Misleading Mailers Sent Out By Clinton Campaign

Former President of Chicago NOW, Lorna Brett Howard, responds to Hillary Clinton's misleading attacks on Senator Obama's record on choice.

Howard was a Hillary Clinton supporter until just after the New Hampshire primaries, when she saw the mailer that Hillary's campaign sent to women in New Hampshire. The mailer was filled with lies about Obama's pro-choice record.




Click here to see the actual mailer.

You can click on the image to enlarge it. Note the "Paid for by Hillary Clinton for President."

Si Se Puede Cambiar

A very touching song in Spanish by Andres Useche. It really touches on the themes of idealism and hope.

"Shame on You Barack Obama!"

Hillary goes nuclear!

Monty Python and Barack Obama

Viva Obama!

Obama song, Mariachi style!

Love the sombreros.

From the Wayback Machine: Hillary Said She Wouldn't Attack Democrats

She said she wouldn't attack other Democrats. But this was way back in December, before she started losing, so I guess all bets are off now.

Did McCain Have an Affair with a Lobbyist?

Funny Political Cartoon

Hillary's Sinking Ship

Obama Receives 0 Votes in Some Black Districts in NYC

Could this be poll fraud? It's in Charlie Rangel's district. He has endorsed Hillary Clinton.

Black voters are heavily represented in the 94th Election District in Harlem’s 70th Assembly District. Yet according to the unofficial results from the New York Democratic primary last week, not a single vote in the district was cast for Senator Barack Obama.

That anomaly was not unique. In fact, a review by The New York Times of the unofficial results reported on primary night found about 80 election districts among the city’s 6,106 where Mr. Obama supposedly did not receive even one vote, including cases where he ran a respectable race in a nearby district.

City election officials this week said that their formal review of the results, which will not be completed for weeks, had confirmed some major discrepancies between the vote totals reported publicly — and unofficially — on primary night and the actual tally on hundreds of voting machines across the city.

In the Harlem district, for instance, where the primary night returns suggested a 141 to 0 sweep by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the vote now stands at 261 to 136. In an even more heavily black district in Brooklyn — where the vote on primary night was recorded as 118 to 0 for Mrs. Clinton — she now barely leads, 118 to 116.

The history of New York elections has been punctuated by episodes of confusion, incompetence and even occasional corruption. And election officials and lawyers for both Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton agree that it is not uncommon for mistakes to be made by weary inspectors rushing on election night to transcribe columns of numbers that are delivered first to the police and then to the news media.

That said, in a presidential campaign in which every vote at the Democratic National Convention may count, a swing of even a couple of hundred votes in New York might help Mr. Obama gain a few additional delegates.

Read more here.

Frank Rich: The Grand Old White Party Confronts Obama

Truly, could McCain's "Victory Tableau" have looked any more dated?

From Frank Rich in the New York Times:

The curse continues. Regardless of party, it’s hara-kiri for a politician to step into the shadow of even a mediocre speech by Barack Obama.

Senator Obama’s televised victory oration celebrating his Chesapeake primary trifecta on Tuesday night was a mechanical rehash. No matter. When the networks cut from the 17,000-plus Obama fans cheering at a Wisconsin arena to John McCain’s victory tableau before a few hundred spectators in the Old Town district of Alexandria, Va., it was a rerun of what happened to Hillary Clinton the night she lost Iowa. Senator McCain, backed by a collection of sallow-faced old Beltway pols, played the past to Mr. Obama’s here and now. Mr. McCain looked like a loser even though he, unlike Senator Clinton, had actually won.

But he has it even worse than Mrs. Clinton. What distinguished his posse from Mr. Obama’s throng was not just its age but its demographic monotony: all white and nearly all male. Such has been the inescapable Republican brand throughout this campaign, ever since David Letterman memorably pegged its lineup of presidential contenders last spring as “guys waiting to tee off at a restricted country club.”

For Mr. McCain, this albatross may be harder to shake than George W. Bush and Iraq, particularly in a faceoff with Mr. Obama. When Mr. McCain jokingly invoked the Obama slogan “I am fired up and ready to go” in his speech Tuesday night, it was as cringe-inducing as the white covers of R & B songs in the 1950s — or Mitt Romney’s stab at communing with his inner hip-hop on Martin Luther King’s birthday. Trapped in an archaic black-and-white newsreel, the G.O.P. looks more like a nostalgic relic than a national political party in contemporary America. A cultural sea change has passed it by.

Read more here

REAL Reasons to Vote for Barack Obama

Obama is the only candidate to have released his tax forms. (neither McCain or Clinton have)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/opinion/15fri1.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin


Obama has released his earmarks. (Clinton has not)
http://obama.senate.gov/press/070621-obama_announces_3/

Hillary Clinton reigns as the Queen of Federal Pork
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aXWIZU3DOyr4&refer=home

Obama was rated #1 in environmental policy by the League of Conservation Voters
http://presidentialprofiles2008.org/

Obama was right about Pakistan, back when Hillary was calling him "naive"
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/06/navarrette/?iref=mpstoryview

Washington Post gave Obama's economic plan an A- and gave Hillary's a C.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/22/AR2008012202614.html?hpid=opinionsbox1


Wall Street Journal preferred Obama's healthcare plan over Hillary Clinton's
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120234937353949449.html

Judge Obama by his legislative achievments, which are quite impressive, according to the Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/03/AR2008010303303.html

Barack's Record on Women's Issues
http://www.womenforbarackobama.com/Obama_s_Record.html

Former President of Chicago NOW, Lorna Brett Howard switched her support from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama after the Clinton campaign lied about Obama's record on pro-choice issues.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVuMYKs8iJs

Why Obama Supporters Piss Me Off!

Just a funny Youtube video:

Say "No" to Superdelegates Deciding the Election

We firmly believe that the candidate who has won the most pledged delegates -- the result of having more voters in more places supporting your campaign -- will be the Democratic nominee.

But to be safe, we are working to attract the support of "superdelegates" -- party officials and Democratic officeholders from across the country -- who also have a vote at the Democratic National Convention.

You may already know some superdelegates -- they include senators, governors, and even former presidents and vice presidents. But many others are ordinary people who hold positions in the state and local party operations.

These nearly 800 superdelegates will vote alongside the more than 3,000 pledged delegates who are chosen in the various state primaries and caucuses. The candidate that gets a majority of all delegates (superdelegates and pledged delegates combined) will be the Democratic nominee for president.

Right now, Barack is ahead in the contest for pledged delegates. We've won 23 contests out of the 35 that have been held so far -- including the last 8 in a row. And with our decisive victories in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, DC on Tuesday, we now lead by more than 135 pledged delegates in the race for the Democratic nomination.

While we intend to continue winning states and expanding our lead among the pledged delegates, and believe that will likely ensure that Barack is the Democratic nominee, we're also doing the work of reaching out to superdelegates and making sure as many as possible support Barack Obama.

Here's where you can play a key role.

Our work so far has taught us one important lesson: that your personal story about why you support Barack Obama is often the most powerful persuasion tool for someone who's undecided. That's true whether that undecided voter is your neighbor or a superdelegate.

The story of where you're from, what brought you into the political process, the issues that matter to you, and why you became part of this movement has the potential to inspire someone who could cast a deciding vote in this contest.

Our staff will compile stories from supporters like you and make them a key part of the conversation with superdelegates as Barack asks for their support.

Share your story to help persuade superdelegates now:

http://my.barackobama.com/superdelegates

I've received a lot of email from folks asking how best to help with the superdelegate effort, and this is it.

Your note, combined with those of other Obama supporters, will tell the story of an extraordinary movement of ordinary people -- a story with a common thread of hope that becomes all the more powerful when it brings together the diverse backgrounds and experiences of our supporters.

Together we're building something historic, and your story can help make someone else a part of it.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you,

David

David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

Obama Only Candidate to Have Released Tax Forms

From the New York Times:

As the presidential campaign narrows and its costs skyrocket, detailed disclosure of financial resources becomes ever more important. Of the leading contenders, so far, only Senator Barack Obama has released his full income-tax returns — a level of disclosure once routine for candidates after the political corruption of Watergate.

Release of the tax returns should not be made conditional on winning the nomination, as Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has made it. Both Senator John McCain, the Republican front-runner, and she owe it to their parties and to voters to promptly make available their Internal Revenue Service filings, and to respond to any questions about them. It is true that as senators, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. McCain are required to file financial disclosure forms. But those forms present only general parameters of family financial resources, not the detail available on tax returns.

The need for greater transparency regarding the income and overall financial dealings of candidates and their spouses was underscored by Mrs. Clinton’s recent decision to make a $5 million loan to her campaign. Such borrowing is a permitted practice under the campaign laws. But the campaign said the money came from her share of the Clintons’ joint resources, and that calls attention to the lack of information about their family finances. As a former president, Bill Clinton has been making millions annually giving speeches and traveling the globe. What is publicly known about his business dealings is sketchy, and clearer disclosure of them is required to reassure voters that Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy is unencumbered by hidden entanglements.

In the same spirit, the Clintons are obliged to make prompt disclosure of the major donors who have been backing the former president’s library and foundation. It is not even clear whether Mr. Clinton would disclose his library’s donors if his wife won the White House.

Likewise, Senator McCain has yet to release his tax returns, a strange omission for a candidate with a record of supporting strong government ethics measures. A spokesman for Mr. McCain raises the prospect that he may hold back his tax returns through the fall campaign, saying that he would not decide whether to release them until he officially is the Republican nominee. That would neatly thwart the party-vetting process, even if he does finally make the returns public. In the meantime, questions are arising about the senator’s fund-raising as it relates to his position as the former chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee and its regulatory powers over business.

Read more here.

Hillary Versus the Upstart

This is hilarious, if you've seen the movie Election. This is a spoof on an actual monologue from the movie.

McCain Aide Will Quit If Obama is the Nominee

I guess he knows when he's got a losing battle on his hands. From ABC News:

On Wednesday, a top adviser to John McCain said more definitively than he has in the past that he will step down from the Arizona senator's presidential campaign if the presumed GOP nominee faces Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in the general election.

"I would simply be uncomfortable being in a campaign that would be inevitably attacking Barack Obama," said McCain adviser Mark McKinnon in an interview with NPR's "All Things Considered." "I think it would be uncomfortable for me, and I think it would be bad for the McCain campaign."

Read more here.

Gingrich Warns of GOP Catastrophe

Now that's what I'm talking about...

Gingrich Warns of GOP Catastrophe:

"There were 14.6 million Democrats who thought the presidential nomination was worth voting for, and there were 8.3 million Republicans on Super Tuesday," Gingrich said. "That is a warning of a catastrophic election. I was in Idaho this last week, and Barack Obama on last Saturday had 16,000 people in Boise. The idea [of] the most liberal Democratic Senator getting 16,000 people in Boise was inconceivable.

Read more here.

What's Wrong in Hillaryland

Houston, we have a problem...

Japanese Town of Obama has a New Hero

Fluff piece from ABC News, but very cute...

Covering Japan probably was not part of the campaign strategy for either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. But the heat is on among some supporters in Japan who feel a somewhat unusual connection with each candidate.

The residents of Obama City in Fukui Prefecture in central Japan cannot contain their excitement about the prospect of having someone named "Obama" being the U.S. president. And the employees of a farming and construction machinery maker in southern Japan are cheering for the candidate whose first name is the same as one of the transportation machines they build and sell: the "Hillary."

Read more here.

Hillary Can't Explain Obama's Wins

From The Nation:

The Clinton campaign has been busy inventing new reasons for why Barack Obama keeps winning state after state. "One of the hilarious side-effects of every Obama victory is the spin from Clinton quarters and its surrogates and supporters explaining why said victories 'don't matter,'" Markos Moulitsas blogged this week.

Either the state has a caucus, or too many black people, or too many affluent people, or too many independent voters, or too many red staters. If only the Clintons had the perfect electoral map.

If only.

If only the Clintons had a coherent explanation for why Obama has so thoroughly out-organized and out-hussled them across the country in February. After all, there was no reason why Hillary Clinton, after spending eight years in the White House and amassing a hefty war chest of money and incumbency in the Senate, couldn't of won caucus states, or red states, or states with large African-American communities. The front-runner is supposed to win these places. If Obama had lost eight states in a row, his candidacy would most certainly of been toast.

Read more here.

Thoughts on Tonight's Win

I say this with all seriousness, I think that for the good of the Democratic party, Hillary should step aside.

At this point Barack needs to be strategizing on how to win against McCain, not campaigning against Hillary. She's out of money, her campaign staff is quitting, she is losing her base and is depending on two states with primaries in March (Ohio and Texas) to try to revive her campaign.

Quite simply, Barack is the best candidate to go against John McCain. Hillary has been planning her campaign for the past ten years, and if a black junior senator named Barack Hussein Obama could do this much damage to her, then she was not the best candidate to go against white war hero John McCain.

Barack on the Issues

In response to the "where's the beef" criticism I hear from the media and Hillary supporters. Go to this site to read Barack's 60-page "Blueprint for Change," which details exactly where he stands on the issues.

Folks love the fact that Hillary's got a 10-point plan for everything. But the reality is that your plan (including your healthcare plan!) won't amount to s#$* if you can't get it through Congress and haven't demonstrated an ability to work across party lines.

Leadership, judgment, and vision are what are going to change this country. Not premature plans that have little to no chance of getting through Congress.

Barack Obama's Mother

This is a beautiful profile of Barack's mother. She sounds like an amazing woman whose intellect and zeal for social justice influenced her son in so many ways.

Barack Obama's mother was most at home a world away from her Midwest roots, trekking the old Silk Road or arranging small loans for weavers in Indonesia.

``I'm so tired of seeing her described as just a white woman from Kansas,'' says Bronwen Solyom, 63, who first met Ann Dunham in the 1970s when they were graduate students in anthropology at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. ``She was much more than that.''

Her son, who may become the first black U.S. president, displays a penchant for defying convention and forging his own path that those who knew Dunham well trace back to her arrival with her family in Hawaii after high school. Although the son has channeled the rebelliousness of his early years, he remains impatient with customs, such as the political dictate that he should wait his turn for national office.

``She certainly gave us her open-mindedness and our desire to challenge ourselves with new vistas and perceptions,'' says Maya Soetoro-Ng, Obama's half-sister from Dunham's second marriage to an Indonesian businessman.

The influence of Stanley Ann Dunham -- named after a father eager to pass on his name -- ``is very, very deep,'' says U.S. Representative Neil Abercrombie, a Hawaii Democrat who attended university with Dunham and Obama's father, a Kenyan graduate student who was the son of a goatherd. Obama's ``eclectic views of the world are a direct reflection of his mother.''

`Strong Concern'

Terance Bigalke, who worked with Dunham at the Ford Foundation in Jakarta, says she also fostered social activism in her children through her work on behalf of the world's poor.

``She had such a strong concern for people who were in difficult circumstances economically,'' says Bigalke, 59. That concern led her to study the underground economy of Jakarta street vendors.

Obama himself, in a 2004 preface to a new edition of his best-selling memoir, ``Dreams From My Father,'' described his bond with his mother, who died of cancer in 1995 at age 52. ``What is best in me I owe to her,'' wrote Obama, now a 46-year- old Democratic senator from Illinois.

Read more here.

Michelle Obama on Larry King Live

I've had the honor of meeting Michelle more than once, and what a dynamic woman she is! Harvard educated, working mother, beautiful children, strong marriage. In this interview she really shows why her husband calls her "The Closer" in terms of sealing the deal to get people to vote for him. I also like that she defends her husband by saying passionately, "I love him." We know that Michelle has what it takes to keep her husband's feet on the ground while his rhetoric soars skyward.

It's such a pleasure to see a First Couple who are committed to each other and are working together to try to make this country live up to its potential.

WSJ on HillaryCare

The Oblogger has acquaintances who are Manhattan Yuppie types, who had temporarily fallen on hard times, where both of the spouses were unemployed. They had young children and had to use the healthcare plan for their children that Hillary is always bragging about bringing to New York State. They said it was a nightmare of 4 to 5 hour waits in clinics, sub-par doctors, basically 2nd tier healthcare.

Barack wants to bring quality healthcare to all Americans and make it affordable. He wants to give Americans the opportunity to buy the same quality of care that he and other members of Congress currently enjoy.

The Wall Street Journal came out with this comprehensive analysis about why Barack's healthcare plan is better than Hillary's:

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama agree on most policy issues, but that makes their rare differences all the more revealing. To wit, their running scrap over Mrs. Clinton's "individual mandate" for health care, which Mr. Obama has now had the nerve to expose for its inevitable government coercion.

Mrs. Clinton's proposal requires everyone to buy health insurance, along with more insurance regulation, a government insurance option for everyone and tax hikes. Mr. Obama likes all that but his mandate would only apply to children. He argues that the reason many people aren't insured is because it's too expensive, not because they don't want it. Mrs. Clinton counters that coverage can't be "universal" without a mandate.

But then Mr. Obama had the impudence to defend his views. His campaign distributed a mailer in key primary states that claimed the Clinton plan "forces everyone to buy insurance, even if you can't afford it." It also featured an image of an anxious couple at a kitchen table. The Clinton apparat went apoplectic, claiming the flyer evokes the famous "Harry and Louise" commercials. A common article of liberal faith is that this "smear campaign" doomed HillaryCare in 1994 -- as opposed to, say, its huge cost and complexities. But never mind.

Yet if Mrs. Clinton's plan is better because it has a mandate, how does it work in the real world, where some people still won't be able to afford insurance, or would decline to acquire it? At a recent debate, the Illinois Senator drove the point home, asking Mrs. Clinton, "You can mandate it but there will still be people who can't afford it. And if they can't afford it, what are you going to fine them? Are you going to garnish their wages?" And in an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, Mrs. Clinton conceded that "we will have an enforcement mechanism" that might include "you know, going after people's wages."

Well, well. In other words, HillaryCare II isn't all about "choice," but would require financial penalties for people to pay attention, including garnishing wages. To put it more accurately, the individual mandate is really a government mandate that requires brute force plus huge subsidies to get anywhere near its goal of universal coverage.

Read more here.

McCain: Like Hope But Different

Check out the latest Youtube parody of the words of John McCain:




Here are the lyrics:
The work that we face in our time is great
in a time of war
and the terrible sacrifices it entails
the promise of a better future is not always clear
there's gonna be other wars
I'm sorry to tell you there's gonna be other wars
there's gonna be a lot of combat wounds
and my friends it's gonna be tough
and we're gonna have a lot to do
That old Beach Boys song, Bomb Iran?
Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb...
I'm still convinced that withdrawal means chaos
and if you think that things are bad now
if we withdraw--you ain't seen nothing yet
was the war a good idea, worth the price in blood and treasure?
It was a good idea
President Bush talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years
Maybe a hundred, that's fine with me
I don't think Americans are concerned if we're there for a hundred years, or a thousand years, or ten thousand years

Here's a link to the original.

Obama is the Strongest Democrat to Go Against McCain

Yes, We Can

Yes, We Can! - Si, Se Puede!

Song & video, featuring a star cast, by will.i.am of The Black Eyed Peas. Inspired by Barack Obama's 'Yes We Can' speech.

It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation.

Yes we can.

It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom.

Yes we can.

It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.

Yes we can.

It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballots; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.

Yes we can to justice and equality.

Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.

Yes we can heal this nation.

Yes we can repair this world.

Yes we can.

We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.

We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics...they will only grow louder and more dissonant ........... We've been asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.

But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.

Now the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people; we are one nation; and together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story with three words that will ring from coast to coast; from sea to shining sea --

Yes. We. Can.

Celebrities featured include: Scarlett Johansson, Tatyana Ali, John Legend, Herbie Hancock, Kate Walsh, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Adam Rodriquez, Kelly Hu, Adam Rodriquez, Amber Valetta, Eric Balfour, Aisha Tyler, Nicole Scherzinger and Nick Cannon