Obama '08?

Barack Obama's "bitter" comment may have had little immediate impact in the Democratic primary race in Pennsylvania, according to a poll out this morning.

The Quinnipiac University poll found that Hillary Clinton leads Obama 50 to 44 percent, a margin unchanged since the organization's last statewide poll at the beginning of the month.

The unchanged margin does not come as a great surprise. Obama's remark was made public Friday afternoon, leaving only two days to permeate the public.

The poll, conducted Wednesday through Sunday night, revealed no noticeable shift in support for polling done on Saturday or Sunday. It is the first indication that Obama's controversial remark may not dramatically change the head-to-head match-up in Pennsylvania, which holds its primary next Tuesday.

real life wrote:

nimh wrote:

Well, somebody is being a disgrace...

Are you referring to Jimmy Carter meeting with Hamas?

Want to tell Carter who he can and can't talk to? He doesn't owe you anything, and quite frankly, I think his efforts are more bold than dropping any number of bombs.

At least he helps build the houses back.


T
K
O

Johnson cites race in Obama's surge
Bobcats owner, who supports Clinton, says Ferraro said it right
JIM MORRILL
[email protected]


Wading back into the Democratic presidential race, billionaire businessman Bob Johnson said Monday that Sen. Barack Obama would not be his party's leading candidate if he were white.

Johnson's comments to the Observer echoed those of former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro. She stepped down as an adviser to Sen. Hillary Clinton last month after saying Obama wouldn't be where he is if he were white.

"What I believe Geraldine Ferraro meant is that if you take a freshman senator from Illinois called `Jerry Smith' and he says I'm going to run for president, would he start off with 90 percent of the black vote?" Johnson said. "And the answer is, probably not... ."

"Geraldine Ferraro said it right. The problem is, Geraldine Ferraro is white. This campaign has such a hair-trigger on anything racial ... it is almost impossible for anybody to say anything."

Johnson, who made a fortune after founding Black Entertainment Television and now owns the Charlotte Bobcats, is a longtime friend of Clinton and her husband, the former president.

It was during a January appearance for the New York senator in Columbia that he first stepped into controversy, referring to Obama and "what he was doing in the neighborhood."

Many took that as a reference to Obama's acknowledged drug use in his youth. But in a statement, Johnson said he'd been "referring to Barack Obama's time spent as a community organizer and nothing else. Any other suggestion is simply irresponsible and incorrect."

On Monday, Johnson alluded to the incident.

"I make a joke about Obama doing drugs (and it's) `Oh my God, a black man tearing down another black man'," Johnson said.

The Obama campaign dismissed Johnson's comments.

"This is just one in a long line of absurd comments by Bob Johnson and other Clinton supporters who will say or do anything to get the nomination," said spokesman Dan Leistikow. "The American people are tired of this and are ready to turn the page on these kind of attack politics."

Johnson disputed the notion that Obama has built a broad coalition. Most of his support, he said, comes from African Americans and white liberals but not white, working-class Democrats.

"I don't think he has that common -- what I call `I-want-to-go-out-and-have-a-drink-with-you -- touch," Johnson said.

An Observer/WCNC Poll this month found Obama and Clinton splitting the votes of white North Carolinians who say they'll vote in the May 6 primary. Obama led 59 percent to 7 percent among African Americans.

Johnson said Obama is likely to win the nomination and has had the support of "the liberal media."

"They sort of dislike Hillary for her vote on the war. They don't want to see Bill and Hillary in power again," he said. "So Obama comes in and runs a smart campaign. But that's not the Second Coming, in my opinion, of John F. Kennedy, FDR or the world's greatest leaders."

"What I believe Geraldine Ferraro meant is that if you take a freshman senator from Illinois called `Jerry Smith' and he says I'm going to run for president, would he start off with 90 percent of the black vote?" Johnson said. "And the answer is, probably not... ."

Wading back into the Democratic presidential race, billionaire businessman Bob Johnson said Monday that Sen. Barack Obama would not be his party's leading candidate if he were white.

And yet this argument is completely wrong. Obama did not start out with 90% of the black vote, he didn't even have 50%. Who were they voting for? Oh yes, Clinton. The reality is that since the 1960's, charismatic guys have been beating out better qualified opponents and of all people, the Clintons should know that since Bill's wins over both GWB and Dole were examples of charisma trumping experience.

Clinton started this race with the following real advantages:
- Money
- Lock on the Democratic organization
- Media penetration (if you remember she was the designated winner in December)
- Name recognition

If you want to say "well, Obama is Black", to counter all of that, you can but it doesn't make any sense since that is likely a disadvantage more than an advantage. That Obama has turned all that around and now has the money, media penetration and equal name recognition that is not due to his color, but due to his charisma. Clinton's allies are clearly bitter, turning to blame race and media to make up for their difficulties and the fact that Clinton, in her first real test as a leader, ran a horrible campaign and drove her winning car into the ditch.

Clinton's allies are clearly bitter, turning to blame race and media to make up for their difficulties and the fact that Clinton, in her first real test as a leader, ran a horrible campaign and drove her winning car into the ditch.

The Clintons know how to win a national election.

Gallup still shows no change. I'm beginning to suspect that the only segment left in America that genuinely feels that elitism is a problem for Obama are ... the elites. How funny is that?

Clinton has polled at 55, 53, 56 and 54 percent in the SurveyUSA polls, while Obama has polled 36, 41, 38 and 40 percent. However, the contest remains tight in Southeast Pennsylvania, which includes Philadelphia. The poll also found that Obama gained ground among Democrats who attend religious services regularly.

engineer wrote:

Clinton's allies are clearly bitter, turning to blame race and media to make up for their difficulties and the fact that Clinton, in her first real test as a leader, ran a horrible campaign and drove her winning car into the ditch.

Can I quote you?

real life wrote:

The Clintons know how to win a national election.

Rrright... that must be why Hillary has gone from being 14 points over Obama at the start of the year to being 5 points behind now.

The article, with a loaded term in the title and a casual discussion of socialism, communism, and nationalization, has raised the hackles of some anti-Obama conservatives who have been discussing it online.

Greg Ransom, a blogger who unearthed the journal at UCLA's library, calls the article "the Rosebud" that provides the missing key to Obama's memoir. Ransom wrote about its contents recently in a posting with the provocative headline, "Obama Hid His Father's Socialist and Anti-Western Convictions From His Readers."

But Kenya expert Dr. Raymond Omwami, an economist and UCLA visiting professor from the University of Helsinki who has also worked at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, said Obama Sr. could not be considered a socialist himself based solely on the material in his bylined piece.

Omwami points out Obama Sr.'s paper was primarily a harsh critique of the controversial 1965 government document known as the "Sessional Paper No. 10." Sessional Paper No. 10 rejected classic Karl Marx philosophies then embraced by the Soviet Union and some European countries, calling instead for a new type of socialism to be used specifically in Africa.

The government paper rejected materialism (i.e., "conspicuous consumerism"), outlined the nation's goals to eradicate poverty, illiteracy and disease, and also laid out important decrees regarding land use for economic development. Obama Sr.'s response covers these issues, frequently focusing on the distribution of real estate to farmers. Since most Kenyans could not afford farmland in line with market forces established earlier by white British farmers, Obama Sr. argued that strong development planning should better define common farming space to maximize productivity, and should defer to tribal traditions instead of hastening individual land ownership.

In other words, Obama Sr.'s paper was not a cry for acceptance of radical politics, but was instead a critique of a government policy by Kenya's Ministry of Economic Planning & Development, which applied African socialism principles to the country's ongoing political upheaval.

"The critics of this article are making a big mistake," says Omwami, who read the document and the associated internet debate at the request of Politico over the weekend. "They are assuming Obama Sr. is the one who came up with this concept of African socialism, but that's totally wrong. Based on that, they're imbuing in him the idea that he himself is a socialist, but he is not."

Omwami says he'd instead refer to Obama Sr. as "a liberal person who believed in market forces, but understood its limitations."

Sessional Paper No. 10 centered on the new control of Kenya's resources, promoting a form of trickle-down economics in which financial aid would be consolidated in more populated areas with the hope that positive effects would eventually be felt by smaller villages.

Obama Sr. argued against this notion, and Omwami suggests history has proven him correct since most, if not all, small communities in Kenya have yet to benefit from monies that poured into larger cities since the nation's independence four decades ago.

Obama Sr. also looked ahead to what has become a shaping force across Africa, urbanization, arguing that the government's efforts to lure citizens back to the land were futile.

"If these people come out in search of work, it is because they cannot make a living out of whatever land they have had," he wrote.

In retrospect, it was one of several warnings in the paper that would prove true.

"If you understand the Kenyan context, you can clearly see in that paper that Obama Sr. was quite a sharp mind," concluded Omwami. "He addresses economic growth and other areas of development, and his critique is that policymakers in Kenya were overemphasizing economic growth. We had high economic growth for years, but never solved the problems of poverty, unemployment and unequal income distribution. And those problems are still there."

Obama Sr.'s projections and critiques are so spot on, says Omwami, that he plans on assigning the paper to his classes in the future.

I thought Obama's father left when he was three. Are you saying that Obama should be closely associated with a 40+ year old paper not written by him because of some sort of genetic association?

Don't get me wrong.

Woman Who Broke "Small Town" Story Says Obama Campaign's Response Was "Classy"
By Greg Sargent - April 15, 2008, 6:06PM
The woman who broke the Obama "small town" story for The Huffington Post may have come under relentless fire from some Obama supporters after the news broke, but she has one word to describe the response she's since received from the Obama campaign itself: "Classy."

I just spoke briefly with the woman, Mayhill Fowler, and she said that though she created the worst and most sustained controversy for Obama since Jeremiah Wright's sermons surfaced, Obama campaign aides haven't directed any anger or punitive action in her direction.

"They haven't denied me any kind of access," Fowler said. "From the time I started following them around last June, they have been a classy operation, and I still think they are. They haven't treated me any differently than before."