Michelle Obama.

 

If you let Hannity get away with this garbage, then Neimoller says that your wives, sisters, nieces, mothers, and grandmothers will be next.

 

 

Hillary Clinton is against Obama.

Bill Clinton is against Obama.

John McCain is against Obama.

Charlie Black works for McCain and is against Obama.

Mark Penn, who is Charlie Black's boss,  works for Clinton and is against Obama.

President Bush, his adminstration, and republicans have endorsed McCain and are against Obama.

 

Clinton, Clinton, McCain and Bush are working in concert against Obama.

***

 

 

After feinting Calais, Bill Clinton's mudslinging gutter politics-attack against Obama has begun:

 

(1). Republican Davis calls Obama "boy."

 

(2).  Eight days before the Pennsylvania primary, Bush Administration witness Stuart Levine smears Obama's name at Rezko trial saying he saw Obama at a meeting with Rezko, and an investor; but providing no other evidence except his word.

 

(3).  John "owner of eight homes" McCain calls Obama "elite."

 

(4). Hillary "$109 million" Clinton calls Obama "elite."

 

(5). Bush's FBI let out an embarrasing tape of a movie star supposedly with the Kennedys to embarras the Kennedys and Obama

 

This is light stuff; the unparalleled gutter main attack will occur within the last two days before the Penn primary.

 

Until then we will see a steady stream of Clinton slimmy politics. 

 

 

 

Davis apologizes for calling Obama 'boy'

 

 

Black people and world-see what we are up against-Bill and Hillary and McCain are all in it together.  These are the same type forces  arrayed against black people in our daily lives; when we go to get a job.

 

Nobody is on our side!!!

 

MCCAIN: 'HILLARY CAN STILL PULL IT OFF';
SENATOR PREFERS CLINTON CONTEST
Mon Apr 14 2008 10:46:19 ET

**Exclusive**

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain has confided to his inner circle that Hillary Clinton may yet be the Democratic nominee, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned, a development the senator from Arizona would personally welcome!

"Look, I know something about long odds, they had me written off last summer," McCain explained over the weekend, according to a top source.

McCain would prefer to go up against Clinton in the general election, insiders reveal.

He has instructed his campaign staff to "chill out" on countering Hillary Clinton's torrent of claims and promises as primary voting comes to an end over the next 6 weeks.

McCain made the tactical decision to downplay Clinton's tale of Bosnia sniper fire, leaving some McCain staffers frustrated and perplexed.

Instead, the critical focus has been on Barack Obama. McCain's official website features 14 press releases taking on Obama since the first of the year, only 3 for the former first lady.

 

 

 

Dan Agin:The Huffington Post

 

4/13/2008

 

 

The cover of the just-out April 21st issue of that sophomoric rag National Review has a close-up photograph of Michelle Obama looking angry -- with the headline: Mrs. Grievance: Michelle Obama and Her Discontent.

The obvious aim of the article is to ridicule Michelle Obama.

Before I go on to consider some of the details of the article, I want to make it clear what National Review is all about. It's the late William Buckley's hobby magazine, a place where conservatives foam at the mouth in their hatred of progressives, liberals, Democrats, non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants, and anyone who struggles to survive in our free-market paradise. For example, a few years ago, when National Review celebrated its 50th anniversary, the senior editor Richard Brookhiser decided it was time to enlighten the American public with his views about "Happy Darkies". Here's what Brookhiser told us (National Review September 19, 2005):

Happy darkies are most of the world: people with skins generally darker than mine, who live in Africa, most of Asia, and much of the Americas. Sometimes they start at Calais. These days they certainly inhabit every restaurant kitchen in New York. It seems paradoxical to call them happy. They are poor, numerous, and pregnant; if they work, it is to little purpose; their religions span a simple spectrum from witchcraft to wrath, and their societies alternate between tyranny and chaos; they beat their wives, scarify their daughters, and occasionally eat their enemies; they have never read (if they can read) a book that was not holy, or heard a piece of music unrelated to copulation.

What a tragedy that Brookhiser seems so proud of his ideas, so unaware how un-American he is.

The piece in National Review about Michelle Obama is so badly written and incoherent that it's difficult to make sense out of anything but its vitriol. But here are a few pearls:

The author, Mark Steyn, says, "There's something pitiful about a political culture that has no use for Mitt Romney, a hugely successful businessman, but venerates a woman who gets more than 300 grand for running a 'neighborhood outreach' and 'staff diversity' program.

Now, pray, what the hell is this? Are we expected to make Mitt Romney president of the United States because he's a "hugely successful" businessman? Was Mitt Romney rejected by the same people that "venerate" Michelle Obama? Romney was rejected by his fellow Republicans, and if anyone is venerating Michelle Obama, I assure you it's not Republicans. The quoted sentence is so fatuous it jangles one's eyeballs.

In discussing Michelle Obama's Princeton education and undergraduate thesis, Mark Steyn says, "Ah, the benefits of an elite education. The thesis is dopey, illiterate, and bizarrely punctuated, but so are the maunderings of many American students."

Of course, given such a personal attack on a college student's talents, we hunger to read Mark Steyn's undergraduate thesis. No maunderings or bizarre punctuations?

Mark Steyn says Michelle Obama "embodies a peculiar mix of privilege and victimology, which is not where most Americans live."

Yes, indeed, most Americans don't live there, and they also don't live where Mitt Romney lives. But there's no inherited privilege in Michelle Obama, only achievement through intelligence and education, and the "victimology" is that of a black woman living in a thoroughly racist society. Is the mix "peculiar" or merely natural? Does Mark Steyn really believe that if a black woman finds success in America she ought to abandon any resentment at the many years of idiot prejudice thrown at her by the likes of the editors of National Review?

Thanks for the piece, Mark. Here's a toast to you and Richard and perspicacity.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-agin/michelle-obama-and-the-po_b_96317.html

 

 

 

All those in the press who say that they don't know Obama, call the Pentagon.

 

I'll bet you a shrimp dinner that the Pentagon knows everyone in the Soviet military chain of command from at the least colonel level on up and may know it  from the captains level on up, in the Soviet Army, Navy, AirForce and Marines.

 

How come the Pentagon knows every military person of consequence in the Soviet military, 5000 miles away, and you the American press don't know Obama who lives in America in your own back yard and who has been a public figure for at least 11 years?

 

I'll tell you why?

 

The Pentagon takes care of business and you don't.

 

They have the information on the Soviet military locked down tight, while you guys have been asleep at the wheel when it comes to covering black people.

 

So don't whine about your own derelection of duty.

 

You have nobody to blame for your lack of knowledge but yourselves.

 

 

 

Nico Pitney

The Huffington Post

Bill Clinton Flashback: "All These Economically Insecure White People...Are Scared To Death"

      April 13, 2008 02:41 PM  

As the rumination continues over Barack Obama's comments about economically-depressed small town voters, statements made by Bill Clinton on the same topic -- uttered while he was running for president in 1991 -- have now surfaced.

"The reason (George H. W. Bush's tactic) works so well now is that you have all these economically insecure white people who are scared to death," Clinton was quoted saying by the Los Angeles Times in September 1991.

A couple months later, Joe Klein, writing for the Sunday Times, reported that Clinton made the following remarks:

"You know, he [Bush] wants to divide us over race. I'm from the South. I understand this. This quota deal they're gonna pull in the next election is the same old scam they've been pulling on us for decade after decade after decade. When their economic policies fail, when the country's coming apart rather than coming together, what do they do? They find the most economically insecure white men and scare the living daylights out of them. They know if they can keep us looking at each other across a racial divide, if I can look at Bobby Rush and think, Bobby wants my job, my promotion, then neither of us can look at George Bush and say, 'What happened to everybody's job? What happened to everybody's income? What ... have ... you ... done ... to ... our ... country?'"

For comparison's sake, here is Obama's statement, reported by Mayhill Fowler for Huffington Post's OffTheBus:

Here's how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it. And when it's delivered by -- it's true that when it's delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (laugher), then that adds another layer of skepticism (laughter). [...]

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

What do you think -- are they similar?

Update: Jason Linkins notes a statement from Harvard political scientist Theda Skocpol to Talking Points Memo, which reads in part:

I have been in meetings with the Clintons and their advisors where very clinical things were said in a very-detached tone about unwillingness of working class voters to trust government -- and Bill Clinton -- and about their unfortunate (from a Clinton perspective) proclivity to vote on life-style rather than economic issues. To see Hillary going absolutely over the top to smash Obama for making clearly more humanly sympathetic observations in this vein, is just amazing…

 

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/13/bill-clinton-flashback-al_n_96433.html