Go Barack

[Anonymous]

What I don’t get, is no one actually is questioning McCain. Did you read the salon article? Where’s the outrage that Hagee said Katrina was god’s answer to their wicked ways. Those damn gays again. McCain had a press conference to announce this endorsement and they campaigned together.

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[JanS]

JT…I just read the lovely salon.com article…and it almost made me physically sick. I cannot believe that thinking people actually believe that crap…and that includes John McCain…after all, he went after the endorsement, embraced it, he must feel the same way, if we are to believe what else has been said here.

Further, wouldn’t you just love to have Tim Russert on the hot seat, ask him his motives for his slanted “news gathering”…I’d love to personally call him on the carpet for the things he tries to instigate in the name of “need to know”…

wow…we as a country are in deep sh*t…and we’d better wake up, the sooner the better…

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[Anonymous]

I completely agree! Do I think it’s disgusting that McCain sought out that endorsement? Absolutely! Do I agree with that Reverend’s beliefs? Absolutely not! Do I think McCain could be exactly like-minded as Hagee? Possibly.

But I’m still Republican and I will still vote Republican.

I can actually see that my candidate has faults and is not perfect, but he is still my candidate.

Admitting he is flawed and not making excuses for him or becoming defensive and insulting others is where you Dems and I differ, it seems. Good night.

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[Anonymous]

NR, I was just going to get defensive about the broad stroke *you Dems* b/c I don’t try to be insulting (most of the time), but then I had to realize *you repugs* gets thrown around a lot on here. Broad stroke, yet I don’t feel that way about you.

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[JanS]

I totally agree with JT…I don’t mean to insult. I agree that all of the candidates are flawed…they’re only human…what I disagree with are the innuendos that somehow want to associate this particular candidate with something that is beyond his control. NR, if you haven’t, please read the salon.com article. Some valid questions are raised about why Barack Obama is questioned about things that have absolutely nothing to do with him…like the Harry Belafonte questions…is it because they’re both black? I don’t know…if that’s so, we have a long way to go in this country still.

Make excuses for Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton? they don’t need us to make excuses. But we do have to ask about the implications that people are trying to make without just coming out and saying what they really mean. I’m asking in all honesty..what do you think is the implication, to you, of Hamas saying that they “endorse” Barack Obama. And.. for one minute, ask yourself…if Hamas had come out and endorsed Hillary Clinton, would you feel the same way? Or, if they had endorsed John McCain, would you have the same feelings, the same questions? And, if not, why not? I think that’s a fair question…..

I have tried and tried to stay non-committal on here about which candidate I want…I will vote for whoever the Democratic candidate ends up being…but I do see people being more heavy handed in their treatment of Barack Obama, their questioning of his motives…and things that he doesn’t have any control over.

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[socrates]

JanS, sorry to butt in. You wrote, “what do you think is the implication, to you, of Hamas saying that they “endorse” Barack Obama”

If I may, I think that the terrorists (Hamas) will ‘endorse’ whomever they think will serve their interests. This implies that they have reviewed the field of candidates and believe that Obama will somehow help them in their cause or, more likely, do the least to stop them in their cause (which is to destroy Israel).

Ok, I’ll butt out now. :)

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[Kayleigh]

NewRes, you say you don’t float character assassinations out there, but you did exactly that. I think you actually have ideas about how horrible Obama is, but you won’t post them here because you know I’ll go off on you (and others may as well) and you want to remain civil—while pulling a Joe McCarthy, which in my book is already uncivilized. But never mind. You’d vote for Satan himself if he was a Republican, so all it takes is vague insinuations about a Democratic candidate. Things don’t have to be logical or reasonable or substantive in RepublicanWorld; they just have to be emotionally plausible.

Jo, all I hear when I read your post is echoes of the right wing swift boat machine. If you want to talk about Obama’s voting record, the platform and plans on his website, etc. we can do that. But not the ‘who you associate with’ game; you’re better than that.

As for Hagee and McCain, it doesn’t really phase me. I don’t think for a second McCain echoes Hagee’s views (or the views of Hagee’s ilk, and there are a lot of them in the Republican party). I don’t think *most* Republican leaders share those views; I think they exploit the Hagee types by playing on their fears to win votes, then throwing them some crumbs once they’re in power. Witness the snowflake babies.

JMO.

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[charlabob]

If Hamas was endorsing what was in their best interest they would endorse the Repug candidate — Bush has been better for extremists in the middle east than anyone since, um, Reagan. I assume someone named Socrates knows better :-)

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[beachdrivegirl]

JoB for someone who has repeatedly stated I want to stick to the issues you sure are having a hard time doing that yourself. I have posted numerous articles in regards to the real estate situation, and I believe Walfredo posted the entire sermon from his pastor to put the entire sermon in context. Am I saying my canidate is perfect? No but he is the better of the two Democratic runners. He has more substance to what he says, has more of America backing him, actually follows the ideals of the Democratic party, and is truthful and ethical and that is why he is going to be the Democratic being announced in June!! That is exciting!

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[beachdrivegirl]

Another reason why I think Barack is a better nominee is the fact that as these things emerge about Wright, the real estate issue, and Hamas Barack doesnt laugh it off as a mistake he acknowledges it and speaks out about it. That is a true leader and that is our next President.

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[walfredo]

Congratulations on her win in Pennsylvania last night. Her supporters are a key demographic in the general election, and they showed up in great numbers and there voice is important. It will be helpful to the Obama campaign to know where he needs to improve, and what his campaign can do to broaden this appeal.

And to fellow Obama supporters- congratulations on moving one more step to the nomination! The current results show and 8.6% win for Senator Clinton, almost 2% lower then her 10.5% win in Ohio. The turnout was close to 300,000 higher then what pundits predicted at 2 million (which would have been more then double the 2004 race). This was not a knockout punch, but it put him in great position to deliver that in two weeks.

The numbers got much worse for Hillary last night, both in delegates and in popular vote. MSNBC’s Chuck Todd went ahead and called the delegate battle for Obama. The lead is 156 pledged delegates with only 407 left to earn. North Carolina in 2 weeks will get the 15 delegates back that were lost tonight and probably more, it will get the popular vote back to yesterdays margins, and will end this race. Not only is Barack in the lead right now, but now that Pennsylvania is gone- he holds the better cards for the next 9 contests! Write it down, he will get more votes, and win more delegates in the last 9 contests if it goes that far.

Please don’t let anyone confuse the facts. She did not get back in the race last night. She needed to win the remaining 10 contests by 65-35%, now that bar is higher, in 2 weeks the bar will be over 90%!

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[walfredo]

Sorry- one more point. To those who think it makes sense to change the rules after the game, and that popular vote is more populist and fair. Here are a couple of arguments that help to frame how silly that argument really is.

Point Number 1: If the popular vote determined the nominee, no candidate would ever go to Iowa or New Hampshire. They’d spend all their time in big urban areas all over the country from the outset of the campaign, racking up raw numbers. What would be the point of even visiting New Hampshire if you could camp out in Brooklyn? Concrete Example: Barack Obama would not have spent only a day and a half in California before the Feb 5 primary. He would have never gone to Idaho. Duh.

Point Number 2: If the popular vote determined the nominee, no state in its right mind would ever hold a caucus, instantly disenfranchising itself. Concrete example: Minnesota-Missouri. Minnesota gets credit for 214K votes, and Missouri gets 822K votes, but they each get 72 delegates. Is Missouri’s voice 4 times more important than Minnesota’s?

Point Number 3: The arbitrary distinction between who gets to vote in these primaries is nothing like the general election, where everyone registered gets to vote. In the primaries, sometimes it’s just Dems, sometimes Dems and Indies, sometimes anyone. Concrete example: Texas gets a million more votes than similar overall population New York (2.8M to 1.8M), even though New York is far more Democratic, simply due to this arbitrary restriction on who can vote (NY = closed, Texas = open).

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[beachdrivegirl]

“As NBC’s Chuck Todd points out tonight, Clinton’s chances of winning the nomination based on pledged delegates is effectively over tonight.

If Obama keeps his pledged delegate lead to around 150, Clinton needs to win 70% of them on May 6 — and if not, 80% of them after May 6.

That’s more than next to impossible.”

So looks like Obama will be the nominee.

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[JoB]

As you all congratulate yourselves on the inevitability of Senator Obama winning the nomination, i wonder if you ask yourself some crucial questions…

the first would be why you label the questions about Senator Obamas associations as swift boating?

Do you not understand what swift boating was?

there was never even the smallest amount of truth in the swift boat ads… they were all a bunch of lies..

Swift boating is attacking using complete fabrications as the basis for the attack.

There are no fabrications in Senator Obama’s associations… He admits he knows them. He just says he doesn’t know them well… he was unaware…

As for his acknowledging them and addressing those associations.. had he done so, there wouldn’t still be questions.

When you are shopping for a house, who do you bring along besides your real estate agent? Someone you hardly know?

i don’t think so. neither do you.

do you pay 3 times the assessed value for a piece of land to be neighborly? probably not.

you should have questions on that one and the others as well.

yet you don’t. And you think the rest of America shouldn’t either?

Why is that?

The second question is..

if Senator Obama has an overwhelming mandate in America and he spent 3 times as much money as Senator Clinton in both Pennsylvania and Texas… and a huge amount of time campaigning.. with those spectacular turnouts for his speeches…

why didn’t he win those states?

Could it be that there is a large part of America where his message isn’t playing?

And who do you expect those people to vote for this fall?

How exactly do you expect that to play out?

Do you think winning the primary and then expecting the rest of the country to fall in line is going to work?

If Senator Obama can’t convince the part of his party who more closely resemble the swing voters then how exactly is he going to win the election in the fall?

it’s not all numbers and predictions.. as the results in our primaries have clearly shown.

Hillary has been counted out by the press, the pundits and her own opponent for some time now.. yet, she is still viable…

I know you have all kinds of rationalizations… i have carefully read every one of them…

but perhaps his message isn’t playing as well as you think across all of America…

Where is the strategy for winning the real election and why isn’t it working yet?

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[charlabob]

We all know, perfectly well, that there’s very little connection between who wins a primary and who wins the general election. For example, do you think Grampy McSame is going to win California if Obama is the nominee?

I believe that the Clintons do not want the Democrats to win the “Real Election” unless Clinton is the nominee.

One vast, and refreshing, difference in the Clinton and Obama campaigns is that Obama doesn’t seem to change the rules every time his fortunes change. $ count? No they don’t. Delegate count counts?? Not anymore.

Another vast difference, as reflected on these forums and in the real world, and noticed by BDG, is that Obama and his supporters address the issues as they’re raised. Even if they’re hard. Everyone may not like our answers, but we do come up with some :-)

Hard questions are met, for the most part, with silence and cricket chirping on the other side.

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[beachdrivegirl]

Obama has addressed his associations. I would like to see Hillary do the same. Oh right, she doesnt have to play by the rules, she just gets to try to live above them…and we want someone like that as our leader??

Now lets address Texas and Penn Barack did come out ahead in the delegate count in Texas and since elections are determined by delegate count and not popular vote i think we can all agree that Hillary lost in Texas. Secondly, although Obama did not win in Penn. he never expected to. In fact, 6wks ago Hillary was ahead by 20pts in the polls he closed in on that gap in a 6 wk increment and ended the contest with a narrower margin then expected so I would not call that a vicotry for Hillary.

I am not even going to bother defending Obama at this point. We have all done this numerous times whereas when we bring up the fact that Hillary is a lier and her other fualts we are shastized for putting down the opponent.

And who do you think will vote for Hillary this fall if she STEALS this election? She is tearing the democartic party apart and to be truthful its a real shame, but then again considering she was originally a Repug then I doubt she is really that concerned with the party as a whole because we all know that all she cares about is herself and she is willing to do anything to get what she wants.

Did you see Obamas speach last night? he has started concentrating on the general election. the only problem is @ this point he not only has his McSame bashign him, but he also has someone from his own party. and if you followed the polls you would know that Obama is improving in popularity among whites and older voters…i think that means he is preparing for Novemeber.

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[walfredo]

JoB- no one is saying this isn’t a close race, or that Clinton doesn’t have a large base of supporters.

The reason Obama did not win Pennsylvania, primarily is that older voters, and poor voters have been strong Clinton supporters, and continued to be.

I think the excitement comes from the fact that Pennsylvania was another home state for Clinton (heck even Romney won his home states), and it favored her dramatically demographically, and Wright-gate, Bitter-gate, Lapel pin-gate, Debate-gate- everything came out in the 6 weeks leading up to the contest, and no one knew for certain how that would impact the race. Now we do- he actually performed better in Pennsylvania then he did in Ohio coming off of 11 victories and overwhelming favorable press. So, the secret is out- these issues will not affect the democratic primary voters, as Pennsylvania showed last night. So- the conventional wisdom heading in to the last 10 primaries- based on demographics is still holding up and based on that he will win big in North Carolina, Oregon, Montana, South Dakota, and Guam. These wins will be more then enough to end the contest with a delegate lead of 150+ and be ahead on all the BS popular vote metrics as well. Leaving him needing about 90 of the 310 remaining supers to choose him, while his opponent would need over 3/4’s of there support.

That is the excitement- I would have loved to see him win over more of Clinton’s core demographic, but yesterday showed that the “scandals” are not going to affect the outcome of this race, and he will be the nominee. And in two weeks he will prove it.

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[beachdrivegirl]

charla I thnk we need to get coffee or a drink sometime.

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[Anonymous]

I know that we have moved on, but I just wanted to address JT and JanS and others. I did not mean to say that every Obama supporter has insulted me and I’m sorry if that is how it came across.

I think people want to find flaws in Obama simply because his supporters (not all) seem to think he walks on water and is the best new thing since sliced bread. But, let’s all face it, (even though I know some of you Obama supporters will never be able to admit it), there is not one perfect candidate. They are all flawed, they are politicians, for goodness sake!

I just think it would be refreshing to see an Obama supporter admit that some of his associations are questionable, admit that maybe you don’t agree with them and then discuss why you still support him. That would be honesty.

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[beachdrivegirl]

NR, I think I said this somewhere, although I dont remember where. I know that Obama is not perfect and some of these acquantances are not perfect. The reason why I still stand by Obama is that as these questions and qusetionable relationships arise he addresses them. He faces the issue at hand. My concern with his direct oponent is that she laughs off her quesionable situations/associations as “mistakes”, but NEVER actually addresses the issues at hand whether it is NAFTA, MoveOn.org, Bosnia, her daughter running near the trade center on 9/11, I will stop there for now. That concerns me because in my head a leader is soemone who A)people respect and B) can address the issues at hand. Personally I dont respect liers.

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[beachdrivegirl]

Might not be that double digit victory we all thought. I, personally, will be keeping my fingers crossed that the gap does close in @ the 9% range…

** PENNSYLVANIA RESULTS: **

99.44% Reporting

Clinton

1,237,696

54.6%

Obama

1,029,672

45.4%

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[beachdrivegirl]

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hOxuZ1qjaN5mzBrRV7eQNEiAsiAgD907B2FO0

For those who were not fortunate enough to hear Obama’s speach last night follow the link to read parts of it…

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[walfredo]

The margin in Ohio was 10.5%. The margin last night was less then 10%. The “double digit” game is stupid. It’s a delegate race, not a perception race. Winning by 9.4% and 10% is not an issue, and shouldn’t be. Let’s not change the metrics, and please lets not frame this the way the Clintons and the media made up.

She made up 15 delegates in the race, and trails by only 145 now. She needs over 70% of the remaining delegates, and will lose at least 5 of the remaining 9 contests.

She made up 200,000 votes in the mythical popular vote race. She still trails by 1/2 million, and will not make up any ground in the remaining 9 primaries.

It’s all over but the tears, and a 10% win wouldn’t change any of that, and is irrelevant.

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[socrates]

charlabob, your response at #508 to my prior post is laughable. Bush has led a charge to capture and/or kill terrorists and should be applauded for that, even if you disagree with the Iraq war.

A proxy war is happening in Iraq (with Al Qaida/Iran) instead of NYC and the Taliban is crushed.

I suppose your preferred policy in regards to terrorists is shooting million dollar missiles at empty tents like Pres. Clinton?

On other matters, do you all think the Superdelegates should go away after this nomination, or do you like the curren Dem system?

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[WSMom]

Thank you BDG for posting the link to Obama’s speech last night. His words are consistently rational, honest and inspirational.

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