Hillary Clinton Endorses Barack Obama

Thank You, Hillary Clinton!

From the Obama campaign website:

Senator Clinton made history over the past 16 months -- not just because she has broken barriers, but because she has inspired millions of Americans with her strength, her courage, and her commitment to causes like universal health care that make a difference in the lives of hardworking Americans.

Take a minute to thank her for her hard work and for supporting this campaign.

Click here to send your thanks to Hillary Clinton.

Clinton Supporters Wowed with Warm Reception at Obama Rally

From Minnpost.com:

The crowd kept pouring into the Xcel Energy Center. All ages. All races. All backgrounds. Young Somalis chanting "O-bama!" And older, white women, bedecked in sparkling red, white and blue and holding up a sign, "Women for Obama!''

But most noticeable was the arrival of such people as Buck Humphrey, who once had headed Hillary Rodham Clinton's Minnesota campaign. And Jackie Stevenson, a DFL activist, a feminist and a Clinton-supporting superdelegate, who at the last minute had changed her mind about attending the event. And St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, who was a Clinton supporter until sometime Monday. And Rick Stafford, another Clinton superdelegate.

Former Secretary of State Joan Growe was there. And Minneapolis City Council President Barbara Johnson. And a couple of dozen other people who had invested so much energy into Clinton's campaign.

Political healing process beginning
Their presence at the event where Barack Obama declared victory shows that, at least in Minnesota, the political healing process already is beginning.

No one is making that healing easier than Obama. Last night, after he had finished the sort of speech that leaves his followers exhilarated and exhausted, Obama did not just leave the arena. Nor did he head to the nearest television camera or the nearest fat cat.

Instead, he went to a room where the Clinton supporters had been gathered and one by one, shook the hands of the 25 people, stopping to chat with each of them.

"Chris (Coleman) walked around the room with him,'' said Stevenson, "and introduced each one of us.''

It was really pretty extraordinary.

"He shook my hand and said, 'Thank you for being here; I'm sure it's not easy,' '' said Stevenson of her meeting with Obama. "I thanked him and said that everyone involved in his campaign had been so gracious. I didn't know what to say, so I mentioned that my daughter works for a federal health clinic. And he knew right away which program I was talking about. He said, 'Oh that's wonderful.' ''

Stevenson, a feminist and Clinton supporter, had to admit this: "He's very impressive.''

Read more here

Hillary $30 Million in Debt

From Associated Press:

In politics, money talks. And money is likely to be an important factor in discussions between Barack Obama's advisers and the debt-saddled Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign.

Clinton will likely seek help from Obama in retiring her massive campaign debt, which has swollen to more than $30 million, including $11 million she lent the effort, advisers said Thursday.

Read more here

Clinton to Drop out on Friday

Evidently, Hillary is going to drop out on Friday. She will "suspend" her campaign, which will allow her to continue to raise money.

Too little too late I say.

Let's get real, this contest has really been over since Super Tuesday. The media is the only reason her campaign has been kept alive. And her lack-of-concession speech last night was so infuriating, that I truly hope Obama does NOT choose her as vice president. How much time did she need to wrap her brain around her loss, when she's had four months to mull it over?

Lest We Forget...Shirley Chisholm

Barack Obama is not the first black candidate to run for president. Hillary Clinton is not the first woman. Both stand on the shoulders of those who came and tried before them.

People remember Jesse Jackson's campaigns. In 1984, he won 3.5 million votes and the South Carolina, Virginia, and Louisiana primaries. In 1988, Jackson won 6.9 million votes from seven primaries (Alabama, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Puerto Rico and Virginia) and four caucuses (Delaware, Michigan, South Carolina and Vermont).

But they forget about Shirley Chisholm.

In 1972, Chisholm ran and won 152 delegates. Gloria Steinem was one of her delegates.

Shirley Chisholm helped pave the way for both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to be the powerhouses they have been in this election.

Betrayed by Clinton Feminism

Hillary Clinton supporter and political pundit Hillary Rosen is disappointed in the less-than-gracious speech that Clinton gave last night.

I am... so very disappointed at how she has handled this last week. I know she is exhausted and she had pledged to finish the primaries and let every state vote before any final action. But by the time she got on that podium last night, she knew it was over and that she had lost. I am sure I was not alone in privately urging the campaign over the last two weeks to use the moment to take her due, pass the torch and cement her grace. She had an opportunity to soar and unite. She had a chance to surprise her party and the nation after the day-long denials about expecting any concession and send Obama off on the campaign trail of the general election with the best possible platform. I wrote before how she had a chance for her "Al Gore moment." And if she had done so, the whole country ALL would be talking today about how great she is and give her her due.

Instead she left her supporters empty, Obama's angry and party leaders trashing her. She said she was stepping back to think about her options. She is waiting to figure out how she would "use" her 18 million voters.

But not my vote. I will enthusiastically support Barack Obama's campaign. Because I am not a bargaining chip. I am a Democrat.

Read more here

I am glad that Hillary Rosen wrote this piece. It helps me feel better knowing that all Clinton supporters don't find her behavior acceptable.

Because as a black woman, I am completely disgusted by Hillary Clinton's lack of class last night. And I feel betrayed by the so-called "feminist" movement, which, during this campaign, has revealed itself to be a movement only concerned with the interests of white women. It is narcissistic and self-involved, and has little concern for the interests of black people.

Here was the proudest moment that black people have had in this country, and Hillary could not let us have it. It still had to be about her.

What would it have lost her to have been gracious? To have recognized the historic achievement? Nothing.

All that would have happened would be that many Obama supporters would have liked her more. I was ready to forgive her and thought that she might make a good vice president until I saw how she plans to continue to play her hand.

THANKS A LOT SISTER!!!!

Old school feminists like Erica Jong are too busy writing self-pitying posts about Hillary's loss, blaming it on sexism and not campaign strategy, to take any joy in the fact that an African-American has won the nomination.

Gloria Steinem writes an insipid op-ed in the New York Times telling us that since black men got the vote before white women, we have to support Hillary. I suppose she never heard of Jim Crow... segregation? I had male relatives who couldn't get the jobs they wanted in the 1960s and 1970s because of racial discrimination, and this was in Southern California!

Evidently there's no room in the feminist tent for women like me. There's no room for concern or interest of any other group other than white women.

If this is what feminism is, count me OUT.

If the shoe were on the other foot, Obama would have been gracious. He would have recognized the historic moment. His supporters, like myself, might have been pissed and upset...but HE would have congratulated Hillary Clinton and not stood up there and let himself be introduced as "the next president of the United States."

Superdelegate Surge Approaching?

Will the drip drip drip become a tidal wave?

From The Politico:

A tsunami of superdelegates is poised to rush to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) over the next 12 hours, giving him a mathematical lock on his party’s presidential nomination.

The superdelegate surge is likely to swamp a few holdouts within the camp of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-Ill.) who have been resisting a prompt concession.

Aides say Clinton does not plan to concede or bid supporters farewell when she speaks in New York tonight, but instead will salute her supporters and argue for the strength of her candidacy.

But her clout is ebbing by the hour. At 6:56 a.m. Eastern time, the Obama campaign announced the first of the day’s slew of endorsements by superdelegates – the Democratic Party officials who have a vote on the nominee and will determine who it is, since neither Obama nor Clinton have won enough delegates in primaries and caucuses to put them over the top.

Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe said on NBC’s “Today” show: “If Senator Obama gets the number, I think Hillary Clinton will congratulate him, call him the nominee. We haven't gotten to that number yet.”

Read more here

Bill Blows a Gasket (Again)

Well, Huffington Post's Mayhill Fowler is back with her tape recorder. (She's the one responsible for capturing Obama's "bitter" gaffe.)

The time she was in the receiving line at a different fundraiser and she egged Bill Clinton on about Todd Purdum's upcoming Vanity Fair profile of Clinton.

Inquiring minds want to know...Does Fowler announce that she's press? Does she tell people that she's taping them or are these tapes surreptitious? What are the journalistic standards for something like this?

Clinton then went on a rant, calling Purnam "sleazy," "slimy" and a "scumbag." He also somehow found a creative way to implicate Obama and a larger media conspiracy.

Click here to listen to the audio clip of the interview.

I don't care whether Bill calls the reporter sleazy. That's his right. But what I didn't like is how he tried to connect any of this to Obama. The Obama campaign has control over the editorial board at Vanity Fair magazine???

Obama had nothing to do with that piece.

In fact, Purdum was later interviewed by CNN's Wolf Blitzer and stated that many of his sources were Clinton associates and staffers.

(The Clinton camp responded with a more appropriately toned memo denouncing what it took issue with in the article.)

One can only hope this will all be over soon.

Venting at Clinton Supporters Voting for McCain

A great Dailykos diary inspired by the antics of Clinton supporters like Harriet Christian, who say they will vote for McCain over Barack Obama.

I've never supported any political candidate enough to campaign or canvass for them....And until now I've been able to keep a respectful silence while others with very strong feelings for either of the Democratic candidates for President have public melt-downs when their candidate has a political setback.

I can't keep quiet now. I've just been watching a white woman in my age group on CNN going radioactive to the cameras about how she's going to vote for McCain if Hillary Rodham Clinton doesn't get the Democratic nomination. She gave as her rationale for this chop-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face tactic that the Democratic party has turned on its women supporters.

...You, woman screaming into the cameras: you are old enough to remember the pre-Roe v. Wade days in America. Remeber coat hangers, Drano, women hurling themselves down steps, women dying and left unable to bear children from illegal botched abortions? Remember birth control outlawed? Remember the early 1970s, when a woman could not get a credit card or bank loan in her own name---when a woman needed an adult male co-signer's permission for them because we were deemed incompetent to manage our own financial affairs? Remember when sexual harassment and open sex discrimination were legal? Remember when we didn't have rape shield laws, when marital rape wasn't illegal? Remember when a woman being used as a punching bag by her husband had no recourse---had no earning power, no options, when the police she turned to often were abusers themselves and sympathized with the husband, when domestic violence shelters weren't even a twinkle in anyone's eye?

Read more here

Obama Campaign Statement about Fl and MI Delegate Decision

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe on the Rules and Bylaws Committee decision:

We're extremely gratified that the commission agreed on a fair solution that will allow Michigan and Florida to participate in the Convention. We appreciate their efforts, and those of the party leadership of both states, to bring this resolution about.

Irate Clinton Supporters

Ah, the drama never ends...

Clinton supporter Harriet Christian, who was there to represent the oppressed white women of Manhattan, lost it at the Rules and Bylaws committee meeting yesterday. (UPDATE: Ms. Christian's rant is now a Youtube hit, with more than 500K views in the first day!)

Some folks have speculated that she was a Republican plant brought in by Rush Limbaugh's Operation Chaos, but I looked her up on Fundrace and it appears that she is a Clinton supporter.

(It's evident Ms. Christian has "issues" that run far deeper than this presidential campaign and she's not to be seen as representative of all of Hillary's supporters.)



I'm glad that the Obama campaign specifically asked folks NOT to show up to the meeting to protest.

Evidently, outside the room there was an alternate reality of strident Hillary supporters who would accept nothing less than full seating of Hillary's Michigan and Florida delegates. (While denying Obama any delegates from Michigan, real fair.)

Before Hillary did the math and figured out that she needed all the Michigan and Florida delegates to stay in the game, Bill Clinton had publicly stated that seating half the delegates would be a fair compromise.

Things got so heated, that irate Clinton supporter Lanny Davis lost his cool and started yelling at a DNC member and swearing.

I hope that both candidates will step up to the plate come Tuesday and start healing the bitterness and anger that this long, extended primary has wrought.

UPDATE: Here's a great Dailykos diary from a woman who is the same age group as Harriet Christian.

No Drama. Vote Obama?

This is so true. Whenever I stop writing about Hillary, things really tone down over here. Writing about John McCain is standard political fare, pretty ho hum. Lobbyists, Iraq, the economy, whatever. There's no fun in it.

But HILLARY, now that's an interesting campaign, filled with twists and turns. My mother calls me up every day and asks, "What did that Hillary do today?" What a worthy opponent. The unbridled ambition is almost admirable.

Americans say that we want to focus on the issues, but it seems to me that what we really want to focus on are flag pins, pastor eruptions, assassination innuendos, Geraldine Ferraro. You know, all the FUN stuff.

Are we as a country addicted to drama? What will we do to entertain ourselves when Hillary drops out?

Well, just for fun, here's a dramatic rendition of Young Hillary Clinton:



From The Politico:

Oh, the drama of it all. The drama that is the Hillary Clinton campaign.

What will she say next? What will she do next?

I do not know, but I do know this: There is a huge drama gap between the Clinton campaign and the Barack Obama campaign. In fact, it is more like a chasm.

Whenever things get dull, whenever things settle down and people begin to concentrate on how Clinton is a serious candidate with a serious message, championing serious issues, she manages to heat things up.

Why talk about health care or energy policy or the housing crisis when you can talk about ... the assassination of Robert Kennedy!

Read more here

Pelosi Prepared to Step in to Stop Convention Fight

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she will step in if necessary to make sure the presidential nomination fight between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama does not reach the Democratic National Convention - though she believes it could be resolved as early as next week.

Pelosi predicted Wednesday that a presidential nominee will emerge in the week after the final Democratic primaries on June 3, but she said "I will step in" if there is no resolution by late June regarding the seating of delegates from Florida and Michigan, the two states that defied party rules by holding early primaries.

"Because we cannot take this fight to the convention," she said. "It must be over before then."

Read more here

Obama: Mensaje a Puerto Rico

Obama speaks in Spanish in this ad currently running in Puerto Rico.

Barack en Puerto Rico!

The front page of Puerto Rican newspaper El Nuevo Dia

1968

Truth be told, I was too young to remember Bobby Kennedy's campaign or MLK or Malcolm or JFK.

But a lot of people older than me who I have worked with on the Obama campaign have talked to me about 1968 and what Bobby Kennedy's candidacy meant to them.

One Obama supporter told me that was the year she shut down from politics, deciding that she could not handle the heartache. It was then that a cynicism about the political process took root in her and she "turned her face to the wall" and vowed never to care so much again.

Another fellow told me about the hope and inspiration he felt working on the Obama campaign, and his experience as a young volunteer on Bobby Kennedy's campaign.

It was then that he broke into tears and described the moment he saw Bobby riding by in his campaign convertible, touring through a crowded Los Angeles street.

He couldn't finish his sentence.

What I've learned from them is that something got lost in the 1960s. Something new and fresh and idealistic.

And for these people, who are now in their 50s and 60s, the Obama campaign symbolizes the opportunity to finish what got truncated. To close the circle, so to speak.

So, in remembrance of 1968, here is a slideshow of Bobby Kennedy's campaign from Vanity Fair, called "The Heartbreak Campaign" and an interview with the busboy Juan Romero, who was with RFK in his last moments.

New LA Times Poll Results: Hillary Stands Good Chance of Losing CA to McCain

Breaking news from the Los Angeles Times:

Latest polling shows that California wouldn't necessarily stay a blue state were Hillary Clinton to become the Democatic nominee! A Clinton nomination puts her within the margin of error to lose to McCain.

I'm a native Californian... and all I have to say is HELL NO!

Clinton's negative campaigning has been pissing people off here, and if the California Democratic primary were held today, polls show Hillary would lose to Barack Obama.

California is the jewel in the Democratic Party's crown. We can't let this happen.

Hillary Clinton may have scored a solid win over Barack Obama in California's presidential primary on Feb. 5 (as she frequently likes to remind folks these days), but a new L.A. Times/KTLA poll finds he would fare better than she in the battle with John McCain for the state in November (a result the Clinton camp won't be touting).

Obama led McCain in the poll, 47-40%; in a Clinton matchup with the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, she got 43%, he held steady at 40%.

The margin of error is +/-4.

Read more here

Clinton Raises Spectre of Bobby Kennedy Assassination

Wow. First "hard working white people" and now Hillary Clinton is on the record as having raised the issue of political assassination as reason for her to stay in the race.

"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it."

She later apologized for the remark, saying:

"Earlier today I was discussing the Democratic primary history and in the course of that discussion mentioned the campaigns that both my husband and Senator Kennedy waged in California in June 1992 and 1968 and I was referencing those to make the point that we have had nomination primary contests that go into June. That's a historic fact.


The Kennedys have been much on my mind the last days because of Senator Kennedy and I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation, and particularly for the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. I certainly had no intention of that, whatsoever. My view is that we have to look to the past and to our leaders who have inspired us and give us a lot to live up to, and I'm honored to hold Senator Kennedy's seat in the United States Senate from the state of New York and have the highest regard for the entire Kennedy family."

I don't think that Hillary Clinton was trying to say that should Barack get assassinated, she would be waiting in the wings...

I believe that she was talking about the length of the primaries.

What I don't like, however, is the fact that Hillary has not apologized to the Obama family. Barack is the father of two young children... this kind of talk must be very hurtful.

It was only recently that Hillary would congratulate Obama on his primary wins.

I think this shows a lack of class.

Read more about assassination concerns about Barack Obama here.

Clinton to Wage Convention Battle?

Rachel Maddow brilliantly described the Clinton campaign as "post-rational" in that there's no mathematical way in which Hillary can secure the nomination.

Maddow's take on it is that those who think that Hillary Clinton has any intention of bowing out from this contest gracefully, should think again, because Hillary has made no signs that she intends to stop campaigning.

From Maddow's column in the Huffington Post:

Listen: you don't need a vivid political imagination to recognize that if what you really want is to be President of the United States -- a slim chance of becoming President (a fight at the convention) is better than no chance of becoming President (because you dropped out).

The Clinton strategy, as best as I can tell, is to stay in the race. You can't win if you don't play -- conceding the nomination is sure defeat, not conceding means there's still a chance.

The way for her to avoid conceding is for her to avoid conceding that the race is resolved.

As long as the Florida and Michigan dispute is alive, and it is being used as the basis of Clinton's claim that the nomination is unresolved, we should expect that Senator Clinton will stay in the race.

We should also expect that if the Democratic Party's committee system takes up the Florida and Michigan dispute through its rules as they stand now, Clinton's campaign will be able to keep the Michigan and Florida dispute alive until the convention. If there's a secret Democratic-insider plan to keep that from happening, it's time for that plan to become un-secret.

Read more here