OBAMA DAILY NEWS Monday March-10-2008

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

WELCOME TO THE OBAMA DAILY NEWS THREAD

Monday March-10-2008


The Clinton ad aired in Texas before last week's vote. Casey Knowles,
now 18, calls the ad fear-mongering, saying she prefers Barack Obama's
message of looking forward.

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[WillYourVoteBCounted]

1. 3 A.M. Girl Wants Obama to Answer Call

"What I don't like about the ad is it's fear-mongering. I think it's a cheap hit to take. I really prefer Obama's message of looking forward to a bright future," Knowles said. "I think that's a much stronger message."

3 A.M. Girl Wants Obama to Answer Call

Casey Knowles Was Featured Unknowingly in Hillary Clinton's Red Phone Ad By IMAEYEN IBANGA March 9, 2008



Casey Knowles of Bonney Lake, Wash., was recently watching Jon Stewart lampoon Hillary Clinton's well-known "3 a.m." ads on "The Daily Show" when her brother noticed something.

They were parodying this ad, kind of poking fun at it. They were replaying it. We paused it. My brother was like, 'Is that Casey?' And we just erupted," Knowles said on "Good Morning America Weekend Edition" today. "Sure enough, it's me."

An image of an eight-year-old Knowles appears in the ad, shown sleeping soundly in bed. The Clinton campaign legally purchased the file footage of Knowles from Getty Images.

..."I've been campaigning for Obama for a long time. I actually called a lot of people around my area and got them to come out and caucus for him. I was a precinct captain at my caucus in February," Knowles said. "I'm actually a delegate for my precinct and I can go on to county, state and even potentially the national convention in Denver."

read the rest here

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

2. Survey finds more N.C. districts go for Obama

Survey finds more N.C. districts go for Obama

Ryan Teague Beckwith, Dan Kane and Bill Krueger, News & Observer Mar 10, 2008

Congressional districts will play a key role in North Carolina's Democratic presidential primary May 6.
Two thirds of the state's pledged delegates -- a trove of 77 -- will be distributed to either Illinois Sen. Barack Obama or New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton based on the percentage of votes in the state's 13 congressional districts.

At Dome's request, Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling looked at the company's surveys, using area code as a proxy for congressional district. Here's a rough estimate of where each candidate is ahead, and the district representative:

CLINTON: 3rd (Republican Walter Jones), 5th (Republican Virginia Foxx), 10th (Republican Patrick McHenry), 11th (Democrat Heath Shuler).

OBAMA: 1st (Democrat G.K. Butterfield), 4th (Democrat David Price), 6th (Republican Howard Coble), 7th (Democrat Mike McIntyre), 8th (Republican Robin Hayes), 9th (Republican Sue Myrick), 12th (Democrat Mel Watt), 13th (Democrat Brad Miller).

TOSS-UP: 2nd (Democrat Bob Etheridge).

"Obama does very well in urban areas and more rural areas down east with strong black populations," Jensen wrote to Dome. "Clinton is strongest with the whiter 3rd District out east and in the western part of the state."

Here's how the rest of the state's 134 delegates will be divvied up:

38: Based on the voting percentage statewide.

17: Superdelegates, typically elected officials or members of the Democratic National Committee, who vote however they want. Three have committed to Obama and one to Clinton.

2: Elected at the state convention June 21. State party chairman Jerry Meek, who is neutral, will submit four names. The would-be delegates do not have to state which candidate they will support before the convention vote.

Union won't play favorites

[SaveAmerica]

13. Thanks for this info, I find it interesting that the Districts that Hillary is leading

in have mostly Republican Representatives and the Districts Obama is leasing in have mostly Democratic Representatives. Very very hopeful info you have here, I'm so happy to be able to vote in the primary in May and know it might make a difference!

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

3. Def. contractor with ties to Pres Candidates hostile bid for Diebold

See this post, please give it a kick and recommend. This could mean a repeat of Ohio 2004:

Handy Guide of Mark Penn linked to Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Diebold Machines
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=4996434&mesg_id=4996434

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

4. An Obama-Hater for Clinton, Temporarily

An Obama-Hater for Clinton, Temporarily

BY JASON HOROWITZ | MARCH 5, 2008

Meet Todd Appelbaum, a 46-year-old from Columbus, who wore a shirt that says
“Osama for Obama” to the Clinton campaign’s election-night event in Ohio last night.

The white t-shirt, with an image of Barack Obama dressed in traditional Somali garb,
is adorned with a blue Hillary Clinton button, although Appelbaum is not what one
would call a real Hillary Clinton supporter.

“I voted for Hillary today,” he said, “because I’m concerned that, God forbid,
Barack Obama will beat McCain. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

5. Clinton campaign finance committee member switches to Obama

Clinton campaign finance committee member switches to Obama

Sun Mar 09, 2008

...Kathleen's experience with the clinton campaign

...I voluntarily left the Hillary Finance Committee after I discovered more than $3, 000 in unauthorized charges from HRC campaign on my own VISA card! And that set off a wave of overdrafts and $400 in bank charges that I was stuck with. And thE compliance officer Allison Wright at Hillary VA headquarters refused to reimburse me for the charges. And the senior finance reps who I notified about more than $3, 000 in Unauthorized Visa Charges: never once aplogized or empathized with my plight...Much less send me a "sorry for all the trouble" note and a check!

Unbelievably, it took me more than a month of pleading and begging VIA email to get the money back. I was told verbatim:

"Kathy Callahan, you are going to be with us all the way to the White House...So let's leave the money where it is and we'll save time on inevitable future donations and transactions!"

I went into a state of abject shock, disbelief and later anger! Heartbroken. I didn't want to report this entirely correctable problem to anyone outside the Hillary campaign! One long month later, and at the behest of a bank executive who said to me a few days before Christmas Eve, "You are way way way over the legal donor limit, Kathy! What are they thinking? Are they thinking at all?"
So I followed his direction and filed a police report in Ridgefield. I then notified Allison Wright and Cc'ed senior finance reps (who I met many times) via email again -about the police report and said,
"Enough is Enough, already! Christmas is coming!"

more at the link

[babylonsister]

6. Girl going to bed-bookmark, and thanks. nt

[bigbrother05]

7. K and r

[JimGinPA]

8. K&R

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

9. Jonathan Alter: My Mother’s Painful Quandary

My Mother’s Painful Quandary

BETWEEN THE LINES Jonathan Alter
Her vote, she reasoned, was not for her. It was for her grandkids. Slowly, idealism edged identity.

Mar 17, 2008 Issue

My mother, now 80, should be in clover this political year. She met Hillary Clinton in the early 1990s, and the then First Lady championed a tutoring program in Chicago housing projects that Mom cofounded. She met Barack Obama a few years later and was so taken with him that she and my father hosted a fund-raiser for his 2004 Senate campaign. But what should have been a bounty of political riches has instead become an "excruciatingly painful" choice, as I learned when I interviewed her recently. My mother, facing the other pains of age, often finds herself favoring Clinton in the daytime and Obama in the middle of the night (even at 3 a.m.!), then vice versa.

Joanne Alter's dilemma is bound up in her own history in the women's movement and in the brutal world of Chicago politics. But it's also representative of the conflicting feelings experienced by some of the older women who make up Hillary's most committed base. In that sense, she's a Democratic Everymom.

But when it came time to vote in the Illinois primary on Super Tuesday, my mother was in a quandary. She didn't like the sexist comments about Hillary ("Iron my shirts," chanted a couple of imbecilic hecklers in New Hampshire, thereby helping her win there). But she was also upset that Obama has been depicted as connected to Louis Farrakhan, unaccomplished in the Senate and full of empty rhetoric. These charges, she says, are "ridiculous." For years she watched him work with great skill to bridge barriers of race, class, religion and party in Illinois. The choice was beginning to jangle her nerves.

When my two sisters became active Obama volunteers and her granddaughters as well as grandsons grew excited about politics for the first time, my mother began to think about the contest in a new way. The next president was for them, not her, she reasoned. Slowly, idealism edged identity. Her sense that Obama was a once-in-a-lifetime candidate took a fragile hold over the cause of women in politics to which she had devoted so much of her career. She voted for Obama, and knows she might not live to see the first woman president. Joanne Alter can live with that, even if she still often tosses and turns over it at 3 in the morning.

more at the link

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

10. "Commander In Chief" Obama To Appear With Military Brass

As the Clinton campaign continues to hammer Barack Obama on defense issues -- chief Clinton strategist Mark Penn tells the New Yorker that Obama is "not ready" to be commander in chief -- Obama will appear today with former secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force (all of whom served in Bill Clinton's administration).
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3218627

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

11. Is Corzine Trying to Buy Clinton an Election?

Is Corzine Trying to Buy Clinton an Election? Debbie Galant March 10, 2008

Jon Corzine's offer to help raise money for new primaries in Florida and Michigan, reported today in the New York Times, might just sound generous -- if it wasn't for that fact that he and his partner in this initiative, Gov. Edward Rendell of Pennsylvania, are both Clinton supporters. Maybe, before they offered, they should have gotten a Barack Obama fan onboard.

What do you think? Do-over? Stick with the DNC decision to punish the two states for violating party rules? Or seat the delegates the two primaries produced, even though Obama wasn't on the ballot in Michigan, and voters in both states knew it was just a straw election?

Meanwhile Baristaville's own political pundit, Steve Adubato, is now taking his political cues from Saturday Night Live. Read about his comedic epiphany here.

Democrat Jon S. Corzine spent $60 million of his $300 million-plus fortune to move from Wall Street to Capitol Hill in 2000

[catgirl]

12. Rasmussen poll: Obama Leads Clinton by 14% in MS

Huff post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/06/mississippi-primary-late_n_90260.html

[catgirl]

14. Cocoa Tea records reggae song for Obama

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Barack Obama has won what could be an influential endorsement among reggae fans: Jamaican singer Cocoa Tea, who's backing the Illinois senator in a new tune.

"This is not about class nor color, race nor creed," the veteran dancehall crooner sings in a version posted on the video Web site Dailymotion. "It's about the changes, what the Americans need."

The song goes on to call Obama a "trendsetter" and urges Americans "to unite as one" behind him.

Cocoa Tea, whose real name is Calvin Scott, said Sunday the tribute song "Barack Obama" will be released this week by New York's VP Records.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080310/ap_on_el_pr/2008_race_rundown;_ylt=AmXnGsEl7lRgq0ztGYEklASs0NUE

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

15. Exchange bets favor Obama for Democratic nomination

Exchange bets favor Obama for Democratic nomination

David Alexander Reuters Mon Mar 10, 2008

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hillary Clinton will win Democratic primary elections in Pennsylvania, Kentucky and West Virginia in the coming weeks, but rival Barack Obama will ultimately capture the party's presidential nomination, traders were betting on Monday.

Traders on the Dublin-based Intrade prediction market also put their bets on the Democratic party to hold new primary elections before June 30 in Michigan and Florida, where earlier results were declared invalid in a fight over the date of the elections.

But even that, the traders were betting, wouldn't be enough to help Clinton win the Democratic nomination to oppose Republican John McCain in the November general election.

Intrade traders gave Obama a 75 percent chance of winning the Democratic nomination for U.S. president, versus 23.5 percent for Clinton. Traders on the Iowa Electronic Markets, a nonprofit exchange run by the University of Iowa for research purposes, gave Obama a 74 percent chance of winning, versus 24 percent for Clinton.

...

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

16. Telegraph UK: Republican votes skew Democrat primaries

Republican votes skew Democrat primaries

By Alex Spillius in Washington GMT 10/03/2008

Republicans are taking advantage of one of the quirks of the US presidential process to influence the Democratic nomination

The Daily Telegraph has learnt that in the "open" Democratic primary in Texas last week Republicans turned out in numbers to back Hillary Clinton - their favoured opponent in November for the Republican candidate John McCain.

Some primaries are open to all voters, regardless of their party allegiance, and this is being used as a tactical weapon by Republican activists.

Democrats in Texas say that a campaign by the talk show host Rush Limbaugh urging fellow Republicans to vote for Mrs Clinton helped to keep her in the presidential race.

Exit polls support the contention that thousands of Republicans contributed to the former first lady's narrow victory over Barack Obama in the state.

....

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

17. Barack Obama 'won't be Hillary Clinton's vice-president on dream ticket'

Barack Obama 'won't be Hillary Clinton's vice-president on dream ticket'

By Toby Harnden in Washington Telegraph UK GMT 10/03/2008

Barack Obama yesterday rejected Hillary Clinton's suggestion that he stand as her vice-president on a Democratic "dream ticket

After bouncing back from defeats last week to claim an easy victory in Wyoming at the weekend, Mr Obama said: "You won't see me as a vice presidential candidate. I'm running for president. We have won twice as many states as Senator Clinton, and have a higher popular vote, and I think we can maintain our delegate count."

...Mr Obama, 46, has a virtually unbeatable lead of about 150 pledged delegates to represent him at August's party convention.

That leaves Mrs Clinton relying on the unlikely possibility of most of the 796 party leaders, known as "super-delegates" going against the wishes of Democratic voters.

Mrs Clinton also hopes to overtake Mr Obama's 600,000 lead in the total popular vote among Democrats.

...

She needs him, not the other way around..... Coat-tails!

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

18. OMG even Timmeh knows its a con job! -Russert is Skeptical of Clintons’ Obama VP Talk

OMG even Timmeh knows its a con job!

Tim Russert is Skeptical of Clintons’ Obama VP Talk: It is an Attempt to Belittle Barack Obama

By PoliJAM | March 10, 2008

watch the video at the link

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

19. 50-State Study: Obama Fares Better Than Clinton Against McCain

50-State Study: Obama Fares Better Than Clinton Against McCain

Chief editor Todd at The Blue State 2008.03.10

The proof is in the pudding.
Pollster.com did an analysis of data compiled in all 50 states by SurveyUSA.

Here is the bottom line:

-There are more toss-up states if Clinton becomes the nominee.

-Obama, not Clinton, puts states such as Texas, Virginia, North Carolina and Nebraska into play.

-Clinton would win Florida, Obama might not.

-Democrats could lose the Northwest if Clinton becomes the nominee.
Washington becomes a toss-up, and Oregon leans McCain.
Under Obama, both of those states are "strong Obama."

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

20. Obama’s Viral Influence

Obama’s Viral Influence: How Obama can help elect more Democrats in Congress

by Robert Creamer March 9, 2008 The Huffington Post

...pull aside virtually any member of Congress who represents a tough swing district, and ask privately who he or she wants to head the ticket. The verdict is virtually unanimous: they all believe that Obama’s nomination will be far more helpful to their own candidacies than Hillary Clinton’s. The same goes for candidates trying to take Republican seats.

You hear four reasons for this assessment:

1). They believe that Obama will turn out large numbers of new Democratic voters that simply won’t show up if Hillary is the candidate. This is doubly true when districts have sizeable minority populations. But it is true of young people across the board.

2). They believe that Obama will appeal to independents and some Republicans — and create an environment more favorable to their own candidacies among those voters.

3). They think Obama will be much more helpful at raising money for their own races than Clinton.

4). Most importantly, many think Clinton’s presence on the ticket will galvanize the right-wing base. They simply don’t want to run on a ticket headed by Hillary Clinton, and many say they would not campaign with her in their districts.

...more...

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

21. Remind me again why voters should choose your wife over Obama

Remind me again why voters should choose your wife over Obama

Rakato's Rants 3/10/08

(via mash, via here )

Oh the irony.... Now can someone please find the true Bill Clinton and get
rid of the one who has been impersonating him on the campaign trail ?

Here is the key sentence from that speech back in 2004:

" If one candidate is appealing to your fear, and one candidates is
appealing to your hope, you'd better vote for the one who wants you to think and hope..."


Yep, let's hope Obama picks up that 3 am phone call.

video at the link

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

22. Gallup: Obama New Lead - Five Points Ahead

New Lead for Obama

10.03.2008 The Stump

He emerges from several days trailing Hillary in Gallup's national numbers to take
a "statistically significant" five-point lead. Not what you'd necessarily expect post-
Texas and Ohio. Maybe Hillary got such a media lift that the anti-media pendulum
is swinging back yet again? (He also leads by 3.7 in the RCP national poll average, by the way.)


With most of the primary voting behind us national primary polls seemed
irrelevant until recently. But now they're likely to have a real influence over
superdelegates. Although probably not as significant as the head-to-heads
against McCain, in which Obama also fares a few points better than Clinton
(but which I would argue are a pretty suspect predictor at the moment).

(Thanks to prized reader KB)

--Michael Crowley

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

23. Obama mocks the Hillary and Bill "double-speak, double-talk"

Obama mocks the Hillary and Bill "double-speak, double-talk"

by Joe Sudbay (DC) · 3/10/2008

A major concession from the Clintons this weekend: Obama is ready to be President.

Last week, the Clinton campaign was spewing a lot of nonsense about an imaginary threshold to be Commander in Chief.
Whatever that threshold is, both Clintons spent the weekend saying Obama has crossed it and is ready.

This stems from the new, desperate Clinton talking point that Obama could be Hillary's Vice President.
Yesterday, Bill Clinton said it again.

There's been a lot of speculation about how Obama would fight back.
And, today, he took the only appropriate tone.

Obama mocked this latest Clinton strategy today -- and it deserved mocking:

“I do not believe Senator Clinton is about change, because in fact,
this kind of gamesmanship — talking about me as vice president,
but maybe he’s not ready for commander in chief—
that’s exactly the kind of double-speak, double-talk that Washington is very good at.”

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

24. Clinton Surrogates Waste No Time Trying to Tar Barack Obama with Spitzer Scandal

Clinton Surrogates Waste No Time Trying to Tar Barack Obama with Spitzer Scandal

Jonathan S. Tuttle on 10 March 2008

Hillary Clinton's unofficial surrogates in New York City have wasted no time trying to smear Barack Obama with
the alleged involvement of Eliot Spitzer with a prostitution ring.

Specifically, less than 30 minutes after news of the Governor's alleged involvement with the high-priced Emperor's Club broke on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News, I received an e-mail from one of the most persistent Hillary backers in New York.

To wit, "As a reminder that a scandal can always be brewing around the corner -- especially for those politicians who like to project that they are 'above it all' -- see Eliot Spitzer. The hypocrisy is rich."

My receipt of this opportunistic and jaw-dropping e-mail was almost as shocking as the revelations of Governor Spitzer's misjudgment itself.

The speed and ease with which Hillary Clinton's unofficial surrogates have sought to benefit from the personal and professional troubles of a fellow Democratic - and the leader of her home state party no less - is mind numbing and frankly disgusting. While the e-mail does not mention Senator Obama by name - the implication is clear.

more at the link

[writes3000]

26. Ugh, this is so disgusting. They should be embarassed. n/t

[JimGinPA]

27. Amazing...

No shame whatsoever.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

25. The Ugliness Behind Ferraro's Slur

The Ugliness Behind Ferraro's Slur

by DHinMI Mon Mar 10, 2008

If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.

Yes, Clinton surrogate Geraldine Ferraro said that. Geraldine Ferraro--nominated as Vice President
almost entirely because she was a woman--ridiculing Barack Obama's rise as supposedly due to
his race is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

One can laugh at the ridiculousness of the statement, or ridicule the idea that African-Americans
somehow have it easier in America than white men or women.
But to do so misses how Ferraro's statement will be heard by too many Americans.

The fact is, there are a lot of White people in American who believe they're at a disadvantage,
that Blacks get things handed to them. The idea may be foreign to some people, but I've heard it my entire life.
I've heard it at family gatherings, in my neighborhood when I was a kid, from family friends and all kinds of other folks.
It's not a fringe belief. It's at the heart of the belief system of the so-called Reagan Democrats—
swing voters and even some Democrats who were cradle Democrats but defected to Reagan and
have been up for grabs in most elections since 1992.

more at the link

[jefferson_dem]

28. POLL: Obama Headed to Victory in Mississippi

New InsiderAdvantage Survey
Obama Headed to Victory in Mississippi

Compiled from InsiderAdvantage and Southern Political Report staff

March 10, 2008 — An InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion poll conducted March 9 shows that Sen. Barack Obama is extending his lead over Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Mississippi Democratic presidential primary race.

The survey of 338 registered likely voters in the primary has been weighted for age, race, and gender. It has a margin or error of plus or minus 6%

Obama: 54%
Clinton: 37%
Undecided: 9%

InsiderAdvantage’s Matt Towery: “ Last week it appeared that there was a possibility that Republicans might crossover to vote in the Democratic primary. (The state has an open primary).

“However, this fresh survey suggests that no such trend is developing. The only thing to watch on Election Day is whether Clinton can somehow stay in a comfortable zone of the 40 percent range. This turned out not to be the case in Wyoming.

“There is some possibility that turnout patterns might allow for a slightly better chance of a face-saving number for Clinton. However, virtually all of the African-American respondents have moved in Sen. Obama’s direction since last week, and this consolidation – which, as we noted last week, always occurs late in southern-state races – all but assures a solid Obama win on Tuesday.” Click here for crosstabs.

http://www.southernpoliticalreport.com/storylink_310_271.aspx