my bad

50 Cent's sudden shift of allegiance from Clinton to Obama is the real sign of the beginning of the end for H.Cli's campaign.

:)

we matter. we really matter.

Meanwhile, Obama can continue to organize in the two next contests, working to run up the score in North Carolina while building toward what could very well be the knockout blow in Indiana.

Indiana is not Ohio. It may very well be the last truly competitive state left this primary season. If Obama wins it, perhaps Clinton will finally realize what we've all known since the end of February -- Clinton lost this campaign.

The new goalposts -- Indiana! I haven't seen any polls for Indiana since February, and at that time it was 40% Barack Obama, 25% Hillary Clinton, 35% Unsure. I'd like to see what we look like now.

the beginning of the end?

Poll: Obama has double digit lead nationally

I saw my first Indiana-targeted Obama ad on TV last night, it was very exciting for me because for as long as I've been able to vote, Indiana has not mattered in any national election. But now we do, and its pretty nice :) I'm actually hoping Hillary will wait until after we vote May 6th to concede. I want my vote to matter for once!

the "tonya harding option"

Clinton plans to stick it out until the bitter end? Bitter is the key word here, we finally have a viable candidate in Barack Obama, and she's going to whittle away at the party's unity and chance at the Whitehouse because she still thinks the nomination should have been handed to her in Iowa.

Hillary, there will be other elections. You will still be around in the next 4-8 years, hopefully much longer than that. You can run again. You can use the next 4-8 years to make it up to the Democrats and the nation by being an even better Senator and helping President Obama pass the legislation he has been touting on the campaign trail. You could become part of his cabinet, why not Secretary of State? That would give you excellent experience for your turn in the Whitehouse. You would certainly be a more effective Sec. of State than Condi Rice. Think about it.

a non-political post, wow!

The new X-Files movie is scheduled to be released July 25th! Just three days before my birthday :) i knew this would be a golden year...

more on foreign policy

I've posted mostly negative about Hillary Clinton lately, so here's a post on some of Barack Obama's foreign policy plan, you can read more on his website, barackobama.com/issues/foreignpolicy/

Renewing American Diplomacy

* The Problem: The United States is trapped by the Bush-Cheney approach to diplomacy that refuses to talk to leaders we don't like. Not talking doesn't make us look tough – it makes us look arrogant, it denies us opportunities to make progress, and it makes it harder for America to rally international support for our leadership. On challenges ranging from terrorism to disease, nuclear weapons to climate change, we cannot make progress unless we can draw on strong international support.
* Talk to our Foes and Friends: Obama is willing to meet with the leaders of all nations, friend and foe. He will do the careful preparation necessary, but will signal that America is ready to come to the table, and that he is willing to lead. And if America is willing to come to the table, the world will be more willing to rally behind American leadership to deal with challenges like terrorism, and Iran and North Korea's nuclear programs.
* Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Obama will make progress on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a key diplomatic priority. He will make a sustained push – working with Israelis and Palestinians – to achieve the goal of two states, a Jewish state in Israel and a Palestinian state, living side by side in peace and security.
* Expand our Diplomatic Presence: To make diplomacy a priority, Obama will stop shuttering consulates and start opening them in the tough and hopeless corners of the world – particularly in Africa. He will expand our foreign service, and develop the capacity of our civilian aid workers to work alongside the military.
* Fight Global Poverty: Obama will embrace the Millennium Development Goal of cutting extreme poverty around the world in half by 2015, and he will double our foreign assistance to $50 billion to achieve that goal. He will help the world's weakest states to build healthy and educated communities, reduce poverty, develop markets, and generate wealth.
* Strengthen NATO: Obama will rally NATO members to contribute troops to collective security operations, urging them to invest more in reconstruction and stabilization operations, streamlining the decision-making processes, and giving NATO commanders in the field more flexibility.
* Seek New Partnerships in Asia: Obama will forge a more effective framework in Asia that goes beyond bilateral agreements, occasional summits, and ad hoc arrangements, such as the six-party talks on North Korea. He will maintain strong ties with allies like Japan, South Korea and Australia; work to build an infrastructure with countries in East Asia that can promote stability and prosperity; and work to ensure that China plays by international rules.

just sad

For the second time in three days, Hillary Clinton has told reporters that the "pledged" delegates awarded based on vote totals in their state are not bound to abide by election results — an idea that has been floated by her or a campaign surrogate nearly half a dozen times this month.

Is she really getting so desperate to suggest that the pledged state delegates from the primaries and caucuses should go against their state and vote for whomever they choose?? She's not talking about superdelegates here, she's talking about the delegates who each candidate won from each state based upon election results. This is supposed to be a democratically elected nomination (yes i know we're really a republic, but we can at least vote like a democracy)
Hillary: Give It Up. Find a better argument, no one should suggest that pledged delegates should give the voters the bird and choose whomever they wish.
UGH. At this point, if she were to win the party's nomination, there's no way I would vote for her.

foreign policy experience

So are Sheryl Crow and Sinbad qualified for the Presidency? They were also on the trip with Hillary Clinton to Bosnia, during which she "remember[s] landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."



Ooops, she "misspoke" (politician speak for 'lied'), in actuality:

But news video footage of her arrival at Tuzla shows Clinton, then the first lady, calmly walking from the rear ramp of a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane with her daughter Chelsea, then 16, at her side. Both Clintons held their heads up and did not appear rushed as they walked toward the group waiting on the tarmac to welcome them.

Did she not think the video footage would ever be released? H.Cli has often used this trip as evidence of her vastly superior foreign policy experience to Barack Obama's.

Update: Daily Kos posted a timeline of sorts of the several times she mentioned her sniper-fire trip to Bosnia

whaa whaa

"This is now the Obama campaign’s primary message to the American people," Communications Director Howard Wolfson said. "Not to build him up, but to tear Senator Clinton down."

Hasn't the Clinton campaign used the 'tear-down' method from the very start? With the intention of avoiding any possibility of anyone taking this as a racial statement, its just a saying, i think the clinton campaign is now the pot calling the kettle black. I think its high time that the Obama campaign gives the Clinton campaign a taste of their own medicine.

speaking of race issues, I was thoroughly impressed by the manner in which Barack Obama handled the whole Reverend Wright controversy. He didn't ignore it hoping that it would go away, as Hillary Clinton did with Geraldine Ferraro's remarks. He didn't throw his former reverend to the wolves. He did the mature thing and addressed the issue head-on, staying faithful to his former reverend, yet clearing up his opinion on the matter. Maturity. What a concept.

broken arrow

thanks for the link jackie :)

majority of dems prefer obama

yay!

From CNN.com:
"Fifty-two percent of registered Democrats questioned in a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey say the senator from Illinois is their choice for president, with 45 percent supporting Clinton.
The poll also suggests Democrats are more enthusiastic about an Obama victory (45 percent) than for a victory by the senator from New York (38 percent)."

When are the dems gonna give Hillary the Huckabee-talk?

changed again

the flowery background was fun, but i got finicky and wanted to change the layout a little more. I may make a couple more changes, little details, but hopefully this will satisfy me for a while.

a little more math

"By our count, the Clinton campaign hasn’t publicly announced the support of a new superdelegate since just after February 5. Indeed, since Super Tuesday, Obama has gained 47 new superdelegates, while Clinton has lost seven (including Eliot Spitzer). Does Clinton have a bigger problem on the superdelegate front than folks realize?"
- Daily Kos

keith olbermann on hillary clinton

yay indiana

we're not all a bunch of racist rednecks, yesterday Indiana elected the second Muslim congressman in U.S. history.

some more math

I was curious as to what the differences are between the percentage margin wins for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, so i did some math. Hillary claims that she can win the 'blue collar' workers and is winning the important states. What she fails to mention is that in the states she did win, she has won with smaller margins than Barack. Here's the rundown from the numbers I got from cnn.com:

Of Barack's 28 wins, he has won 89% with a margin of 10 points or more. Hillary has won 14 contests with 57% of a margin of 10 points or more. Here is a table of more stats...

Margin	Barack Obama	Hillary Clinton
-10	11%	43%
+10	89%	57%
+20	67%	14%
+30	39%	7%

He has clearly won his contests by wider margins. He has won more contests than she, and in the contests that she did win, it was by smaller margins.

A Clinton surrogate implied that Obama's supporters are "latte-drinking, Prius- driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust fund babies". Really, the same people who voted and won for him Kansas, Idaho, Alaska, Alabama, Iowa, Minnesota, Virginia, Nebraska, Mississippi, just to name a few? Those are your typical 'trust fund babies' states? Seems to me those labels could more easily be applied to voters from New York, Massachusetts, California, New Jersey, New Hampshire - oh wait, Clinton won those states!

some positive campaigning

I think I've focused a little too much on how negatively Hillary Clinton is campaigning, and not enough on why you should vote for Barack Obama. So I'm going to try to post a few entries on his views.

Here are a few of Barack Obama's views on the economy (as taken from his website):
The Problem
Wages are Stagnant as Prices Rise: While wages remain flat, the costs of basic necessities are increasing. The cost of in-state college tuition has grown 35 percent over the past five years. Health care costs have risen four times faster than wages over the past six years. And the personal savings rate is now the lowest it's been since the Great Depression.
Tax Cuts for Wealthy Instead of Middle Class: The Bush tax cuts give those who earn over $1 million dollars a tax cut nearly 160 times greater than that received by middle-income Americans. At the same time, this administration has refused to tackle health care, education and housing in a manner that benefits the middle class.

Barack Obama's Plan
Provide Middle Class Americans Tax Relief

• Obama will cut income taxes by $1,000 for working families to offset the payroll tax they pay.
• Provide a Tax Cut for Working Families: Obama will restore fairness to the tax code and provide 150 million workers the tax relief they need. Obama will create a new "Making Work Pay" tax credit of up to $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family. The "Making Work Pay" tax credit will completely eliminate income taxes for 10 million Americans.
• Simplify Tax Filings for Middle Class Americans: Obama will dramatically simplify tax filings so that millions of Americans will be able to do their taxes in less than five minutes. Obama will ensure that the IRS uses the information it already gets from banks and employers to give taxpayers the option of pre-filled tax forms to verify, sign and return. Experts estimate that the Obama proposal will save Americans up to 200 million total hours of work and aggravation and up to $2 billion in tax preparer fees.

Read more @ BarackObama.com

do the math

email today from Barack Obama's campaign manager:

Our projections show the most likely outcome of yesterday's elections will be that Hillary Clinton gained 187 delegates, and we gained 183.
That's a net gain of 4 delegates out of more than 370 delegates available from all the states that voted.
For comparison, that's less than half our net gain of 9 delegates from the District of Columbia alone. It's also less than our net gain of 8 from Nebraska, or 12 from Washington State. And it's considerably less than our net gain of 33 delegates from Georgia.
The task for the Clinton campaign yesterday was clear. In order to have a plausible path to the nomination, they needed to score huge delegate victories and cut into our lead.
They failed.
It's clear, though, that Senator Clinton wants to continue an increasingly desperate, increasingly negative -- and increasingly expensive -- campaign to tear us down. That's her decision. But it's not stopping John McCain, who clinched the Republican nomination last night, from going on the offensive. He's already made news attacking Barack, and that will only become more frequent in the coming days.
Right now, it's essential for every single supporter of Barack Obama to step up and help fight this two-front battle. In the face of attacks from Hillary Clinton and John McCain, we need to be ready to take them on.
Will you make an online donation of $25 right now?
https://donate.barackobama.com/math

great

hillary's wins mean more negative campaigning. Thanks ohio and texas. Glad to know you're so easy swayed by attack ads. Barrack still has more delegates, lets just hope the same spineless (superdelegate) democrats who have caved into Bush's whims for the past 8 years don't also cave to the Clintons.

oh my

I just noticed how much Hillary has taken over my blog. For someone who supports Barack Obama and his positive campaign, its getting to be a little too much Hillary on here.

Check out his website, stylistically is very lovely, and its easy to donate (I have done so myself) If you are still on the fence, you can learn more about who he is and what he believes. Get inspired!

and the kitchen sink

desperate times calls for desperate measures and hillary is desperate.

The Clinton campaign has helpfully brought the Tony Rezko trial back into the spotlight by reminding people that he was a fundraiser for Barack Obama. Does she just hope no one will remember that she once posed for a photo with him and her husband? Her defense is that she posed for lots of photos with lots of people. True, but not just anyone gets a photo with the Clintons, they get their photo taken with them because they helped them with something in one way or another. It wasn't 'free photo hour' at the Whitehouse and Tony Rezko just happened to show up.



Her campaign is also claiming that Barack Obama's campaign has let the Canadian Embassy know that his 'hard on NAFTA' talk is just talk and that he's willing to work with them. Isn't that convenient, coming from the people who helped initiate NAFTA in the first place. The Canadian Embassy has stated repeatedly that nothing of the sort happened. It isn't exactly unusual for senators or candidates and their campaign staff to meet with our neighboring country.
Hillary, on the other hand, has a record of supporting NAFTA
During Clinton's 1996 visit to Texas, United Press International reported that she "touted the president's support for NAFTA." In her memoir, Clinton trumpeted her husband's "successes on the budget, the Brady bill and NAFTA." The Buffalo News reports that in 1998 she "praised corporations for mounting 'a very effective business effort in the U.S. on behalf of NAFTA.' " And last year, her lead Wall Street fundraiser told reporters that Clinton remains "committed" to NAFTA's "free" trade structure.

She's lucky that Obama hasn't bothered to bring her skeletons out of the closet with the ferocity that her campaign has waged against him. If this is all she can drum up, he just looks better and better. I don't mind bringing up some of her skeletons though: Whitewater Scandal - if she thinks the Rezko real estate issue with Obama is worth mentioning, what about her real estate controversy?
Hillary also has a fundraiser who has gotten into legal trouble, Norman Hsu, an apparel manufacturer who, as of last September, had outstanding warrant for his arrest stemming from a 15-year-old felony theft conviction. (he also donated to Obama's senate campaign)