Hillary’s Voice

Matt Davies

But she just may do it: Electoral-Vote.com, April 28, 2008
Clinton     291        McCain     237        Tie     10
Obama     243        McCain     269        Tie     26
Click through to see the maps.

AP Poll: Clinton leads McCain by 9 points (Associated Press)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton now leads John McCain by 9 points in a head-to-head presidential matchup, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll that bolsters her argument that she is more electable than Democratic rival Barack Obama. Obama and Republican McCain are running about even… Helped by independents, young people and seniors, Clinton gained ground this month in a hypothetical match with Sen. McCain, the GOP nominee-in-waiting. She now leads McCain, 50 percent to 41 percent, while Obama remains virtually tied with McCain, 46 percent to 44 percent. Both Democrats were roughly even with McCain in the previous poll about three weeks ago.

SurveyUSA: Clinton Leads in Indiana (Political Wire)
A new SurveyUSA poll in Indiana finds Sen. Hillary Clinton leading Sen. Barack Obama, 52% to 43%, essentially unchanged since the beginning of the month. Key findings: “Clinton’s advantage is steady among women, steady among voters age 50+, and steady in Southern Indiana, which borders Kentucky. Obama is gaining ground among voters under 50, where he leads for the first time; among liberals, where he leads for the first time; in Northern Indiana, where he is tied for the first time; and in Central Indiana, where he has cut Clinton’s lead in half. Clinton, by contrast, is making steady inroads among Independent voters.”

Group of Clinton supporters to spend $700,000 in ad critical of Obama in Indiana
WASHINGTON - A political advocacy group consisting of backers of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign was to begin spending at least $700,000 Tuesday in an Indiana advertising blitz calling on Sen. Barack Obama to address the economic plight of Americans.

PP Poll: Obama Slips in North Carolina (Political Wire)
According to the latest Public Policy Polling survey in North Carolina, Sen. Hillary Clinton has cut Sen. Barack Obama’s North Carolina lead in half. Obama still has a solid 51% to 39% advantage over Clinton, but his lead had ranged from 18 to 25 points in the pollster’s previous five releases. Key finding: The bulk of the movement in the race over the last week has come from white voters. The survey last week showed Obama pulling to within five points of Clinton with that group, but her lead now is back up at 56% to 35%.”

North Carolina Gov. Easley endorses Clinton for president
RALEIGH, N.C. - Gov. Mike Easley endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton Tuesday, boosting her presidential bid a week before North Carolina’s May 6 primary.

Clinton’s New Debate Proposal: On the Back of a Flatbed Truck (Fox News)
First she said that if Barack Obama didn’t like the questions he received from debate moderators, she’d debate him Lincoln-Douglas style. Now, Hillary Clinton says she’ll even take the show on the road. Obama told reporters this week that he’s ruled out another debate before the next round of primaries, moderators or no moderators — saying “Rather than being in a studio, I want to make sure that we’re reaching out to folks where they live.” Senator Clinton’s response? “We could even do it on the back of a flatbed truck, doesn’t even have to be in some fancy studio somewhere,” she told the cheering crowd at an outdoor rally in the shadows of the USS North Carolina.
I’m starting to love this woman.

Senator Clinton; Health Care & Military Solutions the Methodist College Speech (ANVP Blog)
When I arrived at Methodist College to hear Senator Clinton speak. I was just a Clinton supporter. When I walked out those doors, I became a Clinton supporter for not only myself, but others as well. She delivered a speech on solutions for the military that was a in depth speech far more advanced than anything we have now. As I listened to her speak, it astounded me the amount of knowledge and information on her issues she intends to implement once in office. Truthfully, it was unlike anything I ever heard, and I knew at that moment she was capable, more than capable, to be ready on day one. Because in my eyes, she was already there. From stop loss … to health care, to raising the GI Bill, Senator Clinton oulined the plan for her future fighting force in explicit detail.

From Reba Shimansky, via email:
[Last] Tuesday I went with a couple of busloads of Hillary supporters to Philadelphia to campaign on behalf of Hillary. What impressed me the most was the high level of energy and enthusiasm there was for Hillary among the campaign volunteers. This was highlighted at the televised  victory celebration later that evening, at the Hyatt Regency which I was privileged to attend. Since then I have heard  TV commentators remark that they were surprised by the level of the enthusiasm for Hillary because they thought that all the enthusiasm was reserved for Obama. I am glad commentators are beginning to realize that Hillary too has  millions of impassioned supporters  who will be heartbroken if she does not get the nomination.

Bill Kristol: Hillary gets no respect (by scarce at Crooks and Liars)
[On] Fox News Sunday Kristol rallies to [Clinton’s] side saying, “She is a better candidate than he is. “ And Kristol [continued Monday] in the NY Times: “… I do think I can speak for most of my fellow right-wingers when I say this: We once looked forward with unambivalent glee to the fall of the house of Clinton. Many of us still do. But we also see the liberal media failing to give Hillary Clinton the respect she deserves. So, since we conservatives believe in giving credit where credit is due, it falls to us to praise Hillary.” Of course, the disdain for all things Clinton has not lessened one iota among these people. The annoying clucking sound we hear is only Republicans savoring the prospect of Democratic discord, their only real means to retaining the White House.
Of course they will start saying nasty things about her again if she manages to come through with the nomination, but right wingers admire a fighter.  They run rings around the Democrats because they fight all the time, no matter what the issue, no matter what the stakes.

Wright’s Voice Could Spell Doom for Obama (by Dana Milbank at Rouge Sketch, Washington Post)
Should it become necessary in the months from now to identify the moment that doomed Obama’s presidential aspirations, attention is likely to focus on the hour between nine and ten [Monday] morning at the National Press Club. It was then that Wright, Obama’s longtime pastor, reignited a controversy about race from which Obama had only recently recovered - and added lighter fuel. Speaking before an audience that included Marion Barry, Cornel West, Malik Zulu Shabazz of the New Black Panther Party and Nation of Islam official Jamil Muhammad, Wright praised Louis Farrakhan, defended the view that Zionism is racism, accused the United States of terrorism, repeated his view that the government created the AIDS virus to cause the genocide of racial minorities, stood by other past remarks (”God damn America”) and held himself out as a spokesman for the black church in America.

Wright suggested that Obama was insincere in distancing himself from his pastor. “He didn’t distance himself,” Wright announced. “He had to distance himself, because he’s a politician, from what the media was saying I had said, which was anti-American.”… Wright also argued, at least four times over the course of the hour, that he was speaking not for himself but for the black church. “This is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright,” the minister said. “It is an attack on the black church.” He positioned himself as a mainstream voice of African American religious traditions. “Why am I speaking out now?” he asked. “If you think I’m going to let you talk about my mama and her religious tradition, and my daddy and his religious tradition and my grandma, you got another thin[k] coming.”

Why Jeremiah Wright is so wrong (by Joan Walsh, Salon)
I was profoundly depressed by the conversation between PBS’s Bill Moyers and Barack Obama’s pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ, broadcast on PBS Friday night… Watching Wright and Moyers I … couldn’t help thinking: Is Wright trying to ruin Obama? I don’t have an answer. One thing about my reaction surprised me. I had seen short clips and I was prepared to argue that Wright is a stone-cold narcissist, unprepared to let Obama surpass him, uninterested in whether he’s wrong. But Moyers’ interview made me see how hurt Wright is. He’s genuinely wounded, and I felt sorry for him. Wright is sure that he is right. I think Moyers, too, thinks Wright’s been treated badly: that the controversy ignores the good Wright has done, the HIV/AIDS work, the health, education, mentoring services. And all of that is good, important work.

But to me, a telling part of the interview came in the Farrakhan section — not just Wright’s insisting that Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism is 20 years in the past, but in praising the Nation of Islam as one of the best institutions in America when it comes to keeping black men out of jail and crime and in jobs. I felt like he was trying to make the point that organizations that preach black separatism and focus on the real (as well as imagined) evils of white America are uniquely successful in strengthening the black community — and further, that he’s created another one at Trinity, one that is less deadly and delusional than the Nation of Islam, but still seems to think it’s therapeutic to school its members in an extreme critique of American society and its thoroughgoing, ongoing racism. I think he’s wrong; there are many black pastors who’ve had great impact in their neighborhoods without preaching what Wright preaches. But this is a divide in many urban communities.

Wright to Obama: ‘Coming after you’ (by Mike Allen at Politico)
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright said Monday that he will try to change national policy by “coming after” Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) if he is elected president. The pastor also insisted Obama “didn’t denounce” him and “didn’t distance himself” from Wright’s controversial remarks, but “did what politicians do.” Wright implied Obama still agrees with him by saying: “He had to distance himself, because he’s a politician, from what the media was saying I had said, which was [portrayed as] anti-American.”
Some African American activists are also planning to be pressuring Obama if he becomes president, most prominently the Black Agenda Report and the Black Commentator.  They are concerned that Obama has never expressed strong support for any of their issues, much less built an activist organization to help build pressure to implement reform policies.  Affirmative action, see below, is just one example.  If Obama were really as radical as some on the left seem to think he is, I’d be supporting him wholeheartedly.  It’s his wimpiness on almost every controversial issue that I don’t like about him.

On affirmative action, Obama intriguing but vague – (by Peter S. Canellos, Boston Globe)
WASHINGTON - Barack Obama is one of the rare Democrats who often choose to explain the values behind a policy rather than the policy itself. (That’s more often been the proud approach of Republicans, including Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.) So when ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, in the waning minutes of the Pennsylvania debate, asked Obama for his views about affirmative action, Obama’s answer was a microcosm of the strengths - and some of the recently apparent weaknesses - of his campaign: The Illinois senator’s reply was intriguing but fuzzy, responsive to voters’ underlying concerns but not really specific in policy terms.

Obama Addresses Rev. Wrights’ Latest Comments (by Jeralyn at TalkLeft)
Barack Obama, who has not been known for accessibility to the press the last few weeks (see the waffle story) called a “hastily arranged press conference” [Monday] to again disassociate himself from Rev. Wright, including his most recent remarks. The press conference lasted six minutes on the airport tarmac and he took three questions. “’Some of the comments that Rev. Wright has made offend me, and I understand why they offend the American people. He does not speak for me. He does not speak for the campaign,’ Obama said. ‘Many of the statements that he’s made, both that triggered this initial controversy and that he’s made over the last several days, are not statements that I have heard him make previously. They don’t represent my views,’ the senator added.”

Obama fundraising off Wright-race speech (Washington Times)
Sen. Barack Obama’s latest fundraising drive - own a “piece of history.” And by history, the campaign means a DVD copy of his speech on race. It’s an interesting tactic, since the speech was given to respond to the political fury that erupted over his pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

ANSWERING DIGBY’S IMPORTANT QUESTION: (by Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler)
Digby raises a basic question in her important post. She discusses the way Obama is now being portrayed as an effete “arugula liberal”—even as McCain is “being called ‘the coolest guy in the school’ by 20-something reporters.” If Obama becomes the Dem nominee, we’re not sure how widely this portrait will be peddled. But Digby raises a primal question at the end of her post: “…I have always wondered why Democrats are always off guard every time this hits them…” Two partial answers (though there are others):

Democratic Party elites: We’d have to suggest that Democratic Party elites may not care a great deal about who wins elections. Yes, they would probably prefer to see Democrats win. But the people who run the Democratic Party are just as wealthy as Big Reps are. They gain large sums from Republican tax cuts—and sometimes, this interest seems to show in the way they fight (or decline to)… Many people at the top of your party seem to look out for Number One only. Simply put, these are truly horrible people—and they seem to be found all through your party’s bloated elites.

Liberal/progressive journalistic elites: Twenty years ago, it was Belgian endive. Today, arugula reaches the cover of Newsweek—and McCain is still the world’s greatest man. In all that time, have you ever seen your liberal journals address these destructive, trivia-fueled narratives? Overwhelmingly, no—you have not. But you have seen their honchos run off to do Hardball; you have seen them turn up at the Post for their next jobs. (In recent months, you have seen your brightest “progressives” tell you how brilliant Chris Matthews is.) If you still can’t see why this narrative never dies, you need to stop trying to figure things out. In the past several decades, this has largely been a mainstream press narrative—and your liberal journalistic elite are part of the mainstream press structure. They get wealth and fame from the mainstream press—and they don’t discuss its misconduct.

Markos isn’t angry. Why should he be ANGRY?! (by riverdaughter at The Confluence)
I mean, just because Obama went on Fox and didn’t slay the dragon: “…It exposed his campaign as a bunch of liars. The Obama campaign’s press show promised people that Obama would ‘take on’ Fox News. Of course, none of that happened. That would’ve electrified ‘the left’, and we know that Obama doesn’t want to do anything that might make him look like a ‘captive’ to it… But ‘rise above politics’? His refusal to acknowledge the political reality may very well be his greatest weakness. I hope it’s all an act. I can take cynical political rhetoric. I expect it. And it’s not like Clinton is offering anything different in that department. But if Obama actually believes it, then the Republicans will chew him up and spit him out.”…

Markos, Markos, Markos, we emailed, we posted, we *pleaded* with you to exercise some control, to crack down on the abuses, to provide some balance, to not burn your bridges. You said it was all in good fun. We warned you that there were undesirable elements infiltrating the site, young hooligan males and possibly Republican moles. You laughed at us. We tried to fight back, to get others to see reason, to laugh at the absurdity of it all, You disowned us. I’m sorry to say this, but you had it coming… (No, I’m not providing a link)
Me neither.

My Reform For The Nomination Process (by Big Tent Democrat at TalkLeft)
I am watching a C-Span broadcast about the broken, undemocratic, and corrupt nomination process. Elaine Kamarck of the DNC Rule and Bylaws Committee is going through the history and droning on about this and that. And it hit me. The solution to the problem is simple - we should change the Presidential nomination process to a pure popular vote system… This would also let states decide if they wanted to pay for a real election (a primary) or wanted instead to hold a phony election (a caucus). It gets rid of superdelegates. Heck, it gets rid of DELEGATES period. It gets rid of every unDemocratic feature in the process (no overweighting rural districts or urban districts or any district.) Finally, it eliminates the importance of incompetents like Donna Brazile. So there you have it. My proposed reform for the nomination process.
Great idea!

Citing Obama, McCain shifts on use of Wright (Politico)
Pointing to Barack Obama’s remark today on “Fox News Sunday” that his former pastor was “a legitimate political issue,” John McCain this afternoon brought up two new controversial statements by Jeremiah Wright that have recently surfaced… But even while raising the Wright comments unprompted, McCain continued to say that he didn’t think Obama held similar views. When it was noted that he had previously said Wright was not fair game, McCain again alluded to Obama’s statement this morning. “But Senator Obama himself says it’s a legitimate political issue, so I would imagine that many other people will share that view, and it will be in the arena,” McCain said.

Its Candidates Otherwise Engaged, Democratic Party Goes After McCain
A new advertisement is an effort by the relatively cash-poor party headquarters to pick up the slack against the presumptive Republican nominee.

RNC trying to block the new DNC/McCain 100 years in Iraq ad. No response from FOX ( by John Amato at Crooks and Liars)
The RNC is crying over the very accurate ad that the DNC is running about John McCain. You remember his ‘I’ll stay in Iraq for 100 years,” statement? Well, they are trying to force MSNBC and CNN to stop running the ad. Marc Ambinder reports this: “…The RNC is ginning up the threat of legal action to give weight to their criticism of the ad’s content. Cairncross would not say whether the party will sue CNN or MSNBC, the two cable networks airing the ad, if they refuse to kill it.”

McCain Kicks Off Health Care Tour At Children’s Hospital That Supported SCHIP Expansion He Opposed (Think Progress)
Kicking off his “Call to Action Tour” today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) toured Miami Children’s Hospital, where he “met and listened to some of its young patients and their parents.” In remarks delivered at the hospital, McCain pledged that he would “work to eliminate the worries over the availability and cost of health care”.
Just like his poverty tour, full of hypocrisy.

Lots more really good stuff at MakeThemAccountable.com.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com