Barack Obama Elected President!

[DevotedToAMC]

We don't know how the rest of the SDs will vote and, if they seat MI and FL, that can change the scenario

[Ryan]

Seating ML and FL is NOT going to change anything. Obama is in the lead. He is the CLOSEST to the right number.

[DevotedToAMC]

It will put a big dent in his lead and possibly cost him the lead

[Ryan]

Unless they siphon votes from him, it is mathematically improbable for her to overtake him in pledged delegates. I understand the need for people to want to keep hope alive for their person, but acting as if MI and FL will drastically change anything is well...futile.

[DevotedToAMC]

Well if they seat the ones that were awarded, he would still be winning but they have to do something with the ones in the "other" column...that is where they might decide to award them to Hillary for winning both states (and, again, it was foolish of Obama to take his name off the MI ballot, yet her kept it on the FL one. Doesn't make sense to me)

[Roman]

No. I'll tell you what's foolish.

Voting to strip the states of their PDs and now, that you need the same people you punished, you want them back.

Never knew having honor was foolish.

Guess I'll have to remember that one.

[Ryan]

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na...0,2206514.story

Trouble brewing in N.Y. for Clinton

Black leaders say that if Hillary Rodham Clinton returns as senator, she'll need to heal racial wounds her campaign has inflicted.

By Peter Nicholas

Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

May 25, 2008

Even as she continues her longshot presidential bid, Hillary Rodham Clinton faces a political rift in New York, where black leaders say her standing has dropped due to racially charged comments by her and her husband during the campaign.

African American elected officials and clerics based in New York City say Clinton will need to defuse resentment over the campaign's racial overtones if she returns to New York as U.S. senator.

State Sen. Bill Perkins, who represents Harlem, said constituents recently phoned him because they wanted to demonstrate outside Bill Clinton's Harlem office against comments by the former president.

Michael Benjamin, a state assemblyman who represents parts of the Bronx, said his wife removed a photograph of Bill Clinton from her office wall -- an expression of the misgivings that some black New Yorkers feel.

Assemblyman Karim Camara of Brooklyn contributed $500 to Hillary Clinton's Senate reelection campaign in 2006 and described Bill Clinton as a political hero. He said: "Once the campaign is over there has to be a lot of work to heal the wounds. She needs to go back to the black churches she visited in the course of her campaign and have a frank conversation about who she is and how much the support of the black community means. There would not have been a first Clinton presidency in 1992 if not for the African American community."

Many of the officials back the presidential bid of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, Clinton's rival for the Democratic nomination, though they say they have long supported the Clintons, defending him in the past and supporting her Senate run.

Their sentiments reflect the peculiar arc of the 2008 campaign. Black voters were once central to the Clinton family's political identity and base of support. But that relationship has been strained by the emergence of a charismatic African American candidate who has been propelled by black voters.

"The Clintons have their die-hard fans who would never abandon them," said Eric Adams, a state senator who represents Brooklyn. "But there are those New Yorkers who feel there was a lot of insult, slight and disrespect toward an African American candidate, and it translated as a slight to the African American community."

Clinton's campaign declined to comment. In New York, she still enjoys the support of some high-profile black leaders. U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel has endorsed Clinton, as has the state's first black governor, David Paterson. But both men have been critical of her recently.

Rangel told reporters this month that her claim she has the support of white voters was "the dumbest thing she could ever have said." Clinton later agreed with that.

Paterson recently told a radio show he saw "desperation" in Clinton's effort to count in her favor disputed delegates from Michigan and Florida. Clinton's dwindling chance of winning the nomination includes snagging as many Florida and Michigan delegates as possible.

As the campaign unfolded, both Clintons made comments that some black leaders deemed dismissive of Obama. There was Bill Clinton's suggestion that Obama's victory in South Carolina carried no more weight than Jesse Jackson's success there in the 1980s. Other sore points were Hillary Clinton's claim that she enjoys the support of "hard-working Americans, white Americans" and the credit she gave to President Lyndon Johnson -- rather than the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. -- on civil rights legislation.

"There has been a consistent pattern of comments made by both Sen. Clinton and President Clinton from January until this moment that are deeply troubling to the African American community," said Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, whose district is in Brooklyn. "That will require meaningful reconciliation and discussion when Sen. Clinton returns to New York."

The Rev. Clinton Miller of Brown Memorial Baptist Church in Brooklyn said that any hurt feelings left by the campaign could be easily overcome.

"There are wounds, but I don't think they necessarily have to be that deep," Miller said. "They're deep wounds for people who never liked Hillary in the first place."

He encouraged her to be more of a presence in the city's neighborhoods.

"For her to heal those wounds, she would be well served either in public office or just in her private life by being herself and working toward those ideals that she's always espoused as a person."

African American leaders said she could repair frayed ties by visiting black churches, backing legislation that shows she is sensitive to conditions in black neighborhoods, and apologizing for comments she and her husband made that seemed to polarize voters and marginalize Obama.

"She has a problem," said the Rev. Al Sharpton, a New York-based civil rights activist. "If she doesn't aggressively deal with the problem -- rather than sit in denial -- it will haunt her at home in her Senate race."

Clinton's Senate term ends in January 2013.

Some Democrats have mentioned that she could run for governor of New York if she isn't nominated for president.

That prospect unnerves some black leaders. They said they didn't want to see her challenge Paterson, who plans to run in 2010. With Paterson in the job, some black leaders want a definitive statement from Clinton that she would not subject him to a primary challenge -- and say they haven't gotten it yet.

Benjamin said: "I was pretty much appalled when supporters said one of her options was to run for governor. We have a governor. He's a black Democrat. It's not wise for them to challenge a black Democrat for governor.

"She should have come out and said a flat no, that folks were wrong, but I did not see that or hear that coming from her."

[Roman]

The first thing one must do to make ammends is admit they made mistakes.

[Jess]

I think it's over after next week's primaries and I think Hill knows that. I think the remaining superdelegates are letting her have this last group of primaries and then they will all line up behind Obama. I may be wrong, but that is what I see happening.

You know, I don't know what is going to happen with the VP. Obama is so calm that I can't tell what he thinks about Clinton. I bet if he thought Hillary was the only way he could win, he would pick HIllary. That is why Kennedy picked Johnson.

[DevotedToAMC]

Yep exactly. Nobody else can carry over the Hillary supporters that will back McCain if she is not on the ticket. And she attracts more people than others: more women, working class people, seniors, doing better among Independents and young voters, Asians, Hispanics.

[Roman]

I truly think he won't pick her, but won't give away his hand. I don't blame him. He doesn't owe her a thing, and I truly believe he can win without her.

I don't trust her or Bill, and I think alot of Obama supporters, the same ones who people think will just vote for her no questions asked, might turn against him if she were on the ticket with him.

[DevotedToAMC]

I am not so sure...and she would be a fine VP and be content for being in second in command

[Roman]

I don't think she would, and he should not trust her.

I just saw on MSNBC that if he wins by strong numbers next Wed., he will capture the nomination outright.

« Former press secretary Scott McClellan turns against President Bush | Main

Not all Hillary Clinton backers buy "dream ticket" idea

As has been frequently noted, Sen. Ted Kennedy's much-publicized endorsement of Barack Obama paid little or no direct dividend a few days later in the Massachusetts Democratic presidential primary; Hillary Clinton easily carried the state on Super Tuesday back in February. One advantage she enjoyed -- mostly overlooked in the hoopla over Kennedy's nod -- was backing from longtime Boston Mayor Former President Bill Clinton might prove a distraction if his wife Hillary Clinton became vice president, according to an ally of the couple Thomas Menino.

What Menino lacked as a national political figure he more than made up for by galvanizing a well-oiled political machine on Clinton's behalf, much as Govs. Ted Strickland of Ohio and Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania did on her behalf in primaries that followed.

Menino, though, has strayed from the party line pushed by Strickland, Rendell and other staunch Clinton supporters that, on a ticket headed by Obama, she is the obvious choice as a running mate.

In a recent comment to the Bloomberg News Service, Menino said, "If she got back into the White House, she'd bring along Big Daddy, and he would overshadow the president."

Big Daddy, of course, would be the ex-president, Bill Clinton. And we have to give Menino credit for colorfully encapsulating ...

... the reservations some have about the Democratic "dream ticket" (as well as evoking the patriarch of the Tennessee Williams play, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," memorably portrayed in the film version by Burl Ives).

In his Bloomberg interview, Menino offered his two cents on an Obama running mate -- Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, who since ending his presidential quest after failing to make a dent in the Iowa caucuses has remained uncommitted in the race.

"He's smart, he's got the foreign policy experience, and he can help win Pennsylvania" because of his home state's proximity to the Philadelphia area, Menino said.

-- Don Frederick

Photo credit: Associated Press

[Jess]

I think "Big Daddy" would have been part of the problem with Hillary as president too. I think, well actually heard others say, that there had been four years of Big George, eight years of Clinton, eight years of little George and that the public didn't want now another Clinton.

[Wales2004]

Based ion 2026 that would be true. If you throw in whatever figures come out of MI and FL then he will need super delegates to get it.

Ultimately the VP spot is up to the party/delegates. Ted and Nancy have already vetoed HC and the odds are slim to none that Obama is going to push for her. They've already worked out a map that negates any argument over her strong states and there are polls showing him doing better than she in swing states for which they want to shoot. The media is giving her a little more life than she really has by using Bill the shake down king, but it's an illusion.

I'll bold this repetition of mine:

Obama never put his name on the MI ballot period. MI automatically put all the candidates' names on the ballot and they had to sign a document to remove it which they all did except HC.

FL has no provisions for removing a name (and may in fact require a candidate be on the primary ballot in order to be on the general election ballot) and that is why the same candidates could not remove their names from the FL ballot, otherwise they most likely would have.

The argument that it's Obama's fault he took his name of the ballot in MI is incorrect and the issue is irrelevant since the candidates knew upfront that those primaries violated the DNC's rules. Clinton is wrong on this and that's the bottom line.