Barack got his game back. Hillary needs a reality check.
Barack had the voters at his back against all the forces trying to bring him down. He held his lead in North Carolina, and only the Rush Limbaugh Republican vote stands between Barack and victory in Indiana.
Hillary needed two wins. She failed utterly. But she will not stop, not on her own.
The superdelegates should intervene tomorrow to send Hillary a message. Out now.
If they don't, the supporters of Obama should step up their persuasion on those still-undeclared superdelegates to recognize the inevitable and bring this campaign to an end.
Supporters of John Edwards should push their former candidate to release his pledged delegates now, a move that might make the difference as early as this week.
Progressives should intensify the counter-attack against Clinton's smear campaign against Barack's character and bogus arguments for recognizing Michigan and Florida, sending the message that her campaign tactics risk a massive defection of the disillusioned in November.
It must be understood that the Clintons are beyond persuasion or capable of thinking beyond their own interests, at least not on their own. Left to their own repetitive patterns, they will step up the attempt to damage Barack Obama so that he is rendered unelectable in the minds of the superdelegates. At the very least, beginning this week, this may mean an assault on Bill Ayers, the Weather Underground, and a twisted depiction of Obama's history of statements on the Palestinians. [On this latter point, they can run commercials of Clinton kissing Yasser Arafat's wife, perhaps coupled with footage of the landing under "sniper fire" in Bosnia. Bloggers may have to carry these messages, since Obama won't].
The Obama forces cannot [and will not] coast to victory. In terms of issues, they should intensify the focus on the Clinton proposal for "massive retaliation" and "obliteration" against Iran on behalf of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. That was front-page news in Toronto yesterday while receiving zero attention in the New York Times and CNN. Barack should take up Robert Kennedy's 1968 anti-poverty mission in West Virginia. Finally, his campaign needs to build firewalls in Oregon, Montana, and South Dakota to maintain his lead.
www.tomhayden.com
www.progressivesforobama.blogspot.com
Read more reactions from Huffington Post bloggers to the Indiana and North Carolina primary results
If we were NOT thinking of Karl, the dream of a Hayden innaugeration could be realized. Who cares who heads the ticket.
I think this is a correct assessment. We the Citizens will never know all the insider crap that the Obama campaign has had to endure to become the Democratic party presidential nominee. The 16 to 20,000 vote difference in Indiana open primary was almost certainly caused by the Limbaugh operation chaos. Don't think for a moment that there is not a lot of sh*t going on during this primary.
Obama will persevere however, without stooping to gutter tactics, To his credit.
This IS great, though.
I still think our only hope left in my lifetime is his assignment to the Supreme Count, or the American Renneisance. Apparantly, I need to know how this is NOT the ANATOMY of the poison pill. His seduction by the whitehouse is so karl. Are they tactics, or antics?
I don't need to agree, these are still breathtaking great posts. g
1) Just before the convention, Hillary bows out, and announces she is an "Independent" now. She spends the rest of the campaign trashing Obama and extolling McCain.
2) McCain picks Condoleza Rice for VP. Obama's poll numbers go up anyway.
3) McCain performs so badly in the debates (makes a total fool of himself) that even the MSM can't support him anymore.
4)Bush/Cheney start the war with Iran in mid-September.Congress fumes, but does nothing.
5) Oil prices hit $500/barrel as the Iranian war goes badly with many US ships damaged or sunk in the Persian Gulf. Bush spends his press conferences talking about "God's will" and appears to be drunk. Terrorist attacks occur all over the Western world.
6) Bush/Cheney declare martial law and suspend the elections. Congress is disbanded, a national draft is begun. The "detainment" camps built by Blackwater are officially opened and begin filling up with "enemy combatants" that Cheney designates. Most are political enemies of the Bush/Cheney dictatorship, with just enough "A-rabs" to pull the wool over the eyes of a terrified American public. An imprisoned Barrack Obama becomes the next Nelson Mandella internationally.
7) US nukes Iran, while we are at it, we "accidentally" nuke Syria too. Russia decides now would be a good time to re-invade the Baltic states. China joins the fun and invades Taiwan.
8) Dictatorship, permanent war.
From your lips to God's ears (and Obama's). I would be surprised to see it though because Obama is treating the liberal RFK/McGovern tradition as something to reject "Sister Souljah" style rather than re-popularize and fight for. Obama seems to have decided to run in the general election for a third Clinton term (8 years removed). In his speech last night in North Carolina he went out of his way to echo Clinton's long outdated rejection of "big government" (as if anything but rejuventated regulation is going to bring corporate criminals to heel), downplayed the catastrophe of Iraq (failing to mention when he easily could have, the veteran suicide epidemic), and adopted completely the Clinton '92 mantra that people should vote for him to promote their own self-interest. These are Republican-lite themes. What is missing is any appeal whatsoever to middle class and more affluent voters to combine self and social concerns, and even to vote against their own self-interest (narrowly defined) because it is the moral and right thing to do, i.e. to care about uplifting the poor in West Virginal and elsewhere. Obama's conduct in West Virginia will indicate whether he intends to even try to make history beyond Bill Clinton's "same old, same old" egotistical politics of nothing.
Eric C. Jacobson
Public Interest Lawyer
Culver City, California
The country is sick and tried of the clintons and bush types of bullying.
In schools we don't allow bullying, then why in our new age politics?
Senator Obama is our Mr. Clean, in order to clean the White House!
He is showing us and the world what one can achieve with dignity and truth.
Those Fear Mongers are really running like dogs with their tail between their legs!
The americans tried that kind of society once.
Ah, the memories.
It's going to be so interesting how she will handle her campaign in the next few days, weeks, months, etc. We'll see how shameless she really is and how far she's willing to go and drag the Party down with her as well as how much more sun damage Bubba is willing to risk! Stay tuned...
That is a horrendous situation and I pray they don't put him in that position.
I think the Clinton Sr. Advisors are finally realizing that she can't win, which is why they are so angry and the racial slip upremarks are coming to the fore front. I am waiting on Carville to accidentally slip up next.
Months ago I predicted that it would come down to these two things for Hillary: Getting the FL and MI votes in any way she could--even if it meant breaking the rules she helped to set up; and twisting enough super delegate arms to support her, in spite of Obama's commanding lead in popular votes.
Note, that both these tactics are back room deal sorts of business--Old School, Mayor Daley Democratic Machine politics. I give you this, you give me that, we all have a shot and a cigar and keep on keepin' on with business as usual. Can anyone say, "Chicago, 1968?" I knew that you could.
So, in the event that these things look as though they might come to pass, and the public's will, the majority will, is about to be thwarted, who will be there in Denver? And what will We do? It seems the current generation of young people lack the motivation of a Draft, or the inspiration of a cultural movement like the 60's where peace and equality were more than just words. Who will be in Denver making sure that the People's business is at the top of the agenda?
Feels great, don't it >; = /
Enough. We have to unite behind the nominee and beat John McCain in the fall. And I'm saying that as an Independent.
20 years ago independents made up something like 10% of the voting population, now they make up a full third. Voters have become increasingly unlikely to declare a party in the last few decades even though they usually lean one way or the other.