Obama beats Hillary in Maine, Bill at the Grammys
Just hours after announcing the departure of her campaign manager, Senator Hillary Clinton suffered the last of a series of weekend defeats that left rival candidate Barack Obama with crucial momentum heading into the nation’s final nominating contests. On Saturday, Obama scored victories in Louisiana, Nebraska, Washington and the Virgin Islands, and today completed a perfect 5-0 weekend record with a win in Maine.
Early on Sunday Clinton replaced campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle with longtime associate Maggie Williams, a shakeup that many analysts interpreted as a crack in the foundation of a stressed organization struggling with the Obama campaign’s recent political and financial surge.
In an interesting, lighter twist, Senator Obama additionally beat Hillary Clinton’s husband on Sunday, besting ex-president Bill Clinton - as well as former president Jimmy Carter - in the Best Spoken Word Album category at the Grammy Awards. Obama was awarded the Grammy for his audio reading of his book, “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream.”
On Tuesday, the campaigns will move to the mid-Atlantic region, where both the Democratic and Republican parties will hold nominating contests in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia in the so-called Potomac Primary. Although the Democratic race remains neck-and-neck, Senator John McCain of Arizona has emerged as the presumptive Republican nominee. Of the probable Republican contenders, only former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee remains a threat to McCain.
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I am consistently disappointed in the political news (read: commentary) offered by “The Saint.”
There is no mention of the fact that Hillary Clinton has raised over $10 million in February alone, the majority of which came from the 120,000+ new contributors to the campaign since Super Tuesday.
There is no mention of the fact that the undemocratic caucus system disadvantages and disenfranchises Hillary’s base (working class voters, the elderly, and women), benefiting Mr. Obama. For more information, see: http://guerillawomentn.blogspot.com/2008/02/disenfranchising-hillarys-base.html
There is no mention of the fact that Patti Solis Doyle, Maggie Williams, and Hillary Clinton are all very close friends, or that Solis Doyle (who has run the campaign 24/7 for over a year) has very young children who miss their mother; nor do you mention the fact that Solis Doyle will now be traveling with Hillary, giving her greater access to the Senator, and thus more influence.
There is no mention of the pattern of troubling (sexist) behavior on MSNBC involving Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, and David Shuster (visit http://www.mediamatters.org and http://www.womensmediacenter.com for detailed accounts).
There is no mention of the continuing scandal involving Mr. Obama’s financial contributor and longtime friend, Antonin Rezko, whose trial begins later this month and continues to offer clues into the shady Chicago politics Mr. Obama will bring to the White House (for a daily update on Rezko, visit http://rezkowatch.blogspot.com/).
I would expect these types of omissions from Big Media and Big Blogs, but assumed “The Saint” held itself to higher journalistic standards.
I recommend reading “Goodbye to all that (#2)” by Robin Morgan, an insightful look at the media’s coverage of Sen. Clinton: http://womensmediacenter.com/ex/020108.html
On the eve of February 4th, no doubt despairing at the swell of negative punditry all around her, Maya Angelou sent out a “Poem for Hillary”—an elaboration of her poem, “Still, I Rise.”
“This is not the first time you have seen Hillary Clinton seemingly at
her wits’ end, but she has always risen, always risen, don’t forget she
has always risen, much to the dismay of her adversaries and the delight
of her friends.”
Dude, Xavier…Clinton’s cool, but you have to be practical. You really think she can win the election? So much of a typical voter’s choice is made on unbelievably superficial considerations. It should be clear to anyone who looks at the election analytically that she doesn’t have a hope in hell of attracting more voters than Barack. True: I’m on her side, but I’m much more definitively on Obama’s side; contrarily, I’m certainly not on the repub’s side. Personally, I think if democrats had any sense and really opposed the quasi-despotism we’ve suffered through the past few years, they’d drop their frantic bid for Hilary and funnel their not inconsiderable political energies into supporting the only guy who can maybe possibly actually do positive things for us, by maybe possibly winning.
Hilary can’t even maybe possibly win, despite my admiration for the woman. She’s wonderful, and passionate, but she would never win.
Just like I feel the pragmatic decision to be for Obama is uncontestable, I likewise think the repub’s just shot themselves in both feet with their support of McCain. Their somnolence extends farther than I would have thought possible: they really think there are enough people in this country to elect McCain, a candidate who elicits squabbles among an already broken Republican party? Such foolishness is only more evidence to me that all Intelligent People are liberal. How many outspoken, honestly conservative professors do you know? Have you ever read a textbook on chemistry (one of the most dense subjects around) where the authors did not talk about global warming, and it’s obvious implications? Many (repubs) still think climate change doesn’t matter. Those same many now have a sadly uncharismatic white old man as their candidate of choice.
How does that not speak volumes about their strategic-ness, or about their ability to plan and organize? It is clear they can’t do jack for their cause, because their cause is an ailing, pitiable thing. Let’s not be like them: let’s unify, and be strategic about it.
I am consistently dissapointed by the fact that all Clinton supporters do is complain about her media coverage/image, instead of discussing the POSSIBILITY that her platform simply isn’t as solid as Obamas. It’s called the fallacy of irrelevant thesis. Look it up.
AND:
Here, here! Keith.
Neither Hilary’s nor Obama’s platforms or records are anything to be proud of… the democratic philosophy of constantly increasing the size and scope of government just doesn’t make sense considering that we are already $9 trillion in debt and our economy is on the verge of a major crisis. The federal government is already larger than what we can feasibly support. For the life of me I can’t figure out why people are so swept up with the notion of universal health care, especially considering how the federal government has handled other departments in the past(education, for example).
Further I can’t understand why people clamor to Obama and his message of ‘change.’ Obama voted YES to fund Bush’s warplan, while claiming to be agaist the war. He voted YES to re-authorize the horribly invasive PATRIOT Act, and he has clearly stated he would not rule out a nuclear first strike against Iran. Saying the word change, and actually being about change are entirely different things.
That being said, McCain and Huckabee are no better, in my opinion, and NO ONE (except for the oft ignored Ron Paul) is even talking about what is really at the heart of rising costs and the downward spiraling economy: monetary policy, or more specifically, shifting away from the fiat system of the Federal Reserve.
By the way Keith, you’re confusing the neo-cons who have been in power of late with traditional conservatism. They are most certainly not the same thing. I’ll let Winston Churchill respond to your broad statement about “Intelligent People”: “If you’re not a liberal when you’re 20, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative when you’re 40, you have no head.”
No one is claiming that Obama is some angel sent by God to remedy all of our problems, Luke. That’s not the point of what Keith wrote and that isn’t why I agreed with him.
The unfortunate fact of the matter is that in this country, there is always (barring some catastrophic change)going to be either a Republican president or a Democratic president. And, well, it might as well be a Democrat because Republicans are evil.
All joking aside, in this election the only REASONABLE choice seems to be Obama - he has the BEST chance of beating the Republicans. You can choose to waste your vote (yes, I said WASTE) on Ron Paul - who is a very able and intelligent man - but who has NO CHANCE of winning the nomination, and see where that gets you.
I’ll tell you: sitting in a room somewhere complaining about the country instead of making the MOST REASONABLE choice you have in light of the current situation.
I would LOVE for our country to wake up and smell the devastation coming from our overarching social programs, but it probably won’t happen in our lifetime. So we have to do the best we can with what we’re given, which in this case means voting for Obama.
Luke,
I too have heard this Churchill quote, and agree it has value and relevance for this discussion. Also, your making a distinction between the conserv’s and neo-cons is extremely apt. I agree: the older you get, the more aware you become of the reasons why a system is flawed. Thus, people tend to get more conservative, sometimes.
However, why should an awareness of system flaws be a reason to acquiesce to the system? Why shouldn’t we try to change the bad things in the world? If everyone acted like the Intelligent Conservative, slavery would still be the norm.
I understand it’s more “realistic” to be conservative, but “realistic” can also often be synonymous with “easy.” Further, to help with your confusion regarding why people identify with Obama’s message of “change”, I would posit that most people are seeing “change” as synonymous with “difficult, but better”…a theme Bush has tried to use (unbelievably) to support his little war. We want that theme, but we’re sick of seeing it used to justify ignorant policy.
If voicing my support for the Constitution and a return to a country of the people for the people is a waste of a vote, then I will gladly waste every vote I cast from here on out.
While I agree that Obama may be the best of the “Final Four,” and certainly leaps and bounds better than John “100 years war” McCain or Billary Clinton, I still think that picking between these four is a bit like picking which colored bus we want to take us to hell.