Obama '08?

An increasingly firm Howard Dean told CNN again Thursday that he needs superdelegates to say who they're for - and "I need them to say who they're for starting now."

"We cannot give up two or three months of active campaigning and healing time," the Democratic National Committee Chairman told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "We've got to know who our nominee is."

After facing criticism for a mostly hands-off leadership style during much of the primary season, Dean has been steadily raising the rhetorical pressure on superdelegates. He said Thursday that roughly 65 percent of them have made their preference plain, but that more than 300 have yet to make up their minds.

The national party chair, who has remained neutral throughout the primary process, said again it's his job to make sure both candidates feel they are treated fairly - but not to tell either of them when to end their run

APRIL 2008
April 22: Pennsylvania
MAY 2008
May 6: Indiana, North Carolina
May 13: Nebraska (primary), West Virginia
May 20: Kentucky, Oregon
May 27: Idaho (R)
JUNE 2008
June 3: Montana, New Mexico (R), South Dakota

McGentrix wrote:

One of the things Obama wanted to convey last night was that he is not guilty by association with people like Keyes and Wright. That while he may be friends with those people, he does not seek their advice or counsel. It was a good answer to the question, but left me wondering about his judgement.

Now, I don't expect either Keyes or Wright will have much to say about Obama's Presidency (should he be elected), but Obama's judgement in his associations must be suspect. Who will Obama choose to be in his cabinet? Can we risk Obama's judgement to be sound in making those decisions?

Certainly; he is hardly going to ask Wright to be in his cabinet; he is not stupid and knows if he wants to be elected the next cycle; he can't be electing controversial figures.

Obama did put Wright on his campaign, until the public found out what Wright stood for.

Do you have any doubt that Wright would still be on the campaign if the public outcry hadn't been so great?

So , Obama's judgement IS suspect.

He will appoint whoever he thinks he can get away with.

As everyone has surely heard by now, Mr. Obama has just added to his stump speech a claim that his mother was on food stamps. And even his wife Michelle is shouting his latest qualification for the Presidency from the rooftops.

But if Mrs. Obama (who, according to Barack, may or may not have married his father) was on food stamps, when exactly would that have been?

Now we learn that Obama's destitute mother was on food stamps. But I would like to know when.

There is a possibility that if she was, she was scamming the system.

[Barack Obama] was born in 1961 but his mother could not get food stamps then because a) she was married and b) they were not available then.

Then [Barack Senior] moved to a foreign country. I don't think that we were sending food stamps to foreign nations.

When she moved back in 1965, food stamps were not available in Hawaii in 1965.

In 1967, she married the second time and moved to Jakarta. Nope, no food stamps then.

By the time she moved back once again, he was living with his grandparents who had jobs and food stamps were not being handed out like Halloween candy in those years.

It would be interesting if someone did a FOI request to see if his mother ever collected food stamps. Since she is deceased, it should be no problem. But my guess? It is all bull crap.

Going by the history of the food stamp program, Retire05 seems to be correct.

Of course the Food Stamp Act of 1964 (pdf file) was in effect in 1965. But the US Department of Health And Human Resources says only 22 states participated at that time:

After a pilot program that began in 1961, the Food Stamp Act of 1964 established the Food Stamp program with 22 States participating.

So the question is whether Hawaii was among those states.

Any and all further elucidation would be greatly appreciated.

Quote:

Now we learn that Obama's destitute mother was on food stamps. But I would like to know when.

There is a possibility that if she was, she was scamming the system.

Quote:

[Barack Obama] was born in 1961 but his mother could not get food stamps then because a) she was married and b) they were not available then.

Then [Barack Senior] moved to a foreign country. I don't think that we were sending food stamps to foreign nations.

When she moved back in 1965, food stamps were not available in Hawaii in 1965.

The earliest origins of the Hawaii Food Stamp Program began as a pilot project in 1961.

Then [Barack Senior] moved to a foreign country. I don't think that we were sending food stamps to foreign nations.

Ann decided not to follow himS. Ann Dunham Soetoro
When her son was almost 2, Ann returned to college. Money was tight. She collected food stamps and relied on her parents to help take care of young Barack.

20. When did the program begin?

The Food Stamp Program traces its earliest origins back to the Food Stamp Plan, which began in 1939 to help needy families in the Depression era. The modern program began as a pilot project in 1961 and was authorized as a permanent program in 1964. Expansion of the program occurred most dramatically after 1974, when Congress required all States to offer food stamps to low-income households. The Food Stamp Act of 1977 made significant changes in program regulations, tightening eligibility requirements and administration, and removing the requirement that food stamps be purchased by participants.

But someone really wanting to know when Obama's mother once received food stamps because "there is a possibility that .. she was scamming the system"? What in heaven's name does that tell voters anything?

Argh.

Forgot the link to the source in my response:

Local media (archive)

It's a bigger issue than that.

I am here because that dream made my parents' love possible, even then; because it meant that after my father left, when my mother struggled as a single parent, and even turned to food stamps for a time, she was still able to send my sister and me to the best schools in the world.

Oh well, that's the important part. Thanks!

(Have we answered your questions, mysteryman...?)

best schools in the world

nimh wrote:

But someone really wanting to know when Obama's mother once received food stamps because "there is a possibility that .. she was scamming the system"? What in heaven's name does that tell voters anything?

Argh.

Eyep.

"Republicans understand what the philosopher David Hume recognized three centuries ago; that reason is a slave to emotion, not the other way around. With the exception of the Clinton era, Democratic strategists for the last three decades have instead clung tenaciously to the dispassionate view of the mind and to the campaign strategy that logically follows from it, name one that focuses on facts, figures, policy statements, costs and benefits, and appeals to intellect and expertise.
They do so, I believe, because of an irrational emotional commitment to rationality..."

"The mug shot of Horton was obviously the most emotionally powerful image in the ad, playing on every white person's fears of the dangerous, lawless, violent, dark black male. Research shows that even subliminal presentation of black faces activates the amygdala in whites, and implicit racial appears are more effective than explicit ones because they don't raise people's conscious attitudes toward racism. [blatham notes: consider the Harold Ford ad run in Tennessee] The Bush team chose its photos - and its subject, a brutal and, coincidentally, very black, criminal - well. Recent findings suggest that the more "Afrocentric" the features of a convicted criminal (the darker the skin, the more Affrican the features - as in Horton's "Afro" haircut), the tougher the sentence he tends to receive in American courts."

"The results are uniquivocal that when the outcomes of a political decision have strong emotional implications and the data leave even the slightest room for artistic license, reason plays virtually no role in the decision making of the average citizen."