DISQUS

Sam Nunn And David L. Boren endorsed Obama today.


Nunn could be a potential VP, putting GA in play.

Troll or not, he raises some good points though factually incorrect. It wasn’t a "racial" struggle until the Clinton made it so. They've tried, unsuccessfully, to ghettoize Obama's campaign.


Obama has been careful not to level any racism charges at Clinton..why? it would open a Pandora's box. His surrogates and blogs like this can do it but he cannot and must not, for fear of alienating white independents and the Dem party base.



Yes this is a struggle but I see it from a starkly different perspective. This is about the future of the Dem party. The establishment vs. the new

Obama camp announces two superdels from PA will switch from Clinton due to her negativity.


Also Harry Thomas Jr superdel and former Clinton supporter will also announce he is backing Obama.



I Hope he upsets in PA but unlikely since PA has similar demographics to OH...but way bigger.



Obama, after he wins IND and NC, should IGNORE hillary and start campaigning for the gen election.



Go after McCain to point out the stark policy differences that voters care about. HRC will continue to go negative, but will look foolish when the narrative and campaign has moved on past her.



Lastly, he should (nor will he have to) NOT accept any more primary debates.

Obama is careful not attack Clinton because he will have the unenviable task of uniting the party after this nasty battle. There are hard core dems who are pissed and if he is viewed as piling it on HRC, they will either stay home or flock to McCain.


And he needs them to win.

"rhonda and others,


"I was just about to post about HHH Johnson. This Sambo needs to just quit. And yes, Rhonda, Uncle Ruckus Johnson was in on that letter to Pelosi."



Please do..it is our duty to flesh out these idiots. Can you imagine Gates, Buffet, Bloomberg--out there like this?



If he needs an African American Billionaire role model, he should look to Oprah for guidance. The woman endorsed Obama and had not been heard from since.



What type of cred will she have, after she's allowed him to fend for himself against the Clintons--THEN come out strong in November?

A friend told me that Johnson's assets are heavily mortgaged and the Clintons may have promised him his own 30 pieces of silver. Why else would a billionaire keep embarrassing himself like this?


Also a discussion that the recent bitter flap is a code for "uppity negro" A certain how dare he and WTFness you might say..

This no laughing matter but the HRC folks must be going...DAM DAM DAM!!...just when they thought they would milk the bitter situation, here comes Mr Davis shifting the attention away...DANG..


Btw he just sent a letter to Obama..here is part of it



"My poor choice of words is regrettable and was in no way meant to impugn you or your integrity. I offer my sincere apology to you and ask for your forgiveness."



LOL...poor choice of words now he wants forgiveness? same forgiveness being afforded to Rev. Wright?

I agree, very well written piece.


Shake I think you are missing the point. We are living in an era of gotcha politics where words, whatever their intent, are being parsed to divide and conquer.



The fact is, the economically depressed ARE bitter and skeptical about our government. The subtle point is that I don’t think they want a BLACK man telling them about it. Where it was cling, bitter or some other word, it wouldn’t have mattered. Barack would have been taken to task for it.



Barack needs to shed his prof hat and become Barack the community organizer. He is learning--that is the reason why I think this contested battle is doing some good.

Global food crisis...here is a snipet from my blog.


The meteoric rise in the price of oil has ignited a renewed push for biofuels. Countries around the globe started biofuel programs to lessen their dependency on fossil fuels. Brazil is the benchmark for these programs as they have been energy self sufficient for years. Their biofuel strategy was a result of a 30 year project that culminated into a very successful plan that uses domestically grown sugar cane for ethanol based fuel. Brazil’s success, while receiving international praise, had another far reaching consequence: foods such as corn and soybeans that would normally be used for consumption, were being reserved for biofuel programs. These crops are in much demand by poorer nations.



As international crude oil prices soared, the rush to find an alternative to Middle Eastern oil has caused global food prices to spiral out of control, causing unrest in many poor nations. In fact, food prices have risen over 40 per cent since last year causing global instability.



In Dhaka yesterday, 20,000 thousand factory workers rampaged through the Bangladesh capital in protest against rising food prices, leaving at least 50 people injured.



In Haiti, hundreds attempted to storm the presidential palace to protest the high cost of rice.



Similarly, violent demonstrations have taken place in Egypt, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Mozambique, Senegal and Cameroon where enraged locals, fed up with the high cost of food, have taken to the streets.

Hmmm...HRC will use any means to get her way. I still think she wants to run in 2012, so the scorched earth policy continues.


If by some miracle it does happen, I hope folk remember and Obama leaves the DNC and forms his own independent party.



BUT I digress and Obama will win the nomination.



HRC may run for GOV of NY to salvage her rep and political career.

The Dems have learned their lesson from 2004 and are not shying away from discussing faith and addressing issues of concern from a religious perspective. I felt that both candidates conveyed a certain fluidity in their thought process and discussed their personal beliefs with relative ease while humbly acknowledging their lack of knowledge on some of the issues.


Clinton of course was questioned about the recent "bitter" controversy and she made sure that the words "elitism" and "out of touch" were emphasized, but left it to Sen. Obama to expound on the subject. Sen. Obama stood his ground, while noting that "religion is a bulwark, a foundation for people when things aren't going well", he stated that " unfortunately what people have become bitter about is any confidence that the government is listening to them. He further noted that "nobody has done more to reach out to the church".



Obama had to answer yet another Rev. Wright question. He once again defended his former pastor, highlighting his numerous life achievements while reaffirming his commitment to his church; his answer received a long applause.



What I noticed tonight was the slow emergence of Obama the community organizer who is a devout Christian and less of the former constitutional law professor. He will need to better frame that message to connect with working class voters or the so called Reagan Democrats. Obama needs to highlight his own personal story of being raised by a white mother who took food stamps and died early of cancer and frame that versus the elitism charges. He is learning and this long primary battle is certainly helping him better shape that message.



Obama although he has not led a charmed personal life, has had a relatively easy rise to political prominence, until now.

It smacks of pure hypocrisy and is very similar to the NAFTA issue before the Ohio primaries, where the Obama camp was chastised for secretly reassuring Canadian authorities. Clinton is emerging relatively unscathed when it was discovered that both Mark Penn, her chief advisor, and Bill Clinton had business dealings with the Colombian government who is promoting a free trade deal that Mrs. Clinton strongly opposes. The MSM coverage on these issues have been lukewarm at best.


There has been a noticeable shift in the coverage of both campaigns and it does appear that Obama is being scrutinized much more by the media.



Lastly, this is from TPM:



"This has to be one of the few times in U.S. political history when a multi-millionaire has accused a much less wealthy fellow public servant, a person of the same party and views who made much less lucrative career choices, of "elitism"! (I won't say the only time, because U.S. political history is full of absurdities of this sort.) In a way, it is funny -- and it may not be long before the jokes start."



The Clintons will overplay their hand on this one

I thought about writing a long answer to this debate, heck its SAT morning....


For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.





We can do that.





But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.





That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.



U can read this rest yourselves..

All of you need to realize that this isn't really about Obama's gaffe. It is absurd to think that a man who is running against two multi-millionaires can be characterized as being out of touch and elitist. Most Educated folk, once they’ve READ and listened to the entire text, they understood the context in which it was said.


The MSM has a vested interest in keeping this race going for as long as it can. RATINGS====> AD MONEY.



That is the reason why you have pundits who continue to raise issues that have been adequately addressed by Sen. Obama in the SPEECH.



Why DID he stay in that church?

Why does'nt he denounce Wright

This is about judgment, not race..blah blah....as informed and educated bloggers we need to stay on message and discuss the issues the MSM are unwilling to address.

Muzikall203


Excellent article!! and I linked and quoted you on my blog. Tavis had some thoughtful commentaries but his self importance and perhaps jealousy got the better of him.

The LA times is reporting that Sen. Obama may lose support of Philly Dems if he doesnt fork over street money. Obama to his credit, is refusing to pay this "bribe" money.


Here is an excerpt:



Carol Ann Campbell, a ward leader and Democratic superdelegate who supports Obama, estimated that the amount of street money Obama would need to lay out for election day is $400,000 to $500,000.



"This is a machine city, and ward leaders have to pay their committee people," Campbell said. "Barack Obama's campaign doesn't pay workers, and I guarantee you if they don't put up some money for those street workers, those leaders will most likely take Clinton money. It won't stop him from winning Philadelphia, but he won't come out with the numbers that he needs" to win the state.



This is a repugnant prostitution of the democratic process and I hope he stands his ground, and if that means taking a loss in PA, so be it.



Way to go Sen. Obama!

You are missing the point, Powell is WELL respected in the Global arena and would provide and instant boost to Obama's foreign policy.


Whatever his "baggage" as you say, will be minimal compared to what he brings to the table. His semi- endorsement is already having the desired effect..instead of talking about Wright, we are debating Powell.



Imagine this scenario, Obama locks up the nomination in June, and quickly announces the following:



Sen. Chuck Hagel as VP and Colin Powell as Secretary of Defense.

Obama would be wise to offer a position to Colin Powell in his administration, while I don’t see him running as VP, but Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense would provide Powell another shot at restoring his tarnished legacy concerning Iraq.


Powell, who is a Republican, would provide some credence to Obama's change and unity mantra.

her selection as a running mate would be viewed as the Republican version of Mondale-Ferraro and could suffer a similar disastrous result for the Republican Party. Mondale was defeated by Ronald Reagan in a landslide; he won only one state (MN), barely. My hunch is that McCain is probably testing the waters and hoping for a trifecta effect in Rice: Shore up the conservative base, get a historic candidate as well, and give African Americans a reason to vote for the Republican Party. McCain will need to capture at least 10-15 per cent of the African American vote and attract a sizeable number of Hispanics to win in November no matter what the polls show.


If McCain needs an African American, Colin Powell is the only candidate that would drastically change the dynamics of this race. Otherwise, he needs to play it safe and name someone that will deliver a state, Crist (R-FLA) or a conservative that will unify his base without alienating independent voters.