Hillary’s Voice

Media Tenor’s Presidential Campaign Watch (by Media Tenor at Media Channel)
New York, March 20, 2008: Barrack Obama is fighting for the survival of his campaign. Up-to-data analysis of political coverage in US TV news shows a collapse of media support for Barrack Obama after the revelation of the divisive remarks from his long-term spiritual mentor, the Rvd. Jeremiah Wright. “Although Obama fought back with his speech in Philadelphia,” explains Roland Schatz, President of Media Tenor International, “the discussion has undermined his claim to transform race relations in the US.” At the same time, analysis of political coverage in ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox news, shows Hillary Clinton reclaiming lost ground after her win in Texas.
Click through for more analysis and graphs.

CLG exclusively broke the news of Stanley’s possible involvement early [Friday] (by Lori Price at Citizens for Legitimate Government)
The Bush Administration uses contractors instead of government employees to carry out GOP dirty tricks, so that the US government isn’t obliged to investigate the misdeeds. The ‘bad’ contract workers get punished by their employer - no questions asked - and the matter is put to rest. With a passport services contract - one of two-hundred contracts with forty federal agencies - worth $570-million, Stanley has every impetus to sweep the whole sordid affair under the rug.

Clinton friend involved in passport breach (Capitol Hill Blue)
A State Department official in charge of the department during two of the three breaches into the passport files of Sen. Barack Obama has a direct tie to Bill and Hillary Clinton and department officials are investigating whether she furnished information to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Maura Harty was in charge of the Bureau Of Consular Affairs during the first two breaches of Obama’s passport.
My comment:  “Being ‘in charge’ of the department when the breaches happened means for certain that she was ‘involved’ in the breach? Honestly, Capitol Hill Blue has jumped the shark and is now vying with John Solomon for sensational headlines that don’t match the text of the article. I will never visit your website again.

NM Gov. Bill Richardson endorses Obama
PORTLAND, Ore. - Bill Richardson, the nation’s only Hispanic governor, backed Barack Obama for president Friday, moved to deliver his much-coveted endorsement by the senator’s speech about race.
The speech.  Uh huh.  It’s much more likely to have been the promise of a high-level position in an Obama administration.

Countdown: Richardson Explains Obama Endorsement (by Logan Murphy at Crooks and Liars)
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson came off the sidelines to endorse Senator Barack Obama yesterday and joined Keith Olbermann on Countdown to explain the endorsement and why he chose this time to make it. Richardson took exception to Clinton strategist Mark Penn’s assertion that his endorsement was too late and wasn’t significant, saying it’s typical of many of the people in Clinton’s campaign.
Did Keith Olbermann have John Murtha on to discuss his endorsement of Hillary Clinton?  I don’t remember seeing a mention of it.  Anybody?  Click here to see the Richardson/Olbermann video.  The link to the post may not work.  It was in my RSS feed, but it leads to a “not found” page on the website.

Edwards Not Likely to Endorse (Political Wire)
John Edwards “is unlikely to endorse either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton before the nomination is decided, according to interviews with several members of the former candidate’s inner circle,” according to The Politico.

Obama aide: Bill Clinton like McCarthy
SALEM, Ore. - Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign is trying to clarify comments by former President Clinton that seemed to question Barack Obama’s patriotism — comments an Obama aide likened to Joseph McCarthy.

David Axlerod Knows Hillary is more Experienced (by roseeriter at MyDD)
Sometimes I wonder how political campaign staff people sleep at night knowing the difference between what is truth and what is just a political game. [From the NYT’s 2007] Obama’s Narrator: “This, Axelrod says, is what Karl Rove understood about George W. Bush. ‘One of the reasons Bush has succeeded in two elections,’ Axelrod says, ‘is that in his own rough-hewn way he has conveyed a sense of this is who I am, warts and all.’ For Obama, because of Senator Hillary Clinton’s far-greater experience and establishment backing, this is a particularly essential project. ‘If we run a conventional campaign and look like a conventional candidacy, we lose,’ Axelrod says.” [Emphasis added.]
Click through for more.

Kilmeade storms off Fox and Friends set over co-hosts’ Obama-bashing. (Think Progress)
Earlier today, ThinkProgress noted how Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace chastised his colleagues on the Fox and Friends morning show for their “excessive” and “somewhat distorting” coverage of Sen. Barack Obama’s comments about his grandmother. Earlier in the show, according to the Huffington Post, Fox and Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade “argued that the remark needed to be taken in context and eventually got so fed up with his co-hosts that he walked off set.”
Isn’t it funny how when someone on the right stands up for Obama, it’s great and wonderful and good.  But when someone on the right stands up for Clinton, it’s bad and awful and shows what a right winger she is.  The Clinton rules apply, even among so-called progressive internet activists.

Moving beyond Obama and race (by Joan Walsh, Salon)
I’ve gotten a ton of criticism in letters for questioning Obama’s use of his grandmother in his landmark race speech, and it’s all made me think twice. Many more times than twice, actually. Yet I hold to my view that Obama’s speech, and its aftermath, could well be politically damaging despite rave reviews, and that his use of his grandmother is part of the problem… I think Obama simply misspoke, out of campaign exhaustion, when he called his grandmother “a typical white person” who, he said, harbored no “racial animosity,” but “if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn’t know. . .there’s a reaction in her that doesn’t go away and it comes out in the wrong way.”
You get grief when you dare to criticize The One.  Oh, and Shelby Steele reminds us that Jesse Jackson, Sr. once said that he, too, crosses the street when he sees young black men.  I guess he’s a typical white person, too.

Obama struggles to limit damage in pastor row as white voters slip away (The Guardian, U.K.)
Listen for a few minutes to Joey Vento, owner of a south Philadelphia institution that serves gut-busting sandwiches through a takeaway hatch, and the scale of Barack Obama’s problems become apparent. Obama is having the worst week of his campaign. It is, some believe, a week that threatens his chances of becoming president. “That minister, that was terrible, all his sayings. He’s preaching hatred,” Vento said. “The thing I didn’t like about Obama; you’re telling me for 20 years you been going to that church and you never heard that?”… Obama attempted to defuse the escalating row with a speech on Tuesday in Philadelphia in which he spoke in detail about his relationship with Wright and race in the US… Although acclaimed by the media and political activists, his speech has failed to win over voters such as Vento.

Obama’s magic is vanishing fast (by Don Surber, Charleston Daily Mail, WV)
SEN. Barack Obama, D-Ill., rose to the top of the Democratic Party pecking order in February based on three assumptions. In March, the truth is unraveling those assumptions. The first assumption is that he opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning to the end. But Obama’s position on the war has been fluid… The second assumption is that he was not tied to the politics of the past. But Obama’s connection with Tony Rezko shows that Obama is not an outsider, but rather an insider… The third assumption is that he is above racial politics. Obama’s relationship with the race-baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright undercuts that assumption… [B]eing ordinary is the last thing a phenomenon can afford to be.

Still Fightin’ (by Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo)
TPM Reader MR… “I have to say that I disagree with your entry stating that Clinton supporters have thrown in the towel and accepted that Barack Obama will be the nominee… We’re not backing down! The fight has just begun!!!! Pennsylvania is around the corner and a large victory is excepted. Polls in West Virginia also strongly favor her. Polls in North Carolina that have favored Obama are now virtually tied. There will be big surprises in North Carolina. It’s not over. And I might also point out how inaccurate the Politico article that you quoted/linked to really is. If the superdelegates support Clinton there will be “a backlash of historic proportions”!?!? THEY WOULD BE DOING THE JOB THEY WERE CREATED FOR, JOSH. The superdelegates weren’t created to add fluff to the popular vote, but to make the educated decision that voters sometimes can’t. They’re there for the same reason the electoral college is. For example, picking a glorified motivational speaker over an experienced leader (good example, eh?). The SD’s are there to put the better qualified and more electable candidate in charge. And in poll after poll, that’s Hillary. I’m sorry Josh, but you have it wrong.”

Daily Presidential Tracking Poll
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows ongoing volatility in the Democratic Presidential Nomination. Nationally, Hillary Clinton now holds a very slight advantage over Barack Obama, 46% to 44%. Before the story broke about his former Pastor, Obama led Clinton by eight percentage points… Obama’s favorable ratings slipped a little further—46% favorable, 51% unfavorable. Before the Pastor Problem became big news, Obama was viewed favorably by 52%. One month ago, he was viewed favorably by 56%. For Clinton, those numbers are 43% favorable, 54% unfavorable.

Democrats and the Delegate Debacle (Letter to the Editor, The New York Times)
Florida and Michigan Democratic voters broke no rules by participating in primaries that violated a Democratic National Committee fiat. The only laws governing primaries are state laws, with which the primaries complied.  The only rules governing delegate seating are those to be adopted by the Democratic National Convention, not those dictated by the Democratic National Committee… Primaries are held to enable party voters to choose a nominee. The Florida and Michigan primaries fulfilled that purpose. Here is a task for the superdelegates: to serve democracy by disregarding specious “rules” and ensuring that all elected delegates are seated to cast ballots according to the primary results.

The Rulz and the Rules (by Anglachel at Anglachel’s Journal)
I find [fascinating] the excerpts of the reasons presented by the Hunt Commission on why the party should have super delegates: “We must also give our convention more flexibility to respond to changing circumstances and, in cases where the voters’ mandate is less than clear, to make a reasoned choice…”The changing circumstances here are first Hillary’s clear support by the majority of Democrats voting in the primaries. Next, it is her clear dominance of swing states that the Democrats must win in November, most especially Florida. Third is Obama’s refusal to put himself up for an unequivocal vote by Democrats in Florida and Michigan so that the will of the voters can be known. Fourth, Obama’s dirty laundry and the Republicans’ glee over what they can do with it seriously damages any claims he can make to being a “media darling” or being innoculated from rightwing smears. Finally and most telling, the opposition to the front-runner-by-an-eyelash within the party [itself] is growing in size and determination with every smear, attack and lie he spews about his opponent.

Girl In Red Phone Ad Denounces Hillary And Her “Politics Of Fear” (by Greg Sargent at TPM Election Central)
Now this is pretty cutting. Not long ago I noted that one of the kids safely sleeping in stock footage in Hillary’s red phone ad was now of voting age and had revealed herself to be an Obama supporter. Now, the young woman, Casey Knowles, has cut a new Obama campaign web video directly denouncing Hillary, the ad, and the Clinton campaign’s overall tactics. They had a little fun making this one, clearly. Knowles says that Hillary “wanted to scare you into voting for her” by cutting a scary ad with frightful blue tinting and a narrator with a “scratchy voice.”
Greg Sargent was one of the few voices defending Hillary Clinton, and now he’s been put to work promoting Obama.  It’s sad to see.  Too bad this girl doesn’t know about the attacks Obama has made on Hillary Clinton for more than a year.  If she did, she might not be so willing to believe the campaign’s mischaracterization of Clinton’s 3 a.m. ad.

Lots more really good stuff at MakeThemAccountable.com.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com