Why Barack Obama Will Not Win

By Steven Warshawsky

There is palpable anxiety, even despair, among many Republicans and conservatives over the possibility that Barack Obama will be elected president this November. This anxiety is being fueled by the mainstream media's fawning coverage of Obama's every word, while shamelessly downplaying John McCain's campaign; by public opinion polls that purport to show Obama "leading" the race over McCain; and by political commentators, on both sides of the aisle, who believe this is the Democrats' "election to lose," based on historical cycles, an uneven economy, high gas prices, continuing opposition to the Iraq War, and President Bush's dismal approval ratings.

I don't share this anxiety. For months now, I have been reassuring my right-leaning friends that Barack Obama will not be elected president. If I were a gambling man, I would buy lots of McCain stock on Intrade. Why am I so confident that John McCain is going to win the election? In short, because Barack Obama is not an acceptable choice to lead the country. Let me explain. More...

Obama is too young and inexperienced.

One of Obama's most striking characteristics is how "green" he is compared to previous presidential candidates. Obama was born on August 4, 1961. He just turned 47 years old. The average age of elected presidents since 1952 (the era of televised politics) is 56.

If elected president, Obama would be the fifth youngest president in U.S. history. The only younger presidents would be Teddy Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and Ulysses S. Grant, all of whom were much more accomplished than Obama. Grant, Roosevelt, and Kennedy were war heroes. (Not Clinton, notoriously.) Roosevelt and Clinton had served as state governors. Grant had been the general-in-chief of the Union Army during the Civil War. The least experienced of the four, Kennedy, had served twelve years in Congress, six in the House of Representatives and six in the Senate, and had been a serious candidate for vice-president in 1956.

What has Obama accomplished to date? In truth, not very much -- except to master the art of self-promotion.

Obama has written two best-selling autobiographies: Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (1995) and The Audacity of Hope (2006). Yet he has never served in an important leadership position in government, business, or the military. His ability to perform as a chief executive officer is completely untested.

Obama has prestigious degrees from Columbia University and Harvard Law School, but no significant professional achievements to his name. No businesses or organizations he has founded or managed. No law firm partnerships. No important cases he has tried. Not a single work of legal scholarship he has authored, despite having been Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Law Review and a part-time law professor at the University of Chicago for twelve years. (This is unheard of in the elite ranks of the legal profession, and calls into question the bona fides of Obama's professorship.)

Obama's principal occupation before entering politics was as a "community organizer" in Chicago. By his own admission, these efforts achieved only "some success," and none worthy of highlighting on his campaign website. Obama then served eight unexceptional years in the Illinois Senate, and was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004, where he is not even considered one of the Democratic Party's legislative leaders.

And this man believes he is "the one we have been waiting for"?

Obama may be considered a "rock star" by his supporters, but the kind of superficial glamour and excitement that this terminology suggests is not what most voters are looking for in a president. Heartland values, not Hollywood values, still define what most voters want in a president. Most voters want a president whom they perceive as loyal, courageous, hardworking, and fair. Someone who commands the respect of others through the strength of his character and the wisdom of his actions. Someone who is prepared to fight to protect his home and country from invaders. In other words, someone who appeals to voters, on a psychological or emotional level, as the kind of person they would want for a father, husband, boss, or comrade-in-arms.

Rock stars may be fun, but they do not fit this image. Neither does Obama. His life story, while unique and interesting, bespeaks little more than an ambitious and opportunistic young man, still wet behind the ears, with an unhealthy fascination with his own ego - and potentially unreliable when the chips are down.

The American people are not going to entrust the security and prosperity of the country to such an immature and unproven man.

Obama is too liberal.

The last Democratic presidential candidate who garnered more than 50% of the popular vote was Jimmy Carter in 1976 - and Carter received only 51% of the vote in a political environment marked by defeat in Vietnam, the Watergate scandal, an energy crisis, and stagflation. There has been only one other Democratic president in the past 40 years: Bill Clinton. Despite campaigning as "New Democrat," Clinton received only 43% of the popular vote in 1992 (his victory was due to the third-party candidacy of Ross Perot) and 49% of the popular vote in 1996. Significantly, the Democratic candidate's share of the popular vote has gone down the last two elections. Al Gore received 48.4% of the popular vote in 2000, and John Kerry received 48.3% in 2004.

The Democratic Party has a terrible track record at the presidential level since the 1960s because it consistently nominates far left presidential candidates who do not represent the values, interests, and aspirations of most Americans. See McGovern, Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Kerry. Even Gore, who was considered a "moderate" Democratic (no longer), lost to the uninspiring George W. Bush in 2000.

Barack Obama is no exception. In his brief tenure in the U.S. Senate, Obama has compiled a consistently liberal voting record, and was named the Most Liberal Senator for 2007 by the National Journal. This distinction does not augur well for Obama. John Kerry was named the Most Liberal Senator for 2003 -- the year before he lost the 2004 presidential contest to Bush.

As a U.S. Senator, Obama has voted along Democratic Party lines 97 percent of the time, almost 10 percentage points higher than the average for Senate Democrats. So much for his "bipartisan" image. He opposed funding for the War on Terror that was not tied to a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. He opposed strengthening the ability of the federal government to monitor terrorist communications. He voted in favor of providing habeas corpus rights to detainees at Guantanamo Bay. He supported the failed "comprehensive immigration reform" bills. He voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment. He opposed a bill that would have reduced the federal estate tax. He voted against the confirmations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.

For his efforts, Obama has received "100" ratings from Americans for Democratic Action, Planned Parenthood, the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Government Workers, Citizens for Tax Justice (i.e., for raising taxes on the "rich"), Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, the National Education Association, and the National Organization for Women. He has received "F" grades from the National Taxpayers Union, the National Rifle Association, and U.S. English, a 13 rating from Citizens Against Government Waste, 7 ratings from the Club for Growth, the American Conservative Union, and the Eagle Forum, and zero ratings from the Family Research Council, the National Right to Life Committee, and Americans for Tax Reform.

Obama's voting record as a state senator reflected the same left-wing agenda: He opposed restrictions on partial birth abortion and requiring medical care for fetuses who are born alive during an abortion. He opposed requiring school officials to install pornography-blocking software on public computers accessible to minors. He opposed a $500 income tax credit for parents who send their children to private schools. He supported restrictions on gun ownership, and opposed a bill that permitted the owner of an unregistered handgun to claim self-defense if he used the gun in his own home. He consistently voted in favor of higher taxes.

True to form, in his campaign for president, Obama advocates a dizzying array of hyper-liberal policies, including: "equal pay" laws, expanded federal leave laws, expanded "hate crime" laws, a panoply of social services for convicted criminals, increasing foreign aid spending by tens of billions of dollars with the goal of "cutting extreme poverty around the world in half by 2015" (pure utopianism paid for by the American taxpayer), requiring 25 percent of U.S. electricity come from "renewable" sources by 2025 (an impossible goal without drastically shrinking the economy), spending tens of billions of dollars on an FDR-style array of federal economic programs, further raising the minimum wage, and providing "affordable" and "comprehensive" health insurance to all Americans (aka socialized medicine). Naturally, he proposes to pay for all these programs by raising taxes on "the wealthiest taxpayers" and imposing a "windfall profits tax" on oil companies.

With the sole (and misguided) exception of "universal health care," there is little popular demand in this country for the kind of soak-the-rich, tax-and-spend politics that Obama is offering. This is not 1932 or 1965. The American people are not interested in another round of top-down social engineering by the federal government. If anything, the nation's political leaders need to catch up to the waves of conservative and populist impulses spreading throughout the country. See, for example, the grassroots movement to limit the eminent domain power of state and local governments and the nationwide revolt against "comprehensive Immigration reform."

Obama's dissolutely liberal politics will sink him in the general election, just as it torpedoed previous Democratic candidates.

Obama is too race-conscious.

Finally, we come to the "hot button" issue in this election: Obama's black racial consciousness.

Contrary to what Obama and his supporters want the American people to believe, Obama is not a "post-racial" politician. As abundantly demonstrated in his two autobiographies, his 20-year membership in Rev. Jeremiah Wright's "unashamedly black" Trinity United Church of Christ, and his "intensely race-conscious approach" to politics as an Illinois state senator (see here), Obama is deeply committed to his "black" identity -- despite having a white mother and being raised for much of his childhood by his white grandparents. Furthermore, Obama built his political career on promoting the interests of the black urban community. Right or wrong, fair or unfair, Obama's black racial consciousness is going to have a negative effect on his campaign for president by undermining his appeal among white working- and middle-class voters.

Let's look at some numbers. According to the CNN exit poll, in the 2004 presidential election, the electorate was composed of 77% whites, 11% blacks, 8% Latinos, 2% Asian, and 2% other. They voted as follows: whites 58-41 for Bush; blacks 88-11 for Kerry; Latinos 53-44 for Kerry; Asians 56-44 for Kerry.

I see little reason to believe that the Latino or Asian votes will change substantially in 2008. Clearly, the black vote will shift even more strongly in favor of the Democratic candidate. However, the white voting population is seven times larger than the black voting population. Consequently, a shift in the black vote of seven percentage points is roughly equivalent to a shift in the white vote of one point. Even if Obama were to receive essentially all black votes, which is unlikely, a loss of less than two percentage points of the white vote would be enough to offset these gains.

So the key to the upcoming election is whether white voters will be more, less, or equally likely to vote for Obama as for Kerry. I believe the answer is less likely.

Interestingly, commentators on the left tend to agree with this prediction, because they believe that many white voters are "racists"; commentators on the right usually ignore the race issue altogether, because they fear that any discussion of white voting preferences will support the "racism" charge. I disagree that "racism" is the explanation. Rather, it is Obama's history of race-based politics and his membership in a militant black church - which places him in opposition to most white voters on such emotional issues as welfare, crime, and affirmative action, and casts doubt on his ability and commitment to represent the interests of the entire nation.

To develop a profile of Obama's electoral strengths and weaknesses, I examined the CNN entrance and exit polls for the 2008 Democratic primaries in Iowa, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. These were the states in which the spread between Bush and Kerry in 2004 was three percentage points or less (in either direction). (New Hampshire also belongs on this list, but I could not find polling data for the 2008 primaries in that state.) I selected these states because they are likely to be the critical battlegrounds this fall.

The polls show that, in general, Obama did especially well among black voters, younger voters (under 45), voters who earn more than $100,000 per year, voters with college and postgraduate degrees, non-religious voters, and self-described liberal voters. In other words, the core constituencies of the Democratic Party. On the other hand, he demonstrated much less appeal to white voters, older voters (ages 45 and up), voters who earn less than $50,000 per year, voters with some or no college education, Catholic voters, and self-described moderate voters. In other words, white working- and middle-class voters -- so-called Reagan Democrats. These voters strongly preferred Hillary Clinton.

Significantly, in the 2004 election, John Kerry performed reasonably well among this group. He won 55 percent of voters who earn less than $50,000. He won 47 percent of voters ages 45 and up. He won 47 percent of voters with no college degree. He won 47 percent of Catholic voters. He won 55 percent of self-described moderate voters. Nevertheless, Kerry lost. If only a few percent of these voters switch to McCain, as I believe they will, Obama cannot win. Yes, tens of millions of Americans (of all colors) will vote for Obama; but more will vote for McCain.

Overall, I predict Obama will receive even less of the popular vote than John Kerry in 2004 (48.3%), and perhaps as little as Michael Dukakis in 1988 (45.7%).

As I wrote last December, "[t]he pundits can talk until they are blue in the face about Obama's charisma and eloquence and cross-racial appeal. The fact of the matter is that Obama has no chance of being elected president in 2008." I am more convinced of this conclusion than ever.
smwarshawsky@hotmail.com.

American Thinker

The Obama/Wright/Kilpatrick Collision

By Steve Mitchell

Two percent. That's the percent of voters outside the "Motor City" that have a favorable impression of embattled Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. You don't have to be a pollster to understand how strongly disliked Kilpatrick is throughout Michigan.

Sit in any restaurant or bar, and all you hear is people talking about Kilpatrick's troubles. Indicted in March on eight felony counts for committing perjury during a whistleblower trial that eventually cost the city about $9 million, the Mayor spent one night in jail on August 7th for violating his bond and then was arraigned the next day for a new crime. In the latest charges, Kilpatrick is accused of assaulting two sheriff's deputies as they were trying to serve one of his close friends with a subpoena.

And, what does this have to do with Barack Obama? Although Kilpatrick has distanced himself from Obama and Obama has distanced himself from Kilpatrick, they are both inextricably linked to Rev. Jeremiah Wright. And, that is Obama's problem. More...

The night before Wright imploded in front of the Washington press corps, he was the featured speaker at an NAACP dinner in Detroit where Mayor Kilpatrick gave him a rousing introduction, an introduction shown on local TV news shows. Undoubtedly, some 527 committee or the Michigan Republican Party has that introduction on DVD.

Rev. Wright has already proven to be an albatross around Obama's neck. Obama's support plummeted among white North Carolina General Election voters after TV ads linking him with Rev. Wright were aired during the North Carolina Democratic primary. That plunge in support did not go unnoticed by McCain supporters.

It is very likely that similar ads will be run in key battleground states starting in mid-October. In Michigan, you can bet that the much hated Kilpatrick will be included in the Obama/Wright ads, making them look like the Three Musketeers, "one for all and all for one."

Not only does Obama have to overcome Wright's fiery rhetoric, he has to overcome the Kilpatrick connection, too. Kilpatrick's tremendous unpopularity has fueled latent and sometime blatant racism among Michigan voters, the last thing Obama needs in a key state less than three months before the election.

White voters around the country demonstrated their concern with Obama when they voted by a more than 2:1 margin against him in all the primary elections after March 4th. Michigan has a large number of lower income, less educated white voters, the same type of voter who rejected Obama in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and other states.

During the primaries, Obama dismissed some white voters by saying they "cling to their guns or religion." Democrats must now worry that white voters in Michigan may well cling to their enormous antipathy towards Kwame Kilpatrick and take it out on Barack Obama.

The timetables being set for Kilpatrick's hearings and trials certainly seem to have an incredibly coincidental link to the presidential election, something that the two state leaders who have set them would deny.

Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm has the power to remove Kilpatrick from office under a little used law. So far, she has been hesitant to do so. The primary reason for her not kicking him out of office was given by an African-American Detroit city councilwoman who said "we don't want a white governor removing our black mayor."

However, since the most recent charges and problems, she has been under added pressure from the media and the public to kick him out. She has also been under intense pressure from the Obama campaign to get rid of him because he could be a real a drag on the ticket. When Obama campaigned in the City of Detroit recently, the Mayor did not attend the rally, saying he didn't want to hurt the presumptive Democratic nominee's chances.

Granholm has other reasons she might want to fire the mayor. Because of Michigan's ongoing recession, coupled with a tax increase she signed into law last year, Granholm's job approval has dropped dramatically. A decision to get rid of the mayor would take her sagging approval from the mid-thirties to the mid-seventies or higher, probably overnight. Granholm has scheduled her removal hearing for September 3rd.

It is probably not a coincidence that the date she has chosen is the day before Sen. John McCain's scheduled acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention. The timing assures that almost everyone in Michigan will be concentrating on the mayor in Detroit, not on the GOP convention in Minneapolis. So, the Democrats win round one on Kilpatrick.

However, even if he is removed, Republican Attorney General Mike Cox said that he expects the assault charges will be tried in the next 90 days. He said at the time he announced the indictments that simple assault cases like this almost always go to trial within three months. That means the high profile trial should occur in late October or early November, right before the election. In fairness to Cox, his timeframe is absolutely consistent with how other similar cases are handled. Round two to the Republicans.

Democrats hope Kilpatrick's removal from office will insulate Obama from any connection to Kilpatrick, just as they hope Obama's renunciation of Wright will end the controversy about his former pastor. However, radio talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin have all kept up the drumbeat about Obama, Wright, and white radical Will Ayres.

It's hard to believe that this association will not be the subject of TV ads in the weeks before the election, even though Obama has distanced himself from his former pastor. And, you can also expect that pro-McCain forces will try to tie Wright, Kikpatrick and Obama together in Michigan, no matter what happens to Mayor Kilpatrick. In office or out, guilty or not guilty, the clip of Kilpatrick introducing Wright does not go away. Neither does the clip of Obama defending his former "spiritual leader" or the clip of Wright saying "it's not God Bless America, it's God Damn America."

With Kilpatrick all over the news for his assault trial at the same time as the Obama/Kilpatrick/Wright ads are on TV, it may well be that the final round goes to McCain, perhaps by a knockout. Michigan is a pivotal state for both Obama and McCain. The final results might hinge on guilt through association. It would be more than ironic if two African-Americans, Kwame Kilpatrick and Rev. Jeremiah Wright, are responsible for Barack Obama's loss in Michigan. And, it is hard to write a scenario where a Democrat can be elected president without winning Michigan.
*********************

(To assure full disclosure, Mayor Kilpatrick and Attorney General Cox are former clients of Mitchell Research & Communications, Inc.)
Steve Mitchell is president of Mitchell Interactive a political polling, marketing research, and public affairs company based in Detroit and Washington, DC.
Page Printed from: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/08/michigan_the_obamawrightkilpat.html at August 11, 2008 - 11:32:25 AM PDT

7 worrisome signs for Obama

By GLENN THRUSH | 8/11/08

A few weeks back, Time magazine was musing that John McCain was in danger of sliding from “a long shot” to a “no-shot.” Around the same time, a hard-nosed former Hillary Clinton insider declared the race “effectively over” thanks to the McCain campaign’s ineptitude, the tanking U.S. economy and Obama’s advantages in cash, charisma and hope. And Obama, up by three to six points nationally, was about to leverage a much-anticipated trip to Iraq, Afghanistan and Europe into a pre-convention poll surge.

Instead, his supporters are now suffering a pre-Denver panic attack, watching as John McCain draws incrementally closer in state and national polls – with Rasmussen’s most recent daily national tracker showing a statistical dead heat. More...



Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton has been privately enumerating her doubts about Obama to supporters, according to people who have spoken with her. Clinton’s pollster Mark Penn recently unveiled a PowerPoint presentation red-flagging Obama’s lukewarm leads among white female voters and Hispanics – while predicting a five-point swing could turn a presumed Obama win into a McCain landslide.

“It’s not that people think McCain will win – it’s that they are realizing that McCain could win,” says Quinnipiac University pollster Peter Brown, whose surveys show tight races in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. “This election is about Barack Obama — not John McCain — it's about whether Barack Obama passes muster. Every poll shows that people want a Democratic president, the problem is they’re not sure they want Barack Obama.”

Obama’s aides point to the stability of his small national lead, say they aren’t worried about his summer stall and think his numbers will improve when voters begin tuning in to the conventions.

“This is a country that is looking for a fundamentally different direction, and John McCain offers nothing but the status quo,” said spokesman Bill Burton, adding that he wasn’t “losing any sleep” over Obama's rough patch.

The campaign’s confidence may turn out to be justified, but two weeks prior to the national convention there are more than a few worrisome signs for Obama. Here are seven:

1. Race. “The idea that Obama was going to win in a blowout was always preposterous,” says former Nebraska senator and onetime presidential hopeful Bob Kerrey, an Obama backer. “A big piece of this, of course, is whether white people are going to support a black guy. ... If [Obama] is a tall, skinny white guy named Paul Jones, it's a different story.”

Obama is running nearly neck-and-neck with McCain among white voters in most polls, a major cause for optimism considering that John Kerry lost the white vote by 17 points and that Al Gore lost it by 12 points. Among whites, he does well with women, the affluent and college grads but fares poorly among low-income earners and Catholics — key swing groups that handed Hillary Rodham Clinton stunning blowouts in West Virginia and Kentucky.

How much does his race factor into tightening contests in Missouri, Wisconsin, Florida, Minnesota and Ohio? Nobody knows — and that’s the problem.

A huge challenge for Obama, insiders say, is simply determining how much skin color will matter in November. Race is nearly impossible to poll — no one ever says “I’m a racist” — and no campaign wants it revealed they are even asking questions on the issue.

“It’s the uncertainty that kills me — we know it’s going to be factor, but how big a factor?” asks a Democratic operative with ties to the Obama camp. “How do you even measure such a thing?

Adding to the jitters: GOP surrogates like New York Rep. Peter King have vowed to make Obama’s relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright a centerpiece during the homestretch.

2. Obama’s strength in Virginia may be overhyped. His chances of ending the Democrats 44-year losing streak in the commonwealth are pretty good — thanks to the explosive growth of the liberal D.C. suburbs, and a 147,000 spike in voter registration sure to benefit Democrats. But Obama’s aides privately concede his odds in Virginia are probably no better than 50-50 and that the state is far from a lock-solid hedge if he loses Ohio and Florida.

3. Michigan’s in play for McCain. In the year of the downturn, the hard-hit upper Midwest should be prime Obama country. Instead it’s a potential minefield. Obama is still ahead by two to five points there — similar to margins of victory enjoyed by Gore and Kerry in the last two presidential contests — but McCain has quietly crept up over the past month and could vault ahead if he anoints ex-Gov. Mitt Romney as his running mate. Simmering tensions between predominantly black Detroit and its white suburbs could hurt Obama. And McCain’s surrogates were handed a gift in the jailing of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, an Obama supporter.

“Watch Michigan — the Democrats think they've got it but they don't,” says Quinnipiac’s Peter Brown, a longtime Michigan observer. “Obama should be killing [McCain] there, but there's a lot more racial tension in Michigan than in other states.”

Obama also hasn’t pulled away in other Democrat-friendly neighboring states, watching leads in Wisconsin and Minnesota erode over the last month.

4. Bad times could be good for McCain. If anger helps Democrats, fear works to the advantage of Republicans. A growing number of Democratic strategists worry that some swing state voters may opt for McCain if the economy veers from merely awful to downright terrifying. The typical political calculus —that bad economic times will deliver the White House to Democrats — may not hold if people start viewing the downturn as, essentially, a national security crisis that can’t be entrusted to a novice. And that was McCain’s underlying message in his Paris Hilton ad: Bank failures, soaring gas prices and plummeting house values are forms of economic terrorism, and he’s an all-purpose anti-terror warrior.

“John McCain is a known quantity,” says Bob Kerrey, who thinks Obama will ultimately prevail. “You don't look at John and say, ‘Who the heck is he?’. He's a veteran, he's a guy who got pretty banged up in Vietnam. He can deal with crisis. There's some uncertainty about Senator Obama.”

The good news for Obama, of course, is that McCain — who infamously admitted he “never understood” economics — is loathed by unions, was somnambulant at the dawn of the housing meltdown and still gropes for a coherent economic policy that doesn’t include the words “offshore drilling.” But he doesn’t have to win the argument, just reinforce doubts about Obama with wavering swing state voters. The Illinois senator still enjoys a major edge on the economic issues, but his 20-point June lead on the question of who can best fix the economy slipped to a 17-point edge in July, according to the Pew Research Center.

“Obama wins on the economy,” said Guy Cecil, Hillary Clinton’s field director during the primaries. “But it will be interesting to see if McCain’s able to close the economic gap.”

5. Where have you gone, Ross Perot? Bill Clinton, the lone two-term Democratic president since FDR, wouldn’t have been elected if independent Ross Perot hadn’t siphoned 19 percent of the vote in 1992. Former Georgia Rep. Bob Barr, staging an indie bid from McCain’s right, has little cash and doesn’t seem to be a factor in competitive states.

6. The Legacy of LBJ, Jimmy and Bubba. Barack Obama would have been a trailblazer no matter what —but the Democrats’ trail to the White House has been remarkably narrow since 1960, accommodating only Southern whites with border-state strength: Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. (Add Al Gore if you’re counting the popular vote.)

7. Americans may want divided government. Some Democratic operatives think a possible landslide for their party in congressional races could backfire on Obama.

“Fairly or not, folks think he’s pretty liberal and nobody wants a pair of Pelosis running things,” says a New York-based Democratic consultant.

Adds Bob Kerrey: “The country's still pretty divided … people may want a divided government. They want change, but I'm not sure that the Democratic agenda has the support of a majority of Americans.”

Hillary's Surprise

Editorial of The New York Sun | August 11, 2008

Could Senator Clinton win the Democratic presidential nomination at the last minute by taking advantage of buyer's remorse among Democratic super-delegates who are dismayed by the performance of Senator Obama's campaign so far?
More...

Here's the scenario: Senator Obama has raised tens of millions more dollars than Senator McCain, which Democrats think should translate into an advantage in the polls. The economy is doing poorly, which Democrats think should translate into an advantage in the polls given that the Republicans control the White House and the incumbent party is often blamed for a bad economy.

The Republican nominee-in-waiting, Senator McCain, is old and is unpopular with his party's base because he has broken with conservatives on taxes, global warming, torture, and campaign speech limitations. The Democrats think that should translate into an advantage for them at the polls, too, even though their presumptive nominee is several kiloparsecs to the left of Mr. McCain.

The Republican incumbent in the White House, President Bush, is personally unpopular, blamed for the Iraq War (as Robert L. Bartley liked to say: "They'll forgive you for being wrong. What they won't forgive you for is being right"). Three of the top 15 books on the New York Times bestseller list are Bush-bashing tomes; one advocates that he be prosecuted for murder. The Democrats think that this, too, should translate into an advantage for them at the polls.

Despite all these factors, Mr. McCain is running roughly even in the polls with the presumptive Democratic nominee, Mr. Obama, a time when he is supposed to be way ahead. In early August of 1988, Governor Dukakis was ahead of Vice President Bush by a wide margin. In early August of 2004, Senator Kerry was ahead of President Bush. If Mr. Obama doesn't have a big lead now, it could get pretty ugly for the Democrats as November approaches, the theory goes.

It will only get worse when Messrs. McCain and Obama face off in presidential debates. The public will discover that Mr. Obama, notwithstanding his reputation as a silver-tongued orator, is not that good a debater — which explains why he did his best to dodge debate invitations from Mrs. Clinton and Mr. McCain. Feature Mr. Obama's flubbering on the outbreak of war between Russia and Georgia.

Is all this enough to prompt Democratic super-delegates to re-think their allegiance to Mr. Obama and hand the nomination to Senator Clinton? If you count Michigan, Mrs. Clinton won the reported popular vote in the Democratic primaries and caucuses, 17.8 million to 17.5 million, and won many of the hotly contested big battleground states that the Democrats need to win in November — Pennsylvania, Ohio, California, New York, New Jersey, Florida. She won Massachusetts even after Senators Kennedy and Kerry endorsed Mr. Obama.

Take away the delegates Mr. Obama has by virtue of the endorsement of Senator Edwards, who has newly admitted deceiving the electorate about the adultery he committed while his wife lay stricken with cancer, and the delegate gap is even narrower. Even Mr. Obama doesn't have enough delegates to win the nomination without the super-delegates, so there wouldn't be anything terribly exceptional about the super-delegates putting her rather than him over the top.

Probably all this isn't enough — at least not yet. But what if, by the time the convention rolls around, Mr. Obama isn't just running neck and neck with Mr. McCain but is lagging by, say, five percentage points, or if Mr. Obama makes a big blunder with his choice of a running mate, or some other campaign stumble? Then expect the whispers already swirling among Clinton supporters to turn into a full-fledged roar.

Mrs. Clinton's Tuesday keynote address, scheduled for the Tuesday of the Convention, could then start to sound less like an endorsement speech and more like a final campaign plea. If it's a real hit, anything can happen. Expect, too, the well-timed release of some public poll showing Mrs. Clinton doing better than Mr. Obama in matchups against Mr. McCain in battleground states. Already the Clinton campaign is surfacing, through the forthcoming issue of the Atlantic Monthly, a memo portraying Mr. Obama as "not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values."

***

This newspaper doesn't presume to tell the Democrats whom to nominate, but we did start out this campaign hoping for three New York presidential candidates. Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg are out of the race for the top spot on any ticket, though Mr. Bloomberg may still prove attractive as a vice presidential candidate. We have no illusions about the ultra-long-shot of Mrs. Clinton's chances of actually emerging as the Democratic nominee, but they are not technically impossible, as Mr. Obama is no doubt aware. Mr. Obama skipped a visit to a military hospital in Germany. He spent this weekend on vacation in Hawaii. Mrs. Clinton spent last week visiting wounded service members at Fort Drum. Mr. Obama may think the primary campaign is over, but Mrs. Clinton's die-hard supporters still itch for a last-minute surprise.

Who's Party is IT?

So according to Politico, Obama has a new book coming out next month. "The Book will hit stores on Sept. 9, just as the fall campaign is heating up.

"Change We Can Believe In: Barack Obama's Plan to Renew America's Promise” includes a campaign photo album from the road, a collection of seven of the hit speeches by Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), and new essays outlining his policy proposals.

Since everything Obama is selling well these days, that means the senator's picture and policies will be in the front of most bookstores in America throughout the heart of the general-election campaign.

The secret project—both a collectible, and an answer to questions about his substance—was launched just a month ago, and got to the printer with no leaks."

Is it any wonder that the new Democratic platform sounds like a compilation of Obama's stump speeches? Apparently the big party platform meeting that just took place was a complete sham as the platform had already been sent to Obama's publishers weeks before. I feel bad for all the people who took time out of their lives and spent the money traveling to attend this dog and pony show. What a waste of time, money and energy.

Read more at: http://commonsensegram.wordpress.com/2008/08/11/we-have-been-bamboozled-again/

And for those of you who would like to read the actual draft of the Democratic Platform, you can read it by clicking HERE.

Wolfson: Edwards' Cover-up Cost Clinton the Nomination

Aides Say She Would Have Won Iowa if Edwards Affair was Exposed
By BRIAN ROSS and JAKE TAPPER

August 11, 2008—

Sen. Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic presidential nominee if John Edwards had been caught in his lie about an extramarital affair and forced out of the race last year, insists a top Clinton campaign aide, making a charge that could exacerbate previously existing tensions between the camps of Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama. More...

"I believe we would have won Iowa, and Clinton today would therefore have been the nominee," former Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson told ABCNews.com.

Clinton finished third in the Iowa caucuses barely behind Edwards in second place and Obama in first. The momentum of the insurgent Obama campaign beating two better-known candidates -- not to mention an African-American winning in such an overwhelmingly white state -- changed the dynamics of the race forever.

Obama won 37.6 per cent of the vote. Edwards won 29.7 per cent and Clinton won 29.5 per cent, according to results posted by the Iowa Democratic Party.

"Our voters and Edwards' voters were the same people," Wolfson said the Clinton polls showed. "They were older, pro-union. Not all, but maybe two-thirds of them would have been for us and we would have barely beaten Obama."

Two months earlier, Edwards had vociferously, but falsely, denied a story in the National Enquirer about the alleged affair last October, and few in the mainstream media even reported the denial.

The lie "certainly had an impact on the election," Wolfson said.

Former Clinton adviser James Carville told "Good Morning America" that Wolfson's comments are just speculation.

"My instinct tells me she probably would have done better if Senator Edwards wouldn't have been on the ballot," said Carville. "But that wasn't the circustances at the time. I think Howard is fine in engaging in this kind of speculation, but it doesn't really mean very much."

Wolfson said the Clinton campaign was aware of the issue, but did not try to fan the flames.

"Any of the campaigns that would have tried to push that would have been burned by it," said Wolfson.

But he says he is mystified about the failure of the national media to pursue the story as it has allegations of other candidates' affairs.

"I can't say I understand the rules of the media and I'm not sure they do either," he said.

Wolfson's suggestion comes at a delicate time in negotiations between the Clinton and Obama camps, as the Obama campaign decides whether the convention later this month should feature a roll call vote allowing Clinton's delegates to voice their enthusiasm for their candidate. Many Clinton supporters are already resentful of Obama, whom they see as having only won the nomination with the support of a sexist media and Democratic establishment. Wolfson's argument that these same players helped keep Edwards in the race, thus hurting Clinton -- a highly debatable contention -- will likely only fan the flames of Democratic division.

Wolfson's contention is not shared by the Obama campaign, whose officials never bought the argument that Clinton was the second choice of Edwards voters. Immediately after Edwards dropped out of the race at the end of January, Obama won eleven straight contests in a row.

And Clinton's steadfast refusal to say she regretted her vote to authorize use of force in Iraq -- unlike Obama, who always opposed the war, and Edwards, who said his vote for war was a mistake -- turned off many anti-wars liberals in Iowa, who make up a disproportionate number of caucus goers.

In May 2007, Mike Henry, then Clinton's deputy campaign manager, thought the terrain so hostile to Clinton he wrote a memo to "propose skipping the Iowa caucuses and dedicating more of Senator Clinton's time and financial resources on the primary in New Hampshire on January 22, the Nevada caucus on January 19, the primaries in South Carolina and Florida on January 29, and the 20 plus state primaries on February 5th."

There was no comment from the Obama campaign.

The Audacity of A Fraud

You just might want to read an African American Speaking out...It has some choice words here,,,hope you find it both alarming as well as rather raw, as she does not mix her words. I appreciate that she does not want Senator Clinton on the ticket with Obama to tarnish her name and that she is bold enough to say what is on her mind... More...


This historical election for Senator Obama, based on his words, can be traced all the way back to Selma Alabama. A place Senator Obama states in his speech in 2007 he owes his very existence to. His passionate speech before a congregation at Brown Chapel A.M. E. Church tells the story of how the protests in Selma played a part in him being able to stand there before them that day.

The riveting story on how JFK played a part in his father having the chance to be one of the young Africans who were bought to this country to give them scholarships to study so they can learn what a wonderful country this is, was poignant and beautiful as he described how the events and his very existence came about reflects in this passage of his speech:

"This young man named Barack Obama got one of those tickets and came over to this country. He met this woman whose great-great-great-great grandfather had owned slaves. But she had a good idea there was some craziness going on because they looked at each other and they decided that we know that in the world as it had been, it might not be possible for us to get together an have a child.

He goes even more in depth, filled with emotion as he describes the impact of this movement on who he is, and where he is today ....
"there was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma Alabama, because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don't tell me I don't have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don't tell me I'm not coming home to Selma Alabama. I'm here because somebody marched. I'm here because you all sacrificed for me. I stand on the shoulders of giants".

Moving..riveting and nothing but LIES. The march in which he refers happened on 7 March 1965, when demonstrators attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma Alabama. It is mathmatically impossible for Obama senior and Ann Dunham to decide to marry based on the "march" in Selma and produce Senator Obama, if Senator Obama was born in AUGUST 1961 and the march in Selma happened in 1965. How can he state JFK was responsible for the first airlift bringing Kenyans over when Kenyan nationalist leader, Tom MBoya was responsible between 1959 & 1960 on gaining financial support for this endeavor? JFK was responsible for the SECOND airlift and had nothing to do with the first. Senator Obama's father was already in Hawaii studying. But there are those who had an impact and were part of that movement that Senator Obama carelessly used in a speech for political gain, destroying our history without KNOWING our history....

Amelia Boynton Robinson, whose mother with a horse and buggy used to get people down to the registration office and help them register in Savannah Georgia in 1920. Who decided herself that she would help people vote because so many people were illiterate and couldn't fill out the two page literacy tests.

Or John Lewis who talks about Freedom Day in Selma October 8 1963 which he felt was a turning point during the Civil Rights movement. Who witnessed the march on Washington by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee call for "one man, one vote" and decided to see if that idea would work down in Selma.

2.1 percent. 2.1 percent of black people of age were registered to vote. Hundreds of black people lined up and stood outside of a county courthouse for almost an ENTIRE DAY on October 8th 1963. And at the end of that day after elderly black men and women stood outside all day. Only 5 people made it in to take the literacy tests. Five. Almost similar to the treatment of those who attempted to vote in the caucuses in this election. But just like the elected officials we have now, the ones back in Selma in 1963, they did not care because they looked to the bigger picture. Suppressing the right for some to vote.

Because of the threat of the Democratic Party losing congressional state and local campaigns based on alienating the "African American" community from having a "historical" election, our country will end up suffering a possible 4 years of the most worthless candidate in American history that should never have made it this far. Who made it to this point based on the pigmentation of their skin only. When Civil Rights Leaders and Activists fought to NOT be judged by the color of there skin. To have fair representation and NOT be denied based on the color of there skin. But you want us to vote based on his. Now,its to the point they would rather lose the 2008 election just to gain seats in the House and the Senate. By using the ignorance of the black community by not explaining the process. By not educating them on how the nomination process works. By putting the idea in there head that the Super Delegates voting at the convention is some form of "backroom" deal. I am black. And hell would freeze over before I ever give my vote, my support, or my loyalty to an individual who uses the backs of the black community and our history as a stepping stone to 1600 Penn Ave.

Who has zero problem straight out lying, embellishing stories and twisting the words to give the appearance of something that is not there and nothing but an allusion. Mariah Carey, Rosario Dawson, Vin Diesel, Rachel Ray Smith Miss USA 2007, Soledad O'bryan, Barack Obama. What do they all have in common? Biracial. Except Senator Obama doesnt acknowledge his "other side" because it would ruin the image to be called the first "black" president. That is why you get to see the Kenyan relatives and not the loving "white" ones who raised him. If he can throw his grandmother under the closest bus, and she raised him. What will he do to his so called "black community" when they find out what he "really" means after the convention, then, it will be based on the "lesser of two evils" and they will see they were used to achieve a goal. Especially when he lied and stated he can no more disown them than Rev Jeremiah Wright.

Yes, I am disappointed in those of my race who would rather dance in the streets screaming "Yes We Can" and who state they want a "black" president and a "historical" election more than a job or health insurance. What will they do on Nov 5th when he loses and they realize they STILL dont have a job, still dont have a house, still dont have health insurance, still struggling to make ends meet, still can barely afford gas, still standing in that same damn welfare line, still standing in the unemployment line, and still struggling to put food on the table? Will everyone then go back to screaming the mantra that "the white man is still keeping you down"? Probably. But they keep themself down by making irrational and frivoulous decisions. They DESERVE to struggle. You can only be a victim but for so long before its time to become accountable for your own actions. Anyone who cannot see that the "white" elected officials like Robert Wexler who are using the word "racist" to apply to anyone who have the audacity to ask a question towards Senator Obama. They use words such as this to "incite" the black people, to "rile" up the black community, and like idiots they fall for it hook, line and sinker.
To the African American: Super Delegates & Delegates, elected officials, Local and State leaders, community leaders, & Ministers within the black community? Your worthless. Positively worthless. You have condemned MILLIONS to suffer based on the fact you cant look past of the color of the hand before you. You would rather have a "historical" election, gain seats, and lose the general election, than to have change. If Senator Barack Obama was a white man, or if this was Senator Mccain and had a WHITE pastor giving anti american speeches in the pulpit, associates like Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, and Rezko, endorsing Raila Odinga, HE WOULD OF NOT MADE IT THIS FAR. To believe that Senator Obama was ignorant to the actions of his associates is hard to believe considering the degree from Harvard University.
To the local and state officials, white & black, and the African American community leaders in Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Louisiana? If your constituents are voting for Senator Obama based on skin color. Please forward my email address to them: soldier4hillary@yahoo.com, they are going to need it to get a clear explanation and reason for why Senator Obama lost.

Senator Clinton does not need to be anywhere near a Obama ticket. I could care less about her endorsement of Senator Obama. I could care less about her words of support. She can give that speech during the convention with the original birth certificate of Senator Obama in one hand, his hidden grandmother standing behind her and the other hand linked to Larry Sinclair all while giving a speech stating the truth was really not the truth, all while singing Kumbayah and I would still vote against him. And if she is on the ticket I would vote AGAINST her as well. Because when Senator Obama's political career goes down the drain and he loses the election, based on the information the Democratic Party chose to overlook, she does not need to be anywhere in the vicinity, and her political career she has worked her life for does not need to become jeopardized. I could care less about your black constituents voting solely on skin color and a false belief Senator Obama is "one of them". If you want to see a true riot, not the "paid" rioters Al Sharpton talked about, put her on that losing ticket and let her political career become tarnished by that loser. I would rather reelect a Republican Senator who takes gifts to get his house fixed than to vote for one Democratic Party member on ANY ballot that is willing to sacrifice the safety of our country, nominate a candidate that foreign countries have the ability to blackmail and gain the upper hand based on information this party overlook. It's no longer about Senator Clinton. Because the day after the Democratic Convention, it is going to be an all out assault on those looking to have the "black folk" backs be the path to maintaining your seat because you have done your part and gave them there "historical" election with there "historical" candidate knowing he does not have a prayer of a chance for winning.

When Senator Barack Obama loses in November, and he will lose big, you will blame Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. You will blame her because as she fought for the heart and soul of your party, to be able to push this country forward and back on track, as you fought just to have Senator Obama, his coattails and a couple of extra seats and positions in your districts. You care nothing for this country. You have no LOYALTY to its people. No matter what happens from this day forward I will ALWAYS continue to support, standby, do all for, Senator Clinton. Not because she asked or feel its her right, but because she EARNED IT! She earned it when it was deemed necessary to label a former First Lady, Acting Senator, and Presidential Candidate Racist. She earned it everytime one of her supporters receieved death threats and hate mail, she earned it for every single time I was called a "Hillary Nigger", "Hillarity Nigger", "Sell Out", "Uncle Tom" "Military Republican Troll", "Dead Ender" from those of my very own race who are quick to call someone else racist as they throw every racial slur they can think of my way because I choose to not support a candidate that is here today only because of the color of there skin.

I have no loyalties to any party be it Democratic or Republican. I could care less about fake "riots" as threats instigated by Al Sharpton. I could care less about any Democrats on any ballots. The idea of true "change" went out the door when people turned a blind eye to the dead coming back to vote in a primaries against my goddamn candidate. If the thought people will choose the lesser of two evils was the route this party attempts to go, you never realized we wanted solutions for our country versus a historical election. For Rev Al Sharpton? You had the audacity to get on television and state there would be "riots" if anything was taken away from Senator Obama if he won the popular vote. Al? HE DIDNT. Senator Clinton did. You know good and damn well no one is going to "riot" for Senator Obama.

The reason they like Senator Obama is based on the fact that he thinks he can come to the black churches and give speeches "telling you about yourselves" and what the "black community" has done wrong. He comes and talks down to the people by telling them everything wrong, ie black men abadoning there families, and never saying anything done right. He tells you about his father being a goathearder and his mother on welfare as if that is what being "Black in America" is all about, and the masses eat that shit up. Because now they think he is knows about the struggle, overcoming and beating the odds. Does he highlight going to school in Hawaii? Or that he had loving grandparents who raised him? Hell no. You didnt have the decency to check the goddamn facts before you got up on national television spouting useless, false nonsense. Between Jessie Jackson Jr who threw his own damn father under the bus for Senator Obama, you have hurt the chances of millions having the things outlined throughout Senator Clintons campaign. Amazing. You and the African American Super Delegates and Delegates have a Senator who has came along and will credit himself as the one who banished racial divide and affirmative action forever because since he is nominated it must mean it is no longer needed or no longer happening. All by just waving his sparkly magic wand in the air to make it all go away. All while riding on his prancing sparkly pony as leprachauns prance around yelling "Yes we Can". The skys opening up with angels playing a harp with glittery butterflies in the air. Now if you speak out, according to CNN your just jealous and bitter because he is our new messiah who transcinds race.

Rev Sharpton. What do you think will happen if he is nominated? You and all of those in the black community who support him will be under the closest bus. You are no longer needed. Your threats in the Primary of "riots allowed him to win based on paid Super Delegates and scared Super Delegates afraid to have those in there community not vote for them. Simply amazing....

Senator Obama talks about his father "abandoning" him. Get fucking real. His father already was married with a family. Do you see him giving speeches on adultery? His father went to an Ivy league school. Did you see him give a speech on being able to succeed? His mother went to a ivy league school. Did you see him give a speech about his mother who was on "welfare" but was able to attend a prestigous college despite the odds? Senator Obama says what is needed for the moment and has no problem destroying everything people fought for. The only thing he knows about the black community is based on what Axelrod has taught him. They brought you out to incite the masses with words of "riots". You know good and damn well what happens during a primary. You know how the process works. You know. But you allowed people to remain ignorant to achieve a goal.

So I will continue to be a Republican Dead Ender Puma Kitty Hillary Nigger Troll who gets hate mail and threats, I wear the title as proudly as the flag on my right shoulder. I would rather stand for something than to stand for nothing at all.

Rove: Obama should be ‘way ahead’

By Klaus Marre and Walter Alarkon
Posted: 08/10/08 12:40 PM [ET]

Republican strategist Karl Rove said Sunday the fact that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama does not have a large lead in the race shows that there are “grave doubts” about the Illinois senator.

“With a restive electorate, with an economy that's sort of chugging around, with a war in the background, at the end of eight years of Republican rule in the White House, Obama should be way ahead,” Rove, who engineered President Bush’s two election victories and whose name is synonymous with tough campaigning, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” More...

Meantime, Sen. McCain’s (Ariz.) campaign manager Rick Davis stated that, even though the Republican presidential candidate is an underdog to Obama, the campaign is happy with its current position in polls.

“‘John McCain is an underdog’ may be the understatement of the decade,” said Davis on “Fox News Sunday,” echoing Rove’s thoughts. “The mood of the country is very sour about the current administration. People don’t like the party as much as they did four years ago.”

Davis added that “if someone had told me a year ago when we started the real quest for the primary that we could wind up dead even with the Democratic nominee in this kind of a political environment just before our convention, that would have been fantastic to me.”

With Democrats increasingly claiming that McCain is using “Karl Rove-type” tactics,” Rove said while the Arizona senator was right to criticize Obama in recent weeks, the GOP candidate has to do some positive things to be able to prevail in November.

“One is he needs to use the 12 weeks that are left to lay out a bold agenda for domestic reform, and he also needs to talk more about his character,” Rove said.

The strategist added that McCain also “needs to recognize that every election is about the future. And he needs to describe who he is.”

Rove noted that Obama had “wisely” sought to portray a McCain candidacy as a continuation of the policies of President Bush, noting that the GOP candidate has “responded badly to that.”

“Rather than saying, ‘You know what? Here’s who I am and here’s what I'm about,’ he’s responded by saying, ‘No, I’m not,’ which is the wrong answer,” Rove argued. “If the question is, ‘Who is not George Bush?’, Barack Obama is the answer. If the question is, ‘Who are you? And do you have a vision for the future?’, the answer can be Sen. McCain.”

Davis sought to distance McCain from President Bush’s record just as Obama’s campaign has begun running ads trying to tie the two together. A new Democratic ad features a video clip of McCain saying that he voted for legislation backed by Bush more than 90 percent of the time.

“Who was the biggest irritant to this administration for the last 10 years or last eight years? John McCain,” Davis said. “He sided with Democrats when he thought they were doing the right thing for the country, and sided with the Republicans when he thought they were doing the right thing for the country.”

ACTION! ALASKA DELEGATES UP FOR GRAB!

REPOSTED here from the ClintonDems Website:

During my research on caucus fraud I discovered the little known fact that Alaska will send five delegates to the convention UNPLEDGED. “In addition to officially allocating 13 national delegates, the state convention also decided five delegates that will attend the national convention as officially unpledged - although all but one has endorsed Obama. Here are the names of these officially unpledged Alaska Delegates. Maybe we could contact them.... More...

Here are their names:

John Davies, DNC
Patti Higgins. DNC Clinton
Blake Johnson, DNC
Cindy Spanyers, DNC
Tony Knowles

History Lessons For Eggheads

As Always - a GREAT post from Hillary is 44

Lots of substance going on (besides the Friday swamp of lies from the Edwards familiy and campaign which attacked Hillary’s character during the primaries).

Before we begin our brief history lesson we must note that the tires on the fake unity wagon are deflating. Speeches and speech nights are not enough. The rickety unity wagon is lying by the side of the road, not moving, stalled in Chicago mud. More...

Stories and videos on pro-Hillary websites posted days, if not weeks ago, are finally reported by Big Media as if they are fresh news. NObama, NOvember is getting Noticed.

We Hillary supporters are demanding a roll call vote. If Obama/Dean/Brazile/Pelosi waterboard Hillary into rejecting Hillary’s very own, clearly stated, desire to have a roll call vote that will still not prevent Hillary delegates from voting for her. An Iron Curtain Dictators type vote by acclamation to select Obama will be seen as the deceptive fake unity it is. Every Hillary vote will therefore be a profile in courage and a major embarrassment to Obama/Dean/Brazile/Pelosi and their rikety fake unity mirage.

In the next few days we will attempt to catalog (please send information to admin@HillaryIs44.org) pro-Hillary, NObama events taking place during the next several weeks. There are many events and efforts being organized now in battleground states and in Denver which need assistance if they are to come to fruition. At the same time we will continue our Herculean efforts to keep track of the major Obama gaffes and major Obama flip-flops and major Obama flim-flams.

Briefly, we will note the efforts by To Get Her 4 Us .org (they have a petition, please consider signing the petition) and the heroic Ricki Lieberman. Ricki Lieberman works with Together4us.org and also authors the invaluable Electability Watch newsletter. To receive Ricki’s newsletter email Ricki at rrlieberma@gmail.com.

Please help Ricki with her efforts contacting delegates. Recall when certain websites were laughing at Ricki and insisting that Hillary was repudiating Ricki and her efforts? The ridiculous headlines on these websites was Clinton Distances Herself From Anti-Obama Hillraiser. We defended Ricki then and laughed at her detractors. Today, Ricki has a good laugh at her detractors’ expense:

This evening at a “thank you, Hillraisers” event, Senator Clinton told me how honored she is by the people who are working to have her name put into nomination and appreciative of those signing the petition. So, like the proverbial laser, I am focusing on getting Hillary’s name in nomination and nominated in Denver. This means zooming in on the decision makers and the opinion makers with thoughtful, persuasive communications. Please help in any way you can!

On to our History Lessons For Eggheads.

* * *

In the summer of 2001, a few weeks before the 9/11 disaster, George W. Bush was on another of his all too frequent vacations. Ned Lamont went on vacation to Maine after winning the Connecticut Democratic primary for Senate from Joe Lieberman. Bush was vacationing instead of preparing against Bin Laden; Ned Lamont was vacationing instead of campaigning; Joe Lieberman won. Today Obama follows once again the George W. Bush/Lamont template and goes on vacation to Hawaii and tries to avoid the Edwards swamp.

Hillary and John McCain remain hard at work.

With polls showing him neck-and-neck with John McCain at a stage at which many Democrats expected he would be in the clear lead, they worry about the kind of stray image that helped to defeat John Kerry in 2004.

In a piece of footage endlessly recycled to mock his supposed elitism and even foreignness, Mr Kerry was caught on camera windsurfing off Massachusetts. Since Mr Obama is taking his holiday at a private beach house in Hawaii, surrounded by the secret service, campaign officials worry less about his exposure to the paparazzi. Besides, they say, most Americans will be tuned into the Olympics.

Hillary Clinton and John McCain are on the job. Obama is hiding behind security walls and Olympic coverage. Obama’s grandmother is still struggling under the bus. Obama supporter John Edwards displays his lack of judgement. Superdelegates are in denial.

* * *

Donna Brazile: A new Democratic coalition is younger. It is more urban, as well as suburban, and we don’t have to just rely on white blue-collar voters and Hispanics.

David Axelrod: The white working class has gone to the Republican nominee for many elections, going back even to the Clinton years. This is not new that Democratic candidates don’t rely solely on those votes.

The rantings above by Brazile and Axelrod are inspired by theories espoused by Jude Judis and Ruy Teixeira about the emerging Democratic majority. The basic premise is that African-Americans and young voters and liberals are the new Democratic majority. The old FDR coaltion is, for these strategists, too old and too out of fashion.

The Creative Class, as the nutroots flatteringly call themselves, love the snakeoil of an emerging Democratic majority that does not have to bother with the majority of the country - white and particularly white working class voters. The dream of the nutroots, er, excuse us, the Creative Class is that Democrats can’t win white working class voters and other groups so just chuck them out of the way and come up with some new formula to win. In other words stop competing and get a gimmick. Gypsy Rose Lee would be proud.

The Creative Class buys fully into these quack ‘avoid the voters’ schemes. Judis and Teixeira are smart good guys but their analysis is flawed and is employed by mindless Obama incense burners to justify their ‘destroy the winning FDR coalition’ nonsense. Teixeira and Judis published The Emerging Democratic Majority just as September 11, 2001 approached. Democrats have been waiting for the emerging majority for a long time. Like a losing baseball team sloganeers, “wait till next year“. Like end of the world evangelists the goal posts move when victory did not come in 2004.

There are many flaws in the Judis/Texeira analysis. There is also the PINO/DINO problem. What would a Democratic majority mean if Democrats are the ones who approve FISA and John Roberts and oil drilling and no gun control, and run away from pro-choice advocates?

Yesterday, the senior United States Senator from New York, Charles Schumer, was interviewed by Politico.

Schumer argues in a new preface to his book that Americans’ economic insecurity could make 2008 a re-aligning landslide.

“This election has the potential to effect the kind of paradigm-shifting change that occurs once in a generation,” he writes, comparing the vote to Franklin Roosevelt’s rise in 1932 and Ronald Reagan’s in 1980. “If it’s decided by issue and policy offerings, this election might just be the one that creates a political majority for a generation.”

Senator Schumer is someone we generally strongly agree with (sometimes strongly disagree with too). Chuck Schumer is generally one of the good guys. No elected official wanted Hillary Clinton elected President more than Chuck (O.K. some of the reasons were a bit self-interested, but we forgive him).

The senior senator from New York is right that the 2008 election could be a “paradigm-shifting” election. But that is true only if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic Party nominee.

The key clause in the Chuck Schumer analysis: “If it’s decided by issue and policy offerings“. With Hillary Clinton as the nominee the election will be decided by issue and policy offerings. Truly universal health care and passionate policy positions are Hillary’s forte. Hillary also does not run away from white working class voters.

With Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee Democrats could finally heal the breach caused by the 1964 Civil Rights Act and create a true coaltion of FDR’s white working class voters and Lyndon Johnson’s African-American voters as well as bring in a permanently aligned with Democrats Latino community - and women. {We wrote about healing the breach HERE.]

Obama though is selling his fictional biography as a reason for the nomination and election. Fictional biographies can blow up in your face - ask John Edwards (the confession is HERE). Ask Milli-Vanilli.

No doubt Obama with his broth of faked celebrity biographical offerings easily wins the battle for pasting his face on magazine covers. Idolatry is the Obama ideology. Internet temples of Obama worship, incense thickly perfuming the chant filled air, praise Obama, not his policy. The Kerry’s and the Sullivans and the rest of the all male priesthood worship Obama’s face.

But Democrats have taken the Obama path before. Think of the wonderful Adlai Stevenson - who lost big.

Although Stevenson’s eloquent oratory and thoughtful, stylish demeanor thrilled many intellectuals and members of the nation’s academic community, the Republicans and some working-class Democrats ridiculed what they perceived as his indecisive, aristocratic air. During the 1952 campaign Stewart Alsop, a powerful Connecticut Republican and the brother of newspaper columnist Joseph Alsop, labeled Stevenson an “egghead“, based on his baldness and intellectual air. Alsop used the word in a column describing Stevenson’s problems in wooing working-class voters and the nickname stuck. His running mate was Senator John Sparkman of Alabama. In the 1952 presidential election against Dwight D. Eisenhower, Stevenson lost heavily outside the Solid South; he won only nine states and lost the Electoral College vote 442 to 89.

Does that not sound familiar, Superdelegates?

How about this familiar sounding disaster, Superdelegates:

Stevenson again won the nomination at the 1956 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, aided by strong support from younger delegates, who were said to form the core of the “New Politics” movement.

We are in no way attacking Adlai Stevenson. We respect him but Adlai lost. He lost. That loss had consequences for poor Americans.

The Eggheads unfortunately are at it again. In 2008 they call themselves the Creative Class. There is nothing funny about the damage these self-infatuated Eggheads have wrought through the years. There are Eggheads in both parties. But in the Democratic Party the Eggheads are the harbringers of doom. When the Eggheads solidify for a candidate - watch out.

Adlai Stevenson to his credit recognized the Egghead, er, Creative Class of yesteryear was not enough to win. The Eggheads supporting Obama, their enablers, and the Superdelegates should remember Democrats need a majority to win.

Stevenson’s wit was legendary. During one of Stevenson’s presidential campaigns, allegedly, a supporter told him that he was sure to “get the vote of every thinking man” in the U.S., to which Stevenson is said to have replied, “Thank you, but I need a majority to win.”

Hillary Clinton's Image still Largely Intact

FROM JUNE 4, 2008 Gallup Poll More...


Gallup Poll

by Lydia Saad

PRINCETON, NJ -- Hillary Clinton is emerging from the bitterly contested Democratic primary campaign with her public image among Democrats largely intact. More than three-quarters of Democrats (74%) still view her favorably, identical to national Democratic views of Barack Obama.

For most of 2007, 80% or more of national Democrats said they had a favorable view of Clinton. Positive views of her dipped below 80% in January and February of this year, rebounded to 85% in March, but have since been in the mid- to high 70s. Over the same period, Obama's favorability rose by 12 points, from 62% last February to 74% today. This was as Obama became better known nationally, and more people were able to rate him.

While Clinton's favorable rating among Democrats is slightly lower today than it once was, it has remained nearly flat among political independents. Also, after about a year of receiving minimal favorable ratings from Republicans (ranging from 12% to 19%), she is now viewed favorably by a slightly more robust 24% of Republicans, similar to the 21% to 28% seen in February and March 2007.

Now ready for prime time: Michelle Obama

NOTE: PRESIDENT CLINTON IS SPEAKING WEDNESDAY NIGHT, NORMALLY RESERVED FOR THE VP, CAUSING *SOME* TO SPECULATE HE WILL ANNOUNCE HILLARY...

That's the word from the organizers of the Democratic National Convention in Denver later this month. They've just sent a news release announcing that she'll be the "headline prime-time speaker" on Monday, Aug. 25 -- the opening night of the Democrats' quadrennial funfest that will formally nominate her husband as the party's candidate for president of the United States. More...

Tuesday's headliner is Sen. Hillary Clinton, whom the release described as "a champion for working families and one of the most effective and empathetic voices in the country today." (Not surprisingly, there's no mention of the bitter primary contest between Clinton and Obama, or of the nearly 18 million votes she racked up between Jan. 3 and June 3.)

The vice presidential pick gets his/her turn in the convention spotlight Wednesday night. And Thursday, of course, is the Illinois senator's acceptance speech in front of more than 70,000 cheering fans at Invesco Field at Mile High, the home of the Denver Broncos. (The others have to make do with speaking before an in-person audience of 4,400 delegates and 15,000 members of the media at the Pepsi Center, where the NBA's Denver Nuggets play.)

While nominees' wives have addressed the convention in previous years (Hillary Clinton in 1996, Tipper Gore in 2000 and Teresa Heinz Kerry in 2004), this appears to be the first time that such a speech will be featured so prominently.

As this week progresses, convention organizers will be rolling out the names of other orators, perhaps making it easier to read the currently murky tea leaves on the #2 slot on the ticket. Stay tuned.

-- Leslie Hoffecker

Photo credit: Cheryl Senter/Associated Press

NO SPEND DAY!

Join us on Saturday August 16th, 2008, for a day of NO SPENDING to evidence that we are serious in our demand of fair practices for women candidates. We won’t spend a DIME for 24 hours. NO SPENDING (cash or credit) on: internet purchases, gas for the car, cups of coffee, TV shopping, movies, dining, grocery or clothes. Plan a day of R&R, read a book or clean your closet BUT hold onto your money AND no commercial TV or Radio which has supported biased media.

A day of no spending as a coalition will demonstrate that we are a LARGE number of voters who can impact the economy as well as the election.

The British Description of Sexism in America

This is an older article. I thought it worthy of posting now as a view sexism in America from the British Perspective.

Hating Hillary
from the Newstatesman
By Andrew Stephen
Published 22 May 2008

Gloating, unshackled sexism of the ugliest kind has been shamelessly peddled by the US media, which - sooner rather than later, I fear - will have to account for their sins.
More...

History, I suspect, will look back on the past six months as an example of America going through one of its collectively deranged episodes - rather like Prohibition from 1920-33, or McCarthyism some 30 years later. This time it is gloating, unshackled sexism of the ugliest kind. It has been shamelessly peddled by the US media, which - sooner rather than later, I fear - will have to account for their sins. The chief victim has been Senator Hillary Clinton, but the ramifications could be hugely harmful for America and the world.

I am no particular fan of Clinton. Nor, I think, would friends and colleagues accuse me of being racist. But it is quite inconceivable that any leading male presidential candidate would be treated with such hatred and scorn as Clinton has been. What other senator and serious White House contender would be likened by National Public Radio's political editor, Ken Rudin, to the demoniac, knife-wielding stalker played by Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction? Or described as "a fucking whore" by Randi Rhodes, one of the foremost personalities of the supposedly liberal Air America? Could anybody have envisaged that a website set up specifically to oppose any other candidate would be called Citizens United Not Timid? (We do not need an acronym for that.)

I will come to the reasons why I fear such unabashed misogyny in the US media could lead, ironically, to dreadful racial unrest. "All men are created equal," Thomas Jefferson famously proclaimed in 1776. That equality, though, was not extended to women, who did not even get the vote until 1920, two years after (some) British women. The US still has less gender equality in politics than Britain, too. Just 16 of America's 100 US senators are women and the ratio in the House (71 out of 435) is much the same. It is nonetheless pointless to argue whether sexism or racism is the greater evil: America has a peculiarly wicked record of racist subjugation, which has resulted in its racism being driven deep underground. It festers there, ready to explode again in some unpredictable way.

To compensate meantime, I suspect, sexism has been allowed to take its place as a form of discrimination that is now openly acceptable. "How do we beat the bitch?" a woman asked Senator John McCain, this year's Republican presidential nominee, at a Republican rally last November. To his shame, McCain did not rebuke the questioner but joined in the laughter. Had his supporter asked "How do we beat the nigger?" and McCain reacted in the same way, however, his presidential hopes would deservedly have gone up in smoke. "Iron my shirt," is considered amusing heckling of Clinton. "Shine my shoes," rightly, would be hideously unacceptable if yelled at Obama.

Evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, American men like to delude themselves that they are the most macho in the world. It is simply unthinkable, therefore, for most of them to face the prospect of having a woman as their leader. The massed ranks of male pundits gleefully pronounced that Clinton had lost the battle with Obama immediately after the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, despite past precedents that strong second-place candidates (like Ronald Reagan in his first, ultimately unsuccessful campaign in 1976; like Ted Kennedy, Gary Hart, Jesse Jackson and Jerry Brown) continue their campaigns until the end of the primary season and, in most cases, all the way to the party convention.

None of these male candidates had a premature political obituary written in the way that Hillary Clinton's has been, or was subjected to such righteous outrage over refusing to quiesce and withdraw obediently from what, in this case, has always been a knife-edge race. Nor was any of them anything like as close to his rivals as Clinton now is to Obama.

The media, of course, are just reflecting America's would-be macho culture. I cannot think of any television network or major newspaper that is not guilty of blatant sexism - the British media, naturally, reflexively follow their American counterparts - but probably the worst offender is the NBC/MSNBC network, which has what one prominent Clinton activist describes as "its nightly horror shows". Tim Russert, the network's chief political sage, was dancing on Clinton's political grave before the votes in North Carolina and Indiana had even been fully counted - let alone those of the six contests to come, the undeclared super-delegates, or the disputed states of Florida and Michigan.

The unashamed sexism of this giant network alone is stupendous. Its superstar commentator Chris Matthews referred to Clinton as a "she-devil". His colleague Tucker Carlson casually observed that Clinton "feels castrating, overbearing and scary . . . When she comes on television, I involuntarily cross my legs." This and similar abuse, I need hardly point out, says far more about the men involved than their target.

Knives out

But never before have the US media taken it upon themselves to proclaim the victor before the primary contests are over or the choice of all the super-delegates is known, and the result was that the media's tidal wave of sexism became self-fulfilling: Americans like to back winners, and polls immediately showed dramatic surges of support for Obama. A few brave souls had foreseen the merciless media campaign: "The press will savage her no matter what," predicted the Washington Post's national political correspondent, Dana Milbank, last December. "They really have their knives out for her, there's no question about it."

Polling organisations such as Gallup told us months ago that Americans will more readily accept a black male president than a female one, and a more recent CNN/Essence magazine/ Opinion Research poll found last month that 76 per cent think America is ready for a black man as president, but only 63 per cent believe the same of a woman.

"The image of charismatic leadership at the top has been and continues to be a man," says Ruth Mandel of Rutgers University. "We don't have an image, we don't have a historical memory of a woman who has achieved that feat."

Studies here have repeatedly shown that women are seen as ambitious and capable, or likeable - but rarely both. "Gender stereotypes trump race stereotypes in every social science test," says Alice Eagley, a psychology professor at Northwestern University. A distinguished academic undertaking a major study of coverage of the 2008 election, Professor Marion Just of Wellesley College - one of the "seven sisters" colleges founded because women were barred from the Ivy Leagues and which, coincidentally, Hillary Clinton herself attended - tells me that what is most striking to her is that the most repeated description of Senator Clinton is "cool and calculating".

This, she says, would never be said of a male candidate - because any politician making a serious bid for the White House has, by definition, to be cool and calculating. Hillary Clinton, a successful senator for New York who was re-elected for a second term by a wide margin in 2006 - and who has been a political activist since she campaigned against the Vietnam War and served as a lawyer on the congressional staff seeking to impeach President Nixon - has been treated throughout the 2008 campaign as a mere appendage of her husband, never as a heavyweight politician whose career trajectory (as an accomplished lawyer and professional advocate for equality among children, for example) is markedly more impressive than those of the typical middle-aged male senator.

Rarely is she depicted as an intellectually formidable politician in her own right (is that what terrifies oafs like Matthews and Carlson?). Rather, she is the junior member of "Billary", the derisive nickname coined by the media for herself and her husband. Obama's opponent is thus not one of the two US senators for New York, but some amorphous creature called "the Clintons", an aphorism that stands for amorality and sleaze. Open season has been declared on Bill Clinton, who is now reviled by the media every bit as much as Nixon ever was.

Here we come to the crunch. Hillary Clinton (along with her husband) is being universally depicted as a loathsome racist and negative campaigner, not so much because of anything she has said or done, but because the overwhelmingly pro-Obama media - consciously or unconsciously - are following the agenda of Senator Barack Obama and his chief strategist, David Axelrod, to tear to pieces the first serious female US presidential candidate in history.

"What's particularly saddening," says Paul Krugman, professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton and a rare dissenting voice from the left as a columnist in the New York Times, "is the way many Obama supporters seem happy with the . . . way pundits and some news organisations treat any action or statement by the Clintons, no matter how innocuous, as proof of evil intent." Despite widespread reporting to the contrary, Krugman believes that most of the "venom" in the campaign "is coming from supporters of Obama".

But Obama himself prepared the ground by making the first gratuitous personal attack of the campaign during the televised Congressional Black Caucus Institute debate in South Carolina on 21 January, although virtually every follower of the media coverage now assumes that it was Clinton who started the negative attacks. Following routine political sniping from her about supposedly admiring comments Obama had made about Ronald Reagan, Obama suddenly turned on Clinton and stared intimidatingly at her. "While I was working in the streets," he scolded her, ". . . you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board of Wal-Mart." Then, cleverly linking her inextricably in the public consciousness with her husband, he added: "I can't tell who I'm running against sometimes."

One of his female staff then distributed a confidential memo to carefully selected journalists which alleged that a vaguely clumsy comment Hillary Clinton had made about Martin Luther King ("Dr King's dream began to be realised when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964") and a reference her husband had made in passing to Nelson Mandela ("I've been blessed in my life to know some of the greatest figures of the last hundred years . . . but if I had to pick one person whom I know would never blink, who would never turn back, who would make great decisions . . . I would pick Hillary") were deliberate racial taunts.

Another female staffer, Candice Tolliver - whose job it is to promote Obama to African Americans - then weighed in publicly, claiming that "a cross-section of voters are alarmed at the tenor of some of these statements" and saying: "Folks are beginning to wonder: Is this an isolated situation, or is there something bigger behind all of this?" That was game, set and match: the Clintons were racists, an impression sealed when Bill Clinton later compared Obama's victory in South Carolina to those of Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988 (even though Jackson himself, an Obama supporter, subsequently declared Clinton's remarks to be entirely inoffensive).

The pincer movement, in fact, could have come straight from a textbook on how to wreck a woman's presi dential election campaign: smear her whole persona first, and then link her with her angry, red-faced husband. The public Obama, characteristically, pronounced himself "unhappy" with the vilification carried out so methodically by his staff, but it worked like magic: Hillary Clinton's approval ratings among African Americans plummeted from above 80 per cent to barely 7 per cent in a matter of days, and have hovered there since.

I suspect that, as a result, she will never be able entirely to shake off the "racist" tag. "African-American super-delegates [who are supporting Clinton] are being targeted, harassed and threatened," says one of them, Representative Emanuel Cleaver. "This is the politics of the 1950s." Obama and Axelrod have achieved their objectives: to belittle Hillary Clinton and to manoeuvre the ever-pliant media into depicting every political criticism she makes against Obama as racist in intent.

The danger is that, in their headlong rush to stop the first major female candidate (aka "Hildebeast" and "Hitlery") from becoming president, the punditocracy may have landed the Democrats with perhaps the least qualified presidential nominee ever. But that creeping realisation has probably come too late, and many of the Democratic super-delegates now fear there would be widespread outrage and increased racial tension if they thwart the first biracial presidential hopeful in US history.

But will Obama live up to the hype? That, I fear, may not happen: he is a deeply flawed candidate. Rampant sexism may have triumphed only to make way for racism to rear its gruesome head in America yet again. By election day on 4 November, I suspect, the US media and their would-be-macho commentators may have a lot of soul-searching to do.

In this comment piece on sexist language in the US media in relation to Hillary Clinton Andrew Stephen suggested that Carl Bernstein had publicly declared his disgust for Hillary Clinton's thick ankles. We are informed that Carl Bernstein intended, in his biography of Hillary Clinton, to refer to comments made by others about her when she was at high school. We are happy to accept that Carl Bernstein was not motivated by sexism, and we are sorry for any embarrassment caused.

Obama receives illegal funds from 'terrorist hotbed'

According to Federal Election Commission filings, Barack Obama has received illegal donations from Palestinians living in Gaza, a hotbed of Hamas terrorists.

Obama received more than $24,000 in campaign contributions over a period of two months last fall from three Palestinian brothers from the "Edwan" family in Rafah, Gaza, which is a Hamas stronghold along the border with Egypt. The story was uncovered by Pamela Geller of the Atlas Shrugs blog. (see Federal Election Commission report) More...

Attorney and conservative commentator Debbie Schlussel notes foreign nationals are barred from making contributions in connection with any election -- federal, state, or local -- and an individual is allowed to give only $2,300 per election to a federal candidate or the candidate's campaign committee.

"The donations are basically through and through illegal -- that's number one. And number two is how the Obama campaign tried to conceal it," Schlussel Terrorist with hostagechides. "They listed the campaign contributions as coming from Rafah, Georgia. They used the 'GA' from Gaza so it makes it look like it's legal; and then for the zip code it says '972,' which is actually the area code to dial over to Gaza," she contends.

The attorney comments that if the Obama campaign is willing to "accept thousands of dollars beyond the legal limit and they're also going to flout [Federal Election Commission] restrictions...that's very indicative of what kind of president [Obama] is going to be."

"They're not going to be worried about the details and they won't mind if they break the law to get to the final result that they want," adds Schlussel. She believes it is a "major news story when a presidential candidate receives money from 'a bastion of Islamic terrorism.' And Schlussel argues that the media is "bending over backwards to help Barack Obama and cover up any negative news about him."

Schlussel says Pamela Geller will likely file a Federal Election Commission complaint against the Obama campaign for violating restrictions and limits on campaign contributions.

You may view Matt Friedeman's video commentary on this story by clicking here.

Clinton supporters at Democratic meeting fail in bid to end caucus system

So much for the candidate that wants to "hear from the people" and "represent the voters". The party's platform committee, now controlled by Obama and his supporters, set aside the caucus amendment, saying the rules committee will deal with it. The new draft party platform is a mixed bag.

By Peter Nicholas, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 10, 2008
PITTSBURGH -- Hillary Rodham Clinton loyalists tried Saturday to kill off the caucus system that proved so damaging to her presidential bid, but were beaten back by a Democratic Party leadership firmly under the command of her former rival, Barack Obama. More...



Democrats who supported the New York senator's candidacy pushed to amend the new party platform so that caucuses would be banned in future presidential contests.

But the party's platform committee refused to allow a vote on the amendment or even a discussion. Co-chair Patricia Madrid, a former New Mexico attorney general, said the matter would instead be taken up at a later date by the party's rules committee.

That left Clinton supporters disappointed. They say that if the party were serious about enfranchising more voters, it would take a clear position against a system that makes participation difficult for shift workers, the disabled and overseas members of the military. In traditional primaries, people have all day to vote. But a caucus may last just a few hours.

During the Democratic race, Obama outmaneuvered Clinton in Iowa and many other states that held caucuses, turning out far more supporters and racking up enough delegates to give him an insurmountable lead.

"My feeling is the issue should have been aired and people should have had the opportunity to speak and vote it up or down," Bob Remer, a delegate for Clinton from Chicago, said in an interview Saturday. Remer, who is a member of the platform committee, had put forward the amendment that was shelved. "The caucus system is the exact opposite of everything I've been fighting for in terms of maximizing democratic input."

The 186-member committee voted to recommend adoption of a new Democratic platform, the party's formal statement of policies and principles. Final approval will come at the party's national convention Aug. 25-28 in Denver.

Clinton supporters were hoping to influence the draft in ways that reflect her interests. For its own sake, the Obama campaign would like to accommodate Clinton forces where it can; with Republican John McCain keeping the general election contest close, according to recent polls, Obama needs to unify voters behind him.

So the platform is a mixed bag. In a section devoted to expanding opportunities for women, the document says that Democrats are proud "that we have put 18 million cracks in the highest glass ceiling," a respectful reference to Clinton's vote total in the primary and a phrase she used in her concession speech.

But Obama, now in control of the Democratic Party machinery, clearly enjoys the greatest influence over the document. The platform reflects many of his policy goals and borrows language from his stump speech. "Our planet is in peril," reads the preamble.

One of the defining policy differences the Illinois senator had with Clinton involved healthcare. She wanted a requirement that people carry health insurance; he did not.

The platform has no mention of a health insurance mandate. But it does include language that acknowledges "there are different approaches within the Democratic Party about how best to achieve the commitment of universal coverage."

Platform committee leaders insisted that Clinton was given a role in shaping the document. At some point, party officials said, the future of the caucus system will be decided, but inserting a paragraph in the platform is not the best way to settle the matter.

Madrid, the committee co-chair who set aside the caucus amendment, said the platform "wasn't effectively controlled by Obama, although his people certainly had a hand in it. He's the candidate and he will have to run on this platform. That's not unreasonable. The issue of the caucuses won't be resolved here at the platform. It will be resolved on the DNC level, and they will have their full day in court, I guarantee you."

Tensions between Obama and Clinton forces were evident at the Convention Center here, where the meeting took place. Clinton's supporters sat together in the audience, wearing campaign buttons and T-shirts bearing her name. One person hissed when Obama's name was mentioned.

Among the activists serving on the committee, there were also signs of a split.

Lynn Forester de Rothschild, the head of a private holding company and a member of the committee, took the microphone after the caucus amendment was defeated to register a protest.

After the meeting, she said she still hadn't made up her mind about whether to vote for Obama because she didn't "understand how a person comes to the U.S. Senate and -- before they've done one thing there -- decides they can be president."

"I have serious questions about Barack Obama and what the Democratic Party is doing," she said. "I have serious issues with Barack Obama."

peter.nicholas@latimes.com