The problem as I sit it for the democrats is a little bit of a "perfect storm":

1. The line drawn on race and sex during the vote is fairly remarkable. Obama gets very few white women and Hillary gets next to no black men. When this divide is so great, you get a lot of cultural subdivides that could start boiling over.

2. If Obama wins, the Hillary crowd will automatically be upset with him and may move to McCain for the reasons stated above (more experience, similar on many policies). If Hillary wins, the Obama crowd may not vote at all.

3. Because this is fight will go well into June, it's going to have more of a lasting effect in the fall. Bush and McCain had their spat in New Hampshire/SC, it was in mid Feb. By super Tuesday, Bush had it all wrapped up and was able to bring the party together from March to July. When this ends, it will be probably right near the convention - leaving only a few months before the general election. There won't be that mid-March to Mid-July "party honeymoon" most candidates have to recover from the primaries.

4. Their opponent is not a staunch conservative or vilified (R) like Bush, Dole, Reagan or even someone like Romney. Really, the McCain platform and the democrat party are not all that dissimilar on things like Global Warming, campaign finance, public education, sticking it to the rich in taxes, against drilling in ANWR, against Guantanamo, ... He even came up with the "gang of 14" idea for judges so it's questionable how conservative a judge he would nominate. I don't know that the "fear of the other guy winning" Armageddon scenario works with McCain for democrats.

For the first time, I can see McCain winning in the fall as having higher odds than either the Hillary/Obama winner. And, that's not something I would even considered back in December.

I'm not convinced that even a moderate 70-something from the party of the President who is repulsed by all but a few precious souls can beat identity politics when voters get their shot to "make history." I think that will simply be too big a chance for ordinary people to pass up in the end.

Just had a completely ungrounded theory that is almost certainly not true:

Clinton will drop out before Pennsylvania.

Unsupported Axiom: The Clintons' tax returns show some shady and questionable stuff. Mainly about how Bill learned to stop worrying and love making $50,000,000 with the help of sketchy Russian oligarchs (or some such thing).

When they thought that they would have the nomination wrapped up in February, they figured that it wouldn't really matter. When they released the returns they would be going against Giuliani or some other ethically compromised candidate, so it wouldn't seem that bad. And, even if they had to run against a McCain, the fact that the GOP was attacking Clinton financial deals would almost seem . . . right. It might help energize the base, and it certainly wouldn't hurt. Anyone to whom those things mattered is already against the Clintons.

Now, however, they are in the position of having to release them during the Dem. primary. Which means that they will get scrutiny from other than the GOP. Which means that people might actually listen to what the critics say.

So, they have decided not to release them. Which means that they will drop out soon before Pennsylvania--right around April 15th, when they said that they were coming.

So, why stay in the race until then? First, Obama might stumble (i.e. drop the c-bomb or something). If he hands her the nomination on a silver platter, then she is back where she thought she would be after Feb. 5th.

More importantly, she is raising as much money as she can. For the next five weeks, she can pad the warchest with donations. That will help pay back any personal loans that she made to the campaign as well as give her a healthy amount for her future senate campaigns.

If this whole thing is true, then I also think that only she and Bill know about it. Too much chance of it leaking out otherwise. I also think that she can play her cards right and call Obama with about two weeks to go and extract mega-promises for dropping out.

Anyway, I have nothing to base that on. But six weeks is a long time to keep this thread going until the next primary. Can't spend all that time with facts.

albion - just to add to your conspiracy theory, it would also explain why they've been pushing the Obama-Rezko connection so hard.

But to work against your conspiracy theory, I believe if there's anything really troubling they'll just delay the release. The hit they'd take for a connection to tens of millions from some foriegn dictator is considerably more than the hit they'll take from saying they needed an extension due to how complicated the forms are and they'll try to have it done in the next few weeks.

Honestly how many undecided Dems really give a crap whether the tax forms have been released or not? They'll only care if something bad is exposed.

Agree with this. No matter how this turns out, the vast majority of Democrats are far more interested in getting the Republicans out of the White House. They'll unite and vote en masse for whichever nominee. I do think that Clinton winning the nom with have a small effect with those who would vote for Obama but hate her, but I think the big picture will eventually bring most around.

However, that's not a good storyline for six weeks with no primary, so I expect to hear much more of the schism in the Dem party for the next month.

Has this been posted yet?

Dear Baby Boomers:

Please stop causing problems.

That was sexist. So he is saying that women are only good for cleaning? I hope he realizes that the only thing Hillary cleans is her ass and mouth. Oh and Bill's cock.

Thanks. Now I have to go wash my brain out with bleach.

I guess we'll find out.

My money is on it being a big, big split and if this goes to the convention floor the dems get their asses handed to them. Let's see what happens. :)

I know that I'm tired of hearing about this preacher business as much as I am tired of hearing the Democrats talk about people who were "tricked" into getting "deceptive mortgage loans."

I can't seem to find the popcorn smiley ;)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008...hillaryclinton




However, after 20 years of going to "church" (except when the pastor ever said anything inflamatory apparently)...he's now sold his own pastor down the river for the sake of his Presidential campaign.


I like Obama better than Hillary because he's the devil I don't know...but God damn...

I'm curious what people think about political guilt by association...it's happened quite a bit lately, all over the spectrum. People want to act like it's not a big deal but I think it's a HUGE deal...especially in this situation. You have Obama's #1 spiritual advisor saying these things. Obama wants to say he's never heard him say these things? Please. I find things like this to be terrible for candidates when they are associated with them.

It seems Obama especially has to continually distance himself from the comments of his supporters.

Actually he specifically didn't throw him down the river,

I think in most cases its not a big deal.

You do realize that by saying a man is a Marine speaks nothing to "knowing" his pastor and does not offer a counter of the man's opinions that Obama has followed for 20+ years.

It's clever words from a silver-tongue that has bested many Democratic supporters so far.

I guess for me, you are the company you keep. I don't think he cares about what Farrakan says and I can accept that because I don't see them as being close. This case is VERY different though. He's extremely close with this man and it's frightening to me that this guy could be his closest spirtual advisor if he's elected. That's a major problem.

I think people are growing more and more afraid to attack Obama for fear that they will appear as if they are attacking him for being black. That scares me. If any other candidate was tied so closely to such a man, it would be disaster.

I think it's becoming more clear why Obama refuses to wear a USA lapel on his coat. God Damn the USA.

I don’t think that candidates should be responsible for supporter’s comments that are controversial; however, this case goes far beyond that, and it goes to the man’s judgment.

This isn’t some casual acquaintance or hothead campaign staffer. He married the Obamas. He baptized their children. Obama was a regular attendee of this man’s church for 20 years. He prayed privately with Wright before announcing his candidacy. “The Audacity of Hope," Obama's bestseller, was inspired by one of Wright's sermons.

No, this isn’t some casual acquaintance or campaign worker flying off the handle; this is an overtly racist religious leader who guides Obama's moral code. One must question whether Obama accepts this value system. Is there any other rational explanation for his 20 year attendance at this church? How many times has Obama attended one of Wright's poisonous sermons? Surely there must be hundreds of Christian churches in Chicago where the Obamas could worship, and hundreds of non-racist ministers from whom Barack Obama could seek spiritual guidance. But Obama prefers to follow the moral compass of a man who blames America for 9/11, preaches rabid racism, denigrates the Clintons from his pulpit to the applause of his congregation, and rewards Louis Farrakhan.

For Obama to now come out and say that he “wasn’t aware” of these vitriolic statements is disingenuous, and it reeks of a politician trying to cover his ass.

I don't think guilt by association is a big deal at all, and frankly I'm a bit sick of it.

Nobody can be responsible for the actions/thoughts/statements of everybody else in their life, whether they are a politician or not. Doesn't matter how close that person is to them, whether it's their pastor, or the head of their finance committee.

If it wasn't for the media we wouldn't even know 99% of this stuff, and ever think that the media helps drive it by looking for stories, and then this crazy-pastor goes "oh man...here's a chance for me to get my name in print and get my 15 minutes."

Obama says he didn't attend any of his "poisonous" sermons. And I think if you want to question whether he accepts this value system that's fine, but he's already come out and said that he condems and rejects this stuff. What more can he do? He obviously wasn't aware of the gravity of them, or he would have gone and worshipped elsewhere.

how often does obama actually go to this church is the other issue?? I mean he's in washington most of the time, or out campaigning, I can see it as totally true that he's a "member" of this congregation in much the same way i'm a "member" of a congregation that I haven't actually stepped foot in in the last 14 years...

In an interview with Major Garrett last night, Obama said he was a regular attendee and contributor. He did say that their attendance was sporadic for a short time after the birth of their children.

touche.

then again, how can he be in washington and be a regular attendee?

How many years since 1988 has Obama been in Washington?

Not necessarily just a Washington thing.

He served in the Illinois State Legislature as well; did he travel home on weekends to attend that specific church?

(Note: not a rhetorical question.)

isn't the more relevent question: "How many sermons has he attended" as he could have not been there for other reasons.

I was just about to post that. And various campaigning trips for that, and trips out of state on state business...etc

The whole thing seems pretty irrelevant to me, but the question "how many sermons" did he attend strikes me as particularly ludicrous. The question should be, "what exactly is the common ground Obama shares with this guy," or "what about this guy does Obama find appealing." Those are pertinent questions.

well that's true also.

One of the things that we hear a lot of the time is that we dislike politicians who act too much like politicians. I always got a bad vibe from John Kerry, for example, because it seemed like he was a professional politician from about age twelve onward. You got the sense that when he was nineteen years old, John Kerry was constantly thinking "I wonder how this internship/membership/job/meeting will affect my prospects when I run for Congress/Senate/President one day." I confess I just don't like the notion that a person would be thinking ahead with such clarity throughout his early adult life and onward.

As for Obama, and his decision to attend a certain parish, and to confide in a certain religious leader... I wonder if this is to some extent the flip side of my complaint above. I suspect a more careful and calculating long-term politician who had been running for president for 20 years might have said "I need to distance myself from this man, as he is too prone to hyperbole or controversy and I can't be connected to him." Instead, I suspect, he decided that the bulk of what he said was uplifting to him personally, to the community, and to the parishioners. And he made a reasonable decision to, in all likelihood, look past some of the inflammatory stuff he might have said sometimes, to embrace the greater message. It seems to me that for so many religious people, the decision of where and when and with whom to attend services is a complicated and social decision.

So, on a certain level, this is yet another one of these things that seems to make Obama a different sort of political candidate, to me. Maybe a more traditional politician would have had the foresight to stay out of this sort of situation altogether, recognizing the potential for trouble when the time came for a major run for high office. I guess I'm sick of people leading their lives that way to claim they will be more worthy leaders for it.

Do you feel the same way about McCain and Hagee? Because you can write an almost identical post on that relationship which is probably even worse since Hagee is actively campaigning with/for McCain.

McCain is not a member of Hagee's church, as far as I know.

That's quite an exaggeration, to say the least. True, Hagee endorsed John McCain, and McCain welcomed that endorsement. McCain has also disavowed Hagee's statements.

In his book "The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama called Rev. Wright his "spiritual mentor." McCain has not made any such statement of Hagee. Obama had his children baptized by Rev. Wright. McCain's kids never knew Hagee when they were small. Rev. Wright performed Obama's marriage ceremony. McCain had never even met Hagee until he became the frontrunner for the GOP nomination. Obama chose Rev. Wright's church and attended it for 20 years. McCain has never attended Hagee's church.

These points are extremely important and mark a completely different relationship between Wright and Barack Obama and McCain and Hagee. Obama had two decades of intimacy with Rev. Wright, so it appears that Wright's hate speech could not possibly have bothered Barack very much at all, much less have come as any surprise. While John McCain had only just met John Hagee, it seems reasonable that his history of anti-Catholic statements is not something that McCain could have had long and intimate contact with.

molehill, you are now a mountain

This is exactly the point. All I'm seeing so far is some people cherry-pick some quotes and try to make it seem like they accurately and 100% reflect the core of Barack Obama's belief system. Step back for a moment, people, and see how ludicrous that is. I mean, jeez.


Yeah, I hate it when politicians don't mean what they say:



:p


Alternatively Obama could have just disagreed with some of Wright's views and left it at that. Despite the picture you're painting, there's no evidence that Wright railed from the pulpit each and every Sunday with this "hate speech".

I suspect all of our regular priests, ministers and/or rabbis say stuff in their speeches with which we disagree.

For reference, Barak Obama received a Political Science degree from Columbia 25 years ago.

Being a political science major doesn't mean you're planning to run for political office. It can often mean you're going to go on to law school, though.

And come on, no outrage over posting the picture? I live for your outrage, man! :D

He could have gotten a degree in Dermatology. I'm just sayin'... ;)

Become a politician or spend your days working with people's diseased skin. You gotta admit - it's a bit of a tossup. :)

Good point! (Kerry also got a degree in Political Science a couple decades before joining the Senate, for what that's worth.)

The latest from the Obama campaign:

hxxp://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2008/03/obama-disavows.html

I think if nothing else, it's interesting that Americans are finally figuring out after all of these years what goes in a lot of black churches on Sundays, maybe that'll convince the most "Segregated day of the week" to be put to bed finally. But I doubt it.

I went to a baptist church growing up and hell, the pastor was married to a white woman and still SAID all sorts of crazy things at times about white people, America, politicians and other social issues. It wasn't every week. Or even once a month. And you couldn't predict it, but it did happen. This stuff isn't as uncommon as folks want to think and that's why I've noticed a lot of commentators who understand this are wondering what the outcry is about.

But Obama's people are to blame for this. If they'd simply taken the ultimate high road with the Ferraro thing and simply said "look, she's not Hillary. Let's get back to the business of the American people," this thing never would've blown up in his face like this.

The press are drama queens and love a story. The Clinton people love trudging around in the muck and love having the heat off of them. And this story has been fed to us a few times and the TV press wouldn't bite on it until now. Obama's people are trying to go fishing with experienced anglers and they're about to get dumped in the water.

So throwing his pastor down the river is despicable as is not throwing his pastor down the river. Got it.

On the bigger issue, it's brought up a lot of the reasons why I have stayed out of politics even though I quite obviously have a taste for it. So much of what's gone into this discussion about Obama, as was the case with Hagee, is just a vengeful flurry of attacks consciously or subconsciously designed to destroy what by any reasonable measure are good men. Most of the flames don't seem to have any real basis except as an opening to swing voters away from a particular candidate.

Do any of you that are complaining about Wright really believe Obama is going to set about punishing whites? Can you find even one thing Obama's said or done that might lead you to believe this? And does anyone really believe McCain is going to destroy the Catholic Church or ask God for help in tormenting gays? In the end we're not measured by the company we keep, good or bad, but by what we do.

I'll freely admit that there's a fun side to these arguments. It's a contest to see how much you can tear down someone. In effect it's a strategy text sim with different options for paring off bits of different demographic groups. It's also, however, what has kept me from pursuing a life in politics. I could easily see me relishing in these kinds of games, but in the end I believe the people most damaged are those who can see no other pursuit in politics but personal destruction.

This is not to say we can't argue bitterly over issues. Politics should be about ideas and there are times when we simply can't find any sort of Broderian middle-ground. The difference, though, is that we can actually look at what the candidate says or does and find out what they want to do instead of piling on ever more layers of ritual apology designed to do nothing more than cripple someone.

I had a mentor as a director that changed me both personally and artistically. I see his influence in every piece I do. He was, however, a paranoid misanthrope that fought with any authority figure. Some of his ravings and conspiracy theories were offensive as they attacked people I saw as friends. I mildly disagreed with him a time or two, but I never made a fuss and he probably has no idea I was uncomfortable. I valued him as an older, more experienced, and brilliant artist and I tried to forgive his ramblings. Right or wrong, I would guess that's roughly how Obama saw things.

I'll also point out that Wright himself is going to take an unfair beating on this. Let me be clear that I don't agree with him on any of the controversial statements that have been brought up lately. It's a shame, though, that he's going to only be judged on his most foolish of actions and not by the totality of his life. This may be where I go a little askew as I try to figure out how a flawed man like myself can still be a good father for my daughter, but I hate to see people defined only by the worst of their actions. He's made his own bed, surely, but I'd hate for people to forget about all of the dedicated and inspirational work he's done teaching and living Christ's message.

All that aside, in terms of the game this is bad for Obama and I wouldn't be surprised if it kills his candidacy sooner or later.

No way is it close to that bad.

Yes it is.

The Rasmussen tracking poll today showed Obama's lead over Clinton drop from +8 to +1. I'll bet those numbers aren't poll variance, but a genuine look at how badly this has hurt Obama.

The worst possible for thing for Obama is to be lumped together with what most of white America sees as the radical black political class. A lot of people will hear about this and unfairly see him as an ideological twin of Al Sharpton.