Barack Obama Elected President!

[Wales2004]

If people want to persecute Barack Obama relentlessly for his poor word choices that they found so offensive because being called "bitter" is akin to being called something foul when it comes to the special standard applied to him, then what's the problem with people finding Hilary Clinton's statements racially divisive. If I recall correctly, no one asked her anything about white voters or voters of any ethnic groups, religion, or age. She voluntarily brought that up all on her own. She couldn't reveal her strategy for winning without pointing out which race was going to help her. But wait a minute......hasn't every person that's been president won because white people voted for him?

The media has pointed out numerous times that WV and KY are the whitest states and I am puzzled as to why Hilary Clinton isn't beating Obama by 90 points in their polls. But since there is no mystery as to the fact that she's going to win those states and they're clearly not going to give her the lead in the delegate count or significantly alter the metrics then the reporting is going to be repetitious tomorrow. Ah so she wins.....ah but we expected her to....well ahhh....as you can see....nothing's really changed....so what's Barack Obama doing today? Look John McCain's talking about errrr global warming.

Dream ticket or Nightmare ticket. It's probably the latter for the most ardent Obama supporters or Independents who would possibly swing his way. Hilary Clinton has run the most inept campaign I can recall. I thought she was supposed to be very well put together and so ahead of the pack but a blip came up and she hasn't handled it very well.

[Wales2004]

Thanks but back up a minute. I just want to make sure that I'm getting this righ. She said the Democrats should have nominated a gun toting, bible thumping white guy?

GS is probably afraid that she'll kick his butt but then he probably believes it as well anyway. Maybe he's just not tacky enough to say it.

To be sure, sexism is playing a role in this but it's certainly not playing as great a role as racism so if she doesn't want to own up to that then she should recognize that society will change despite her.

[Roman]

Yep. That's what she said. Word for word.

[EricaKane70]

I wonder if hillary is about to concede, because her latest video on youtube has her thanking her supporters. I really think she needs to get out, Obama stole the lead from her in SD's this weekend, there really is no point in staying in the race the writing is on the wall. I do think it should be on her terms, but the longer she stays in the worst it will be for her. I'm all for hillary being obama's VP, but I really don't think she fits in with obama's message so I agree with Ted Kennedy take on obama chosing her as his vp.

I still see GS is still the clinton's bitch even till the very end, why is he so scared to go against them?

[Roman]

You know, Erica, my feeling is I guess he feels he owes the Clintons for giving him his start. Without them, he wouldn't have been PS for the admin., and he wouldn't have landed the gig on This Week. That's the only thing I can think of.

[Wales2004]

I don't really have a problem with his loyalty or bias because it's natural. The problem is that he shouldn't report on issues on which he can't remain objective. He should never have moderated any debates involving the Clintons. It's fine that for him to interview her since it doesn't require that he be objective. Otherwise he needs to have a frank discussion with them and thank them once again for getting him his start but let them know he's cannot favor them anymore since it affects his journalistic integrity but he looks too weak for that route.

[DevotedToAMC]

<<<The problem is that he shouldn't report on issues on which he can't remain objective.>>>

That is exactly how I feel. Great call!

[Roman]

No, I was just saying what I thought it may be. People have a truly deep trust in the people who introduced them to political life, and GS is one of them. Hes taken a hit as far as his objectivity (If he ever had any where they were concerned) but we'll see once she's out how he will conduct himself.

[Roman]

Ten Big Problems with Hillary Clinton's Health Care Plan

Written By: John C. Goodman

Published In: Health Care News

Publication Date: June 1, 2008

Publisher: The Heartland Institute

Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama (D-IL) had it right from the beginning: The health plan touted by his opponent, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), would force people to buy something they cannot afford and then impose a heavy fine on them when they don't buy it. At the end of the day, they will be worse off than they were at the outset.

Now Clinton has a rejoinder. She says she will limit the amount people have to pay in premiums to 5 or 10 percent of their incomes.

What's wrong with that? A lot. Here are 10 problems that spring to mind.

1. Failing to Control Costs

For the past three or four decades, per-capita health care spending nationwide has been growing at twice the rate of personal income growth, and there are no signs it is abating. Clinton has no realistic proposal to change that fact.

In fact, no Democratic presidential candidate has had any plausible plan for cost control, unless you count Dennis Kucinich (who implicitly endorsed health care rationing). So no matter what the situation in year one, a mandate will require more of family income in year two, and still more in year three.

2. Imposing a Tax

A mandate is a tax. Forcing people to buy something they do not want to buy is equivalent to taxing them. And because of problem 1, it is a tax that will claim a growing share of income through time.

3. Creating an Entitlement

A pledge to limit an individual's burden to no more than 5 percent or 10 percent of income is the equivalent of creating a new entitlement for everyone who reaches the cap.

How big would this entitlement be? That depends on how you define income and what health expenses you include. The average household already spends 5.6 percent of its income out-of-pocket on health care, and health spending for all purposes is 20 percent of personal income for the nation as a whole.

The Medicare Trustees have said we have already promised more than $100 trillion in Social Security and Medicare benefits over and above premiums and dedicated taxes to people poised to collect on that promise in the coming decades. On the current path, Medicare and Medicaid will crowd out every other federal government program by mid-century, the Congressional Budget Office has found. Clinton's plan would extend this entitlement madness to everyone else.

4. Creating Perverse Incentives for Employers

Our employers pay our health insurance premiums because tax subsidies encourage them to do so. Yet Clinton's cap offers a more enticing subsidy, to be had by shifting more of the premium payment back to the employee.

This perverse incentive wouldn't exist if the plan were rational. As Ezekiel Emanuel and Victor Fuchs pointed out in an article in the March 5, 2008 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, economic studies confirm the common-sense understanding that the employer premium payment is a substitute for money wages.

Employees, not employers, pay for their own health care benefits, by accepting less in wages. So in calculating the employee burden, we should always add together the employer and employee premium shares.

5. Creating Perverse Incentives for Employees

Rising health care costs have been crowding out wage increases for low- and middle-income workers. For that reason, cost control is in everyone's self-interest. But under Clinton's premium control cap, employees would no longer have an interest in cost control. They would face the same incentives now faced by Medicare and Medicaid patients--to spend, spend, spend.

6. Paying for Health Care by Taxing Capital

Clinton estimates her plan will cost about $110 billion a year. She would pay for approximately $60 billion of that by repealing the "Bush tax cuts for the rich."

That means raising the tax rate on capital gains and dividend income for wealthy people, and that means taxing capital, which means a lower capital stock and a smaller national income in the future.

It is always unwise to sell capital to pay for current consumption. To tax capital to pay for wasteful health care spending that promises minuscule health benefits at the margin is an exceptionally poor decision.

7. Ignoring the Latest IRS Returns

To add to this list of misery and woe, there have been no tax cuts for the rich, despite Clinton's claims. Their tax rates are down, but tax payments by the wealthy are way up. And there is every reason to think that reversing the process and raising rates will cause total tax payments to go down.

This gives a whole new meaning to the idea of all pain and no gain.

8. Making Things Up

Clinton plans to pay for the remaining $50 billion by eliminating waste and inefficiency. Her ideas include all the latest fads--electronic medical records systems (designed in Washington, DC of course), pay-for-performance (bureaucrats telling doctors how to practice medicine), and evidence-based medicine (more bureaucrats telling doctors how to practice medicine).

Have ideas like these saved money anywhere before? Not that anyone can verify.

9. Taxing the Poor

Clinton is not totally unrealistic. She acknowledges a potential need for more revenues. In that case, what better source to turn to than poor people?

"I'm a big believer in raising tobacco taxes," Clinton says--even though they hit low-income families the hardest. She acknowledges "at some point there's going to be diminishing returns," by which I think she means there is only so much you can squeeze out of the smoking class. But short of that point, she says, "Sure, why not? I don't have any objection to that."

That is an amazing admission, by the way. Politicians who favor tobacco taxes almost always say the goal is to discourage smoking, not to maximize tax revenue from smokers.

10. Regulating Insurance Company Overhead

Imagine a law requiring General Motors to spend no more than 15 percent of its revenues on "administrative overhead." Would that be a good idea? How about for Microsoft? Or Xerox?

Forget for a moment that no one knows how to measure "administrative costs." What if we did know what these words mean? Is that something government should regulate?

Clinton is willing to consider it for health insurance even as she proposes a laundry list of new administrative duties for insurers--better chronic care management, better preventive care management, electronic medical records, etc.

[DevotedToAMC]

The thing is a doctor went on CNN and said her plan covers more people...I know the downside to mandating everyone buy insurance is having to purchase an expensive plan. But, through her plan, I believe they can negotiate to lower prices. Also, getting the stock market to do better is key to lowering premiums since then the insurance companies can invest less money but still make more for a working stock market rather than having to invest so much money to get as much as possible to cover claims and other medical expenses.

[Wales2004]

Not to mention that some new administrative office will have to be created to oversee this which means more bureaucracy and inefficiency. The solution to the increased drain on the budget and to pay for the overseers will be more taxes.

I'm no smoker so this will have no effect on me. But I believe states try to raise revenue this way and it will probably eventually lead to black market cigarette operations. There is only so much people will pay before they start smuggling it from abroad. They should spend more time working on the cutting waste plan than the creative taxing plan.

[DevotedToAMC]

There is nothing in Hillary's health care plan that means more bureaucracy...it mandates that everyone purchase a health insurance plan. For those who have one and like it, they can keep it. For businesses that offer the plan and pay for it (my mom's plan was covered by the head honchos at the tax firm she worked), she proposes giving them a tax credit, which encourages them to build more jobs that offer a health insurance plan. The ones who monitor how many people have health insurance right now are the same ones who will monitor everyone being covered...no new system will be created that puts power in the bureaucracy rather than in the doctors' treatment. There would be some bureaucracy in a single payer universal health care system but hers is a mandated universal health care system.

I agree that raising tobacco taxes very rarely limits smoking...people will find a way to get cigarettes and that includes the black market and smuggling them. What needs to be done is encouraging new programs designed to deter people from smoking...if there are programs that are already working, keep them and fund them more.

[Jess]

WV needs to be Hillary's swan song. She can leave on a winning note and end this primary. It's refreshing to see Obama tell the gas bags in the media to STFU. Carville and Begalia once were very fine consultants and now they seem better suited for Crossfire. I think a lot of the current "news reporters" could learn a great deal from the old hands. Bob Schieffer, David Broder and that group are so reasonable and educated in their comments. I can watch them without my skin crawling. They don't make the news about themselves.

I think McCain is going to pick Liebernan too. I also think that is a mistake. I guess he thinks it will attract the independents, but I haven't seen independents line up in lock step behind Lieberman. He switched parties because he lost the primary not because he is a great independent. I don't think LIeberman brings anything to the ticket. He's another war-mongering Bush clone.

You know, I just can't seen Bill and Hill playing second fiddle. Can you imagine the two of them playing back-up to Obama at the top of the ticket? It would be pretty interesting and would be good for the party for about two weeks and then Bill and Hill would start doing there own thing.

[Roman]

This both angers me and saddens me.

This garbage still going on in this day and age.

From MSNBC:

Racism alarms Obama's backers

Candidate's foot soldiers encounter name-calling, vandalism, bomb threats

WASHINGTON - Danielle Ross was alone in an empty room at the Obama campaign headquarters in Kokomo, Ind., a cellphone in one hand, a voter call list in the other. She was stretched out on the carpeted floor wearing laceless sky-blue Converses, stories from the trail on her mind. It was the day before Indiana's primary, and she had just been chased by dogs while canvassing in a Kokomo suburb. But that was not the worst thing to occur since she postponed her sophomore year at Middle Tennessee State University, in part to hopscotch America stumping for Barack Obama.

Here's the worst: In Muncie, a factory town in the east-central part of Indiana, Ross and her cohorts were soliciting support for Obama at malls, on street corners and in a Wal-Mart parking lot, and they ran into "a horrible response," as Ross put it, a level of anti-black sentiment that none of them had anticipated.

"The first person I encountered was like, 'I'll never vote for a black person,' " recalled Ross, who is white and just turned 20. "People just weren't receptive."

Story continues below ↓advertisement

For all the hope and excitement Obama's candidacy is generating, some of his field workers, phone-bank volunteers and campaign surrogates are encountering a raw racism and hostility that have gone largely unnoticed -- and unreported -- this election season. Doors have been slammed in their faces. They've been called racially derogatory names (including the white volunteers). And they've endured malicious rants and ugly stereotyping from people who can't fathom that the senator from Illinois could become the first African American president.

The contrast between the large, adoring crowds Obama draws at public events and the gritty street-level work to win votes is stark. The candidate is largely insulated from the mean-spiritedness that some of his foot soldiers deal with away from the media spotlight.

Meeting cruel reaction

Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, was on phone-bank duty one night during the Pennsylvania primary campaign. One night was all she could take: "It wasn't pretty." She made 60 calls to prospective voters in Susquehanna County, her home county, which is 98 percent white. The responses were dispiriting. One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn't possibly vote for Obama and concluded: "Hang that darky from a tree!"

Documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy, the daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy, said she, too, came across "a lot of racism" when campaigning for Obama in Pennsylvania. One Pittsburgh union organizer told her he would not vote for Obama because he is black, and a white voter, she said, offered this frank reason for not backing Obama: "White people look out for white people, and black people look out for black people."

Obama campaign officials say such incidents are isolated, that the experience of most volunteers and staffers has been overwhelmingly positive.

The campaign released this statement in response to questions about encounters with racism: "After campaigning for 15 months in nearly all 50 states, Barack Obama and our entire campaign have been nothing but impressed and encouraged by the core decency, kindness, and generosity of Americans from all walks of life. The last year has only reinforced Senator Obama's view that this country is not as divided as our politics suggest."

Campaign field work can be an exercise in confronting the fears, anxieties and prejudices of voters. Veterans of the civil rights movement know what this feels like, as do those who have been involved in battles over busing, immigration or abortion. But through the Obama campaign, some young people are having their first experience joining a cause and meeting cruel reaction.

On Election Day in Kokomo, a group of black high school students were holding up Obama signs along U.S. 31, a major thoroughfare. As drivers cruised by, a number of them rolled down their windows and yelled out a common racial slur for African Americans, according to Obama campaign staffers.

Frederick Murrell, a black Kokomo High School senior, was not there but heard what happened. He was more disappointed than surprised. During his own canvassing for Obama, Murrell said, he had "a lot of doors slammed" in his face. But taunting teenagers on a busy commercial strip in broad daylight? "I was very shocked at first," Murrell said. "Then again, I wasn't, because we have a lot of racism here."

Vandalism, bomb threats

The bigotry has gone beyond words. In Vincennes, the Obama campaign office was vandalized at 2 a.m. on the eve of the primary, according to police. A large plate-glass window was smashed, an American flag stolen. Other windows were spray-painted with references to Obama's controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and other political messages: "Hamas votes BHO" and "We don't cling to guns or religion. Goddamn Wright."

Ray McCormick was notified of the incident at about 2:45 a.m. A farmer and conservationist, McCormick had erected a giant billboard on a major highway on behalf of Farmers for Obama. He also was housing the Obama campaign worker manning the office. When McCormick arrived at the office, about two hours before he was due out of bed to plant corn, he grabbed his camera and wanted to alert the media. "I thought, this is a big deal." But he was told Obama campaign officials didn't want to make a big deal of the incident. McCormick took photos anyway and distributed som

Obama looks past W. Va. primaries

May 12: Having overtaken Hillary Clinton in what was once her formidable superdelegate lead, Barack Obama turned his attention to defeating John McCain in the general election states. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.

Nightly News

"The pictures represent what we are breaking through and overcoming," he said. As McCormick, who is white, sees it, Obama is succeeding despite these incidents. Later, there would be bomb threats to three Obama campaign offices in Indiana, including the one in Vincennes, according to campaign sources.

Obama has not spoken much about racism during this campaign. He has sought to emphasize connections among Americans rather than divisions. He shrugged off safety concerns that led to early Secret Service protection and has told black senior citizens who worry that racists will do him harm: Don't fret. Earlier in the campaign, a 68-year-old woman in Carson City, Nev., voiced concern that the country was not ready to elect an African American president.

"Will there be some folks who probably won't vote for me because I am black? Of course," Obama said, "just like there may be somebody who won't vote for Hillary because she's a woman or wouldn't vote for John Edwards because they don't like his accent. But the question is, 'Can we get a majority of the American people to give us a fair hearing?' "

Skilled at bridging divides

Obama has won 30 of 50 Democratic contests so far, the kind of nationwide electoral triumph no black candidate has ever realized. That he is on the brink of capturing the Democratic nomination, some say, is a testament to how far the country has progressed in overcoming racism and evidence of Obama's skill at bridging divides.

Obama has won five of 12 primaries in which black voters made up less than 10 percent of the electorate, and caucuses in states such as Idaho and Wyoming that are overwhelmingly white. But exit polls show he has struggled to attract white voters who didn't attend college and earn less than $50,000 a year. Today, he and Hillary Clinton square off in West Virginia, a state where she is favored and where the votes of working-class whites will again be closely watched.

For the most part, Obama campaign workers say, the 2008 election cycle has been exhilarating. On the ground, the Obama campaign is being driven by youngsters, many of whom are imbued with an optimism undeterred by racial intolerance. "We've grown up in a different world," says Danielle Ross. Field offices are staffed by 20-somethings who hold positions -- state director, regional field director, field organizer -- that are typically off limits to newcomers to presidential politics.

Gillian Bergeron, 23, was in charge of a five-county regional operation in northeastern Pennsylvania. The oldest member of her team was 27. At Scranton's annual Saint Patrick's Day parade, some of the green Obama signs distributed by staffers were burned along the parade route. That was the first signal that this wasn't exactly Obama country. There would be others.

In a letter to the editor published in a local paper, Tunkhannock Borough Mayor Norm Ball explained his support of Hillary Clinton this way: "Barack Hussein Obama and all of his talk will do nothing for our country. There is so much that people don't know about his upbringing in the Muslim world. His stepfather was a radical Muslim and the ranting of his minister against the white America, you can't convince me that some of that didn't rub off on him.

"No, I want a president that will salute our flag, and put their hand on the Bible when they take the oath of office."

Obama's campaign workers have grown wearily accustomed to the lies about the candidate's supposed radical Muslim ties and lack of patriotism. But they are sometimes astonished when public officials such as Ball or others representing the campaign of their opponent traffic in these falsehoods.

Karen Seifert, a volunteer from New York, was outside of the largest polling location in Lackawanna County, Pa., on primary day when she was pressed by a Clinton volunteer to explain her backing of Obama. "I trust him," Seifert replied. According to Seifert, the woman pointed to Obama's face on Seifert's T-shirt and said: "He's a half-breed and he's a Muslim. How can you trust that?"

Racial attitudes difficult to measure

Pollsters have found it difficult to accurately measure racial attitudes, as some voters are unwilling to acknowledge the role that race plays in their thinking. But some are not. Susan Dzimian, a Clinton supporter who owns residential properties, said outside a polling location in Kokomo that race was a factor in how she viewed Obama. "I think if it was somebody other than him, I'd accept it," she said of a black candidate. "If Colin Powell had run, I would be willing to accept him."

The previous evening, Dondra Ewing was driving the neighborhoods of Kokomo, looking to turn around voters like Dzimian. Ewing, 47, is a chain-smoking middle school guidance counselor, a black single mother of two and one of the most fiercely vigilant Obama volunteers in Kokomo, which was once a Ku Klux Klan stronghold. On July 4, 1923, Kokomo hosted the largest Klan gathering in history -- an estimated 200,000 followers flocked to a local park. But these are not the 1920s, and Ewing believes she can persuade anybody to back Obama. Her mother, after all, was the first African American elected at-large to the school board in a community that is 10 percent black.

Kokomo, population 46,000, is another hard-hit Midwestern industrial town stung by layoffs. Longtimers wistfully remember the glory years of Continental Steel and speak mournfully about the jobs shipped overseas. Kokomo Sanitary Pottery, which made bathroom sinks and toilets, shut down a couple of months ago and took with it 150 jobs.

Aaron Roe, 23, was mowing lawns at a local cemetery recently, lamenting his $8-an-hour job with no benefits. He had earned a community college degree as an industrial electrician, but learned there was no electrical work to be found for someone with his experience, which is to say none. Politics wasn't on his mind; frustration was. If he were to vote, it would not be for Obama, he said. "I just got a funny feeling about him," Roe said, a feeling he couldn't specify, except to say race wasn't a part of it. "Race ain't nothing," said Roe, who is white. "It's how they're going to help the country."

People with funny feelings

The Aaron Roes are exactly who Dondra Ewing was after: people with funny feelings.

At the Bradford Run Apartments, she found Robert Cox, a retiree who spent 30 years working for an electronics manufacturer making computer chips. He was in his suspenders, grilling shish kebab, which he had never eaten. "Something new," Cox said, recommended by his son who was visiting from Colorado.

Ewing was selling him hard on Obama. "There are more than two families that can run the United States of America," she said, "and their names aren't Bush and Clinton."

"Yeah, I know, I know," Cox said, remaining noncommittal.

He opened the grill and peeked at the kebabs. "It's not his race, because I got real good friends and all that," Cox continued. "If anything would keep him from getting elected, it would be his name. It might turn off some older people."

Like him?

"No, older than me," said Cox, 66.

Ewing kept talking, until finally Cox said, "Probably Obama," when asked directly how he would vote.

As she walked away, Ewing said: "I think we got him."

But truthfully, she wasn't feeling so sure.

Staff writer Peter Slevin and polling analyst Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.

© 2008 The Washington Post Company

[Wales2004]

What....whether they want one or not? And who's going to make sure they do....Big brother and sister? Eventually it will lead to more bureaucracy because as I previously stated, the program has to be overseen so it will cost more than the price of a plan. It will also cost administrator's salaries to effect it and manager's salaries to make sure they're doing their jobs, etc.

I wouldn't even think it would be good for two weeks. It might sound good to some for the two minutes they take to announce it and then they'll immediately have to start answering questions pertaining to all the not so wonderful things that have been said up until that point. The Republicans won't have to worry much about saying anything since the focus will be on the Democrats and how it is that "unpatriotic" Obama and whatever else was implied about him is okay to be president now.

I get that the people that intensely support either of these candidates and that are okay with either one, would see this as an ideal ticket but there are people who don't and who need to be taken into strong consideration. I don't see them as a great pairing at all. They may not be far apart in policies but they have generated a lot of bad blood. As politicians they may be able to set it aside and publicly act as if it didn't all happen, but those people that have been passionately defending them and fighting and getting agitated are not all going to be able to let it go that easily. Some of them will feel greatly betrayed and their alliance will alienate those people.

It will be easier for Hilary Clinton as a presidential candidate to sell her supporters on Obama as vp because they'll be glad he's getting the subservient position that they already feel he deserves. His supporters won't all fall into line and support that ticket and they probably will have as equally a hard time supporting him with her on the ticket behind him because it still looks like her running the show. Her supporters may have a hard time seeing in her behind him but they're more likely to see the potential for her to climb to the top than his would in the reverse position. He's better off mapping out a different route.