Morris isn't the only one... The Clinton campaign, led by Mark Penn, have definitely lowered the standards for Democratic primary campaigning. Hillary Pulls Race Card and Obama May Fold By Margaret Carlson Jan. 17 (Bloomberg) -- At approximately 6 p.m. on Jan. 15, three hours before a Kumbaya interlude at the Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas, I saw Al Sharpton defending Senator Barack Obama from charges of youthful drug abuse. As we all know by now, the accusation arises from Obama's own admission in his modern Horatio Alger tale, ``Dreams From My Father,'' published long before he became a presidential candidate, that he tried cocaine as a teenager. The hoopla over this has validated the judgment of George W. Bush eight years ago to refuse to answer questions about his own alleged drug use, which many believe continued well beyond his teen years. This is why honesty isn't considered the best policy by political consultants. But I digress. Sharpton has done things to redeem himself in recent years, but his presence is a one-way ticket back to Tawana Brawley, boycotts, shakedowns and good old-fashioned, in-your-face confrontational race-based politics. Seeing him in that box on TV, I realized that the Clintons had done what they needed to do to stop Obama's historic surge in its tracks. From the start of his career, Obama wanted, and needed, to remove the race card from the political deck. While it isn't clear from whose sleeve the card was pulled, it is likely it wasn't from the person with the most to lose. If Hillary Clinton's campaign had taken only one shot at Obama, it might have been blown off as a mistake. But four shots constitutes a pattern, with Clinton's former New Hampshire chairman, Bill Shaheen, Representative Charles Rangel, Clinton pollster Mark Penn and Black Entertainment Television founder Bob Johnson all getting into the act. Going Too Far Surrogates don't take printed instructions, but neither do they want to upset the candidate they've traveled to the hinterlands to please. And Penn isn't even a surrogate. He's the campaign's top strategist. In the middle of the drug pile-on, Clinton, desperate after her Iowa defeat, went too far when trying to imprint the message that Obama is all talk and no action. She infelicitously compared Martin Luther King Jr. to former President Lyndon Johnson. ``Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964,'' she said. In fairness to the Clintons, even masters of the game trip up when the crown believed to be theirs slips out of reach. They had just hours to convince folks in New Hampshire that the guy who Iowans had fallen in love with was wrong for them. Red-Faced Rant Bill Clinton, in particular, was furious at Hillary's loss, indulging in the kind of red-faced rants vividly described in George Stephanopoulos's tale of White House life, ``All Too Human.'' How dare this upstart backbencher steal this election from Hillary! The press? What a lazy bunch of enablers swallowing this &%*# fairy tale, all this hooey about what we share being so much greater than our differences. Any thought that Bill would be less active in New Hampshire was shelved. In 1992 Hillary helped Bill become the Comeback Kid in the Granite State after a lounge singer gave a press conference about an affair. Now it was his chance to return the favor. But they were a bit off in choosing to mention an African- American idealist (King as Obama) in juxtaposition with a tough pragmatist who can get things done (LBJ as herself). The two campaigns fanned the flames and cable TV poured on the kerosene, booking the usual suspects to chew it all over. By Monday morning, the Democrats were in danger of becoming as divided as Republicans. Convenient Cease-fire A cease-fire initiated by Obama was formalized into a peace agreement during a love fest at the debate. And why not? For Clinton's campaign, it was Mission Accomplished, intentional or not. Obama was now the black candidate. There had been minimal blowback and only a minor casualty (Shaheen resigned). For Obama, he lost the essence of his candidacy as the first black man to run as himself. Once the race card is on the table, no matter who puts it there, it's impossible to put it back up anyone's sleeve. Obama may look back on the first two weeks of 2008 as the time when he lost the nomination to Clinton. At the height of the controversy on Sunday, Clinton repeated her paean to King from her book ``Living History.'' She'd been taken to hear ``this phenomenon known as Dr. King'' by her youth minister and remembered his plea to awaken to ``the great revolution that the civil rights pioneers were waging.'' No one's doubting Clinton's belief in equality, but however much she was moved, Hillary became a Goldwater Girl. And Senator Barry Goldwater voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Her journey to embrace civil rights is proof that anyone can grow up. But maybe not to be president. (Margaret Carlson, author of ``Anyone Can Grow Up: How George Bush and I Made It to the White House'' and former White House correspondent for Time magazine, is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.) To contact the writer of this column: Margaret Carlson in Washington at mcarlson3@bloomberg.net Last Updated: January 17, 2008 00:18 EST
Did anyone mention the robocalls in Nevada... <object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/0Mb16NRbDcE&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/0Mb16NRbDcE&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object> http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0108/Robocall_trashes_Barack_Hussein_Obama.html
Not to go off on a tangent But it's really sad to me to see how Bill Clinton is conducting himself. I truly thought he was the "elder statesman" of the Democratic Party and he would be happy to see a Democrat win the WH no matter who it was and would do all he could to see it happen. But it seems more and more that his interests lie elsewhere. sad
It's interesting to see other major Dems lash out at his. Apparently Edward Kennedy chewed him out pretty hard recently, and others have come out publicly saying Bill needs to step back. Combined with all the senior level endorsements Obama is getting, it seems the institutional Dems are really turning on the Clintons - very surprising, though it hasn't had much effect on voters as of yet.
With Hillary and Bill, principles don't matter at all because it's her turn now to be president. She is entitled to the nomination and clearly anything goes to make it happen. They don't care if it diminishes Hillary by having Bill be the hammer on Obama. Once she's in the White House it won't matter anymore. All of their loyal allies from the 90s and friends of their allies will be rewarded with plum positions under the new administration, where loyalty to friends and vindictiveness against enemies will rule the day. That's what political dynasties are all about and is one reason my stomach turns thinking about it. (As much as I totally despise the current Bush administration, it was a fairly clean break from Bush 41).
Bill Clinton Unloads On Press seems like the media is uping the 'race card' issue, not the Clinton. Here's what Bill had to say about the issue.. "I never heard a word of public complaint when Mr. Obama said Hillary was not truthful, no character, was poll-driven. He had more pollsters than she did. "When he put out a hit job on me at the same time he called her the senator from Punjab, I never said a word. And I don't care about it today. I'm not upset about it. "The only thing I pointed out was that there was substantially no difference in her record and his on Iraq, and that he had said in 2004 there was no difference between his position and President Bush. And he said that was somehow dishonest, but he never answers how it's not accurate. So this is crazy. "This rhetoric is getting a little carried away here. And let me remind you, my ultimate answer is this -- there are still two people around who marched with Martin Luther King and risked their lives, John Lewis and Reverend Andrew Young. They both said that Hillary was right and the people who attacked her were wrong, and that she did not play the race card, but they did. "So I don't have to defend myself from Dick Harpootlian. I will just refer you to John Lewis and Andrew Young. And let him go get in an argument with them about it. "Let him go get in an argument with Dolores Huerta, one of the founders of Farm Workers, against what happened in Nevada. There is a fact here -- this is almost like once you accuse somebody of racism or bigotry, or something, the facts become irrelevant. There are facts here. "And the final thing I would like to say is, you're asking me about this, and you sat through this whole meeting. Not one single, solitary soul asked about any of this. And they never do. They are feeding you this because they know this is what you want to cover. This is what you live for. But this hurts the people of South Carolina, because the people of South Carolina are coming to these meetings and asking questions about what they care about. And what they care about is not going to be in the news coverage tonight because you don't care about it. What you care about is this. And the Obama people know that. So they just spin you up on this and you happily go along."
Right on que -- Bill Clinton: Black vote may cause wife to lose SC http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080124/ap_on_el_pr/obama
It's a brilliant strategy -- reprehensible -- but brilliant. Now that the Clintons have put this tar-baby out there (sorry, Uncle Remus), Obama can't stike back without getting more stuck. Then, when Hillary has won the Democratic nomination by using this shameful tactic, the black voter bloc will be forced to back the very person who dumped on them. I'm prepared to love any president we elect save one -- and this is only one more reason why.
Another threat from a "life long dem" that he/she will vote for a republican if Obama loses to Clinton, just like those hundreds of such messages in those CNN blogs? Interestingly, never saw any supporter of any other "non-uniting" candidates claiming so. BTW, just saw CNN news headline that an "innocent" 5-year-old girl happened to ask Bill Clinton, instead of any real candidates, just Bill Clinton, a very profound question "what do you do after you get married?". Who says the US education system is failing? Look at this smart kid! Away from all the negativity or political games, goes right to the core value of marriage and family. Wow!
Well, don't leave us hanging. What was Bill's answer? (I'll bet it was something like "you gotta love your spouse -- like I love Hilligenimonipaula." )
The answer Honestly, does it matter to you? Whatever his answer may be, you can interpret any way you want to. I am not eligible to vote, but as a resident, I do care how US fares. As the super power in the world, US policies and politicians are going to affect people's lives all over the world. As far as I know, Clinton cheated his wife, but in those 8 years, US is liked by the world and the economy was in good shape. Grew up in China, I've seen enough big talkers, Obama isn't even that great in that department.
Don't get so ruffled. Not all posts in the D&D are life and death. Bill Clinton was not unlike a number of philandering Presidents -- he just got caught in a convenient political trap. Did you notice the smiley?
What Bill didn't say: "I looked in Chelsea's beautiful face, saw my good friend Webster Hubbell, and knew Hillary couldn't say anything about my cheating."
More Clinton fun: http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/...2008&base_name=clinton_tries_to_reinstate_mic CLINTON TRIES TO REINSTATE MICHIGAN AND FLORIDA'S DELEGATES. This is a very, very, very big deal. From the Clinton campaign: I hear all the time from people in Florida and Michigan that they want their voices heard in selecting the Democratic nominee. I believe our nominee will need the enthusiastic support of Democrats in these states to win the general election, and so I will ask my Democratic convention delegates to support seating the delegations from Florida and Michigan. I know not all of my delegates will do so and I fully respect that decision. But I hope to be President of all 50 states and U.S. territories, and that we have all 50 states represented and counted at the Democratic convention. I hope my fellow potential nominees will join me in this. I will of course be following the no-campaigning pledge that I signed, and expect others will as well. This is the sort of decision that has the potential to tear the party apart. In an attempt to retain some control over the process and keep the various states from accelerating their primaries into last Summer, the Democratic National Committee warned Michigan and Florida that if they insisted on advancing their primary debates, their delegates wouldn't be seated and the campaigns would be asked not to participate in their primaries. This was agreed to by all parties (save, of course, the states themselves). With no one campaigning, Clinton, of course, won Michigan -- she was the only Democrat to be on the ballot, as I understand it, which is testament to the other campaign's beliefs that the contest wouldn't count -- and will likely win Florida. And because the race for delegates is likely to be close, she wants those wins to matter. So she's fighting the DNC's decision, and asking her delegates -- those she's already won, and those she will win -- to overturn it at the convention. She's doing so right before Florida, to intensify her good press in the state, where Obama is also on the ballot. And since this is a complicated, internal-party matter that sounds weird to those not versed in it (of course Michigan and Florida should count!), she's adding a public challenge that, if the other Democrats deny, will make them seem anti-Michigan and Florida. But if this pushes her over the edge, the Obama camp, and their supporters, really will feel that she stole her victory. They didn't contest those states because they weren't going to count, not because they were so committed to the DNC's procedural arguments that they were willing to sacrifice dozens of delegates to support it. It's as hard as hardball gets, and the end could be unimaginably acrimonious. Imagine if African-American voters feel the rules were changed to prevent Obama's victory, if young voters feel the delegate counts were shifted to block their candidate. If Obama somehow was slightly ahead in delegates (maybe combined with Edwards), but Hillary got FL/MI seated and won, this would completely and totally tear the Democratic party to shreds.
I believe she's running a tv ad in Florida stating that she's going to honor the campaign pledge. Her camgaign agreed to the terms of the boycott along with the rest of the candidates and now she wants to do something like this? Man I'm disappointed with her whole campaign.
When Hillary steals the Democratic nomination, where are those swindled, angry African-Americans voters going to go? Hillary knows they have no choice but to support her because of a very foolish one-party loyalty. Listen, you can hear her cackling in the background.
Josh is much more eloquent then I -- No Way The Clinton camp really needs to be shut down on this new gambit of theirs to muscle the party and the other candidates into seating the Michigan and Florida delegate slates. And let me be very clear about what I mean. It was very debatable decision whether the DNC should have punished Florida and Michigan with the loss of their delegates slates because they broke the rules the party had set down for scheduling their primaries. By 'debatable' I don't mean it was right or wrong, only that it was a pretty draconian move and I know there was a lot of discussion about whether or not it was the right thing to do. But that was the decision -- one that each of the candidates at least implicitly agreed to. Indeed, each agreed not to campaign in either of these states, again implicitly agreeing to the decision not to seat the delegates. The Clinton camp is just pushing to seat these delegates now because the contingencies of the moment mean that the decision would favor Hillary. She was the only one whose name was on the ballot in Michigan, thus insuring her win. She has a wide lead in every Florida poll taken this month. Even Michigan was a matter of her basically pulling a fast one on the other candidates by not taking her name off the ballot. Each of the major candidates signed a pledge not to "campaign or participate" in any primary or caucus prior to Feb. 5th except for Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. The other major candidates adopted what seems like the only reasonable interpretation of the pledge (see text here) and pulled their names from the ballot. But then Hillary didn't, thus in essence guaranteeing her win in Michigan. The Clinton campaign said taking her name off the ballot wasn't required by the pledge. But what can "participate" mean over and above "campaigning" other than formally being a candidate in the race? In any case, by gaming the process Clinton already insured her win in Michigan, though it seemed only for a symbolic victory, not real delegates. But all these particulars are secondary to the principle, which is that you don't change the rules in midstream to favor one candidate or another. This is no more than a replay, with different factual particulars, of the attempt to outlaw the at-large caucuses in Nevada after the Culinary Union endorsement made it appear they would help Barack Obama. Perhaps there's some detail of this question that I'm not aware of. And if there is I'll revise my opinion accordingly. But based on what I know now this is pretty clear-cut. Hillary can muscle for every advantage she wants. Good for her. She's a fighter. But everyone else should see this for what it is and say No. --Josh Marshall http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
Interesting possibility if Edwards + Obama can beat Clinton in delegates: http://rasmussenreports.com/public_...ry_by_robert_d_novak/attorney_general_edwards WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Illinois Democrats close to Sen. Barack Obama are quietly passing the word that John Edwards will be named attorney general in an Obama administration. Installation at the Justice Department of multimillionaire trial lawyer Edwards would please not only the union leaders supporting him for president but organized labor in general. The unions relish the prospect of an unequivocal labor partisan as the nation's top legal officer. In public debates, Obama and Edwards often seem to bond together in alliance against front-running Sen. Hillary Clinton. While running a poor third, Edwards could collect a substantial bag of delegates under the Democratic Party's proportional representation. Edwards then could try to turn his delegates over to Obama in the still unlikely event of a deadlocked Democratic National Convention. One way or another, Obama needs Edwards' supporters. I don't know if the best way to do that is for Edwards to stay in the race and collect delegates, or for him to drop out and Obama gets his votes. But regardless, Obama does need Edwards' help, and this may very well be the tradeoff.
