Face the Music Hillary_ It is Over

Ever since the article in the NYT, (see: Dumb As We Wanna Be, By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, Published: April 30, 2008), every American who has been open to the opportunity to see_ the truth is Hillary's campaign for the nomination for US President is tanking. Maybe it is karma, but her recent personal investment of $6,000,000 to help the campaign stay afloat is sad. In retrospect and the bigger picture however, I think it's been the decisions made to have Chelsea crisscross the country on her mother's behalf, to cover that history of both Bill and Hillary having financial skeletons in both their closets...

Hillary, let your daughter stand on her own two feet, separate from the hard and dirty lessons you and Bill have had to go through. Lessons maybe still in the learning. This country wants to fulfill its democratic commitments; ideals and commitments to our constitution. Even in the face of a momentum of greed that took on speed during eight years of the Clinton White House. NAFTA, being just one example.
A momentum of greed that has only escalated to nightmare proportions during eight years of the Bush regime and crimes against humanity, both here and abroad.

Hillary, it would bode far better for you to turn your campaign rhetoric into serving the common, collective good of our democratic nation. In this work can you be seen in the proper context and hence recognized as the noble accomplisher. Choose to throw your fighter's energy and your formidable political experience, skill and clout into helping with the huge clean-up that is post-Bush. A clean-up that is bulging from the wings as we turn toward the elections this fall. THAT job will require a courage on the scale that is only right to the task. There are very dark and sinister personalities now who must be brought to justice. We all know this.

To this country who are registered and will vote democrat, to those who are registered republican and will vote democrat in this election, to those who are registered to vote, whether you choose to or not in the coming election, I also raise a voice. Put the responsibility of political health for the constitution of this nation back where it belongs! What do you want? What do you want? What do you want?
Do you only want to be parented by your own nation and government? Do you want to only sleep-walk through your very own life? Is Democracy to truly die on this watch of currently living humanity?
To the Democratic Party as a whole_ voters, media personnel and politicians alike, will you be a participant in the implosion of our historic political process? Well, will you? Will the marketing of egos not subside proportionately enough, to allow our own history to survive this harrowing lesson in humanity? What does it really mean to actually live together? Does anyone really know? To learn what is required of each and every one of us. Can you answer? What is the value of our rich heritage of differences in the new century?

It is time America and Senator Clinton, to get in behind the next presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket.

It may very well be that Barack may be what is right in the NOW, for a much needed change. A change of true benefit for the entire country. Our children after all have a right to their own ideals.

Mr. Obama, just make sure to put all those bright and shiny stars, who have sacrificed their six figure annual incomes to campaign for you, in the proper perspective. To serve the overall good of this country, for this entire country. Don't be just another new president beholdin'.

Call it, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. It is time.


Oh, and thank-you T. F. for holding up a light, on what sparked a challenge to my own priorities and perceptions.

Another thought on the Obama campaign from the Huffington Post

Media Jump Ship From Obama To Clinton
April 24, 2008 10:02 PM

In a blink of an eye, the media has jumped ship from the Obama campaign and become a crucial Clinton ally, pressing just the message -- that Obama is a likely loser in the general election -- that Hillary and her allies have been promoting for the past six weeks.

The new tenor of media coverage is visible almost everywhere, from Politico, Time and The New Republic to The Washington Post and The New York Times.

For Hillary, the shift is a potential lifesaver as she struggles to keep her head above water; without it, she would, metaphorically, drown.

Until now, she, her husband, and her campaign aides have been trying, with little success, to make the case that Obama has potentially fatal flaws. For the first time, reporters working for magazines, newspapers and web sites have abruptly decided that she might well be right, and the results for Obama have been brutal:

The first hard punch was thrown by my friend and colleague John Judis in a widely distributed piece on The New Republic web site, filed sometime around 3AM Wednesday, seven hours after polls closed in Pennsylvania. In the article titled, "The Next McGovern," Judis wrote:

"[I]f you look at Obama's vote in Pennsylvania, you begin to see the outlines of the old George McGovern coalition that haunted the Democrats during the '70s and '80s, led by college students and minorities....Its ideology is very liberal. Whereas in the first primaries and caucuses, Obama benefited from being seen as middle-of-the-road or even conservative, he is now receiving his strongest support from voters who see themselves as 'very liberal.'...[H]e is going to have trouble in Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia, where he will once again be faced by a large white working class vote. He can still win the nomination and lose these primaries. Pennsylvania was the last big delegate prize. But if Obama doesn't find a way now to speak to these voters, he is going to have trouble winning that large swath of states from Pennsylvania through Missouri in which a Democrat must do well to gain the presidency."

Joe Klein, in his weekly column for Time magazine, noted that Clinton has taken a beating,

"But that was nothing compared with the damage done to Obama, who entered the primary as a fresh breeze and left it stale, battered and embittered - still the mathematical favorite for the nomination but no longer the darling of his party [ Klein could have added, 'no longer the darling of the press.'] In the course of six weeks, the American people learned that he was a member of a church whose pastor gave angry, anti-American sermons, that he was "friendly" with an American terrorist who had bombed buildings during the Vietnam era, and that he seemed to look on the ceremonies of working-class life - bowling, hunting, churchgoing and the fervent consumption of greasy food - as his anthropologist mother might have, with a mixture of cool detachment and utter bemusement."

Politico's Mike Allen describes the changed approach to Obama as a "paradigm shift," specifically citing the "seminal" [Allen is not one to mute his compliments] report of former colleague Chris "The Fix" Cillizza on WashingtonPost.com, the headline of which undoubtedly brought tears of joy to the Clinton campaign: "How Clinton Can Win It."

"A path does exist for Clinton," Cillizza wrote. "The best argument Clinton has at her disposal right now is that Obama cannot win over blue collar, white voters who have been hit hard by the economic slowdown and are looking for a politician to look out for them."

The critical chorus is even resonating across the Atlantic. Under the headline "The Democrats must admit it: Obama would lose to McCain," London Times columnist Anatole Kaletsky wrote: "the conclusion would be fairly obvious, were it not for the political correctness that makes it almost impossible for American politicians or commentators to express such a view: Mr Obama may by unable to carry large industrial states with socially conservative white working-class populations simply because of his race."

The New York Times, never so declarative in a news story, poses the issues as questions. Adam Nagourney writes, "Why has he (Obama) been unable to win over enough working-class and white voters to wrap up the Democratic nomination? ... Is the Democratic Party hesitating about race as it moves to the brink of nominating an African-American to be president?"

While Nagourney raised questions reinforcing doubts about Obama's credibility as a general election candidate, his colleague at the New York Times, Patrick Healy was one of the few reporters to write favorably of the Obama bid in light of recent criticisms. Healy wrote:

"[E]xit polling and independent political analysts offer evidence that Mr. Obama could do just as well as Mrs. Clinton among blocs of voters with whom he now runs behind. Obama advisers say he also appears well-positioned to win swing states and believe he would have a strong shot at winning traditional Republican states like Virginia."

Healy, however, is the exception. While reluctant to speak on the record, Clinton supporters are very pleased with the overall switch in tone of the coverage, particularly the willingness of the media to explore the question of whether Obama could be a loser in November.

The Clinton critique of Obama, and now the critique of much of the press, was further reinforced from another source, Republican strategist Karl Rove, writing in the Wall Street Journal:

"Mr. Obama is befuddled and angry about the national reaction to what are clearly accepted, even commonplace truths in San Francisco and Hyde Park. How could anyone take offense at the observation that people in small-town and rural American are 'bitter' and therefore 'cling' to their guns and their faith, as well as their xenophobia? Why would anyone raise questions about a public figure who, for only 20 years, attended a church and developed a close personal relationship with its preacher who says AIDS was created by our government as a genocidal tool to be used against people of color, who declared America's chickens came home to roost on 9/11, and wants God to damn America? Mr. Obama has a weakness among blue-collar working class voters for a reason."

Reality Check on Obama's Legend

March 7, 2008 3:01 AM

The myth of Obama has overtaken the reality of a rather ordinary and checkered politician, argues Sister Toldjah, who provides the smelling salt of facts to rouse the fainting crowds.
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by Sister Toldjah

Barack Obama wants people to believe he is a “Washington outsider” who will “change” the way D.C. works. His selling points are that he decries lobbyists and special interests, says his campaign is responsible “to no one but the people,” asserts he has the ability to “get things done,” claims his 2002 anti-Iraq war speech was “courageous” and proved he has good judgment when it comes to walking against the political winds, has made a focal point of his campaign his commitment refocusing the US’ attention Afghanistan, and downplays the “experience” argument by suggesting that Washington experience is the “wrong” type of experience the country needs right now.

That’s his campaign spin. Now here are the facts:

1) On not taking money from DC lobbyists and special interest PACS: This is the type of double-talk “politics of the past” rhetoric he rails against. While his claim is technically true, what he does do is take money from state lobbyists and other big money contributors who have substantial lobbyist machines in DC, like law firms and corporations. In April 2007, the LA Times quoted the Campaign Finance Institute’s Stephen Weissman as pointing out that the distinction Obama makes on lobbyist money is meaningless: “He gets an asterisk that says he is trying to be different. … But overall, the same wealthy interests are funding his campaign as are funding other candidates, whether or not they are lobbyists.” The Capital Eye reported that “[a]ccording to the Center for Responsive Politics, 14 of Obama’s top 20 contributors employed lobbyists this year, spending a total of $16.2 million to influence the federal government in the first six months of 2007.” Obama’s no stranger to being influenced by those campaign donations, either.

2) His ability to “get things done”: Sure he has it, if you consider that every bill he passed as a State Senator was passed his last year in office by a Democrat-controlled legislature. Also, some of the more high profile accomplishments he cites now like the racial profiling/videotape confession legislation were bills where a lot of the legwork had been done by other Democrats in the legislature years prior when it was controlled by Republicans, but were given to Obama by his kingmaker, Senate president Emil Jones, Jr. in order for him to make the “close” (where he often did). When asked about this by the Houston Press’ Todd Spivak, State Senator Rickey Hendon replied, “I don’t consider it bill jacking. … But no one wants to carry the ball 99 yards all the way to the one-yard line, and then give it to the halfback who gets all the credit and the stats in the record book.” This isn’t to suggest that Obama’s achievements in the state senate are totally without merit, but instead to point out they weren’t all done by his leaping tall buildings in a single bound. He had a lot of help from Democrats. Consider this, too: if he wins, he will have a solid Democrat Congress to work with, so the only “reaching out” he’d have to do would be to the few moderate Republicans who have already proven themselves all too eager to vote with liberal Democrats.

3) His courage: Contrary to a recent hyperbolic campaign ad, it wasn’t “courageous” to give his 2002 anti-war speech, primarily because he delivered it at an anti-Iraq war rally. At the last debate, America’s former co-president claimed that it was easy to give that speech, and it wasn’t a gamble for him because he wasn’t in the US Senate and therefore wasn’t in a position of responsibility. Obama’s impassioned reply was, “I was in the midst of a U.S. Senate campaign. It was a high-stakes campaign.” Wrong. In reality, Obama did not announce his intentions to run for the US Senate until January 2003.

4) Experience: He downplays the question now, but after he was elected to serve in the US Senate in 2004, he was questioned about running on a national ticket. His response was, “I am a believer in knowing what you’re doing when you apply for a job. And I think that if I were to seriously consider running on a national ticket I would essentially have to start now, before having served a day in the Senate. Now, there are some people who might be comfortable doing that, but I’m not one of those people.” A little over a year later, he definitively stated he would not run for president, and wanted to serve out his full Senate term.

5) His “commitment” to Afghanistan: He believes the US “took its eye off the ball” when we went into Iraq, and promises to refocus on Afghanistan as president. The reality is that since Obama began chairing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Subcommittee on European Affairs in January 2007, not a single policy hearing has been conducted on anything, Afghanistan or otherwise. When Clinton brought this up at the Cleveland debate, Obama conceded, “I became chairman of this committee at the beginning of this campaign. … So it is true that we haven’t had oversight hearings on Afghanistan.” ‘Nuff said.

Does all this mean that Obama is an evil person? Of course it doesn’t. By many accounts, Obama is a likable friendly guy, even when he’s not causing supporters to faint when he speaks. He’s someone you could play poker with, even if you’re not a state lobbyist pal. And he probably does care about the “little guy” — even though he wants to “help” him at the expense of everyone else. All this means that Obama is a mere mortal, a man who is not unlike most other politicians when it comes to, well, playing politics. And while the national media’s mostly given him a free ride the last year or so, if Monday’s combative press conference is any indication, soon he may be wishing he really was a Washington outsider — literally.

Sister Toldjah is a freelance writer who blogs at SisterToldjah.com