Hillary’s Voice

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I will be a guest on Head-On with Bob Kincaid today at 6:00 PM ET.  Listen to Bob from 6:00 to 9:00 PM ET every weekday on the Head-On Radio Network.

Uninvited to the Party by PatRacimora

From a member of the Hillary’s Voice message group:
Looks like Steve Corbett PA Radio host at wilk network has caught the attention of The DNC, yesterday Corbett lanuch Operation Turn Down campaign to let the DNC know that true Demorcrats where not voting for Obama. The phones lines lit up; calls came from state after state, blogger from a site called Confluence and others posted Corbett Operstion Turn Down and the blogsphere was at a buzz. State after state voters calling and pledging they would under no circumstance vote for Obama this has to be the DNC nightmare. Operation Turn down continues Friday at 3 p.m. EST tune in folks this is going to be huge… Please Let Everyone Know to listen in, on the net or radio, call in
we got the DNC ears let our voice be heard.
Read Corbett’s column, “Does America Deserve A Chauvinist-In-Chief?”

Women Threaten Obama Boycott (by Rick Klein at Political Punch, ABC News)
Just talked to a 55-year-old Columbus, Ohio resident named Cynthia Ruccia, a spokesperson and organizer for a group calling itself “Clinton Supporters Count Too.” She said the group — numbering in the hundreds, and organized in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Michigan — stands ready to boycott the Democratic Party if Clinton doesn’t win the nomination, and will work against superdelegates who support Obama over Clinton as a means of registering their displeasure with the party. “We have a plan to campaign against the Democratic nominee,” the group said in a press release Thursday. “We have the (wo)manpower and the money to make our threat real. And there are millions of supporters who will back us up in the swing states. If you don’t listen to our voice now, you will hear from us later.”
Riverdaughter has the video of the appearance of two of these women on Bill O’Reilly.  They held up their email addresses: HCFPinOH@gmail.com, HCFPinPA@gmail.com, HCFPinFL@gmail.com, HCFPinMI@gmail.com. 

Some people are planning to demonstrate at the May 31 DNC Rules Committee meeting in DC.  I know of some other efforts, as well, but they’re not yet ready to go public.  I’ll keep you informed as things develop.

Friday: Fast II and call to action (by riverdaughter at The Confluence)
Barack Obama “wins” by suppressing the votes of his opponents. In this, he is aided and abetted by a corporate media and Republican operatives in that media landscape and the DNC itself… Our vote is *not* theirs. We have something they want; they have to earn it… [W]e suggest that disenfrachised and disowned voters demonstrate their resolve by taking the following actions:

1. If you live in a state that has already voted, re-register as an “unaffiliated” voter.
2. Have a news moratorium for the next two weeks. For the next two weeks, turn off every network and cable news program and catch up on your gardening. Watch only C-Span.
3. Friday Fast: Save your breakfast, lunch and dinner money on Friday and send it to Hillary. The Big Boyz have been very effective in discouraging people from donating and volunteering for her. As a consequence, her campaign is heavily in debt and Obama’s campaign is using this as leverage to get her out of the race.
4. Volunteer for Hillary in Kentucky and Oregon if you live in one of those states or one of the surrounding states. Hell, you don’t even need to do much. Just go there and stand at the side of the road with a sign. Let the country know that you aren’t going down without a fight.
You can also make calls for Hillary, using the toll free facility on her website.

With a Clinton nomination seeming as questionable as an Obama victory this fall, what’s a Democrat to do?
WriteHillaryIn.com is a website created by and for Americans who do not want to be forced
to choose between Barack Obama and John McCain in a general election. We’ve seen better, and we demand better. We believe that Hillary Clinton is the most qualified and visionary candidate for our country at this crucial and uncommon juncture in its brief but unprecedented history. We will not vote for Barack Obama for a host of reasons, the most important of many being his indefensibly unimpressive legislative record…
Click Here to check the rules in your state about Writing Hillary In.
Click Here to let the DNC know your intention of Writing Hillary In… They need to know how many of us there are.

Why the Dems could lose by Cokie and Steve Roberts, Jewish World Review)
Obama built up sizable margins in small states that Clinton was foolish enough to concede. His delegate advantage in Idaho, Kansas and Louisiana — three states that will never vote Democratic — was a total of 38. By contrast, Clinton handily won three large swing states — Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Ohio. And yet, because of party rules, her combined marginal gain amounted to 28 delegates. How can it make sense for Idaho, Kansas and Louisiana to have a bigger impact on choosing the Democratic nominee than Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Ohio? Add in the exclusion of Florida and Michigan, two crucial states that favor Clinton, and there’s only one word for the Democrats’ system: crazy. And Republicans are gleeful.

Electoral-Vote.com, May 15, 2008 (270 needed to win)
Clinton     280        McCain     241        Tie      17
Obama     237        McCain     290        Tie     11
Click through to see the maps.

Obama’s Numbers Are Tanking (MrPolitics)
Recent polls are showing trouble for Obama. His numbers are tanking at an unprecedented rate. As of late, a poll from ccAdvertising shows that Obama’s numbers are way worse than any one of us thought. This company is mostly used by the GOP, but they have shown to be more accurate than other polls in the past… From May 1, 2008 through May 5, 2008, ccAdvertising completed a survey to a combined total of 90,000 homes in California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania (10,000 homes from each state) extracted from the ccAdvertising database.

Results for McCain vs. Hillary and McCain vs. Obama.
Scores are how much Hillary or Obama are ahead of McCain.
+is a win for Hillary or Obama.  -is a loss.

              Hillary  Obama    Difference
                               (for Obama
                                from Hillary)
California    +15.82%  +12.88%  -2.94
Colorado      -5.44    -1.98    +3.46
Florida       -11.46   -25.52   -14.06
Illinois      -2.29    +9.23    +11.52
Missouri      +3.97    -10.61   -14.58
New Hampshire -5.9     -6.67    -0.77
New York      +7.88    +1.31    -6.57
Ohio          +1.02    -18.18   -19.2
Pennsylvania  +7.51    -5.95    -13.46

Lawmakers Respond To Bush: ‘Bullsh*t’ And ‘Malarkey’ That Is ‘Beneath The Dignity’ Of The Oval Office (Think Progress)
In strong terms today, Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, criticized President Bush’s remarks to the Israeli parliament that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Democrats favor a policy of appeasement toward terrorists. Biden said it was “bullsh*t” and “malarkey” for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country “and make this kind of ridiculous statement.” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) directed sharp words towards the president as well, saying that Bush’s comments were “‘beneath the dignity of the office of the president and unworthy of our representation” at the celebration of Israel’s 60th anniversary.
Now, I ask you, friends, did leading Democrats EVER stand up for Bill Clinton, Al Gore, or Hillary Clinton in such an unqualified way?  I can’t think of one example.  But I can think of plenty of unnamed Democrats being quoted to help undermine those three.  It was primarily Democrats who scuttled Bill Clinton’s plan to allow gays in the military.  It was primarily Democrats who scuttled the Clintons’ health care plan of the early 90s.  Oddly enough, many of those same so-called Democrats are now advising Obama’s campaign.  Click through to watch the video.

Clinton defends Obama from Bush (by Ben Smith, Politico)
Hillary, today in Rapid City, South Dakota, defended Obama from President Bush’s apparent comparison of him to Neville Chamberlain… She told reporters: “President Bush’s comparison of any Democrat to Nazi appeasers is both offensive and outrageous on the face of it, especially in light of his failures in foreign policy. This is the kind of statement that has no place in any presidential address and certainly to use an important moment like the 60th anniversary celebration of Israel to make a political point seems terribly misplaced. Unfortunately, this is what we’ve come to expect from President Bush. There is a very clear difference between Democrats and Republicans on foreign policy and that difference will be evident once we take back the White House.”
And where has Obama been when Clinton has been vilified?  Not even “present”.

Does Unifying The Party Involve The Clinton Wing? (by Big Tent Democrat at TalkLeft)
The more I read from Obama bloggers and the Creative Class, the more I become convinced that driving the Clinton wing of the Dem Party out is one of their primary goals. I hold to my view that the Obama Wing of the Democratic Party needs to decide what is more important to them, winning in November, or destroying the Clinton Wing of the Democratic Party. I doubt they can do both.
So why this hatred for the Clintons?

Clinton vs. Obama, circa 2000 (by Ben Smith at Politico)
A reader spotted this 2000 ad Bill Clinton made for Bobby Rush in his 2000 race against Barack Obama on the online reel of the firm that made it, Adelstein Liston. I’m told it never aired on television, though a version went on the radio. The ad doesn’t mention Obama, but it was fairly unusual for President Clinton to jump into a primary.
Click through to watch the video.  Is it really possible that Barack Obama is as petty and spiteful, and holds a grudge for so long, that his personal attacks on the Clintons are payback for this?  We’ve certainly seen his petulance before.

NARAL Pro-Choice already spending for Obama; plans $10m campaign (On Politics, USA Today)
NARAL Pro-Choice America, the abortion-rights group that endorsed Democrat Barack Obama on Wednesday and pledged to put “its grassroots and political support” behind the Illinois senator’s presidential campaign, already is spending money on his behalf.

NARAL Affiliates Question Obama Endorsement (by Garance Franke-Ruta at The Trail, Washington Post)
NARAL Pro-Choice America affiliates in key swing and primary states are openly distancing themselves from the decision by NARAL Pro-Choice America to endorse Illinois Sen. Barack Obama over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to be the Democratic nominee for president. Since yesterday’s announcement, NARAL groups in Pennsylvania, Missouri, Oregon, Washington, Texas and New York — Clinton’s home state — have issued statements signaling their continued neutrality in the Democratic race and emphasizing that the national group did not speak for them on this matter. These groups represent nearly a quarter of NARAL’s state chapters.

GUTSY Elizabeth Edwards Not Part of Endorsement–Outshines Husband in “Courage of Convictions” Department (only a week after couple tells “People” they won’t endorse) (by GRL at InsightAnalytical)
In my post on the Edwards endorsement of Obama posted yesterday, I commented that I didn’t know what Elizabeth Edwards thought about it. Well, it’s now pretty clear that she may have thought differently about her husband’s decision. According to the AP, “Edwards didn’t even tell many of his former top advisers because he wanted to inform Clinton personally, said the person close to him. Edwards’ wife, Elizabeth, who has said she thinks Clinton has the superior health care plan, did not travel with him to Michigan and is not part of the endorsement.”

What Did Obama Promise Edwards? (by Michael Rectenwald at Citizens for Legitimate Government)
John Edwards’s endorsement of Obama seems par for the course for Hillary. As soon as she wins, superdelegates endorse the other guy. As soon as she wins, backers endorse her opponent. The more she wins, the more media decry her staying in the race. The better she does, the worse she’s made out to be. It’s quite a staggering and stunning beating that she’s been taking from the liberal elite.

Flushing Dean, Pelosi and Brazille (by John: south of Melrose at Liberal Rapture)
Given that me and a zillion other people got a fundraising email from John Edwards 4.7 seconds after his endorsement of BHO was announced we can rightfully assume a deal was made. The onus is on Edwards to prove otherwise. One can assume after Obama loses Kentucky on Tuesday Al Gore will be hitting us up for cash on Wednesday - with an Obama mailing list in hand… Frankly, I am sick of hearing that I should be begging SD’s to do the right thing. The winning thing. Obama is blackmailing them - pure and simple- promising dough and lining them up to endorse when he needs to overtake a bad news cycle. He is the pollution in the system he speaks against.

From a member of the Hillary’s Voice message group:
It never seems to dawn on, or puzzle, the Obama supporters that the same media crowd that swooned over George W. Bush (”he’s so authentic” and “what you see is what he is” and “he’s comfortable in his own skin”) and lambasted Al Gore as a “phony,” a “stiff,” a “creep” and a “liar” are the SAME crowd now swooning over Barack Obama and lambasting Hillary Clinton. Gee.
But they love McCain more than the love Obama.  It doesn’t take a quantum physicist to figure out what’s going to happen if Obama is the Democratic nominee.

Bargains with the devil (by John: south of Melrose at Liberal Rapture)
Unseen levers are being pulled for Obama. Whether its stops after he is the nominee and this was all a stunt to defeat Clinton OR he is the Manchurian candidate who will become the Manchurian President - we shall have to wait and see.

Social networking (by lambert at Corrente)
Interesting article in this month’s Atlantic: “…The true killer app on My.BarackObama.com is the suite of fund-raising tools… “The idea,” Rospars says, “is to give them the tools and have them go out and do all this on their own.” The organizing principle behind Obama’s Web site, in other words, is the approach Mark Gorenberg used with such success—only scaled to such a degree that it has created an army of more than a million donors and raisers…” So there you go.

My social network was the blogosphere—not especially driven by money, and certainly not by “excitement”—which, once it became an extension of My.BarackObama.com, became a remarkably less pleasant, and effective, place all round. No doubt, with the institutionalization of the Obama Movement, we’ll be seeing more friends “pound[ed] into submission.” Rather like a permanent campaign. What could go wrong?

Welcome to Obamatopia! (by Pagan Power at No Quarter)
“A light will shine down from somewhere.It will light upon you. You will experience an epiphany. And you will say to yourself,I have to vote for Barack. I have to do it.”

Let’s brush up on our German! (by lambert at Corrente)
Gleischaltung. Because remember, no matter how hard I try, I’m never cynical enough. See Stoller’s money quote today on Obama’s consolidation of power: Quoting Donna Darko: “The organizing and mobilization scholar in me is totally impressed. But the conflict theorist and skeptic of authority in me is totally horrified.” It’s a two-fer, isn’t it? You thought you were just voting for a candidate, but instead you were voting for permanently institutionalized Obama Movement, “a Google-like center of immense political and administrative power,” that bypasses the Democratic Party whenever the fuck it wants. Well, if this Google-like center is that powerful, why isn’t it talking about universal health care? Answer: Because it doesn’t want to. It has other things on its mind.

Obama Supporters now told to play nice posted by TriciaNC
Also, across the bottom of the screen on FoxNews last night it said the Obama campaign has hired 400 additional bloggers to help sway Hillary voters to their side.
I haven’t seen any evidence of niceness.

Obama faces challenge in courting Jewish voters (McClatchy)
WASHINGTON — When President Bush on Thursday compared some unidentified political opponents to Nazi appeasers, he seemed to be trying at least in part to woo Jewish voters who’ve signaled concerns about Barack Obama.

Obama Helped Supporters Get Millions in Illinois State Business (The Blotter, ABC News, using information first exposed by Evelyn Pringle)
In a speech to the Urban League last July, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., boasted of his efforts in 2001 to help a handful of African American-owned investment firms in Chicago get a larger share of business with Illinois state pension funds. “And in six months, they got about a half-billion dollars’ worth of business simply on their excellence,” Obama said. What he did not say in his speech was that the owner of one of the investment firms, John Rogers of Ariel Capital, is a principal campaign fundraiser. Nor did he reveal that employees of the firms he helped have since contributed to or helped to raise more than $765,000 for his campaigns, according to campaign documents. Nor did he mention that two of the firms have allowed him to use their private jets. Nor did he mention that two of the firms have since been dismissed by the state pension fund for “underperformance.”

Curtain Time for Barack Obama - Part III (by Evelyn Pringle at OpEd News)
Three days after the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Aiham Alsammarae, the former electricity minister convicted of corruption in Iraq, put up $2.7 million in property to help raise $8.5 million to free Tony Rezko from jail in Chicago, the Times reported that Alsammarae had contributed six times to Obama’s presidential campaign. As usual, when busted on the contributions given in January, February and March, the Obama camp said it would donate Alsammarae’s money to charity and his spokesman, Ben LaBolt, put out the standard line that Obama does not ever “recall” meeting Alsammarae. The money missing due to Alsammarae’s corruption in Iraq during the two years he served as electricity minister between August 2003 and May 2005 is estimated to be $2 billion.

Will Barack Throw Mama From the Train? (by Larry Johnson at No Quarter)
I now have it from  three sources close to senior Republicans that they have video dynamite–Michelle Obama railing against “whitey” at Jeremiah Wright’s church… I am told there is a clip that is being held for the fall to drop at the appropriate time. The last thing Barack and Michelle need is a new clip that raises further questions about her judgment and temperament… Does Barack have an obligation to tell the Democrats, super delegates in particular, about this tape? Did Barack and his campaign do their basic homework and identify this tape as a potential problem? And, more importantly, do they have a copy? Probably better to deal with this issue before the convention rather than wait for October.

Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright: Sabotage, Division, or Sedition (by Brother Bede Vincent at the Black Agenda Report)
Barack Obama made his break with Rev. Jeremiah Wright under relentless pressure from white corporate media to disavow the Black Liberation theologian. Rev. Wright did not choose the time and terms of the split with his former parishioner - “He was thrust into the limelight by the campaign - not the other way around.” Obama didn’t call the shots, either, but bowed to corporate media demands and must live with that decision. The candidate’s choice was no doubt the politically expedient one, but the question of upholding justice rather than wishing and hoping, goes begging. “A presidential candidate for justice has to educate or if he cannot, then he should allow and encourage others who can.”

Another Reason We Need Hillary: Gay Rights Edition (by garychapelhill at The Confluence)
The California Supreme Court [Thursday] overturned a state law banning same-sex marriage as unconstitutional… Hillary has always promoted a state by state strategy for marriage equality, and this news from California shows how it can be achieved. She has said on the record that states should provide for marriage rights and that the federal government should not stand in the way. As she told The Philadelphia Gay News in an interview… What does Barack Obama have to say? The blank page speaks for itself.

Click here for a larger image

Obama surrounds himself with self-loathing ex-gays like Donnie McClurkin, who had this to say about his own homosexuality: “‘Love is pulling you one way and lust is pulling you another and your relationship with Jesus is tearing you,’ McClurkin told the media. He now ‘counsels adolescent boys that homosexuality is a choice they can overcome,’ the New York Times reported.” This is reminiscent of Obama’s call to bring the pro-choice/anti-choice forces together to find common ground. As if there were some sort of compromise to be made. Listen up Barry, these kind of issues require bold stands to defend what is right. Would you have suggested negotiating with the segregationists during the civil rights movement? Well, maybe YOU would have, but a principled, courageous, defiant candidate would not.
That has been my biggest objection to Obama as my senator.  The few times he’s stood up for anything, it’s because we pressured him into it.

Dems raise money together (AP)
Democratic presidential rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton can agree on one thing — they want their party to have more money, no matter who is the nominee. The Democratic National Committee announced Wednesday that it had signed agreements with both campaigns to begin raising money together. As part of the unusual pact, donors can contribute up to $33,100 to the newly created Democratic White House Victory Fund. The money would benefit whichever candidate becomes the nominee.

McCain: Bush ‘Exactly Right’ On ‘Appeasement’ Remark, Praises Reagan’s Handling Of Iran Hostage Crisis (Think Progress)
Referring to President Bush’s notorious comments, MSNBC’s Pat Buchanan asked this morning: Will Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) “endorse this statement about Barack Obama that in effect he is an appeaser?” Today, McCain confirmed that he would. The New York Times reports that McCain “wholeheartedly endorsed Mr. Bush’s veiled rebuke” at Obama.

McCain predicts most U.S. troops out of Iraq by 2013 (McClatchy)
WASHINGTON — Sen. John McCain said Thursday that most U.S. troops would be out of Iraq by the end of his first term, leaving behind a fragile but functioning democracy.

McCain Adviser Ousted Over Links to 527 Group (Political Wire)
Sen. John McCain’s campaign “asked a prominent Republican consultant, Craig Shirley, to leave his official campaign role and released a new conflict of interest policy Thursday after a Politico inquiry about Shirley’s dual role consulting for the campaign and for an independent ‘527? group opposing the Democratic presidential candidates,” according to The Politico.

Ten McCain stories that a press critic says are worth pursuing
Adam Reilly’s list includes “hints of misogyny” and “physically fit to serve?”

McCain campaign threatened to cut off Newsweek’s access. (Think Progress)
Earlier this week, after Newsweek published a cover story examining the hardball tactics conservatives might use in the general election, Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) “true partner” and longest-serving aide, Mark Salter, fired off a stinging retort that accused the magazine of being “biased.” [Thursday], a Wall Street Journal profile of Salter reveals that he also “threatened to throw the magazine’s reporters off the campaign bus and airplane“.

Lots more really good stuff at MakeThemAccountable.com.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com