<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (such sweet thunder @ Apr 29 2008, 01:13 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>America's favorite pastor, Reverend Wright is apparently on his current press tour in preparation for a forthcoming book set to be released in November. Yes, November. The ****ing lunatic whack-job is Lewinskying Obama's candidacy. I can't believe this. Can't. Believe. This.</div> I don't think he's a lunatic whack-job at all. This looks about as cynical and calculating as you can get. The word "evil" comes to mind in a truly meaningful form.
He's evil and a lunatic. Edit- Obama SLAMMED Wright in his press conference today. Thank You God. Damn he sounded pissed, I think Obama squashed this mostly with the intelligent press conference.
So, as we speak, Obama is clarifying the point that Wright was not his "spiritual mentor", just his pastor. Bye Wright. He said he was angry, outraged, and saddened by Wright's comments last night. He said his words were ridiculous. He went point-by-point against Wright, he was clearly upset. He's severed his relationship with him basically.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (huevonkiller @ Apr 29 2008, 01:24 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>So, as we speak, Obama is clarifying the point that Wright was not his "spiritual mentor", just his pastor. Bye Wright. He said he was angry, outraged, and saddened by Wright's comments last night. He said his words were ridiculous. He went point-by-point against Wright, he was clearly upset. He's severed his relationship with him basically.</div> Good. Now Wright is going solo. A paradigm of Obama's questionable judgment in influential people in his life. Who will appear over, and over, and over again on every news outlet which is begging for a ratings bump. This is not going to end well.
FWIW, I have always felt and said that this whole thing about Obama's pastor is overblown and just ridiculous. People have all kinds of relationships with others that they may not agree with politically. It's not hard to fathom that Obama likes Wright as a person. None of us (likely) knows Wright, other than what we've seen of the repeated sound bites played on TV by the 24/7 cable news networks. Obama does know the guy, big deal! What's important is what Obama says and believes, and there's not one shred of anything I've seen that Obama believes any of the more ridiculous things Wright has said or believes. In fact, I completely understand where Wright is coming from; not that I agree with him on much of it. All you need to do is find anything written or said by Noam Chomsky and it's the same drivel. He appeared on PBS with Bill Moyers who is way out there with Chomsky. I saw Wright on C-SPAN doing his thing in front of the Press Club, and he's quite a remarkable and funny fellow in spite of his wackiness. Get this, though. James Carville is married to Mary Matalin. It hasn't kept him or her from being involved in politics at the highest levels. You can't get a whole lot further apart in a couple in their views of things politically, but the two still have what looks like a strong personal relationship. All that said, it's quite obvious that the Wright business has been a death by a thousand cuts for Obama. He's taking a serious hit in every poll I've seen. The story just won't quit. Wright went out of his way to keep it alive, doing great harm to Obama. Thus Obama had to come up with his most recent distancing from Wright. Sadly, it looks purely politically motivated on Obama's part, superficially, I don't think Obama handled it well all along, and probably really blew it with his latest speech. What he said in Philly (I think it was) was the better tact, and he probably should have taken a play from the "straight talk express" playbook. Loyalty to a friend is a strong personality trait; dumping a friend in the heat of a political struggle doesn't speak well of one's character. Maybe I'm proving that Obama is in a no-win situation with the public due to Wright. In that kind of situation, you'd hope he'd just do the right thing and suffer the consequences. McCain has to be giggling to himself as he watches all this from the sidelines. Vastly outclassed in the fund raising dept., he gets to spend $0 while Hillary spends $10s of millions basically on HIS behalf. In the process, he's getting the benefit of many more $10s of millions worth of PR, or free TV air time by those 24/7 networks also doing damage to Obama's chances. I'll end this post with two cliches, one that I've already posted: 1) When Democrats form a firing squad, it's in the shape of a circle 2) When your opponent is busy falling on his sword, no need to rush in to help him with that task.
I don't understand this "throwing under the bus business", Obama was just keeping it real with Wright. Generalizing Obama's relationship with Wright, and basically calling them the same person is a dangerous tactic in my opinion. It will hurt the pundits running their mouths like that especially when this blows over. No, Obama doesn't agree with this clown and Wright needed to be called out on it. It does not seem politically motivated to me, the general public seems to be confused about their amorphous relationship and some clarity had to be given to the situation. I like watching Fox News, because it balances me out on a political spectrum, but they've acted like immature kids on this subject. Obama disagrees with Wright, let Barrack remind you what he doesn't like about the guy. Wright hurts Obama, but it also has to do with the spur of the moment reaction the public has. Once we get closer to November this Wright controversy will not be as prominent. When the Democrats can begin attacking the Republicans (on a more consistent basis) for being hypocrites/fear-mongers on this issue, the polls will change again like they always do. Remember, McCain had an edge on Obama in Rasmussen and such, and then he lost it in spite of the Wright controversy. The Democratic leaders can't just give the election to Hillary just because the schizophrenic polls have now gone in her direction. She's not going to be the nominee, Obama just has to worry about McCain. The issue people had with Obama and Wright was they were not sure if he agreed with him or not, and Obama's previous speech about Race Relations didn't slam Wright enough in the minds of many. They wanted to see Obama at least call out Wright on certain verbal flourishes, and he has done that now with the Press Conference a couple of days ago.
So far Obama has picked up 5 superdelegates today, HRC lost one and got one for a net of zero. She better do well on Tuesday or it might be over. Ironically, after everything, whether Clinton's pandering on the gas tax stoppage is seen for what it is or strikes a cord in NC and Indiana may turn out to be key. Barack keeps betting on the intelligence of the voters which is a rare gambit indeed.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (JayJohnstone @ May 1 2008, 12:48 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>So far Obama has picked up 5 superdelegates today, HRC lost one and got one for a net of zero. She better do well on Tuesday or it might be over. Ironically, after everything, whether Clinton's pandering on the gas tax stoppage is seen for what it is or strikes a cord in NC and Indiana may turn out to be key. Barack keeps betting on the intelligence of the voters which is a rare gambit indeed.</div> Yeah, it is. It may be starting to kick in though. I was pretty impressed with my class today because a woman totally put two and two together on the fact that hey, fuel prices and food prices might be related and the government might be causing some unintended consequences
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MikeDC @ May 1 2008, 12:44 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Yeah, it is. It may be starting to kick in though. I was pretty impressed with my class today because a woman totally put two and two together on the fact that hey, fuel prices and food prices might be related and the government might be causing some unintended consequences </div> Reason number one Iowa should be buried later in the primary season: the ecological, financial and political disaster of ethanol.
Drudge was reporting that Obama will likely win by 15+ points in North Carolina. Reports say low rural turnout in Indiana, and high turnout in Indianapolis. This could be it. Maybe the wicked with finally dies. Indiana looks like it will be a close race, I still predict a Clinton 52 to Obama 48 victory approximately.
I found this interesting. It is a Obama campaign prediction spreadsheet post super tuesday. Relatively conservative, but they've yet to predict a contest wrong, except for Maine, which he won.
Round 2 of Exit Polls Indiana Obama: 50.5% Clinton: 49.5% North Carolina Obama: 60% Clinton: 38% Ouch for Clinton in North Carolina. Close race in Indiana, could go either way.
Lower than usual turnout of women in Indiana. CNN Exit Poll: Clinton 52 Obama 48 This poll has Marion County at only 15% of the vote, and there was supposively a high turnout there. Will be close, and a close loss in Indiana isn't bad for Obama.
I love how NC doesn't matter already. CNN is calling IN the integral race. It's amazing how over this primary has been for so long, and yet . . . it still goes on. Clinton certainly is a fighter -- either that or she's setting up her run in 2012.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (BG7 Lavigne @ May 6 2008, 05:08 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Drudge was reporting that Obama will likely win by 15+ points in North Carolina. Reports say low rural turnout in Indiana, and high turnout in Indianapolis. This could be it. Maybe the wicked with finally dies. Indiana looks like it will be a close race, I still predict a Clinton 52 to Obama 48 victory approximately.</div> You have to stay away from Drudge like the plague. They pulled the exact same stunt before Texas/Oh and PA. Clinton camp leaks exits to drudge that shows them doing poorly. Media narrative becomes Clinton is doing better than expected. Half week later, Drudge admits Clinton camp leaked numbers. Mix. Repeat. Here it is: http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/5/6/135...5943/417/510111
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (BG7 Lavigne @ May 6 2008, 06:08 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Lower than usual turnout of women in Indiana. CNN Exit Poll: Clinton 52 Obama 48 This poll has Marion County at only 15% of the vote, and there was supposively a high turnout there. Will be close, and a close loss in Indiana isn't bad for Obama.</div> Some of the smart people at Kos did projections with county by county breakdowns. One person predicted Obama to lose by 2%, and Obama is so far beating his projections in the counties that have reported. Could be a narrow victory. . . wouldn't count on it, but possible.
This looks close to me -- I'm surprised CBS called it. None of Chicagoland area is in. Indianapolis is slow. Muncie not in yet either. We'll see how this goes. I'm guessing over and under is a two or three point loss.
More than plausible outcome Obama can still win Indiana -- says Chuck Todd. I have to agree. Trying not to get excited. Hillary leads by about 16,000 votes. Obama makes that up with Indianapolis county alone; you can tack on the pole city suburbs too, which are going his way; this is all going to depend on how the rest of the state, including the Chicago burbs, break.
When Obama said Indiana was going to be a barn burner he was right. Not as close as Guam (where he won by 7 votes!), but close. Obama down only about 52,000 votes with Lake (Chicago media market) not reporting (supposed to be about 8% of the total electorate approximately), a decent chunk of Indianapolis to still report, and a college town with 0% reporting. It'll be a 52-48% win for Clinton at most, and could get close enough where it will come to 51-49...or 50.? to 49.?. This is definitely more exciting than that boring Cavs-Celtics game.
