[QUOTE=DrDeth]
Why not? They are votes, and Obama choose to remove his name, knowing he would do poorly anyway.
[/QUOTE]
Why poorly? There are plenty of blacks in Detroit, and plenty of them showed up in a vote that wouldn’t count to vote for uncommitted over Hillary. Plus there are two godzilla-sized Big Ten universities that would have come out big for Obama. Indeed, uncommitted beat Hillary in Washtenaw (U-M) County.
[QUOTE=BobLibDem]
Good thing the Clintons never associated with Reverend Wright. Oh wait a minute…
[/QUOTE]
Huge mistake on the Obama camp to release this photo.
1)There’s a substantial difference between a photo taken with someone and somebody being their Reverend.
2)After the speech Obama just gave, it looks hypocritical.
3)Hillary Clinton’s schedules were just released weakening her claims of experience from her years in the white house as first lady.
4)He just picked up Richardson’s endorsement. Now he’s dragging the Wright problem right back into the press.
Seriously. Obama is not doing well following his speech. I also disagree with his not wanting to endorse a Michigan revote. You’ve got a chance to let the voters be heard. What’s wrong with that, and I say this as an Obama supporter.
[QUOTE=Harborwolf]
Huge mistake on the Obama camp to release this photo.
[/QUOTE]
I think the source of the photo is actually a blog belonging to one of the former pastor’s parishioners. It also shows another photo of him taking part in surgery on LBJ!
Cite that the Obama campaign released it?
[QUOTE=Harborwolf]
1)There’s a substantial difference between a photo taken with someone and somebody being their Reverend.
[/QUOTE]
Agreed; if you’ll allow that there’s a substantial difference between a Reverend-Parishioner relationship and a Politician-policy adviser relationship.
[QUOTE=Harborwolf]
Seriously. Obama is not doing well following his speech. I also disagree with his not wanting to endorse a Michigan revote. You’ve got a chance to let the voters be heard. What’s wrong with that, and I say this as an Obama supporter.
[/QUOTE]
I also think that it’s a strategic mistake on his part. The Republicans will make something of it in the following campaign but it’s a good decision in terms of denting HRC more votes in the short-term.
Personally I have no personal dog in this fight, not being a USican, but I find American politics fascinating.
You make good points, but I think it’s good to give those voters who make their decisions based on a video or a photo a reason to think twice before jumping on Hillary’s bandwagon.
[QUOTE=DrDeth]
How is that “disrespecting and overturning the voters”? :dubious: Look, either it’s the will of the voters or it’s the rules.
[/QUOTE]
There’s a reason candidates campaign. They get to introduce themselves to the voters, explain their positions, give the voters a reason to vote for them (or not to).
This is especially true in a race between a well-known political figure and a less well-known one. If people vote without a campaign taking place, it comes down to name recognition. By that standard, you’d have been satisfied if everybody had cast their primary votes at the beginning of 2007 - that would reflect ‘the will of the voters’ too, but in a vacuous sense.
There was no campaign in Florida. Nor in Michigan, where Obama wasn’t even on the ballot. Those votes are meaningless, unless you believe that the Dems should pick their nominee on the basis of pre-campaign name recognition.
[QUOTE=xtisme]
Besides, I don’t really think she is forked (yet)…I think she is just Zugzwang. Maybe she should consider sacrificing Bill though…
-XT
[/QUOTE]
I hate to say this, but this breast-beating by Obama supporters here, all acting as if Hillary Clinton is the root of all evil and it’s Obama or McCain almost makes me want to see her come back, win the nomination AND the election in the fall. Just to prove that it can be done and it won’t be a disaster for the country.
Almost. 
[QUOTE=Shayna]
Camp Hill Mayor Lou Thieblemont switched his lifelong Republican registration this week so he can vote for Democratic Sen. Barack Obama in Pennsylvania’s April 22 primary.
[/QUOTE]
Awright, the critical Thieblemont endorsement has been won!
Now Obama’s supporters can relax.
At least the ones in Camp Hill, PA. 
[QUOTE=Merkwurdigliebe]
No, they DO NOT count.
Because in a DEMOCRACY, we have contested elections. Are you a fucking retard? This isn’t Soviet Russia. This isn’t a Saddam Hussein sham election where he won 99 percent of the vote. Votes count in a fair contest. Michigan wasn’t fair because Obama wasn’t on the ballot. Hillary shouldn’t have been on it either if she’d been playing this in good faith. But Hillary doesn’t fucking understand the meaning of good faith.
The amount of bullshit rules lawyering you’re willing to go through to get “your gal” in because it’s her turn or because “she’s a fighter” (For fucks sake we know that now) is getting to be a bit too much. Seriously, so you’re saying that Obama should call for a re-vote in Michigan now so he can gain several hundred thousand popular votes?
But if Hillary somehow got more of the popular vote (Highly doubtful without MI) I would personally say that it’s up in the air. I don’t think the argument for Obama would be very strong in that case. Those two factors would counter-balance in my opinion.
And you’re going to have to come up with a cite as to why Obama would have done poorly in MI. It has a very high African American population in Detroit, and Jessie Jackson won when he ran. I don’t think you can make the argument that Obama would do so poorly.
I can’t believe you can SERIOUSLY sit here and fucking make the point that Michigan’s votes mean a single fucking thing. They absolutely do not.
But hey, just go ahead and waste everyone’s fucking time and energy until August because you are so goddamned blind to see. Hillary should be ashamed of what she’s doing to the democratic party. I always wanted Obama to win, but never unfairly.
[/QUOTE]
With respect. This sort of post does you and the candidate you are supporting no favors. Your language is not within the bounds of what is acceptable here, and you should know that. Nor is it the sort of language that persuades people.
Nor, thankfully, is it the sort of language that Senator Obama is using in his campaigning. Frankly, I like his campaign, but a number of his supporters here on this Board turn me off with rants like this. Please rethink.
[QUOTE=Merkwurdigliebe]
Are you a fucking retard? This isn’t Soviet Russia.
[/quote]
[Mod Hat on]And this isn’t the Pit. Merkwurdigliebe, personal insults aren’t allowed in Great Debates. Don’t do this again.[/Mod Hat off]
Bill Richardson endorses Barach Obama
Don’t know how much impact that will have on the rank and file, but it’s sure a slap to the Clintons. Richardson was Bill Clinton’s energy secretary and U.N. ambassador (and according to The Washington Post the two Bill’s even watched this year’s Super Bowl together). That’s gotta hurt.
[QUOTE=BJMoose]
Bill Richardson endorses Barach Obama
Don’t know how much impact that will have on the rank and file, but it’s sure a slap to the Clintons. Richardson was Bill Clinton’s energy secretary and U.N. ambassador (and according to The Washington Post the two Bill’s even watched this year’s Super Bowl together). That’s gotta hurt.
[/QUOTE]
I started a threadon this right here in GD - check it out. This is a big slap to the Clintons and again - all eyes are on Obama.
Yes - that was my next stop after posting here.
[QUOTE=BobLibDem]
Good thing the Clintons never associated with Reverend Wright. Oh wait a minute…
[/QUOTE]
Hey! Is that Toby Ziegler on the left?
On cnn.com, Roland Martin in the Anderson Cooper 360 blog has taken a look at the full text of the Rev. Wright’s sermon about 9/11. Guess what he found?
Too bad this doesn’t boil down to an inflammatory soundbite.
[QUOTE=DSYoungEsq]
With respect. This sort of post does you and the candidate you are supporting no favors. Your language is not within the bounds of what is acceptable here, and you should know that. Nor is it the sort of language that persuades people.
Nor, thankfully, is it the sort of language that Senator Obama is using in his campaigning. Frankly, I like his campaign, but a number of his supporters here on this Board turn me off with rants like this. Please rethink.
[/QUOTE]
Excuse me for trying to fight ignorance here, but I just can’t let someone get away with such a tremendous display of it. The idea that somehow that even if the delegates don’t count that the votes still do is such a joke. It was a sham contest. That’s why Hillary gets no votes out of it.
But this, I guess, is the reason that the few Hillary supporters left still think they even have a chance of winning. But what they don’t realize is the only way for her to actually come close is to count Michigan the way it is now. If Michigan is to ever count for anything, it won’t be in it’s current state. You can’t just give them to her as a gift.
It just infuriates me that the rules-lawyering and creative accounting has disseminated throughout their supporters. People really believe that Obama is only 80k votes up. Just like over at MyDD.com where they have a special delegate counter for the delegates Hillary intended to swindle in Michigan and Florida. Again, I don’t have such a problem with Florida because Obama was on the ballot, but certainly not Michigan.
And how exactly does the logic go? It’s within the rules, so then it is fair.
There’s a huge difference between what’s fair and what’s within the rules. How about if Obama was one delegate short of winning, but in the convention, all of the super-delegates swung behind Hillary to give her the win? That would be within the rules but completely unfair.
I think this time around, we in the Democratic party realized that early on that the election shouldn’t be determined by super-delegates. They are obviously there for that reason, given that for some reason the establishment finds one candidate so reprehensible, but that’s not the case. It’s clear from the super-delegate split right now that the establishment is pretty happy either way.
So what’s Hillary’s job? To make Barack Obama as unelectable as possible. She hopes that she can knock him down past a certain threshold to gain the superdelegate support. But do you realize how far down he’ll have to go for that to happen? And what is likely to happen? What is really, the 99 percent chance of happening? I’ll tell you right now. Barack Obama wins the nomination after Hillary spends all summer making him as unlectable as possible, yet not quite unelectable enough to lose the nomination.
We simply can’t afford that this time around. It’s not like we’ve been running the show already for 8 years and can afford to lose. This is do or die for America and we have to win it this time. I think Hillary could have been a great candidate had the chips fallen her way, but that is over now. She’s doing more harm than good. We need unity and we need it right now, and Hillary is tearing the party apart. Obama is doing his best to keep it together.
When it is all said and done, if Obama somehow loses the election in a way that can be traced to Hillary, then she will go down in history with a very bad reputation.
But sure…We can sit and wait until the final votes are locked in, in August. Hillary can sit around and say, “Well, it’s not decided yet.” But in the end we’ll all remember what the true state of the race was and think of her as a fool for doing all of the damage she’s done.
Gallup has Clinton’s surge in the polls reduced from 7% yesterday to 2% today.
Not that I give a lot of credit to day-by-day polling but everyone’s been pointing to Gallup to “prove” how Obama was being crushed by the events of the last week, so there ya go.
There’s really not another thread that this video would fit in, so I’m posting it here for your viewing pleasure. . .
Hillary’s “3 A.M. ad” Girl Doesn’t Approve of that Message.
What an awesome young lady.
From The New Republic:
[QUOTE=Merkwurdigliebe]
But this, I guess, is the reason that the few Hillary supporters left still think they even have a chance of winning…
[/QUOTE]
I’ve just been reading an interesting article on CNN about this very thing. The answer seems to be S.O.P. Hillary b.s. + media collusion for greater reader/viewer interest and higher ratings. Link.
[QUOTE=Starving Artist]
I’ve just been reading an interesting article on CNN about this very thing. The answer seems to be S.O.P. Hillary b.s. + media collusion for greater reader/viewer interest and higher ratings. Link.
[/QUOTE]
Collusion might not be the fairest word for it, but that sounds about right to me. I’ve complained several times on this board that the press always takes the Clinton campaign’s side in terms of the direction of the race: if her campaign says “this is a critical battleground,” that’s how it gets reported; if they say Obama is obviously going to win a given state and it’s no big deal because of demographic, that’s how the coverage goes. I see it as a confluence of interests: the news outlets generally don’t favor Clinton, but the Clinton campaign wants people to believe this is a competitive race, and a competitive race is what the press wants because conflict is interesting.
