Clinton Backer: Obama will WIN!

[eissa]

A key Hillary Clinton supporter appeared to be a bit off message during a recent interview with a Canadian radio station.

"If I had to make a prediction right now, I'd say Barack Obama is going to be the next president," Missouri Rep. Emanuel Cleaver said in a Canadian public radio interview this weekend. "I will be stunned if he's not the next president of the United States."

Cleaver, an African-American, endorsed Clinton's White House bid last year and formally remained aligned with the New York senator even as other black leaders shifted their support to Barack Obama.

But after his district voted for Obama in the February 5 primary, Cleaver did indicate he would consider voting for the Illinois senator at the party's convention if the delegate count was extremely tight between the two candidates.

In the Canadian radio interview, Cleaver made clear he doesn't expect Clinton to overtake Obama, comparing his support of the New York Democrat to that of his hometown losing football team.

“Even though I don't expect the Kansas City Chiefs to beat the Indianapolis Colts, I cheer for the Kansas City Chiefs,” he said.

He also pushed back on the notion Clinton should take her fight for the party's nomination all the way to the August convention — though he acknowledged that is not the position he is supposed to take.

"If I do the party line, I'm supposed to say — and maybe I'll say, just so if anybody hears it they can say well, 'Cleaver did the party line before he told the truth' — we believe that a contest going all the way to the convention is good for America."

But, he added, an actual convention fight would be a “tragedy of tragedies.”

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. Sounds like the Clinton campaign apparatchiks are better democrats

... than many of Obama's DU supporters.

Cleaver just made it clear that he's supporting Obama if he's the nominee. Pity that the more levelheaded of the local Obama supporters can't impress upon some of their peers the importance to follow his lead.

[DerekJ]

2. At least we don't praise fox.

[Metric System]

4. Oh, you must have missed the threads here a few weeks back in which Obama supporters posted articles

by Peggy Noon, Andrew Sullivan and a bunch of other right-wing hacks.

[mdmc]

3. thanks for the link

[Life Long Dem]

5. Clinton will just have to have a talk with him over that one!

[Texas Hill Country]

6. all the while he gets called Uncle Tom and Napkinhead by Obama's supporters....