We WILL Heal the Party By Getting Ourselves Out of the Circular Firing Squad

[McCamy Taylor]

I am getting sick and tired of the defeatist attitude. No one has made Democrats snipe at each other, when the real enemy is George W. Bush and Dick “Darth Vader” Cheney—especially for the blue collar and elderly voters that everyone suddenly prizes. I don’t care how many photos of Barack Obama Matt Drudge published claiming that Hillary Clinton forced him to do it. Or how many articles about Obama’s Muslim’s upbringing the Rev. Sun Yung Moon wrote whispering “My BFFL Hillary told me.” Or how often that old snake in the grass Bob Novak muttered drunkenly “Hillary’s got dirt on Obama but she won’t use it.” Chris Matthews and Brit Hume could have repeated these stories until they were blue in the face and a candidate who knew how to stay on message, like Jimmy Carter would have ignored it. Once he made up his mind that he was going to run on hope and change that was what he ran on. He came out of Nowhere, Georgia to beat primary opponents who were just as well known as Hillary Clinton, and he went on to beat a sitting president.

Thank God that Keith Olbermann has finally wised up. He was Barack Obama’s worst enemy. With his daily demonstration that media guys in suits prefer Obama to Hillary, is it any wonder that lower income Democrats decided that she was the real voice of the people?

But someone in the Obama campaign has dumbed down, it seems.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2004367121_elexnext23.html

In recent days, the Obama campaign has flogged Clinton's exaggerations about a 1996 trip to Bosnia, framed comments she made against MoveOn.org activists as her version of "Bitter-gate," and accused her of tactics reminiscent of Karl Rove.
snip
With Obama clearly favored in North Carolina, even he has called Indiana the "tiebreaker," a state where Clinton voters hold sway in the working-class towns in the south. Leading up to the primary, a Democratic strategist said aides are likely to turn to the controversies of Bill Clinton's White House years — Hillary Rodham Clinton's trading cattle futures, Whitewater and possibly impeachment.
snip
Plouffe would not say the campaign planned to address that period but seemed open to the possibility: "The Republicans certainly are going to look at those issues, the Clinton finances, the record issues. We have chosen not to go there."
Snip
The candidate of hope is morphing into an Ivy League scold, said Whit Ayres, a GOP pollster — and Republicans can hardly believe their good fortune. With President Bush's approval ratings at record lows, oil prices soaring, housing foreclosures spreading and an unpopular war raging, the Republican Party faces what may be the worst political environment since the early 1970s. And, they say, Democrats are making the same mistake now.
"He's George McGovern without the military experience," Ayres said of Obama. And the Clinton campaign will exploit such an attack, as her backers seek to convince superdelegates — elected officials and party powers — that Obama is unelectable.

Whitewater? Monica? From the Obama campaign? That is supposed to win over blue collar workers? This is supposed to be campaigning on the issues and not on distractions? The elderly, who have to choose between food and medication every day, are now going to vote based upon where the candidate for First Gentleman put his dick ten years ago?


Divide and Conquer is the RNC’s number one tool for retaining power in this country. No wonder they are celebrating. For those who have not read Angela Davis’s Women, Race and Class please do so. Republicans do not have a majority of the votes, so they can only win by 1) suppressing our vote and 2) making us fight against each other so that we do not vote as a block. Because we are now acutely aware of 1), Karl Rove, veteran of 1972 is now using strategy number 2. The signs have been all around us since January 2007.

No one can force any Democrat to point a loaded gun at another Democrat. It is something we choose to do ourselves. We can lay down our weapons at any time. From this point on, the first candidate who stops sniping and who begins to attack George W. Bush and his 20 something percent presidency---the real enemy for the blue collar Democrats---- in a loud, clear, ringing voice that brings the house down is going to be the winner. Obama has a better voice, so it ought to be him. However, if that article is correct, he is going off on a snipe hunt, while Hillary is going to solidify the support of her devoted base, a group that will be indispensable for victory this fall----and a group that has shown its willingness in past elections to cross party lines and vote for the Republican nominee if it believes that the Democratic Party has slighted it. The difference between her base and Obama's is that his base will stay home, but it will not cross party lines in the fall. The Super Delegates know this. Obama must win over Hillary's voters. He will not do this by demonstrating his skills at shooting either other Democrats or watermelons (something Dan Burton was said to be fond of doing when he wasn't issuing subpoenas to the White House).

[thunder rising]

1. Watch a little youtube to stay focused.

Terry McAuliffe praises Fox News for praising Hillary Clinton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbJVkIzKq64

[madfloridian]

2. Hell, he just said on TV today they are not going to go there.

Did you read what you wrote? Go to TPM and look up Plouffe

[McCamy Taylor]

3. There is now a thread at DU on Monica and one on Cattle Futures

The one on Monica is getting rated up.

Obama himself will not utter the words, but the Obama campaign is already going there.

Oh, and tonight KO and Rachel Maddow accused Hillary Clinton of being behind the North Carolina RNC Obama attack ads if I had my innuendo ears on right. Divide and conquer scores another one.

[stillcool]

4. I'm getting tired...

of BLACK_BARRY_BARACK_REZKO_REVEREND WRIGHT_AYERS_HUSSEIN_BLACK_OBAMA

Clinton Library Got Funds From Abroad
Saudis Said to Have Given $10 Million

By John Solomon and Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, December 15, 2007; A03

Bill Clinton's presidential library raised more than 10 percent of the cost of its $165 million facility from foreign sources, with the most generous overseas donation coming from Saudi Arabia, according to interviews yesterday.

The royal family of Saudi Arabia gave the Clinton facility in Little Rock about $10 million, roughly the same amount it gave toward the presidential library of George H.W. Bush, according to people directly familiar with the contributions.

The presidential campaign of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has for months faced questions about the source of the money for her husband's presidential library. During a September debate, moderator Tim Russert asked the senator whether her husband would release a donor list. Clinton said she was sure her husband would "be happy to consider that," though the former president later declined to provide a list of donors.
----------------------------------------
Bill Clinton has solicited donations for the library personally, aides said, but he also delegated much of the fundraising to others, especially Terence R. McAuliffe, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee and the chairman of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. The foundation statement stressed that he has turned over the facility to taxpayers, as other former presidents have.
--------------------------------------
A handful of major donors' names to the Clinton library were disclosed in 2004 when a New York Sun reporter accessed a public computer terminal at the library that provided a list of donors. Soon after the article appeared, the list of donors was removed.

The amount of the contribution from Saudi Arabia and several other countries, as well as the percentage of the total given by foreigners, had not been revealed.

The Post confirmed numerous seven-figure donors to the library through interviews and tax records of foundations. Several foreign governments gave at least $1 million, including the Middle Eastern nations of Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, as well as the governments of Taiwan and Brunei.

In addition, a handful of Middle Eastern business executives and officials also gave at least $1 million each, according to the interviews. They include Saudi businessmen Abdullah al-Dabbagh, Nasser al-Rashid and Walid Juffali, as well as Issam Fares, a U.S. citizen who previously served as deputy prime minister of Lebanon.
---------------------------------------
Clinton has been criticized for asking for donations, including from Saudi Arabia, at questionable moments. In an op-ed column in the Wall Street Journal last year, former FBI director Louis J. Freeh said Clinton "hit up Prince Abdullah for a contribution to his library" during a meeting in which Freeh wanted Clinton to ask about the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing. Clinton has publicly disputed Freeh's account.

Clinton has also been challenged by members of Congress for accepting a reported $450,000 donation to his library from the former wife of fugitive financier Marc Rich before he granted Rich a pardon for tax evasion in 2001. Neither Clinton nor the Rich family confirmed the donation.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/14/AR2007121402124_pf.html

Clinton Library Sells Secret Donor List
November 19, 2007 1:47 PM

Avni Patel and Marcus Baram Report:
Three years after the William J. Clinton Presidential Library opened its doors, the list of donors who helped the former president build his $165 million complex remains a secret from the public.

Yet the Blotter on ABCNews.com has learned that the Clinton Foundation sold portions of the list through a data company headed by a longtime friend and donor.

"The fact that they've sold the list and then turned around and said that these names must be kept anonymous completely undercuts their argument," said Sheila Krumholz of the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington, D.C.-based government watchdog group that tracks the influence of money in politics.

An employee of Walter Karl, a subsidiary of the data company InfoUSA, told ABCNews.com that the company made a list of more than 38,000 donors to the Clinton presidential library available for sale to foundations and other nonprofit groups from June 2006 to May 2007. A spokesman for the company would not say how the profits from the sale of the partial list were distributed.
----------------------------
The little that is known about the identities of the donors to the Clinton library was reported by the New York Sun in 2004, after a reporter discovered the names on a touch-screen computer on the third floor of the library after its opening.

Members of the Saudi royal family, Arab businessmen, the governments of Dubai, Kuwait, Qatar, Brunei and Taiwan, and Hollywood celebrities, were among the 57 individuals or foundations who gave $1 million or more to the library, according to the Sun.

The computer with the list of donors was disconnected after the Sun article ran. At the time, Clinton officials said that a permanent list of donors contributing $100,000 or more would eventually be installed on a wall at the library.
----------------------------------
Vin Gupta, CEO of InfoUSA, was also on the list of donors giving $1 million or more.

His ties to the Clintons came under scrutiny earlier in the year when a lawsuit filed by InfoUSA shareholders accused Gupta of wasting millions of dollars of the company's money to "ingratiate himself" with the Clintons and other personal friends.

Separately, a New York Times article in May revealed that InfoUSA was involved in an investigation in Iowa for selling mailing lists of elderly Americans to criminals. In response to the investigation, the company released a statement saying, "While InfoUSA can not manage what a client does with the publicly available information InfoUSA provides, the company has a strict policy about not selling data to companies who act illegally."

Gupta has donated and raised millions of dollars for the Clintons' political campaigns and charities over the last decade. InfoUSA spent millions more paying the former president as a consultant and flying him and his wife to events around the country and family vacations in Hawaii and Acapulco, Mexico on the company's private jet, according to the court documents.

Clintons' InfoUSA Ties Scrutinized
by Peter Overby

Last year, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton took the unusual step of renting out some of her lists. The transaction once again highlights the Clintons' connections to a businessman who now faces questions from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Reports from Clinton's campaign show that on Dec. 3, it collected payment for renting out three mailing lists, the sale of which netted them $8,225.

It was an unusual transaction, according to Roger Craver, a liberal guru of the political direct-mail industry.
----------------------------------------
According to one direct-mail professional, $800,000 would have seemed like a more plausible price for a quality list...

Vin Gupta has a long history of giving and raising campaign money for the Clintons, and gave $1 million for the 2000 Millennium Celebration, a New Year's Party thrown by the Clintons.
------
After the Clintons left the White House, Gupta hired Bill Clinton as a consultant. It's one of two continuing business relationships he has had since leaving office, and it has been worth $3.3 million, in addition to the options on 100,000 shares of stock.
--------------------------------
The corporate spending on behalf of the Clintons helped fuel a shareholder lawsuit against Gupta and 10 corporate directors.

There are plenty of other allegations in the suit about homes, cars, and a yacht for Gupta. A Delaware chancery court judge dismissed some of the allegations involving the Clintons. But the case is still proceeding. It has led to an informal inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is also asking if Gupta misspent corporate funds.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18

Clinton Global Initiative
ORGANIZATION
Founded 2005, "a non-partisan catalyst for action, bringing together a community of global leaders to devise and implement innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges."

Official Website:
http://www.clintonglobalinitiative.org /

Susan E. Arnold Global Business President, Proctor & Gamble
Richard Branson Founder of Virgin chain
Laura Bush First Lady under George W. Bush
Bill Clinton 42nd US President, 1993-2001
Edward Djerejian US Ambassador to Israel, 1994
Vin Gupta CEO, InfoUSA
Norman Hsu Notorious Democratic donor
Julian H. Robertson, Jr. Tiger Management
Hector Ruiz Chairman and CEO, AMD
http://www.nndb.com/org/780/000119423 /

After Mining Deal, Financier Donated to Clinton
By JO BECKER and DON VAN NATTA Jr.
Published: January 31, 2008
Late on Sept. 6, 2005, a private plane carrying the Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra touched down in Almaty, a ruggedly picturesque city in southeast Kazakhstan. Several hundred miles to the west a fortune awaited: highly coveted deposits of uranium that could fuel nuclear reactors around the world. And Mr. Giustra was in hot pursuit of an exclusive deal to tap them.

Unlike more established competitors, Mr. Giustra was a newcomer to uranium mining in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic. But what his fledgling company lacked in experience, it made up for in connections. Accompanying Mr. Giustra on his luxuriously appointed MD-87 jet that day was a former president of the United States, Bill Clinton.
----------------------------------------------------
"Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, whose 19-year stranglehold on the country has all but quashed political dissent."

"Mr. Nazarbayev walked away from the table with a propaganda coup, after Mr. Clinton expressed enthusiastic support for the Kazakh leader’s bid to head an international organization that monitors elections and supports democracy."
----------------------------------------------
Just months after the Kazakh pact was finalized, Mr. Clinton’s charitable foundation received its own windfall: a $31.3 million donation from Mr. Giustra that had remained a secret until he acknowledged it last month. The gift, combined with Mr. Giustra’s more recent and public pledge to give the William J. Clinton Foundation an additional $100 million, secured Mr. Giustra a place in Mr. Clinton’s inner circle, an exclusive club of wealthy entrepreneurs in which friendship with the former president has its privileges.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/us/politics/31donor.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=076fd56f-4aca-4683-a9d1-3c55d748946e
With Friends Like These ...
Norman Hsu
Hsu parlayed his charming, obsequious personality into a spot as one of the top twenty Democratic fund-raisers nationwide. Problem is, he turned out to be a convicted felon, on the lam since 1992 due to a grand theft conviction. Then, this December, Hsu was indicted for running a pyramid scheme that defrauded investors out of at least $20 million and that made $25,000 a year in fraudulent political donations.


THE SLEAZE FACTOR (on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 somewhat sleazy and 10 stupendously so)
8. Hsu missed his initial (September 5) court date for the 1992 grand theft charge, only to be apprehended a day later on a train in Colorado; he was "freaked out," shirtless, shoeless, and holding a suitcase packed with Tiffany jewelry and $7,000 in cash. Now in federal custody, he confessed to running "phony" companies and leaning on investors to make political donations.


THE DAMAGE TO THE CLINTONS (on a scale of 1 to 10)
7. Extensive Hsu coverage stretched out over several news cycles during Hillary's presidential campaign, and the sordid details of the affair--the pyramid schemes, the links to Asian gangs, the eccentric professional con artist himself--stirred up memories of Clinton fund-raising scandals past. Hillary blamed the fiasco on errors in the donor-screening process.


**THE DONORS
Marc Rich, fugitive American businessman; Denise Rich, songwriter and socialite.


THE GREEN
Denise Rich contributed $70,000 to Hillary's Senate campaign and $450,000 to the Clinton presidential library fund.


THE SCANDAL
Over seventeen years after Marc Rich fled to Switzerland to avoid charges of racketeering, illegal trading, and tax evasion (he owed $48 million), Bill Clinton pardoned Rich during his last moments in the White House. His ex-wife Denise's generous donations and Friend of Bill status gave the pardon a particularly rotten stench.


THE SLEAZE FACTOR
7.5. Rich has been accused of a long list of white-collar crimes. The classiest: trading with Iran while the country was still holding U.S. hostages.


THE DAMAGE TO THE CLINTONS
9.5. As Hillary began her career in the Senate, a media frenzy and investigations in both houses of Congress and the Justice Department were launched to see if Denise's contributions bought her ex-husband's pardon. Though the president was never indicted for wrongdoing, the Rich affair is often mentioned as Exhibit A of Clintonian sliminess.

THE DONOR
Sant S. Chatwal, founder of Bombay Palace restaurants.


THE GREEN
In 2000, Chatwal hosted a half-million dollar fund-raiser for Clinton in New York. In 2007, he declared his intentions to raise $5 million for Hillary's presidential campaign.


THE SCANDAL
According to The Washington Post, as of September 2007, The IRS was pursuing him for $4 million in back taxes, the State of New York for another $5 million, and the FDIC is suing himin connection with a failed bank venture. The Post wrote, "Yet none of the legal and financial woes--occasionally touched on in American or Indian newspapers or highlighted by political opponents--raised red flags inside Hillary Clinton's fund-raising operation."


THE SLEAZE FACTOR
4. Though Chatwal's legal troubles span several suits and two continents (he's also been charged with bank fraud in India), his alleged crimes lack the color and imagination of, say, a Peter F. Paul.

THE DAMAGE TO THE CLINTONS
1. So far, none. But if any of the lawsuits against him come to a head during election season, the timing would be awful for Clinton.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-loeb/hillary-clintons-sleaze-_b_82183.html
http://www.alamo-girl.com/0432.htm
http://prorev.com/hillary3.htm

[McCamy Taylor]

7. Do not start any list with John Solomon. He does bogus smear jobs about Dems finances.

If he is the best of the list, that means that the evidence must be pretty thin. John Solomon was the man chosen to do the smear "John Edwards is a phony." He wrote an infamous piece about Harry Reid that earned him national scorn. His reputation got so bad that he had to leave the Washington Post and go work for the Washington Times.

But your post does demonstrate exactly what I wrote in the OP. If the Obama camp decides to undetake the total Dan Burtoninzation of the Democratic Primary, the Obama camp is going to end up like Newt Gingrich. For those who forget history easily, I will let you look it up.

[stillcool]

9. Listen. I've seen more Fox news..

Newsmax, and every other right wing douche bag posted here to rip Obama to shreds. How dare you tell me what I can and cannot post! Don't even suggest that my post has a frigging thing to do with the Obama Campaign. This is about MY reaction to posters here, who consistently attack with lies and innuendo and somehow think it won't come back. I do not speak for the Obama Campaign and obviously neither do you. You are not nearly as superior as you think you are.

[McCamy Taylor]

10. Bias can cloud the reason of the most "superior" person. Just look at KO

[stillcool]

11. I'm looking at it

[bpeale]

21. much as i enjoy your posts stillcool47, i'm going to put you on ignore

you need to just stop with the crap. hillary is a democrat not the enemy. obama, likewise, is a democrat, not the enemy. this is not helpful at all.

[Spider Jerusalem]

16. You're an idiot of you connect what someone posts on a message board with 'the Obama campaign'.

[democracy1st]

19. They didn't accuse her of being behind the ad

They said she should denounce the ad,because it's trying to connect other democratic politicians to Wright

[lumberjack_jeff]

25. And others featuring Vince Foster

and others advising Obama to watch out because Hillary will murder him too.

It's hard to avoid the conclusion that DU is the home to a colony of agent provocateurs.

[cui bono]

33. KO and Maddow did no such thing.

[McCamy Taylor]

5. The "Hillary is behind the RNC Obama Attack ads" are the lowest.

Guys, the RNC is following the Lee Atwater playbook. This says to define the character of a new candidate before he has a chance to define it himself. The right wing press has been conducting dirty oppo against Obama since January 2007. I have a journal about it. "The Right Wing Press vs. Barack Obama." Now that the GE is nearing, they are stepping up their efforts to define him as all the things that will scare Republican and Independent voters while he is still having to court Dems--i.e while he is still having to run as a liberal, before he can move to the center.

The RNC has chosen to launch their first ad in NC, because they get extra Divide and Conquer action there. They know that African-Americans will be so angry that they will take out their anger the only way they can---against Clinton. The right wing pundits can spin this as "Obama is so divisive that he gets a much higher percent of African-American vote in the South than the White vote."

They also know that the Obama camp will do what they have done time after time whenever Drudge, the Moonies, or Bob Novak have attacked before---either out of anger or in order to score quick cheap political anti-Hillary points, they will seek to blame Hillary. Hillary's supporters will say "What the hell?" and get mad back.

Here we go again. This is why the base is so split. Obama is never going to win Hillary's supporters at this rate. And it isn't Hillary's fault for being divisive. It is his own campaign's fault for falling into the same GOP trap over and over again.

Addendum:

Here is a Time article from yesterday that I just found that confirms what I wrote above:

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1733873,00.html

An old right-wing attack dog has returned with a new target: Barack Obama.

Starting Tuesday, a group of conservative activists led by Floyd Brown, author of the famous Willie Horton ad used so effectively against Michael Dukakis in 1988, will begin a campaign to tar Obama as weak on crime and terrorism, a strategy that aims to upend Obama's relatively strong reputation among Republican voters.

"The campaign by Hillary Clinton has not been able to raise Obama's negatives," said Brown on Monday. "It is absolutely critical that Obama's negatives go up with Republicans."

Brown says the initial effort, a 60-second spot called "Victims" will be aired later this month in North Carolina and e-mailed to between 3 and 7 million conservatives this week, with a plea for more funding to further spread the message. "All of the efforts I have ever done in my life have been significantly funded," Brown claimed, though he declined to describe the size of the purchase. "This is going to be the most Internet-intensive effort for an ad debut ever."

They are going to paint him as soft on crime in advance of the general election. They will do it in NC because that way the media whores can report it as "news" and give them free coverage by asking "What does Hillary think?" "Is Hillary denouncing it strongly enough?" "Maybe if we edit her response the way that Drudge did we can play the RNC smears over and over again under the pretext of saying that Hillary agreed with them, shame on her."

This will get Obama a couple of extra primary votes and will cost him big time in the general.

[cui bono]

34. It is NOT Obama's fault Clinton is negative. Come on! That is SO ridiculous!!!

Talk about not taking responsibility for one's own actions. Can anyone ever stop making excuses for everything bad about Clinton?

It's not sexism, it's not the media (witnessed by their coverage of her since PA) and it sure as hell isn't Obama's fault she's negative. And if she's such a strong person she wouldn't allow him to make her do something.

[GarbagemanLB]

6. The Obama campaign said today they would not be pushing those controversies. Try again.

[McCamy Taylor]

8. Someone needs to tell people at DU that.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

36. Obama is responsible for DU members now? Guess we'll add him to the list.

People Who Obama Is Responsible For:

Rezko

Reverend Wright

Louis Farrakhan

William Ayers

Ronald Reagan

Randi Rhodes

100 some odd thousand DU members

etc.

[GrimReefa]

12. You're absolutely right

Barack Obama (and his supporters) need to move on...to face John McCain. Ignore anything coming from the Hillary camp. She is the past. The General Election is the future.

Let Hillary and her supporters rant and rave. There isn't anything to be gained by further engaging them.

[Kaleko]

13. Amen, GrimReefa.

On a positive note: your name cracked me up.

Welcome to DU :hi:

[bpeale]

23. see, that's the problem

"There isn't anything to be gained by further engaging them."

obama has lost the base completely & you (& he) think you/he can win without them. you make it impossible for them to support YOUR candidate. they'd rather sit home than support him. you can't win without the hillary supporters. you NEED them in the GE. all along you have refused to engage them because of your unwillingness to discuss issues. that is where you are losing the base. they want issues not vitriol.

[ProSense]

40. Oh BS, Obama hasn't lost the base!

Hillary is the one whining about Democratic activists causing her to lose.

Note: Obama has won 30 states to Hillary 15. He has won 15 primaries. He leads in the popular vote. In Mississippi, 24% of Hillary's votes came from Republicans.

She is running a nasty campaign and alienating people by the minute: she lost a major backer today.

[Jakes Progress]

14. The more negative he becomes

the more he loses his lead. Here on DU and other Obama sites, they will attack without thinking. They don't care. But in the real world, the 95% of people who don't spend their lives at a blog screen, were attracted to him because he said he was going to be different. Negativity hurts him much more than Hillary. She based her campaign on being a tough, determined, hard worker. She is sticking with that. He made his campaign based on his desire to do things differently, on love and cooperation. He is changing that. it will cost him supporters. Not here on DU or other hard core sites, but the rabid posters here only make up a small percentage of his base. Out in the real world, the Obama supporters I talk to would support Hillary in a second if she were the nominee. They want to beat BushCo. They support Obama because they think he can win. As he descends into pettiness, he looks less like a winner. His complaints come off as whining and going back on his promise.

[GrimReefa]

18. LOL...been ignoring the polls, I see.

eom

[Jakes Progress]

27. LOL....been believing the polls, I see.

[GrimReefa]

39. Ok, so no polls

What is it then that Obama is losing his lead in? Clinton was up 20 points in PA 6 weeks ago, she won by 9. Obama decimated big Clinton leads in Texas and Ohio. This is all friendly Clinton territory. All states we all knew she would win. We thought she would win them big - big enough to cut into the huge lead Obama built up over February. But not even close.

Obama is losing nothing. Instead, he has consolidated the nomination, even in the face of Clinton's victories, by minimizing those defeats and fighting for every vote. Face it, it's over.

[digidigido]

15. Annie's got a gun

Obama supporters have put their money where their mouths are. Over 1,300,000 people have invested $$$$ in his campaign. A boatload of independents are switching party affiliation to vote for him.
Young people and a new generation of voters are excited to work for him. Don't think Hillary will carry that momentum or that base with her. Her appeal is to the same base as John McCain,
old white people, and guess what, McCain will carry his base against Hllary,old white men, and she'll get white women, and the country gets divisive politics that plays into the Republicans hands,
voter turnout will drop, and a whole new generation of progressives will be lost. The country will lose a chance to turn a corner and heal. Hillary had a chance to get on board this thing and do what
would be best for the country and the party, and she did what she does, fight for Hillary.
Obama supporters are angry at Hillary for behaving like a Republican, sleazy attack ads, race, all sorts of negative stuff. They are also angry at her for voting for the war, for not reading the bill if that's
the reason she really voted for it. Most of all, they don't understand why she is running a race that is mathematically impossible for her to win. If anyone needs to put that rifle down, it's HIllary,
and there's one great way she can do it

[Bluenorthwest]

20. Just some historical perspective

Teddy Kennedy, who was the first of the Democratic legends to dramatically come out for Obama, ran against sitting Democratic President Jimmy Carter. Kennedy went all the way to the convention, where he tried to convert delegates. He was behind by around 900 delegates, and he went to Convention against a sitting Democratic Pres. Teddy is more than free to speak about that action as wrong headed, I've not heard him do so. Obama was very free with the praise for Teddy, and I have not heard Obama talk about Teddy's mathematically impossible run after Carter. It did not ruin the Party, but it did sort of ruin Ted.

I dislike many of Hillary's tactics, but I also take huge issue with Obama's GOP playbook as well. Funny how an honest look shows two politicians trying to win. Obama held religous revival style campaing events in the South, and he specifically hired several well known outspoken bigots to speak and sing as an outreach to people who hold religious based hatered of others not like themselves. Evangelist Donnie McClurkin spewed his fundy anti-gay venom in Obama's name as Obama's surrogate, exactly as Donnie had done so many times for George W Bush. Nothing could be more Rovian or divisive than attacking a minority to drive a religious wedge for people who on another occasion Obama called 'bitter and clinging to religion'. In SC, he brought it to them and asked them to cling to bigotry as a way of winning SC. He has refused to apologize for that many times. Minority baiting, open and blantant, paid for and produced by Barack Obama, without apology.
That is just a fact. He keeps not closing the deal because he has insulted a devoted group of Democratic voters and our families. Millions who would be voting for him had he not practiced GOP gay baiting or even if he would apologize and promise not to do anymore of that vicioius Republican hate crap. But he won't. He calls the bigots in SC who hate me 'good, decent, and moral people' but of course in Pennsylvania, the bigots are 'bitter and clinging to religion' when they hate Obama. Hate gay people and you are good and decent. Chose to vote for Hillary and you are bitter, clinging to religion and all of that. The two sets of events and statements are like oil and water.
Obama opposes marriage equality for all. Rev Wright and Trinity UCC support full marriage equality. Obama with his provencial and backward view of those who are different from him, looks to me to be clinging to a religion his elders and teachers do not practice, one of exclusion of those who are different. Obama's personal backgroud makes that easy to understand. He's got a messed up relationship with men in general, much resentment toward his abandoning parents, and so of course he'd be hyper macho oriented, it is a symptom of his own neurosis and personal weaknesses. Prejudice always, always is about the holder of the prejudice, not the bystander they decide to target with intolerance. Obama's difficulty with GLBT people is all about Barack Obama, not about his church or the religion he was taught by his mentor, not about gay people nor the so called sanctity of divorce, oh I mean the sanctity of marriage. It is about flaws in Obama's self righteous personality.
So many of us have problems with both candidate's tactics. Obama started the attacks on not Hillary, not Bush, not the GOP but GLBT Americans way back last fall. He placed the whole race in a Rovian gutter, and it has gone from there. A candidate willing to gay bash using Fundy preachers in the Democratic Party is obviously a vicious and disloyal candiate, who cares not for the Party base, or for our message of inclusion if it can win him SC. He'll bash gays with religion, then bash religion with bitterness, depending on the audience and the geography.
He plays a vicious game, and he invites Republicans to the stage to attack Democratic voters, not his opponent, but the rank and file voters. That is not a class act. It is a parade of prejudice.
If he dos not apologize and promise no more such attacks on me and mine, he will not get my vote May 20.
Funny how my mocasins walk a different mile, isn't it? Obama's recent interview in the Advocate made my skin crawl. He's ok with gays who don't act gay. He met one once but can not remember his name, a great guy who wasn't always coming on to guys. A hugely fucked up interview. From my shoes, you are boosting an open and admitted bigot who freely uses minorities he dislikes as fodder for Rove style attacks.
So there you go. And you are bothered about what with Hillary, specifically said about you and your family? Hmmmmm?

[bpeale]

26. WOW! YOU JUST ROCK IN MY BOOK!

:yourock:

[digidigido]

30. They also lost the 1980 election. Let's keep some historical perspective shall we

Carter was an ineffective sitting president at the time of Kennedy's challenge. He was in the middle of the hostage crisis, the country was mired in a recession, oil was as high a price relatively as it is now, and he was about to
lose to Ronald Reagan and George Bush. This also is what caused the democratic party to change the rules to what they are now. What bothers me about Hillary is that she simply can only destroy the party by trying to win.
I'm just wondering how the "don't ask don't tell" thing Bill Clinton passed made you feel. If it were me, I've have felt like I was being marginalized and treated as second class citizen

[mrreowwr_kittty]

37. OMG

If you think Obama is pandering to religious bigots, take a look in your own candidate's backyard: Hillary's Donnie McClurkins

And don't hand me crap about how her associations are different. They're not. A bigot is a bigot and proudly displaying endorsements from one, while paying another $10000 a month as a consultant to your campaign is every bit as bad as allowing one to perform on a stage.


And spare us the $2 psychoanalysis of Barack and his relationship with his father. If you can look at the man and call him "hypermacho" you are delusional.

The hypermacho one is your candidate, Senator Hillary "Sniper Fire Watch Me Obliterate Some Eye-ranians" Clinton.

[bpeale]

24. this race IS NOT ABOUT MONEY

god! quit with the money argument. where are the issues? where is the substance? she provides meat & potatoes. he provides HOPE CHANGE HOPE CHANGE HOPE CHANGE without any details. people will not buy what he is selling without substance & he'd better start providing it soon. right now, he will lose in the general election. as an Edwards supporter, i see nothing yet that will change my vote from Edwards or Hillary to Obama.

[anigbrowl]

17. We're running against McCain, not W.

As for your ridiculous thesis, perhaps you could apply it to your own candidate's peculiar sense of electoral etiquette. You were certainly offered enough reasons in your information gathering thread earlier this evening.

[cali]

22. shorter taylor: this is all Obama's fault and the fault of the media.

yes, yes. I know you claim that you don't support either, but you post piece after piece strongly critical of Obama. You do not return the favor for Clinton.

[grantcart]

28. she actually claims that? astounding.

[cali]

29. yep. she said that by not supporting

either she feels like she part of some strange religion that no one else understands. :rofl:

[MessiahRp]

31. Yes the media is all for Obama

"With his daily demonstration that media guys in suits prefer Obama to Hillary, is it any wonder that lower income Democrats decided that she was the real voice of the people?"

Your assessment is dead wrong. First it was that so-called Obama loving media that made non-issues like Rev. Wright, Ayers, Bitter, Bowling, Being a "Muslim" into attack issues on Obama and it was Hillary's campaign feeding such talking points that kept those going. Hillary gets caught in a ridiculous lie about Bosnia Sniper fire, one that was blatant and was utter untruth spewed from her own lips and the media gave it a day or so before they joked about it and glossed over the topic so they could go back to their Obama witchhunt.

Do you honestly think that with Fox News clearly pounding Obama constantly, with the majority of the media going after him and not her especially with the motivation of keeping the horse race going for ratings and advertising rate purposes, that somehow this media is still tilted to him?

If so you need to seriously step back and take a reality check.

There are plenty of old Clinton scandals dating back to Bill's Presidency that are useless and pointless to the task at hand that could be dragged back up to the surface to keep Hillary on the defensive, if they wanted that... but they do not.

Let's make this clear:

1. Republicans are rooting for, even voting for Hillary because they believe she's the galvanizing force to draw all Republican voters to the polls.

2. The Corporate Elite (including the Media) are aware that her husband's (and her) policies were very friendly to them and that it would be business as usual if they were elected and hence attacking her opponent gives them the choice of two status quo candidates that are not a threat to the corrupt system they now basically own.

Obama may not be as anti-corporate as Edwards was on the stump or even as far to the left on Kucinich on any issue but he is further to the left and closer to the anti-corporation sentiment that the corporate elite and Republicans fear. That's why their smear machine has been on full blast ever since February 19th when it appeared he was going to sew it up and give them a real scare this fall.

They need him out so that it's a battle between pro-corporate candidates that protect their monopolistic dynasties.

Let's not try to spin the media for something they are not. KO might appear to tend to lean towards Obama but in all actuality Hillary has been running a negative campaign and her campaign has been caught in too many numerous, easy to disprove lies to slander Obama. It is KO's MO to take people that are lying for political gain and call them out for it.

That's why Hillary supporters hate him so much. The problem is Obama isn't really lying up there nor running a campaign of the same level of negativity so he doesn't get called on the carpet because he's not doing what she is.

So in summation:

1. It's clear the Media does NOT want Obama to win and are supporting Hillary at all costs... until the Fall at least.

2. KO is not biased against Hillary, facts are and he reports the facts and calls people out for lying. Which is a perfect explanation that with so many recent lies being told, Hillary is in the direct line of fire for most of his reports disputing said lies or as Hillary supporters like to say to soften it, "misspeak".

Rp

[berni_mccoy]

32. Where was your outrage when Clinton was(and still is) Dividing the party. Hypocrite.

You only go after Obama and ignore all of the b.s. Clinton has done. Completely Hypocritical.

[McCamy Taylor]

35. Some people like the circular firing squad.

[digidigido]

38. You seem to