OBAMA WINS !!!!!!!!!!!!

[THE KOD]

Jimmy Carter: An Obama-Clinton ticket would be ?the worst mistake?
Wednesday, June 4, 2008, 02:31 PM

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

In today?s The Guardian, a British newspaper, former President Jimmy Carter warns Democratic presumptive nominee Barack Obama against choosing Hillary Clinton as a running mate.

According to the newspaper:

?I think it would be the worst mistake that could be made,? said Carter. ?That would just accumulate the negative aspects of both candidates.? Carter, who formally endorsed the Illinois senator last night, cited opinion polls showing 50% of US voters with a negative view of Clinton.

In terms that might discomfort the Obama camp, he said: ?If you take that 50% who just don?t want to vote for Clinton and add it to whatever element there might be who don?t think Obama is white enough or old enough or experienced enough or because he?s got a middle name that sounds Arab, you could have the worst of both worlds.?

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Kinda surprised that Carter would make statements like this.

 

[smurphy]

..............................................................

He just gives me hope that things can change.

I havnt had that feeling in a long time with any politician.

Interesting.

 

[Tenzing]

Wow, just wow

Wow, just wow

Interesting.

Worst post in the history of dumb-ass posts.

 

[smurphy]

Worst post in the history of dumb-ass posts.

Stop hijacking threads.:nono:

 

[THE KOD]

So I lost, no VP post, no Supreme court for Bill, no Sec of State, debts, Bill is doing his public womanizing again, I lost I lost I lost......

hmmmmm.........let me think.... let me think

 

[THE KOD]

The real test of a presidency is how the chief executive responds in crisis. It is worth examining RFK's handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis?the moment when the United States and the Soviet Union went to the brink. The Kennedys had the ability to learn from their mistakes. President Kennedy had been careless in authorizing the Bay of Pigs, too trusting of the swashbucklers at the CIA who preposterously thought their ragtag army of a thousand Cuban exiles could overthrow Castro. This time, when CIA spy planes discovered Soviet missiles in Cuba in October 1962, the president put together an extraordinary deliberative body, known as the "ExCom," composed of hawks and doves, present and former high government officials. He left it to his brother Bob to run the deliberations. (RFK often hung back, pacing around the room, but "there was never any question who was in charge," recalled JFK's national security adviser, McGeorge Bundy.) RFK himself started off as a hawk, wanting to bomb and invade Cuba, but his moral sense rebelled: he realized that the world would see an American attack as a Pearl Harbor. Then RFK's shrewd mind came alive, and he helped negotiate a behind-the-scenes way for the Soviets to remove their missiles while saving face?allowing both sides to back down from the precipice of war. RFK was able to listen to contrary advice?indeed, to seek it out, a quality notably missing from some leaders, including George W. Bush. He was at once passionate and detached, a rare combination but essential in a leader.

He also had the ability to inspire. His charisma came not from any personal grandeur?indeed, his hands shook and his voice was sometimes thin and reedy when he spoke. Yet he was able to convey a genuineness and sense of empathy unusual in a politician. These qualities were on ample display on the night of April 4, 1968, when Kennedy heard the news that Martin Luther King Jr. had been killed. On a cold, windswept stage (a flatbed truck in the Indianapolis ghetto) he told his audience about King's murder. Speaking without a prepared text, Kennedy reached into his own heart. He asked the crowd for "an effort to understand, compassion and love." Then he said:

My favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote, "Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

The weeping, silent listeners had probably never heard of Aeschylus, but they understood what he meant. Kennedy finished:

Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.

.....................................................

 

[THE KOD]

Obama on Congress: 'I'll whup 'em'
Posted: 04:45 PM ET

From CNN Associate Producer Martina Stewart, CNN Political Producer Chris Welch


Watch Sen. Obama receive an unusual gift in Virginia Thursday.

(CNN) - Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee, signaled Thursday that he really means business when it comes to health care reform.

An elderly African-American man presented Obama, the first African-American to secure the nomination of a major party, with a gift. Charles Edwards, who told Obama he was 95 years old, gave Obama a long maple walking stick.

WATCH Obama's reaction to the gift.

"It's beautiful," Obama told Edwards. "And, if members of Congress don't pass my health care bill, I'm ready," Obama said wielding the stick as supporters laughed and cheered.

"I'll whup 'em," he joked. "They better not mess with me. I'll have that stick."
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How can you not just love this guy.

whup em. I ll just whup em. Not threatening, just cajoling.

Its a refreshing change from Bush who really got nothing done with Congress.

Changes are a coming.

 

[THE KOD]

Hillary Clinton is offering Barack Obama half a loaf on her way out the door. No joint appearance with the presumptive nominee and their families in prime time ? which would be carried live on television. No appearances by folks like Harold Ickes and Terry McAuliffe who ran her campaign telling her supporters to unite behind Obama. No appearance by Bill saying "let bygones be bygones, and I'm going to offer to work hard to get Barack Obama elected."

Instead Senator Clinton is planning a public appearance on Saturday to talk about how "we can rally the party behind Senator Obama. The stakes are too high and the task before us too important to do otherwise."

Meanwhile, it turns out Clinton had to be pushed to get out of the race by several of her Democratic congressional colleagues? and reportedly she didn't even bother to call Obama to tell him of her decision. One more thing, and it's important: Clinton is expected to suspend her campaign instead of dropping out altogether.
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Kicking and screaming Hillary kicking and screaming.

Oh I bet Bill is taking the brunt of this.

 

[THE KOD]

Blitzer: Obama v. McCain a tight race
Posted: 03:18 PM ET

From CNN Anchor Wolf Blitzer

CNN Anchor Wolf Blitzer

(CNN)?Democrats keep saying the same thing about their party. You hear it all the time in Washington and around the country. If they can?t win the White House this year, they say, the party should seriously think about giving the whole thing up.

To back up the point, they note the horrible job approval numbers for President Bush and his administration. They also note that some 80 percent of the American people right now believe the country is heading in the wrong direction. The economy is hurting at home and the war in Iraq remains very unpopular.

A vote for John McCain, they say, is a vote for a third Bush term. He agrees with the President on how to proceed in Iraq. He also wants to make permanent the Bush tax cuts, which he actually voted against back in 2001 and 2003.

All this explains why so many of these very same clearly frustrated Democrats are having such a hard time understanding why McCain is actually competitive with Obama in the most recent public opinion polls. Our latest CNN poll of polls, our average of the most reliable recent surveys, has Obama at 47 percent to McCain?s 45 percent. That is well within those polls' margins of error. Eight percent, by the way, say they are unsure who they would support.

Obama probably will get a nice bump in the polls in the coming days. That?s because Democrats are starting to unite around him. Hillary Clinton, they say, is likely to be effusive in her praise once she formally suspends her campaign.

But remember ? polls are only snapshots. They always change over time, and there?s still five months before Election Day.
........................................................

Its close already and its only June.


Anyone that thinks this is easy win to McBush is nuts.

JFK won a very close vote to the Presidency.

We need that kind of leadership again in the
White House.

 

[THE KOD]

I ll take that stick and put it where the sun don't shine. Resentfull, resentfull, aw F#)$
yu $#))# dirty )#)$)$ . mother)#)$)$ s of
#$_$))## ..... I will .............

Geez Hillary , take a chill pill

 

[THE KOD]

I did not have a affair with George W

 

[THE KOD]

oh shit,

I think I hear the helicopters.

 

[THE KOD]

McCain - Listen George W I can't talk to you anymore. Obama is making a big thing about calling me McBush and all.

McCain - Yes Yes I know I promised Georgie.

McCain - there is nothing more I would like to do than have you at Camp David with me for some barbecues. Yes Yes you can bring Cheney.

No you can't campaign for me Georgie. People hate you. I can't be seen with you right now. You have the lowest rating of any sitting President.

Im not trying to hurt your feelings Georgie.

No no.

McCain - But what do I say when Obama says that I am nothing but a puppet on your hand ?

I see. But calling him Howdy Doody might not work George.

Can you tell me if I should continue to wear the blue shirts ? I like your look in them .

Yes I will take all the money you can funnel my way. Yes I know. Tell Dick to make some phone calls, it will serve him well. Do you think Dick would be interested in Sec of State ?

OK and what about Condi. OK OK I know we already got enough woman going around.

Well got to go . See you tommorrow . Say hi to Laura and the kids.


bye
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Geez Louise !:SIB

 

[THE KOD]

June 5, 2008 12:22
Keeping Score: The Joint Town Hall Thing
Posted by Michael Scherer | Comments (52) | Permalink | Trackbacks (0) | Email This
The first official, on the record call for a joint town hall came around May 10, from Mark McKinnon, McCain's exiting media man, who said that the campaign was considering asking for them. ?The town hall meeting is John?s best format," McKinnon said. "He?s a natural campaigner up close with the public. That would test Obama?s claims that he wants a clean fight on the issues.?

Within hours, Obama was asked what he thought about summer town halls. He said in Oregon that he thought they were ?a great idea? to debate ?substantive issues,? though he added that "we would have to think through the logistics on this."

So everyone saw McCain's proposal yesterday coming. The McCain people think it is a win for them, for a few obvious reasons:

1. It forces Obama down to McCain's level, away from the oratorical stadiums to the smaller give-and-take crowd.

2. Obama's primary/caucus performance in these settings was more uneven than McCain's. Though Obama beat Clinton in Iowa, I was witness to several town halls where Obama's long, professorial answers nearly put to sleep otherwise excited crowds. (Counterpoint: Obama has improved since then.) McCain, by contrast, has built a political career on town halls. (Counterpoint: What plays in meet-and-greet New Hampshire does not necessarily work on national television.)

3. The joint appearance brands both candidates as reformers who want to change the way politics is done, which is a net gain for McCain, because Obama would prefer to own that mantle himself, and just isolate McCain as another George Bush. In other words, Obama?s campaign is focused on casting McCain as more of the same, while McCain wants to debate who will do a better job of changing the country. Putting them on the same level in that format is a win for McCain. (Look forward to many more McCain attacks on Obama's reformist credentials, including a big flurry of noise if Obama announces, as expected, that he is opting out of public financing for the general.)


So are the town halls an obvious loss for Obama? Not necessarily. Sooner or later, Obama will have to demonstrate that he can go toe-to-toe with McCain on the same stage, and he might as well get started in the summer, when not many are paying attention, than in the fall during the formal debates. He could overperform, helping to remove concerns about his "experience." Also, Obama will likely benefit from the pictures of the two men together. Not only is Obama much younger, but he is much taller. Side-by-side photos could be striking. Finally, it is worth mentioning that Obama actually probably wants to do the joint town halls. Both of these candidate deeply believe that they can change politics, and partisanship. It is not just talk.

Which all raises an interesting dilemma over the next few months for Obama. In the primaries, Obama's post-partisan, new-politics message was a major asset, when compared with Hillary Clinton's more conventional, tough-as-nails partisan style. In the general election, that same message could have an additional countervailing effect by leveling the playing field with McCain. A conventional, consultant-driven Democratic campaign for Obama would just isolate McCain as a Bush-style, third-term, old-world, same-old-same-old codger with no new ideas. The more that Obama allows for the fact that McCain is a different kind of Republican, the kind who will do town halls with his opponent, for instance, the better McCain's chances. It will be revealing to see how Obama deals with this dilemma over the long haul.

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[THE KOD]

Entitlement

While Hillary turned out to be a much stronger candidate as time went on, one thing never changed: the sense that the Clintons felt they were owed the nomination. By repeatedly moving the goal posts on party rules, sideswiping Obama at every turn, whining about rampant sexism on the basis of two or three anecdotes, and claiming that the Florida primary resembled the 2000 fiasco and a rigged Zimbabwe election, Clinton continued to reinforce the impression that she considered the title hers no matter what. Her reported plan to concede this Saturday will have to be carried off with extreme graciousness?and no apparent demands being made in return?if she wants to lessen the sour impression she has left in many voters' minds.

Both Clintons were so far inside their own narcissistic bubble that longtime friends didn't dare tell her to quit in recent weeks because they knew she would never speak to them again. Hillary was surprised on the day after the last primary that even her most ardent supporters weren't standing by her anymore. This was a mark of the sense of entitlement that corroded her support among Democrats and helped seal her fate.

? 2008
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

:scared :SIB :scared

 

[THE KOD]

This was just how it was supposed to be.

A safe place and time

 

[THE KOD]

And now so many years later, Caroline Kennedy is asked by the Obama campaign to be a part of a committee of sorts to help make sure a mistake is not made on a vice president.

Instead of working for her father, she is helping someone else that has the chance to achieve the same hopes and dreams for all Americans, that her father once had for the country.

It's the nicest gesture I have seen from any politician in a long time. Obama is willing to use people with differant ideas for counsel. And then make the best dicisions based on the information he gets.

JFK did the same thing during the Cuban missle crisis. And it kept us from ending the world in a chessmatch with Krushchev.

 

[THE KOD]

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/06/06/rfk.something.happening.here.cnn


...........................................................

This is unseen footage of RFK train carrying him to his final resting point.

I dont post this for some morbid gllee some might take thinking about Obama and RFK comparisons.

I post this to show that RFK was loved by all Americans.

RFK could have made a real differance instead of the ones that were chosen when he was gone.
Jun 07, 2008

Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1963-1969
Richard Milhous Nixon, 1969-1974
Gerald Rudolph Ford, 1974-1977
James Earl Carter, Jr., 1977-1981
Ronald Wilson Reagan, 1981-1989
George Herbert Walker Bush, 1989-1993
William Jefferson Clinton, 1993-2001
George Walker Bush, 2001-

It set our country back 20 years.

Its about time all Americans were able to come together again behind someone that provides hope and a better life for all Americans.

John McCain is not capable of this. He is only capable of continued divisiveness and other countrys continuing to hate America.

It shouldnt be that way.

 

[THE KOD]

The thought of a Clinton following a Bush following a Clinton following a Bush hardly seemed to fit the national mood.

Her vote in favor of the bill authorizing the use of force in Iraq seemed like a prudent move at a moment when her biggest concern was boosting her appeal to independents in the general election.

But as 2007 drew to a close, the sentiment of most of the public -- and the entire activist base of her party -- had shifted overwhelmingly against the war in Iraq.

Clinton's efforts to stress her credentials as a fighter -- and her years of experience taking on the "Republican attack machine" -- may have resurrected baggage stowed in the nation's collective memory.

Before the race began, the '90s were remembered as an era of plummeting crime rates and soaring opportunity, when jobs seemed plentiful and the deficit disappeared. Clinton's rhetoric revived messier memories: of unmatched partisan warfare and the biggest battle of all -- the impeachment of her husband and his affair with a White House intern.

Bill Clinton, who entered the year with a reputation as the greatest campaigner of his generation, seemed to be a bit out of step with the national mood.

He spoke like a politician with nothing to lose, and his confrontational comments on the trail alienated supporters and undecideds alike. He stole headlines from his wife and regularly threw her team into triage mode, raising concerns over his outsized influence and contributing to the impression that a vote for her would be a ballot for restoring a de-facto Bill Clinton presidency.

After a third-place finish in Iowa stunned her campaign, the former president shifted from chief optimist to attack dog, with remarks that drew fire from many African-American leaders and alienated much of that community -- along with moderate swing voters.

As Sen. Barack Obama's fortunes rose, Hillary Clinton's support from black voters virtually disappeared. And whispers over Bill Clinton's post-presidential income and associations hovered over the race.

Those challenges might have been overcome -- if the organization she gathered around her hadn't failed her in nearly every respect.

She let star hires such as Steve Hildebrand, now Obama deputy campaign manager, slip through her fingers in favor of longtime loyalists with questionable track records -- such as campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle and controversial strategist Mark Penn. She held on to these aides long past the point when they moved from near-ineffectiveness to outright liability.

Penn's poll-crafted message of inevitability flopped, and under his direction her likability ratings plummeted. Alarmed, her campaign went on a seemingly frantic journey from one new slogan to the next -- most driven not by her agenda but reaction to Obama's rise.

Under Solis Doyle -- who had managed a virtually unopposed Clinton Senate re-election bid that somehow burned through tens of millions of dollars -- a massive cash advantage evaporated soon after voting began.

Accounts of deep staff divisions and raging internal turmoil became a staple of Clinton campaign coverage, and competing staff leaks and stories of profanity-laced tirades between senior advisers contributed to the impression of a campaign spiraling out of control.

The decision to compete in the Iowa caucuses -- despite a cautionary internal memo counseling her to skip the contest -- may have been one fatal error.

A defeat there shattered the aura of inevitability and sent the campaign into a tailspin from which it never fully recovered.

A campaign built for a sprint -- which regularly predicted the race would be over by the first week in February -- found itself instead in a high-stakes marathon. Senior advisers dispatched ground-game gurus such as Michael Whouley and Ace Smith on missions to unexpectedly threatened or newly critical states -- only to discover grass-roots, Web-driven Obama efforts firmly established.

As resources dwindled, manpower-intensive caucus states were abandoned in favor of delegate-rich primary battlegrounds, a critical error that allowed Obama to amass a pledged delegate lead that Clinton was never able to overcome.

Every contest turned into a potential Waterloo for the Clinton team as it lived to fight another day, only to find itself on the defensive in a new set of contests with equally massive odds and do-or-die stakes. Her campaign spiraled into a multimillion-dollar deficit that increasingly limited its options.

By the end, Clinton was operating at half-strength: In most states, Obama had double or triple the field offices she had and often four to five times the ad budget.

As media coverage of Clinton's candidacy shifted to reflect the new realities of the race, her campaign started to develop a hostility that permeated the entire organization and proved a distraction from far more daunting challenges.

At the top, former President Clinton publicly and privately railed against what he called "the most biased coverage in history," and both Clintons complained of what they believed to be a pervasive sexism dominating the campaign narrative.

On campaign conference calls, a new press skepticism to ever-evolving standards of electoral success was often met with outright antagonism from Clinton staffers.

Clinton herself made major missteps based in large part on her dedication to longtime campaign strategy. With her dedication to the experience theme, she emphasized her government service in language that invited scrutiny, with descriptions of Bosnian sniper fire, high-level security briefings and key roles in international policy decisions during her time as first lady.

The first woman with a serious shot at a major-party presidential bid faced challenges unlike any other: public demands to show emotion without appearing emotional, to demonstrate willingness to compromise and admit error without appearing weak.

Clinton struggled to navigate the minefield. Some of her toughest attacks on Obama struck a sour note. And her emotional response to an audience question on the eve of the New Hampshire primary -- widely credited with propelling her to victory -- proved just as controversial, a sort of Rorschach test of Clinton's sincerity for much of the Democratic electorate.

Policy contortions and unexpected reversals, such as her backtrack on the issue of drivers' licenses for undocumented immigrants, hurt her. So did her reluctance to admit error, as many primary voters urged her to do over her Iraq war vote.

The first stirrings of Obama's momentum were visible before the race began, but no campaign could have predicted his rapid, seemingly unstoppable rise. Much of the Democratic electorate found itself drawn to the party's first African-American candidate with a serious shot at the presidency.

As young voters began showing up at the polls in significant numbers and key Democratic blocs such as black voters and the college-educated flocked to his candidacy, the beginnings of a party schism began to take shape.

Amid record turnout, Clinton and Obama roughly split the popular vote -- but some of her appeals to white, working-class voters in later contests drew sharp disapproval from Democratic Party leaders. And her campaign's adoption of the language of the civil rights era to press for the full seating of delegates in the unsanctioned contests in Florida and Michigan further alienated key officials and many voters.

The senator from Illinois proved the near-complete counterpoint to Clinton: weak where she was strong, strong where she was weak. Watch more on Clinton's presidential bid ?

Unfortunately for Clinton, Obama's highest marks came in an area -- which candidate was viewed as most likely to deliver change -- that continues to top the voter agenda this cycle. Even his disciplined, near-leakproof campaign organization seemed a total contrast to the freewheeling, chaotic image of the Clinton effort.

Democratic icons such as Sen. Edward Kennedy and former Clinton loyalists such as New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson began to back Obama, with their announcements driving potentially damaging headlines off the nation's front pages at critical moments in his campaign.

Last fall, nervous Republicans fretted over their difficulty settling on a candidate best-suited to take on Clinton, who was assumed to have a lock on her party's presidential nomination.


But by spring, the roles were reversed, as anxious Democrats worried over the delay in selecting which standard-bearer would be most likely to beat Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee.

Eventually, inevitability returned to the Democratic presidential contest. But it no longer belonged to Hillary Clinton.
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Its all over but the crying.

 

[THE KOD]

............................................................

A 1987 photo of Obama and his paternal grandmother Sarah Hussein Obama at her home in the village of Nyagoma-Kogelo in western Kenya

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Notice the name Hussein has been in the family for years and is not some muslim takeoff of a
Iraq dictator who was hanged for his crimes
against mankind.