Tag: Barack Obama (page 48)

Via Sentencing Law and Policy, Hillary was interviewed by Vibe Magazine last weekend.

VIBE: In your speech, you talked about having first, second, and third chances for children. In the last ten years the rate of incarceration of women has increased exponentially. I don’t think the average person realizes that it’s not 50% or 100%, it’s like 750% in the last thirty years. There are a disproportionate number of African-American men and women who are going to be released from prison with felony convictions. What do we do about that group of people who are effectively disenfranchised when they come out?

CLINTON: Number one, we need to divert more people from the prison system. We have too many people in prison for non-violent drug offenses, which disproportionately impacts on the African-American community. That’s why I’ve been a strong advocate of eliminating the disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine [sentencing].

There may have been a reason for it 25 years ago but there isn’t any justification for it now. But it also means that in the prisons themselves, we’ve got to get back to the services that used to be there.

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Barack Obama wrote a letter outlining his support for the Gay. Lesbian, Bi and Transgender community today.

Hillary Clinton established the LGBT Americans For Hillary Steering Committee in June, 2007, outlining her years of support for the LGBT community.

As president, Clinton has pledged to end the divisive leadership of the past six years and work with the LGBT community to make sure that all Americans in committed relationships have equal economic benefits and rights. She also will work to end discrimination in adoption laws. As a U.S. Senator, she has worked to expand federal hate crimes legislation and pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and will sign the legislation into law once she is in the White House. She will also put an end to the failed policy of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

For the record, both Hillary and Obama support expansion of crimial hate crime laws. I oppose them. Sentences for crimes are already sky high. Punish the act, not the thought behind it. Civil suits are one thing, I'm okay with that. But leave our criminal laws out of this.

That being said, Obama's a little late to this party. Not to mention, this sentence in his letter is a little disturbing. It's the now expected Obama pull-back.

Just as important, I have been listening to what all Americans have to say. I will never compromise on my commitment to equal rights for all LGBT Americans. But neither will I close my ears to the voices of those who still need to be convinced. That is the work we must do to move forward together.

What's he promising? If you think something other than compromise, read it again. It's compromise.

Two news items from Chicago today. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals denied an appeal bond for Conrad Black, while granting one to his two co-defendants. The British publishing magnate must report Monday to a federal prison in Coleman, Florida to start serving his 6 1/2 year sentence.

While the Court said there's a substantial issue on the fraud convictions (which, if decided in defendant's favor, likely would result in a reversal or new trial being granted) it found no such issue on Black's obstruction of justice conviction. The old coverup -- it gets you every time.

In the Anton Rezko trial which begins with jury selection Monday, the judge ruled today that photos of Rezko's mansion will come into evidence because it shows his opulent lifestyle and some of the alleged unlawful fundraising activity took place there.[More...]

A new Texas Rasmussen poll shows Obama at 48%, Hillary at 44%. But, those numbers should be within the margin of error, and:

Eight percent (8%) remain undecided and another 12% say it’s possible they could change their mind. That latter figure includes 3% who say there’s a good chance they could change their mind.

Also,

• 73% of the undecided have a favorable view of Hillary compared to 69% for Obama (among all voters, it's 76 favorable for Hillary and 75 for Obama.
• Obama leads by sixteen points among men, but trails by nine among women.
• Hillary is still leading among Hispanic voters by 7 points.
• 79% believe Hillary "would be at least somewhat likely to win the White House if nominated" compared to 78% for Obama.

A negative: Obama's NAFTA spin about Hillary is working.

Bottom line: This is a fluid race where either candidate could win.

Update: Now that Ralph Nader has selected Matt Gonzales as his running mate, which I did not know when this post was written, I've written a follow-up here.

*****

Matt Gonzales is a progressive and the former president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He's also a former public defender, former Democrat and green party candidate who ran a well-respected and close campaign against San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. (Bill Clinton campaigned for Newsom, who won.)

He started thinking he didn't know too much about Barack Obama other than the change meme, so he did some pretty exhaustive research on his voting record. As a result, he says, "Count Me Out." Check out his issue by issue comparison and then his conclusion:

Once I started looking at the votes Obama actually cast, I began to hear his rhetoric differently. The principal conclusion I draw about “change” and Barack Obama is that Obama needs to change his voting habits and stop pandering to win votes. If he does this he might someday make a decent candidate who could earn my support. For now Obama has fallen into a dangerous pattern of capitulation that he cannot reconcile with his growing popularity as an agent of change.

I remain impressed by the enthusiasm generated by Obama’s style and skill as an orator. But I remain more loyal to my values, and I’m glad to say that I want no part in the Obama craze sweeping our country.

I think Gonzales' view is even more telling when you consider who supported him for Mayor in 2003. It wasn't the Democratic establishment, it was the change folks, including: [More...]

There's a new LA Times/Bloomberg national poll. The key findings:

• Between McCain, Obama and Hillary:

  In head-to-head contests, the poll found, McCain leads Clinton by 6 percentage points (46% to 40%) and Obama by 2 points (44% to 42%). Neither lead is commanding given that the survey, conducted Feb. 21-25, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
  

• On the economy, Hillary beats McCain 43% to 34% while McCain beats Obama 42% to 34%. That's a big difference.

[More...]

In 2004, the Democratic ticket carried 20 states with 252 electoral votes. Obviously, it wasn't enough. What other states are most likely to play a role in 2008? Which of the Democratic candidates would be the Party's most successful candidate in the general election?

William Arnone, a long-time Democratic Party activist who worked with Robert F. Kennedy in 1967-68 has updated his July, 2007 analysis of "Key States in the 2008 Presidential Election."

The ten states are: Arkansas; Colorado; Florida; Iowa; Missouri; Nevada; New Mexico; North Carolina; Ohio; and Virginia.

With his permission, I reprint his newest analysis below:

Sean Wilentz, writing today in the New Republic, argues that it is Barack Obama, not Hillary Clinton, who has played the race card in this campaign.

More than any other maneuver, this one has brought Clinton into disrepute with important portions of the Democratic Party. A review of what actually happened shows that the charges that the Clintons played the "race card" were not simply false; they were deliberately manufactured by the Obama camp and trumpeted by a credulous and/or compliant press corps in order to strip away her once formidable majority among black voters and to outrage affluent, college-educated white liberals as well as college students. The Clinton campaign, in fact, has not racialized the campaign, and never had any reason to do so. Rather the Obama campaign and its supporters, well-prepared to play the "race-baiter card" before the primaries began, launched it with a vengeance when Obama ran into dire straits after his losses in New Hampshire and Nevada--and thereby created a campaign myth that has turned into an incontrovertible truth among political pundits, reporters, and various Obama supporters.

Readers are welcome to weigh in, so long as they don't call anyone, candidates or other commenters, racists. This is about playing the race card, not whether either candidate or anyone on this site is a racist.

The Houston Chronicle reports on the increase in Republicans voting in the Democratic primary to ensure Hillary doesn't win. Some examples:

There is scattered evidence across the state that some Republicans may be voting Democratic, at least for a day. In one precinct in the suburban Houston neighborhood of Kingwood, where 82 percent of voters cast ballots for President Bush in 2004, Democrats were outvoting Republicans 4-to-1 last week in early voting.

....Daron Shaw, a political science professor at University of Texas, said surveys he conducted in two state legislative districts in the Dallas-Fort Worth area revealed that almost a quarter of voters with a history of voting in GOP primaries planned on participating in the Democratic primary.

Here's a Texas pollster:

"The argument I've seen is, 'Let's get rid of Clinton once and for all,' " said Ralph Bordie, who conducts the IVR Poll in Texas.

Bordie's latest statewide poll released last week found that 15 percent of Texas Republicans who said they will support the GOP nominee in November plan nonetheless on voting for Obama next week.

I complained about this last week. I'm still complaining. Democrats, not Republicans and Independents, should pick our party's nominee.

Update: Pamela at the Democratic Daily weighs in on this.

Let me start out by saying, as I have before, that I don't think Barack Obama did anything illegal in his dealings with Anton "Tony" Rezko. Obama has labeled his involvement with Rezko and his wife in the purchase of his home "boneheaded." In other words, since Rezko was under federal investigation by a grand jury at the time Obama bought the $1.65 million house, it was bad judgment, nothing more.

Rezko's trial begins next week. It is a trial about the politics of crime and the crime in politics. As I do many such trials, including that of former Ill. Gov. George Ryan, I am going to cover it. I'm not going to walk on eggshells because Barack Obama's name will come up.

It seems the American media, aside from Obama's home town papers, the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun Times, and the New York Post, are mostly lying low on it. Across the pond, as Instapundit notes, it's of interest to the TimesOnLine, which has a three page article on it today.

Also today, the Tribune reports that the Judge has allowed "Public Official A" to be unmasked as Ill. Gov. Rod Blagojevich. And that Obama's name will surface during the trial.

[More...]

Here's the new SUSA Texas poll released tonight.

In a Democratic Primary in Texas today, 02/25/08, 8 days till votes are counted, Barack Obama moves ever-so-slightly ahead of Hillary Clinton, though at the edge of the margin of sampling error, according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted for KTRK-TV Houston, KTVT-TV Dallas and KRLD-AM radio Dallas. Today, it's Obama 49%, Clinton 45%. Compared to a SurveyUSA tracking poll released one week ago, Obama is up 4 points, Clinton is down 5 points.

It's not all bad news for Hillary:

"Among seniors, Liberals, voters in Central Texas, South Texas and West Texas, Clinton's support is holding. "

..."Of the 25% of respondents who have already voted, it's Clinton 51%, Obama 46%."

Also, the Laredo Times endorsed Hillary today, citing her experience.(pdf)

A new national AP poll out today finds Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in a statistical tie.

Overall, Obama has 46 percent to Clinton's 43 percent, a virtual tie. Clinton had a slight 5 point lead nationally in early February.

The AP stresses the increase in white male support for Obama. He's also increased among youth, liberals, those earning more than $50k a year and voters with college or graduate degrees. But, Hillary maintains a big lead in her core constituency as well.

Clinton maintains robust leads among some groups that have been cornerstones of her candidacy, including those age 65 and up, white women and people earning under $50,000 annually.