Pundits reflect on last night

from Taegan Goddard's Political Wire:

Marc Ambinder: "Barack Obama is, by almost every measure and by almost every unmeasurable impression, on the precipice of being able to declare victory and have his declaration be accepted by the media and his party."

George Stephanopoulos: "More superdelegates will come out today for Barack Obama -- they will come three, four, five at a time, and this nomination will be locked up."

Rick Klein: "The question that is now astoundingly close to being the most urgent one in the presidential race: Does Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton see a distinction between the good of the Clintons, the good of the Democratic Party, and the good of the country?"

Ben Smith: "The campaign goes on, but the chatter today has already begun on the truce Obama appeared to offer Clinton last night with his conciliatory, forward-looking speech, and whether Clinton will more or less embrace it. There's no imperative that she actually drop out, but it now becomes hard for her to sustain a full-out, combative campaign -- to stay on offense, and to raise the money it takes to do so."

Walter Shapiro: "Tuesday night was likely Clinton's last major window of opportunity in this race -- and despite her game face and spirited spin, she undoubtedly knows that it all but slammed on her fingers."

Thomas Edsall: "In the universe of political clichés, she is on life support, her oxygen choked off, her knees buckling, unable to stanch the bleeding, down for an eight count, on the ropes, praying for the bell to ring, desperate to get her wind back."

final salvo for Indiana and North Carolina

Olbermann on McClinton's pandering "Hail Mary pass" gas tax holiday plan

Here's a Newsweek article explaining why the gas tax "holiday" simply will not work...

UPDATE, 5/3/08:

Calitics.com estimates job losses of 20,000 or more in California alone if a gas tax holiday is implemented. Road workers are on payrolls, Sen. Clinton...and they can't just go out and make a few college speeches to make up the difference, like your hubby can.

Meanwhile, 200 economists have stood up against Sen. Clinton's gas plan. Not that she's listening.

UPDATE, 5/5/08:

Here's a new ad Obama is running on the gas tax issue:



FLIP the SCRIPT: The Bill Clinton Library is the beneficiary of a $10 million donation from the Saudis. Does that boost Sen. Clinton's credibility on energy policy?

Of course not. Which is why she's going on the attack against Obama instead. Here's her latest ad from Indiana:



Here's video of Barack on yesterday's Meet the Press. The differences between his policy and Sen. Clinton's couldn't be much clearer.



PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD!

California Superdelegates are watching...

California superdelegates' wavering bodes ill for Hillary Clinton

Some who have supported her say they'll switch to Barack Obama if she doesn't make big gains in the remaining Democratic primaries.

By Scott Martelle, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

May 5, 2008

FRESNO -- Hillary Rodham Clinton, stung last week by the defection of a prominent superdelegate, could lose the backing of more of these Democratic Party leaders and elected officials if she fails to make significant gains in the remaining month of presidential nominating contests, several California superdelegates said this weekend.

Read the full article here.

FOX news reports...

...that a clear majority of voters approve of how Obama has handled Rev. Wright.

Now...would somebody please tell the people at MSNC and CNN, who keep looping their Rev. Wright "specials" every day? (See the "media contacts" section in "Links" section in the right-hand margin).

Even when she's trying to pander to gun owners...

...trying to be WorkingClassWoman(TM), Sen. Clinton shows she's nothing more than a poser.

In her most recent ad against Obama's gun policy, it seems that she utilized an imported German rifle that costs $2200.00 --- hardly the gun you'd find in most duck-hunters' hands.

patriot

Sen. Clinton is against the closing of an Indiana factory...

...which her husband's actions helped to close.

Gosh, it's complicated being Sen. Clinton!

ABC news goes into a little more detail here, and also in this video (below) from a recent episode of World News Tonight.



Please read and Digg this article! Please write letters to the editor on this topic, particularly in Indiana!

Barack makes a basket at the buzzer

From his visit to the Basketball Hall of Fame in Indiana last month:

contact CNN

CNN Headline News's Glen Beck Show is planning yet another one-hour special on Rev. Wright tonight.

The Rev. Wright story been wrung like an old dish rag. Everything that could possibly said has been said. The rest is just echo-chamber. Further, many less "ratings-driven" news organizations, such as NPR, have a policy of not airing programs about a given candidate 24 hours before a major election. Such a policy would be a welcome change across the board.

Please contact CNN to complain about Glenn Beck's and CNN's lack of journalistic integrity.

CBS poll: support for Obama rebounding

Excerpt from a CBS.com article:

Democrat Barack Obama appears to have rebounded from some of the damage caused by the controversy surrounding his former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright, according to the latest CBS News/New York Times poll.

On one key measure, Obama has seen a big reversal since his denunciation of Wright’s remarks on Tuesday. He now leads presumptive Republican nominee John McCain in the hypothetical fall contest by eleven points, 51 percent to 40 percent. That compares to a tied match-up in a CBS News/New York Times poll that was released last Wednesday.

Indiana and North Carolina: closing arguments

Good sense from today's Op/Ed pages

From Thomas Friedman's New York Times article today:

Much nonsense has been written about how Hillary Clinton is "toughening up" Barack Obama so he'll be tough enough to withstand Republican attacks. Sorry, we don't need a president who is tough enough to withstand the lies of his opponents. We need a president who is tough enough to tell the truth to the American people. Any one of the candidates can answer the Red Phone at 3 a.m. in the White House bedroom. I'm voting for the one who can talk straight to the American people on national TV — at 8 p.m. — from the White House East Room.

Who will tell the people? We are not who we think we are. We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes. We still have all the potential for greatness, but only if we get back to work on our country.

Great NYT article

Bob Herbert has written a wonderful article on the Rev. Wright echo chamber which the mainstream media has become of late. Please read the article...

then Buzz it Up on Yahoo (if you have a yahoo email address)!

Barack on TV for kids: "turn it off"

At a stop in Hickory, N.C., after promising to spend $18 billion on education, Sen. Obama said: "This money is not going to make a difference if parents don't parent."

He has folded the line into his stump speech across North Carolina and a TV advertisement in the state, where one-third of the Democratic electorate is African-American, ahead of Tuesday's primary.

The ad, called "Turn It Off," shows Sen. Obama in a classroom promising to improve education. "But the truth is, government can't do it all," he says. "As parents, we need to turn off the TV, read to our kids."

The personal-responsibility line typically brings the loudest applause from African-American audiences. Sen. Obama first delivered it in an unscripted moment before a mostly black audience in Beaumont, Texas, in February.

"I got to talk about us a little bit," he said, before chiding parents for feeding their kids junk food and not accepting responsibility for their children's education. Women stood on their chairs, arms in the air, screaming "Tell the truth!" and "Amen!"

Since then, Sen. Obama has made the pitch before audiences of all stripes.

"If you're a parent, you've got to turn off the TV set. Make sure your child is doing their homework.... Have a curfew so your child's not out all hours of the night," he says, before delivering a line that often gets the crowds roaring: "If your child misbehaves in school, don't curse out the teacher."

I couldn't find the "Turn It Off" ad (there was a copy on YouTube, but the video for it was badly distorted), but here's a very similar ad the Obama campaign ran back in December:

Early voting turnout in Indiana looks favorable for Obama

Yahoo reports:

INDIANAPOLIS - Early voting in Indiana could offer some encouragement to presidential hopeful Barack Obama, who needs a victory in its upcoming primary after a tough few weeks on the campaign trail.

Obama victories in the Indiana and North Carolina primaries on May 6 could help him regain momentum in his nomination fight against Hillary Rodham Clinton. Obama has been on the defensive because of comments by his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and his own comments about people in small towns growing bitter.

About 20 percent of the 127,000-plus absentee ballots received as of early Friday were cast in three Indiana counties -- Marion, Monroe and Lake -- that political observers believe Obama is strongly favored to win.

Lake County has a large population of black voters and is in Chicago's shadow. Obama has typically won big among college-age voters, and Monroe County is the home of Indiana University in Bloomington. Obama's campaign sought out IU students with voter registration and early voting drives and a free Dave Matthews concert.

Robert Dion, a professor of American politics at the University of Evansville, said Obama has mounted an innovative campaign that's stressed early voting and his supporters appear more energized than those for Clinton.

"In a close race, modest advantages in organization can yield big results, and if Obama out-organizes the Clinton campaign on these absentee ballots, it would be a great boost to him," Dion said.

Director Spike Lee speaks out on the presidential race

Lee made these comments in addition to his suggestion that Rev. Wright...um..."shut up". A little unpolished, Spike, but I'm with you on the message...

Obama responds to Rev. Wright

Rev. Wright has finally exceeded the boundaries of Sen. Obama's tolerance.

Kudos to Obama for standing up to intolerance...even when it comes from a man who served as something of a father figure to Obama --- a man to whom Obama tried very hard to remain loyal over the past few months.

Tolerance is a wonderful thing. But tolerance of intolerance is something else altogether.



More clips on this topic here.

Excerpt:

"I want to use this press conference to make people absolutely clear that obviously whatever relationship I had with Rev. Wright has changed, he said. "I don't think he showed much concern for me ...and what we are trying to do in this campaign." "My reaction has more to do with what I want this campaign to be about.... in some ways, what Rev. Wright said yesterday directly contradicts everything that I've done during my life. It contradicts how i was raise and the setting in which I was raised; it contradicts my decision to pursue a career of public service. It contradicts the issues that I've worked on politically.

I'm outraged by the comments that were made and saddened by the spectacle that we saw yesterday. I have been a member of Trinity United Church of Christ since 1992 and have known Jeremiah Wright for almost 22 years. The person I saw yesterday was not the person I met 20 years ago. His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but they also give comfort to those that prey on hate and I believe they do not accurately portray the perspective of the black church. They certainly do not accurately portray my values and beliefs. If Reverend Wright thinks that is political posturing on my part, he does not know me very well.

I have already denounced those comments that have come out of these previous sermons. I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my speech in Philadelphia, explaining that he has done enormous good in the church, has built a wonderful conversation. They are a wonderful people and what attracted me has always been the ministries reach beyond church walls. But when he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions, that the U.S. government is involved in AIDS, when he suggests that Louis Farrakhan represents one of the greatest voices of the 21st century, when he equates the United States' wartime effort with terrorism, then there are no excuses. They offend me, they rightfully offend all Americans, and they should be denounced. That is what I am doing very clearly and unequivocally here today.

I have spent my entire adult life trying to bridge the gap between different kinds of people. That's in my DNA, trying to promote mutual understanding to insist that we all share common hopes and common dreams as Americans and as human beings. That's who I am, that's what I believe, and that's what this campaign has been about."

UPDATE, 5/2/08

E.J. Dionne, noted commentator, had this to say about "false prophets".

Hoosiers switching to Obama...

Please DIGG this video!

Sen. Clinton's energy policy: "self-serve"

According to the Washington Post (excerpt):

A growing chorus -- including a top congressional Democrat -- labeled Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's proposal for suspending the federal gasoline tax ineffective and shortsighted yesterday, even as she continued to paint Sen. Barack Obama as insensitive to drivers' woes for not endorsing the plan.

Obama spoke about how the proposed 3-month gas tax "holiday" would only result in a $30 savings for most households. A point that I think might be added into the mix is infrastructure. Perhaps we should pull out some video of last year's Minnesota bridge collapse (pictured, above left)? Bridges and roads are in terrible shape nationwide. Suspending the gas tax would have a tiny effect on each taxpayer's wallet, but would have major implications for spending on infrastructure.

We have gargantuan amounts of work to do on the energy front. Band-aid measures like gas tax holidays will not get that work done --- plain and simple. How about a government SUV buy-back program instead? Offer drivers of the largest SUVs a chance to unload those monsters, because as it stands, NOBODY is buying them...particularly not the budget-minded shoppers in the used car market!

Obama is avoiding Clinton and McCain's pandering. (Pictured: Sen. Clinton riding with a "regular Joe" in a pickup truck to demonstrate the importance of car-pooling. She carpools all the time...pooling multiple cars to get her to her destination! She left the motorcade back at the hotel for a few minutes! Wouldn't it have made a better pojnt if she'd carpooled with a mom with her 2.2 kids on the way to daycare and work in her minivan, rather than a blue collar guy in his F-250 hemi?).

Once again, Obama refuses to just "tell us what we want to hear" because it would be popular. May it continue. As he said at a campaign speech this week:

"This isn't an idea designed to get you through the summer. It's an idea designed to get them through an election."

And some reaction from ABC news: