It is incredible to read the "Muslim" smear is still doing rounds and the rightwing media is still giving it legs. I never thought this would be such an issue in an advanced industrialized society! The lowest point in HRC's campaign IMHO was her faltering rationale on "Obama Muslim or Christian" smear. Even as a HRC supporter I was upset at her non-explanation explanation...Yesterday to find Brit Hume shamefacedly bolstering the lie was beyond pale. What part of the following Brit Hume doesn't understand?

Barack Obama considers himself to be a Christian. That's it..End of Story..Quod Erat Demonstrandum...

For more read the PDonaldson's diary in DailyKos and checkout the clip if you want to get nauseated...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/6/17/ 154558/071/561/537426

Crossposted at Ich Bin Ein Oberliner.

I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired of reading, thinking, and writing about the Democratic primary. I'm sitting outside, having my morning coffee (and, yes, I know it's about 3 o'clock...), and thanking my stars that one way or another, this thing is going to be over soon. But, if I could say a few last words.

There are plenty of good things about long primaries. I like the increased coverage. I like the organization and fund raising. I like the fleshing out of policy proposals. I like that states (and territories) that don't normally get attention are getting their two cents in about this process. I like primaries. They're good for the party, good for the candidates, and good for the health of our civic fabric.

Crossposted at Ich Bin Ein Oberliner.

Senator Clinton's buzzword in her losing battle to convince super-delegates to support her campaign has been electability. Mostly, she--and her supporters--rely on a supposed demographic strength (for example, "hardworking Americans, white Americans" etc.) and polling data to show just how strong she would be in the general election versus Senator Obama. Here's my argument: Senator Clinton is probably less electable than Senator Obama.

I think Senator Obama's problem with working class folks is real. He is just not connecting with them. He needs to put more meat on his message and he needs to talk to them more and relate to them. His message, heavy on post-materialism, works just fine with those that do not worry about their job security or have enough education and resources to analyze the validity and reliability of his message. However, with those who are struggling economically on a daily basis, that message has so far failed. Working class folks don't have the luxury or the time or the energy to engage in high-minded analysis of his message because they are just too busy trying to make ends meet.

I don't want to downplay the race factor. I believe it has some impact; however, i do not think that it is mostly because of it that he cannot connect with working class folks (supporters of Hillary Clinton can also argue that people are not voting for her because he is a woman and because of sexism). If we engage in that kind of blame and reasoning, and we begin labeling everyone who votes against Senator Obama as a racist, well we are doomed. I believe that a candidate has to go before the American people and make his case and present his ideas and beliefs and convince them. The candidate has to sweat, shout, lose his/her voice, and fight for those votes. That shows respect i believe and in return the American people will grant you the benefit of the doubt. I also believe that the majority of Americans are decent people who are ready to listen and more importantly are ready to be convinced.

I also think that his connection problem with working class folks exists beyond the Appalachian region. In Missouri for example, Senator Obama lost every rural county. He won 5 counties out of 115. If Missouri is the bellwether state of American politics as they say, well that is not a good indicator. In Tennessee, he won only 9 counties (mostly urban centers in the middle and western part of the state) out of 95 counties. In Texas, he won 24 counties (mostly urban centers) out of 254 counties. In California, he won 18 counties out of 58. In Florida (i am aware that this state does count but i am using it just to show the trend), he won 8 counties and almost all of them were in the panhandle region of the state, which will go republican anyway in the fall).  In Massachusetts, hardly an Appalachian state, he won 5 out of 15 counties--if you break these results by towns, it looks even worse since Massachusetts has about 300 towns and the Senator won about 90 or barely 1/3 of the towns. In Pennsylvania, he won 7 counties out of about 55--if you include townships and boroughs as they do in PA, the picture gets even worse. And yesterday, he lost every single county. So he lost the rural vote in the Appalachian states as well as in other states.

The trend here indicates that wherever he lost a state, he lost it because he failed to be competitive in rural counties and outside the urban centers even in states that he won like Missouri. This trend started before Rev. Wright and i think it got worse because of him and other unfortunate statements. My dad spent all his life in electoral politics. He managed campaigns (senatorial ones) and worked in presidential ones. He did that since he returned from the Korean War and until he retired in early 1990s (he died recently of Alzheimer). He always said that no one should really pay attention to presidential polls until the month of June/July or Labor Day. However, he also said that everyone should pay attention to the county-by-county voting data broken down by gender, ethnicity, income and education level. If there is a voting trend in some counties in a given state and that trend repeats itself in another state and then another, you can bet that it is a national one. I myself did work (stats analysis mostly) in a presidential/senatorial campaign before i moved to the private sector and i think he was right on the money. I see a trend here that keeps repeating itself. I don't have enough data or the time to analyze or assess whether this trend is getting stronger over time, but i feel like it is. I really hope that i am wrong on this one. However, if this trend is not corrected, it could solidify and become very hard to reverse, or it would cost a lot of money, resources and time (which we don't have)to correct it.

The winner of tomorrow's primary in Pennsylvania will be determined by the margin. As James Carville would say, "It's the margin stupid."  If Senator Obama (disclaimer: I am a supporter of Senator Obama) loses by less than 5 points, he could make the case that Senator Clinton has no chance whatsoever to catch up to him (in terms of pledged delegates and/or popular vote), and that all the recent controversies, from Rev. Wright to his alleged association with William Ayers, have not had a lasting impact on his candidacy.

However, if Senator Clinton wins by 10 points or more, not only she would live to fight another day, but there would be serious concerns among several democrats, myself included, about the ability of Senator Obama to win in the fall.

Previously entitled "Grown-ups only for President, please!"

Even my 74-year old mom took one look at this, and said: he's giving the finger!

Obama's own campaign posted this on You Tube in support of his candidacy. What does that say about his character, maturity, arrogance, respect for women, and respect for Hillary? Who's Barack's target audience? What is the message he means to convey? This is the guy who says he'll sit down with enemy leaders around the world and diplomatically discuss our differences?

And he did it twice!  At 2 separate events...same speech, same pause, same gesture -- proving that Barack Obama deliberately flipped off Hillary.

Here is the short video version of the second time Obama made the obscene gesture while talking about Hillary's debate performance.

And here is the longer version of the same incident. You can see by the audience reaction and Barack's own smirks that there was no ambiguity as to what was intended.

Long version...

In the words of my 22-year-old niece: "If you're going to have the audacity to flip someone off as a presidential candidate, then at least have the chutzpah to actually flip them off....how old are you that you have to scratch your face with your middle finger instead?  If he had done it directly, he'd still be a jack ass, but now he's a jack ass and juvenile."

For more detail , including the mainstream media outlets which are now running the story, there are a couple of excellent posts at No Quarter.

Cross posted at texasdarlin.wordpress.com

what controversial remarks he heard from Rev. Wright while he was present in the Church? By listening to his March 18th speech, I inferred that he backed away from his original contention from March 14th. The statements as quoted below seem contradictory. However, it is remotely possible that he never heard the comments in the tape in the 20 years of Church visits, before he decided to run for President but has heard other controversial comments. This seems stretching reality. But then I'm willing to give the Senator the benefit of the doubt. Now it is upto the Senator himself to clarify what controversial statements that he talked about that Rev Wright spoke in his presence. I'll let Senator Obama's own comments speak for themselves. Others might have already caught this contradiction and shown it.

NPR March 14, 2008
http://www.npr.org/blogs/news/2008/03/ob ama_condemns_comments_made_b.html

"The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation. When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign. I made it clear at the time that I strongly condemned his comments."

CNN interview with Anderson Cooper, March 14, 2008
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0 803/14/acd.01.html

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: "Well, first of all, Anderson, you know, I strongly condemn the statements that have been shown on the tape.

I have to confess that those are not statements that I ever heard when I was sitting in the pews at this church. This is a church that I have been a member of for 20 years. This is a well-established, typical, historically African-American church in the South Side of Chicago, with a wonderful set of ministries."

When I first started reading political blogs, I checked two on a regular (okay, daily) basis: Dkos and MyDD. I enjoyed both but in different ways. I lurked for a while on both, and first started posting at Dkos. It wasn't until recently that I got the courage to start regularly posting here. Why? This place intimidated me. Chris Bowers gave a pretty good explanation of why (here):

Within the progressive blogosphere, our relative influence far exceeds our relative traffic levels... Rather than a community blog, MyDD tends to be a professional blog.

I was intimidated because the discourse on MyDD always felt more reasoned, more knowledgeable, more professional. This, I think, was a good thing; lurking at MyDD made me (at least feel) smarter.

Now, I know that, like flowers blooming in spring, silliness and stupidity will bloom during primary season. Certainly, blogtopia has been feeling much dumber and more divisive as of late. But, MyDD? Yes, I think it's safe to say that, even here, otherwise smart and level-headed progressives find themselves caught in the midst of silliness.

I'm going to try to deal with some of the sillier arguments floating around this primary season. I was an Edwards man through and through, so I don't really have a horse in this race. I do, however, lean Obama. But I doubt I'll make a lot of my fellow Obama supporters super happy; many of the arguments I'll dissect come from my own camp. And, obviously, much of what I say will probably piss off some of the more outspoken Clinton supporters, too. I hope--this is for the more partisan supporters on either side--that you do read this diary.

I hold no illusions about my writing; I don't think I'm going to change everyone's mind or make peace here at MyDD. Hell, I'm sure I'll say plenty of stupid things you all can pick apart in the comments, if you so desire. But, I hope that, at the least, some of you all read and comment and discuss what I bring up. I know that we can at least learn something of what "the other side" thinks, and maybe from there we can continue building that common framework from which real, mind-changing debate is possible.