Tag: 2008 (page 24)

Via The Tartan, the student newspaper for Carnegie Mellon on a Michelle Obama campaign rally in PA:

While the crowd was indeed diverse, some students at the event questioned the practices of Mrs. Obama’s event coordinators, who handpicked the crowd sitting behind Mrs. Obama. The Tartan’s correspondents observed one event coordinator say to another, “Get me more white people, we need more white people.” To an Asian girl sitting in the back row, one coordinator said, “We’re moving you, sorry. It’s going to look so pretty, though.”

“I didn’t know they would say, ‘We need a white person here,’ ” said attendee and senior psychology major Shayna Watson, who sat in the crowd behind Mrs. Obama. “I understood they would want a show of diversity, but to pick up people and to reseat them, I didn’t know it would be so outright.”

The politics of theater. Can you imagine if a similar request for African-Americans was made by the Clinton campaign? It would lead the evening news. [Hat tip Instapundit.]

The first view of Barack Obama's handling of the Jeremiah Wright issue was rosy....he had survived.

Not so quick, reports the Wall. St. Journal:

It has not been defused," says David Parker, a North Carolina Democratic Party official and unpledged superdelegate. He says his worries about Republicans questioning Sen. Obama's patriotism prompted him to raise the issue of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.'s remarks in conversations with both the Obama and Clinton campaigns.

I'm concerned about seeing Willie Horton ads during the general election," Mr. Parker says, referring to campaign ads that Republicans widely credited for helping defeat Michael Dukakis in 1988. Mr. Parker said the Wright controversy didn't hurt his opinion of Mr. Obama.

More...

Via the Washington Post: What does $40 million buy Obama? In addition to blanketing PA with ads,

In North Carolina, one of the two vital May 6 states, the Obama campaign's office count has risen to 16, including smaller locales like Hickory, Boone and Elizabeth City. Two Obama television ads are airing around the state, at a total cost of $800,000, according to a source familiar with the campaign's media budget. Today alone, an army of organizers and volunteers conducted 22 training and and voter registration sessions, focusing in particular on African Americans, students, and independents and Republicans.

In Indiana, the other May 6 contest, the Obama campaign has so far spent over $1 million on TV and radio ads. The office tally climbed today to 17. The Obama campaign's latest gimmick: a high school-outreach program that targets students who will turn 18 by the Nov. 4 general election, making them eligible as primary voters. Indiana students who register at least 20 of their peers by April 6 will be eligible to play three-on-three basketball with Obama, a big-time hoops fan and reputed aggressor on the court.

Obama has spent $3 million on Pennsylvania ads to date to Hillary's $500k.

One of the complaints I've had with Barack Obama is the difficulty trying to pin him down on issues. His positions too often seem to shift over time.

Politico has a doozy today. Remember the questionnaire that Obama submitted -- the one where he later said he didn't mean some of the answers, but a staffer had filled it out incorrectly?

Turns out, the questionnaire has turned up, with his handwriting on it. There's the issue of parental notification for abortions. But to me, its the ones on the death penalty and gun control that stand out.

During his first run for elected office, Barack Obama played a greater role than his aides now acknowledge in crafting liberal stands on gun control, the death penalty and abortion — positions that appear at odds with the more moderate image he has projected during his presidential campaign.

The evidence comes from an amended version of an Illinois voter group’s detailed questionnaire, filed under his name during his 1996 bid for a state Senate seat.

Late last year, in response to a Politico story about Obama’s answers to the original questionnaire, his aides said he “never saw or approved” the questionnaire.

They asserted the responses were filled out by a campaign aide who “unintentionally mischaracterize[d] his position.”

But a Politico examination determined that Obama was actually interviewed about the issues on the questionnaire by the liberal Chicago nonprofit group that issued it. And it found that Obama — the day after sitting for the interview — filed an amended version of the questionnaire, which appears to contain Obama’s own handwritten notes added to one answer.

More...

Law Professor Ann Althouse examines the enduring flap over whether Barack Obama really was a law professor. (More on that at the end of this post.)

She makes a more important point-- that we shouldn't forget the other 9 exaggerations raised by the Clinton campaign.

1. Obama claimed credit for nuclear leak legislation that never passed.
2. Obama misspoke about his being conceived because of Selma.
3. Sen. Obama took too much credit for his community organizing efforts.
4. Obama's assertion that nobody had indications Rezko was engaging in wrongdoing 'strains credulity.' "
5. Obama was forced to revise his assertion that lobbyists 'won't work in my White House.'
6. 'Selective, embellished and out-of-context quotes from newspapers pump up Obama's health plan.'
7. Sen. Obama said 'I passed a law that put Illinois on a path to universal coverage,' but Obama health care legislation merely set up a task force.
8. 'Obama…seemed to exaggerate the legislative progress he made' on ethics reform.
9. Obama drastically overstated Kansas tornado deaths during campaign appearance.

More...

Barack Obama's campaign has acknowledged Sen. Obama made a factual error in stating the Kennedy family paid for his father's emigration from Kenya to the U.S. in 1959.

Addressing civil rights activists in Selma, Ala., a year ago, Sen. Barack Obama traced his "very existence" to the generosity of the Kennedy family, which he said paid for his Kenyan father to travel to America on a student scholarship and thus meet his Kansan mother.

The Camelot connection has become part of the mythology surrounding Obama's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Research subsequently revealed the Kennedy family didn't make a financial donaton until 1960.

Contrary to Obama's claims in speeches in January at American University and in Selma last year, the Kennedy family did not provide the funding for a September 1959 airlift of 81 Kenyan students to the United States that included Obama's father. According to historical records and interviews with participants, the Kennedys were first approached for support for the program nearly a year later, in July 1960. The family responded with a $100,000 donation, most of which went to pay for a second airlift in September 1960.

The Obama campaign has acknowledged the error: [More..]

Jerome Armstrong at MyDD explains why Hillary Clinton has some lifelines open to her in terms of the pledged delegate count and the upcoming ten races.

First, in Hillary's Own words, watch the video:

As Jerome says, Hillary sounds ready to go to the mat over Florida and Michigan. But,there's other options open to her as well. Jerome writes: [More...]

I'm on Hillary Clinton's media conference call right now. The theme was her new economic stimulus plan vs. the one Barack Obama announced today.

Shorter version: Obama's a copycat. One week ago, Hillary proposed a $30 billion second stimulus plan. Today he introduced a $30 billion second stimulus plan. If he can't come up with his own proposals on the campaign trail, how will he do it as president?

Her plans are specific proposals, his are a statement of principles. (More here.)

They accused Obama's campaign of negative personal and character attacks on Hillary Clinton and of savaging her in personal terms on his daily campaign calls.

Polls show Obama isn't connecting with voters on the economy so he's now offering ideas, but they are ideas she proposed a week ago. That's not leadership, that's followership.

Reporter question about the Anti-Italian slur by Wright in Trumpet Magazine: They don't know anything about it. A reporter describes it. "Comments like that have no place in the public discourse."

More...

The new NBC/WSJ poll (pdf) out today has Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama tied at 45%. The margin of error is 3.7%. The poll was of all registered voters, not just Democrats. Both Hillary and Obama's unfavorability ratings increased somewhat from two weeks ago. Combining the "somehat "and "very negative" categories, Obama was at 28% unfavorable two weeks ago and is at 32% now. Hillary was at 43% and is now at 48%.

Given that these numbers include Republicans, I'm not surprised. What did surprise me is that the poll says it oversampled African Americans.

In addition, we oversampled African-Americans in order to get a more reliable cross-tab on many of the questions we asked in this poll regarding Sen. Barack Obama's speech on race and overall response to last week's Rev. Jeremiah Wright dustup.

I don't get it. Does anyone have an explanation or think the results are more reliable or less because of the oversampling?

Law Prof Paul Caron has examined the tax returns released by Barack Obama today for the years 2000 to 2006. You can read the returns over at his blog.

What is surprising, given the recent controversy over Obama's membership in the Trinity United Church of Christ, is how little the Obamas apparently gave to charity -- well short of the biblical 10% tithe for all seven years. In two of the years, the Obamas gave far less than 1% of their income to charity; in three of the years, they gave around 1% of their income to charity. Only in the last two years have they given substantially more as their income skyrocketed -- 4.7% in 2005 and 6.1% in 2006. (Of course, it is possible that the Obamas may have made gifts to other worthy causes that were not deductible for federal income tax purposes.)

The latest Gallup poll shows Hillary and Obama in a statistical tie.

The results confirm Gallup's March 22 report showing that Clinton's recent lead in the race -- apparently fueled by controversy dogging the Obama campaign over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright -- had evaporated.

At the same time, thus far Obama has not been able to reestablish the clear frontrunner position he enjoyed in late February, and again in mid-March. As has happened so often over the past six weeks, the race among national Democratic voters has become "too close to call."

As to the popular vote, pledged delegates, super delegates, electability and electoral votes, here's some things to think about:

First there was Tony Rezko. Then Jeremiah Wright. Now get ready for Emil Jones, President of the Illinois Senate who was so instrumental in Obama's legislative career he referred to himself as "Obama's godfather." The TimesOnLine (UK) has the details.

Their close relationship began in 2003 when Obama sought Jones' support to run for U.S. Senate.

“You have the power to elect a US senator,” Obama told Emil Jones, Democratic leader of the Illinois state senate. Jones looked at the ambitious young man smiling before him and asked, teasingly: “Do you know anybody I could make a US senator?”

According to Jones, Obama replied: “Me.” It was his first, audacious step in a spectacular rise from the murky political backwaters of Springfield, the Illinois capital.

Obama has frequently described his closeness to Jones: [More...]