From Lima, Ohio - Better Choice is Barack Obama

Letter to the Editor - Mar. 2nd, 2008 STEVE WALTER, Wapakoneta
The media have hosted 20 debates among the Democratic candidates for president. Tuesday, I was fortunate enough to be at Cleveland State University for the debate. It confirmed what I have realized since November: Sen. Barack Obama is our best choice for president.

Obama’s foreign policy would effectively focus on eliminating al-Qaida and protecting the U.S. He would strengthen our military and safeguard the men and women of our armed forces by withdrawing them from Iraq. And he would reduce global threats against the U.S. by targeting real threats where they exist and by conducting the dialog that is essential to any true effort at diplomacy. As commander in chief, he would not only be ready on day one, but he would be right on day one.

Obama has a record of working across party lines to build coalitions. He would gain broad bipartisan support for his plans to strengthen the economy, replace or repair unfair trade agreements, and to reduce the home foreclosure crisis. He has a plan to make health care affordable, yet allow each adult the freedom of choice, a plan that can gain enough support to be enacted.

If we have any hope of restoring the White House to a place that unites Americans, Obama is the better choice.

Who Can Bring About the Changes We Need?

Obama & Clinton: Who's More Likely to Confront Global Warming

by Paul Rogat LoebPosted March 2, 2008 | 07:44 AM (EST)

If we ignore global warming much longer, we'll face a world of perpetual disaster, so there's no larger question for presidential candidates than who is more likely to tackle it successfully. Although Obama's and Clinton's positions are similar, he seems far more likely to. The key difference is their ability to mobilize a grassroots base to demand that the necessary changes get passed.

If you look only at the candidate platforms, both Obama's and Clinton's are excellent. John Edwards was the first to come up with a comprehensive plan, but Obama soon did too, followed by Clinton. Both Obama and Clinton focus on renewable energy in their speeches and ads, pledging major incentives and R&D programs for renewables, increased portfolio standards for utilities, and cap-and-trade systems with decreasing limits where permits would be auctioned off, not just given away. Both support green jobs programs to benefit communities. Both talk of continuing to tighten efficiency standards for buildings, vehicles, and businesses. I wish both took firmer stands against nuclear power and liquid coal, but either would offer a strong alternative to our current inaction. Their programs are also both considerably better than that those John McCain suggests. While McCain talks a decent line, especially compared to his numerous climate change-denying Republican colleagues, he equivocates far more on the critical details, supports considerably more modest carbon reduction standards, and this past December abdicated the chance to cast the critical cloture vote and end a Republican filibuster that blocked the recent energy bill's most important provisions. Both Obama and Clinton get the urgency of the issue as much as any mainline American politician who isn't named Al Gore.

But I think Obama is far more likely to pass anything close to the legislation we need, because of his ability to mobilize ordinary citizens. Clinton emphasizes her insider knowledge, her familiarity with process. But in a period when Republicans first prevented Democratic bills from coming to the floor, and then filibustered them if they did, she's mostly been unable to coalesce participants across the admittedly entrenched political divides, unless you count crossing the aisle to support a flag-burning bill or backing the Iraq war. Her track record's no worse than other Democratic Senators, and she did successfully co-sponsor bi-partisan legislation to protect bonuses for wounded veterans and extend family medical leave for wounded soldiers, while introducing a still-in-process bill to improve mental health services for seniors. But it's a record certainly matched by Obama. In his four-year-briefer tenure, he's secured major Republican support to pass a major transparency bill that publicly lists all organizations receiving Federal funds, how much they've received, and the purpose of their grant or contract. He's passed another that provides resources to seek out and destroy surplus and unguarded stocks of conventional arms--like land mines and shoulder fired missiles--in Asia, Europe, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. And together with Russ Feingold, he played a key role in developing and passing a law that eliminated gifts of travel on corporate jets from lobbyists to members of Congress and required disclosure of bundled campaign contributions. Even if you ignore his major achievements in the Illinois legislature--like bringing police chiefs and civil liberties advocates together to craft and support a bill providing clear monitoring of police interrogations, and passing a bill extending health care to 150,000 state residents--I'd say evidence of insider ability is a wash.

The critical difference between Obama and Clinton is their potential to encourage ordinary citizens to speak out on the changes that we need. And that will be essential. If you strip away the racial connotations, that's actually the core of the debate over Clinton's claim that LBJ was more critical to the passage of the Civil Rights Act than Martin Luther King. For all that I loathe Johnson's escalation of the Vietnam War, he did stake his entire political capital and massive skill to navigate the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts through Congress--even though he knew it would lose the Democrats the South for a long time to come. But without the massive citizen movement that put civil rights onto the nation's conscience and at the top of its political agenda, he'd never have taken these stands. When you read books like Taylor Branch's wonderful history of America in the King years, it's clear how much both LBJ and Kennedy viewed the civil rights movement as a politically loaded intrusion on their other agendas. Kennedy did all he could to pressure King and other civil rights leaders not to hold the 1963 March on Washington. But as the pressure kept building, they finally answered the movement's call and lent their moral support to it, just as Franklin Roosevelt played a critical role by lending his support to America's resurgent union movement. We'll need a similarly powerful massive movement now--and ideally a president willing to nurture it--to overcome the massive dollars and entrenched political clout of companies like Exxon/Mobil, Peabody Coal, and General Motors.

In that context, there's no comparison between the candidates. Obama evokes the power of citizen movements in every speech he gives. He explicitly challenges ordinary citizens to see themselves as part of a lineage of change, with their own political participation following in the footsteps of America's most fundamental movements for justice. Obama evokes those roots when he talks of slaves and abolitionists who "blazed a trail toward freedom through the darkest of nights," and of "workers who organized; women who reached for the ballot...and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land."

Obama explicitly calls for citizens to act beyond the confines of electing him to office. His campaign echoes this call by relying on volunteers to organize themselves, take their own initiative, and find common strength in connecting with each other. The campaign provides materials, talking points, and video images, and is extraordinarily organized in ensuring that every critical precinct gets walked and every key household gets called. They learned the rules of the Texas caucus and Pennsylvania delegate systems, for instance, while the Clinton camp was reduced in the case of Texas to complaining and threatening lawsuits and failed to file a full slate of Pennsylvania delegates. Yet Obama's campaign has also sacrificed a significant amount of control over precisely how their volunteers reach out once they're engaged. In my home state of Washington, operations were run for months by an entirely volunteer group that included several former Bush and Ross Perot supporters in key roles who'd been disillusioned by disasters like Iraq, and then inspired by Obama's words. Their Ohio volunteer phone script, for instance, offers a standard summary of issues to raise, but also explicitly encourages volunteers to talk about their specific reasons for participating. The campaign has also continually helped connect ordinary citizens with each other, consistent with Obama's years as a community organizer and then as a lawyer representing these same grassroots organizations. Because these new connections are created in a way that's likely to last past the election, they'll make these new participants part of an independent base for change that can both help Obama pass key legislation on issues like climate change, and press him to act more strongly when he compromises unduly.

Clinton's campaign, by contrast, has been top-down and controlled from the start, giving local campaigners far less latitude. Initially, she was praised for keeping everyone on message and on a short leash. As her seemingly inevitable lead began to shrink, she's switched to attacking Obama's rhetoric and experience, dismissing his waves of new supporters, and in her most recent ad, evoking Cheney-style fear tactics about who will be in the White House when the phone rings at 3 AM. As an entrenched symbol of loathing to the political right (in a recent Mike Huckabee speech, his lines attacking Hillary got more applause than anything else he said), and whom down-ticket Democrats are terrified of seeing head the ticket in conservative states, she's unlikely to build the overwhelming majority we need to help shift our economy's entire energy base.

I'd love to see America's climate change politics approach Europe's, where conservatives like East Germany's Angela Merkel have taken the lead on many efforts and even Nicolas Sarkozy just posed proudly with Al Gore after passing a major French climate initiative. When I met the environmental minister from the conservative party that runs Denmark, she described taking visiting Republican Senators together with climate scientists to see the melting Greenland ice caps. "You're a conservative. I'm a conservative," she said. "I don't understand why the US isn't participating and leading on this issue." But we haven't. We couldn't get even a handful of Senate votes for the Kyoto Treaty. American oil and coal companies like Exxon/Mobil and Peabody have spearheaded the international funding of climate change deniers. Our level of popular denial remains greater than citizens of countries like France, Great Britain, and even Brazil and China, with the latter also passing more stringent automobile fuel standards. We're making major local progress: More than 700 cities have signed the US Mayors Climate Projection Agreement. But we will only achieve the necessary national change if we get enough citizens involved to radically shift our culture and politics.
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This will take independent efforts like the 1Sky Coalition, the nation-wide StepItUp rallies that preceded it, and the campus organizing that produced the 6,000-student PowerShift conference last November. Whoever wins, we'll need to mobilize more, not less, to see the changes we need. But on an issue this overwhelming and potentially terrifying, we'll need leaders who can help inspire people to take the leap of faith of acting whether or not they know their actions will succeed. Because as Jim Wallis of the religious social justice magazine Sojourners has said, "Hope is believing in spite of the evidence, and then watching the evidence change."

If I look at both Obama's record and his campaign, I see someone who understands the critical role of citizen movements and works to build them as a force capable of creating major change. That's what we've needed to address the major challenges of the past. It's what we'll need to address this ultimate crisis we've created through the combination of technological inventiveness and short-focus blindness. The Clintons may have spoken out against the Vietnam War when they were young, but they've been hedging their bets and distancing themselves from citizen movements ever since. We need a movement-building approach for global climate change--and for all the other crises America's next president will inherit from Bush's disastrous reign.

Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org To receive his articles directly email sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles

Two Fabulous, Must-Read Editorials by New York Times Columnist Maureen Dowd

February 27, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

Begrudging His Bedazzling

By MAUREEN DOWD

CLEVELAND

A huge Ellen suddenly materialized behind Hillary on a giant screen, interrupting her speech Monday night at a fund-raiser at George Washington University in Washington.

What better way for a desperate Hillary to try and stop her rival from running off with all her women supporters than to have a cozy satellite chat with a famous daytime talk-show host who isn’t supporting Obama?

“Will you put a ban on glitter?” Ellen demanded.

Diplomatically, Hillary said that schoolchildren needed it for special projects, but maybe she could ban it for anyone over 12.

Certainly, Hillary understands the perils of glitter. The coda of her campaign has been a primal scream against the golden child of Chicago, a clanging and sometimes churlish warning that “all that glitters is not gold.”

David Brody, the Christian Broadcasting Network correspondent whose interview with Hillary aired Tuesday, said the senator seemed “dumbfounded” by the Obama sensation.

She has been so discombobulated that she has ignored some truisms of politics that her husband understands well: Sunny beats gloomy. Consistency beats flipping. Bedazzling beats begrudging. Confidence beats whining.

Experience does not beat excitement, though, or Nixon would have been president the first time around, Poppy Bush would have had a second term and President Gore would have stopped the earth from melting by now.

Voters gravitate toward the presidential candidates who seem more comfortable in their skin. J.F.K. and Reagan seemed exceptionally comfortable. So did Bill Clinton and W., who both showed that comfort can be an illusion of sorts, masking deep insecurities.

The fact that Obama is exceptionally easy in his skin has made Hillary almost jump out of hers. She can’t turn on her own charm and wit because she can’t get beyond what she sees as the deep injustice of Obama not waiting his turn. Her sunshine-colored jackets on the trail hardly disguise the fact that she’s pea-green with envy.

After saying she found her “voice” in New Hampshire, she has turned into Sybil. We’ve had Experienced Hillary, Soft Hillary, Hard Hillary, Misty Hillary, Sarcastic Hillary, Joined-at-the-Hip-to-Bill Hillary, Her-Own-Person-Who-Just-Happens-to-Be-Married-to-a-Former-President Hillary, It’s-My-Turn Hillary, Cuddly Hillary, Let’s-Get-Down-in-the-Dirt-and-Fight-Like-Dogs Hillary.

Just as in the White House, when her cascading images and hairstyles became dizzying and unsettling, suggesting that the first lady woke up every day struggling to create a persona, now she seems to think there is a political solution to her problem. If she can only change this or that about her persona, or tear down this or that about Obama’s. But the whirlwind of changes and charges gets wearing.

By threatening to throw the kitchen sink at Obama, the Clinton campaign simply confirmed the fact that they might be going down the drain.

Hillary and her aides urged reporters to learn from the “Saturday Night Live” skit about journalists having crushes on Obama.

“Maybe we should ask Barack if he’s comfortable and needs another pillow,” she said tartly in the debate here Tuesday night. She peevishly and pointlessly complained about getting the first question too often, implying that the moderators of MSNBC — a channel her campaign has complained has been sexist — are giving Obama an easy ride.

Beating on the press is the lamest thing you can do. It is only because of the utter open-mindedness of the press that Hillary can lose 11 contests in a row and still be treated as a contender.

Hillary and her top aides could not say categorically that her campaign had not been the source on the Drudge Report, as Matt Drudge claimed, for a picture of Obama in African native garb that the mean-spirited hope will conjure up a Muslim Manchurian candidate vibe.

At a rally on Sunday, she tried sarcasm about Obama, talking about how “celestial choirs” singing and magic wands waving won’t get everybody together to “do the right thing.”

With David Brody, Hillary evoked the specter of a scary Kool-Aid cult. “I think that there is a certain phenomenon associated with his candidacy, and I am really struck by that because it is very much about him and his personality and his presentation,” she said, adding that “it dangerously oversimplifies the complexity of the problems we face, the challenge of navigating our country through some difficult uncharted waters. We are a nation at war. That seems to be forgotten.”

Actually it’s not forgotten. It’s a hard sell for Hillary to say that she is the only one capable of leading this country in a war when she helped in leading the country into that war. Or to paraphrase Obama from the debate here, the one who drives the bus into the ditch can’t drive it out.

March 2, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

A Wake-Up Call for Hillary

By MAUREEN DOWD

SAN ANTONIO

Channeling her inner Cheney, Hillary Clinton dropped a fear bomb, as Michelle Obama might call it, implying in a new ad that if her opponent is elected, your angelic, innocent, sleeping children could die in a terrorist attack.

Only she has the wise head to go nuclear, should that Strangelovian phone call from a power-mad Putin come into the White House at 3 a.m. Her ad shows how composed she would be at the dread moment when she picks up the phone. Her nuke look is feminine, in a tailored camel-colored jacket and gold necklace, yet serious, in Tina Fey black reading glasses.

It’s hard to discern the message of the ad. The scariest thing is not the persistently ringing phone but an Andrea Yates-looking mother who’s creeping up on the sleeping babes in the dark. The point can’t be that Hillary is superior to Obama in international crisis management, because she’s done no more of it than he has. She’s only done domestic crisis management, cleaning up after Frisky Bill.

Is the message that Hillary is Ready on Night One? That she won’t have to waste any time if she’s rousted out of bed in the wee hours, because she’s wearing a pantsuit under her pantsuit? (Or is it just, as Wesley Clark said during an appearance with her in Waco on Friday, that Hillary’s “been in the White House when the tough decisions were made. I guess you’ve been at the bedside when that phone rang at 3 a.m.”)

It’s rather Mommie Dearest for the first serious female contender to try to give the kiddies nightmares. How maternal is that? But since her nightmare is losing, she doesn’t mind scaring the pj’s off of little Jimmy and Johnny.

Obambi-No-More briskly dismissed Hillary’s attempt to cast him as a global ingénue. “Senator Clinton may not be aware, but we already had a red phone moment,” he said at an outdoor rally here, with the crowd of 8,000 booing at the mention of Hillary’s ad. “It was the decision to invade Iraq. Senator Clinton picked up the phone and gave the wrong answer. And John McCain picked up the phone and gave the wrong answer. And George Bush picked up the phone and gave the wrong answer.”

(In fact, there is no red phone in the Oval Office, but maybe Obama will redecorate. He wants to put in a hoops court.)

On “Nightline” last week, Hillary once more wallowed in gender inequities, asserting that it’s harder for her to run than her opponent — a black man with an exotic name that most Americans hadn’t even heard a year ago.

“Every so often I just wish that it were a little more of an even playing field,” she said, “but, you know, I play on whatever field is out there.”

Is that how she would deal with dictators, by playing the refs and going before the U.N. to demand: “How come you’re not asking Ahmadinejad these questions first?”

Tangled in her own victimhood, she snipped to Cynthia McFadden that Obama had written in his book that “he’s a blank screen and people of widely different views project what they want to believe onto him.” She said voters were projecting their hopes onto that blank screen even though “he just hasn’t been around long enough.”

In the next breath, asked about the women who feel sorry for her, she said: “I think a lot of women project their own feelings and their lives on to me, and they see how hard this is. It’s hard. It’s hard being a woman out there.”

So projection is bad with Obama but good with her?

On a conference call Friday with Hillary’s ever-more-hysterical male strategists, Slate’s John Dickerson asked exactly when she had been tested in a foreign policy crisis. After a silence long enough to knit a sweater in, as the Web site The Hotline put it, Mark Penn cited “her work on the Armed Services Committee.”

Hillary’s boys pout that the press should find some dirt on Obama before time runs out. Their once fearsome campaign is now reduced to whining that Obama did not hold any substantive hearings of his Subcommittee on European Affairs. What’s next? Bitterly complaining that he missed a quorum call?

Hillary keeps trying to dismiss Obama’s appeal as emotional, something that can be overcome with enough mental discipline. But behind that ethereal presence he’s a wonky lawyer, just like Hillary. He reads The Times and Philip Roth and talks about the fine points of Medicare Part B in a way W. never could have when he first ran for president. (Or now.)

Hillary’s visceral attacks will not work. And the Republicans’ visceral attacks on the Obamas’ patriotism, and their usual attempt to make the Democrat seem foreign (Hussein, Hussein, Hussein!), may not have the same traction.

The president took the country to war on his gut, exploited our fears and played the patriotism card to advance his political agenda.

This time, Americans may prefer cerebral arguments to visceral ones. What a refreshing change reality would be.

Obama Calls for 'Real Change' to a Cheering Crowd of 10,000 in Rhode Island

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If we want real change, we need leaders in Washington who say what they mean and mean what they say. I don’t want to just tell everyone what they want to hear, I’ll tell people what they need to know. Because real change isn’t about changing your position to fit the politics of the moment. And that’s the choice in this election.

Real change isn’t calling NAFTA a victory and saying how good it was for America until you decide to run for President, like Senator Clinton did. I won’t stand here and tell you that we can stop every job from disappearing because of trade, but I will tell you that when I am President, we will end the tax breaks for corporations who ship our jobs overseas and give them to companies who create good jobs right here in America. That’s real change.

Real change isn’t saying that you’ll stand up to lobbyists and special interests when you’ve taken more money from Washington lobbyists than any Democrat or Republican running for President, like my opponent has. I’m the only one in this race who’s actually passed laws to take power away from lobbyists, they haven’t funded my campaign, and they will not drown out the voices of working Americans when I am President. That’s real change.

Real change isn’t voting for a bankruptcy bill that makes it harder for working families to climb out of debt and then saying that you’re glad it didn’t pass once you start running for President. One of the first things I did when I got to the Senate was fight against the credit card industry’s bankruptcy bill, and when I am President, we’ll reform our bankruptcy laws so that CEOs can’t dump your pension with one hand while collecting their bonus with another. That’s real change.

And real change isn’t voting for George Bush’s war in Iraq and then telling the American people it was actually a vote for more diplomacy when you start running for President. The title of the bill was “A Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq.” What else were you voting for? I knew what it was, and that’s why I opposed this war from the start, and why I will bring our troops home when I am President. That’s real change.

You know, I am reminded every day, if not by events than by my wife, that I am not a perfect man. And I will not be a perfect President. But I promise you this – I will always tell you what I think and where I stand. I will be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, even when we disagree. And I will wake up every day in that White House thinking and working and fighting to make your lives a little bit better. That’s real change, and that’s the change we’ll have when I am President."

In Celebration of Women's History Month - A Tapestry of Women for Obama

For my daughters ...


Women's History Month isn't just a chance to celebrate women's history; it's a chance to honor the extraordinary role women have played in shaping American history. From midnight journeys on the Underground Railroad to marches for women's suffrage and civil rights, from the bomber assembly lines of World War II to the boardrooms of today, women have always shown us what we can achieve when we refuse to settle for the world as it is and choose to remake the world as it should be.

But despite the achievements we honor this month, we know we still have challenges to overcome. We need to build an America where women earn the same pay as men for the same work, and have time off to care for a loved one who's sick; where women have control over the health care decisions that affect their lives, and don't have to choose between their kids and their careers. It's not enough to have a holiday that honors women if we don't also make sure our laws value women.

This holiday is particularly meaningful to me because I would not be the person I am without the women in my life. I was raised by a single mother across two continents, and by a grandmother who instilled in me her own Midwestern values. And my wife Michelle - a woman who's overcome a number of challenges as a lawyer and hospital executive - continues to make me a better man.

Every night I'm home, Michelle and I tuck two little girls into bed. And we want to make sure that they have the same opportunities as every little boy in this country. That's the dream that women have fought for throughout our nation's history, and that's the dream I'll fight to make real as President of the United States.

Barack Obama

Cincinnati Enquirer Endorses Obama 'Illinois senator offers energy, rich experiences, fresh ideas'

Despite all of the jokes and misplaced campaign rhetoric, it is the experiences of Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama that have set them apart - set them above - the crowded Democratic field that started the race for their party's nomination so many months ago.

Clinton's experience as first lady often is derided as "secondhand," or somehow invalid. Actually, it gave her a perspective on the possibilities and limitations of the presidency that no other candidate for the office ever has had.

Beyond that, she has been a senator for the past eight years, carving out her own political niche on the national scene. Her service on the Senate Armed Services Committee has involved her intimately in the details of the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, subjects the next commander in chief will need to come to terms with immediately.

Obama was born to an American mother and Kenyan father, raised in a multicultural environment, graduated with an Ivy League education and worked as a community organizer on the streets of Chicago before becoming a civil rights lawyer. His life and experiences reflect the diversity of America in ways no other presidential candidate has experienced.

He points to the richness of these experiences as the reason he has earned a reputation of uniting people around what he describes on his Web site as the "politics of purpose" - getting people to work beyond their partisan differences to achieve common goals.

These are both extraordinarily talented candidates, but it is Obama's ability to reach beyond the partisan divide and gather in support that prompts The Enquirer to give him our endorsement for the Democratic nomination.

The true differences on policy between Obama and Clinton - on Iraq, on trade and a host of other issues, are narrow.

On health care, we prefer his approach of lowering costs rather than mandating participation.

Obama and Clinton both say ending the war in Iraq, while preserving U.S. security, would be their top priority upon taking office. Both say they would consult with the military experts and withdraw American forces and quickly as prudently possible. This will be a clear point of debate in the general election with John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee.

Clinton has shown herself to be an able senator, with an impressive grasp of details. But she remains for many in this country a polarizing figure.

Much of that dislike undoubtedly is residual disapproval of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and his policies and performance in office. That may be unfair to her, but it remains a fact of political life.

But her own style has opened her to criticism as well. Her major public policy involvement during her husband's administration was the failed attempt to come up with a universal health care policy.

Critics remember her closed-door, high-handed and uncompromising approach, which drew opposition from many Democrats as well as Republicans and doomed the initiative.

She says she has learned from those mistakes, yet her style often seems abrasive and superior when criticized.

A president must be able to make hard decisions but must also be able to face - even welcome - dissenting views and understand that there can be validity in the opposition.

Obama has been on the national stage for a relatively short time, but in that time he has demonstrated an ability and a willingness to work with others. He does not waste time demonizing those with different views.

One obvious example is his work with Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind., on a new non-proliferation effort with Russia designed to keep nuclear weapons from falling into terrorist hands. He also lists the need for coming up with a workable, bipartisan national energy policy as one of the first things he would tackle in office.

But perhaps Obama's most impressive achievement so far is the excitement he has engendered in the political process itself.

He is a gifted public speaker, and the energy he brings to his campaign seems to have brought many people, including many young people, into the political process for the first time.

Obama has an undeniable appeal that is attracting people of divergent backgrounds. He seems able to find ways to work even with people who don't share his views.

We believe that of the two, he has the better chance at quickly creating the working coalitions that would allow for the progress a new administration will need in dealing with the issues at hand.

'We Are the Ones'

Obama's response to Hillary's '3:00 AM' ad

Hillary Finds a Strange Way to Honor Women's History Month

After Senator Clinton's recent self-righteous posturing during the Ohio debate in reference to 'rejecting' or 'denouncing' inappropriate support, I find this following story both disturbing and amusing - zjm
Sen. Clinton accepts donations from troubled firm

Posted on Friday, February 29, 2008 3:50 PM PT By Lisa Myers and Jim Popkin, NBC News

Sen. Hillary Clinton has declined to return $170,000 in campaign contributions from individuals at a company accused of widespread sexual harassment, and whose CEO is a disbarred lawyer with a criminal record, federal campaign records show.

The federal government has accused the Illinois management consulting firm, International Profit Associates, or IPA, of a brazen pattern of sexual harassment including "sexual assaults,” “degrading anti-female language" and "obscene suggestions."

In a 2001 lawsuit full of lurid details, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claims that 103 women employees at IPA were victimized for years. The civil case is ongoing, and IPA vigorously denies the allegations.

"This is by far, hands down, the worst case I've ever experienced," said Diane Smason, one of the EEOC lawyers handling the lawsuit. "Every woman there experienced sex harassment, they were part of a hostile work environment of sex harassment. And this occurred from the top down."

Sen. Clinton’s spokesman, Howard Wolfson, told NBC News in a statement that the senator decided to keep the funds because the lawsuit is "ongoing" and because none of the sexual harassment allegations has been proven in court. "With regard to the pending harassment suit, as a general matter, the campaign assesses findings of fact in deciding whether to return contributions," Wolfson said.

Allegations:
Adrienne Slick, who worked at IPA for seven months in 2000 and 2001 as a business coordinator and is now part of the EEOC suit, told NBC News in an interview that the sexual harassment was oppressive. “I had multiple managers come at me, press themselves up against me ... ask me to go home with them, and to a hotel room so they could fulfill their fantasies," she said.

The EEOC lawyers say the man at the top of the firm - IPA founder and Managing Director John R. Burgess - was among the worst offenders. The EEOC lawsuit claims, “The harassment emanated from the top: the owner and Managing Director, John Burgess, is accused of sexual harassment by at least 10 different women.”

Burgess has a criminal record, too. The former lawyer pleaded guilty to attempted grand larceny in 1987 and was disbarred in New York, court documents show. Burgess also pleaded guilty to “patronizing a prostitute” in 1984, according to Erie County, N.Y., court records.

Still, none of that has stopped powerful politicians in both parties from being courted by Burgess and IPA. Since 2000, IPA officials and their family members have given Sen. Clinton at least $170,000 for her Senate and presidential campaigns, federal campaign records show. Senator Clinton also spoke at a company event and rode on an IPA jet in 2004.

In May 2006, the New York Times brought Burgess's criminal history, and the allegations against IPA, to Sen. Clinton's attention. The May 7, 2006, article was titled “Rubbing Shoulders with Trouble, and Presidents.” In the article, a spokeswoman for Sen. Clinton was quoted as saying the Senator was not aware of Burgess’s criminal past and "will be reviewing" the contributions.

Almost two years later, federal records indicate that Sen. Clinton still has not returned the IPA money. Howard Wolfson, her communications director, did not dispute the $170,000 figure in an email to NBC News. He said Senator Clinton was not aware of Burgess’s past legal problems when she first accepted the donations. "In 2000 and 2003 when Sen. Clinton's campaign accepted money from Burgess, it was not aware of his legal problems from the 1980s," he said.

However, there were public reports of allegations against Burgess as early as 2000. That’s the year that Inc. Magazine first reported that Burgess had patronized a prostitute and had pleaded guilty to attempted grand larceny. And Senator Clinton’s campaign has accepted other contributions from other senior IPA officials as recently as last year, the campaign records show.

Many other politicians have been quick to distance themselves from IPA, and have returned donations. In 2002 in New York, Andrew Cuomo, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate at the time, returned $20,000 from Burgess. Cuomo’s office said the donations were returned after a New York newspaper reported on Burgess’s past legal problems and on the EEOC sexual-harassment allegations.

Other prominent Democrats also have returned IPA's donations including Sen. Ted Kennedy and then-Senate candidate Claire McCaskill. On the same day in 2006, Sen. Barack Obama received $4,000 in campaign donations from a senior IPA official and his wife. Obama quickly returned $2,000 from the senior IPA official, campaign records show. But the campaign has held onto the matching $2,000 donation from the IPA official’s wife, the Obama campaign confirms.

Some political analysts say it is surprising that the first viable female candidate for president would not be more sensitive to allegations of sexual harassment.

"The fact that Hillary Clinton at this point is holding onto money from a contributor who has been charged with sexual harassment can only be perceived as insensitive to women's issues and women," says Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, Senior Scholar at the School of Policy, Planning and Development at the University of Southern California. "I don't think that fits the definition of feminism, at least the last time I looked."

Adrienne Slick, the former IPA employee, says she's disappointed in any politician who would take or keep money from IPA. "This is not something that should be taken lightly, and to accept those funds makes a statement," she told NBC.

The EEOC lawyers would not comment on any aspect of the political donations, and confined their remarks solely to the lawsuit.

Clinton Campaign Response:
Wolfson dismissed the notion that keeping IPA money reflected a lack of concern about sexual harassment. "Sen. Clinton is proud of her long record of championing women's causes," he said. "When the EEOC rules on the allegations involving Burgess, we will consider that outcome in assessing if there is any reason to return his contribution." Of the $170,000 total in donations from all IPA officials and employees, Burgess and his family members personally contributed $16,000 to Sen. Clinton, campaign records show.

IPA Reaction:
For its part, IPA vigorously denies any wrongdoing and said it has been fighting the EEOC lawsuit for more than six years. "Since a lawsuit was filed in June 2001, IPA has continually and consistently denied the allegations," IPA spokeswoman Jennifer Cumbee wrote in an email to NBC News. "At IPA, we have zero tolerance approach when it comes to sexual harassment."

Cumbee added: "This involves primarily claims by persons who worked a short time in the mid- to late 90s (although there are some persons who worked after that). Immediately after the lawsuit was filed and by early 2001, IPA in an abundance of caution had its sexual harassment policy completely revised by competent outside professionals."

She says, "IPA has had no unresolved claim of harassment for several years now and any one of its 2,000 employees who violate the policy, after investigation, is dealt with swiftly." She would not comment directly on Slick’s claims, citing employee confidentiality. She said that the EEOC already has dropped some claimants from the suit. “All employee claims have been contested as many have no witnesses or records or current complaints,” Cumbee said.

The IPA spokeswoman did not dispute that Burgess had a criminal record from his days in New York. "All that you have asked, in regards to John Burgess, is a matter of public record," she wrote. “Mr. Burgess is not a felon and was never convicted or pled to a felony.” She said that it would be unfair to judge Burgess on two-decade-old crimes, and pointed out that Burgess and IPA are solid employers who donate generously to charities.

Pay attention folks: Like McCain, Hillary talks of more war, not less -

February 29, 2008, 8:50 pm from The Caucus The New York Times Politics Blog

Clinton Talks About Stepping Up Effort in Afghanistan

By Katharine Q. Seelye

WACO, Tex. — Here’s something that got lost today in all the coverage of Senator Hillary Clinton’s rally here, where she further questioned Senator Barack Obama's readiness to serve as commander in chief: She also suggested she wanted to step up action in Afghanistan.

She did not specify military action, but that was the strong implication.

Her audience of about 1,200 people had applauded her every time she took a swipe at Mr. Obama. But they seemed decidedly cool toward the idea of deeper involvement in Afghanistan. When she mentioned it, the applause meter dropped.

“I will also be a commander in chief who refocuses on winning the war in Afghanistan,” she said. “I will do everything in my power to reverse our declining position in Afghanistan,” she said, vowing to make it clear to allies in NATO “that this is their war too.”

In one, (interview) with WTVG, the ABC affiliate in Toledo, she reaffirmed the task in Afghanistan: “When you hire a president you are really hiring someone for that job and in this case it is someone who manages two wars, a war to end in Iraq and a war to win in Afghanistan.”

Barack Obama Town Meeting in Austin

Jay Rockefeller, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Endorses Obama - 'Barack Obama is the most qualified person to lead'

(from the Boston Globe) Posted by Foon Rhee, deputy national political editor February 29, 2008 02:54 PM
Barack Obama, fighting back against a new TV ad that questions his standing as commander in chief, announced this afternoon that he has the endorsement of Senator Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Rockefeller, of West Virginia, cited Obama's opposition to the Iraq war and warnings about how it would distract the country from the war on terror in Afghanistan. Like Hillary Clinton, Rockefeller voted in 2002 to authorize the war and has since said he regrets it.

As Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I am all too aware that the threats we face are unconventional. They are sophisticated. They are constantly changing and adapting. And they are very serious," Rockefeller said in a statement issued by the Obama campaign. "What matters most in the Oval Office is sound judgment and decisive action. It's about getting it right on crucial national security questions the first time -- and every time.

"The indisputable fact is Barack Obama was right about Iraq when many of us were wrong," added Rockefeller. "It was a tough call and the single greatest national security question, and mistake, of our time. Today, we remain a country at war, and countless mistakes over the last six-and-a-half years have made us less safe. The stakes have never been higher, and that is why we must take a stand."

(more of Senator Rockefeller's statement from www.barackobama.com)

CHICAGO, IL – Senator Rockefeller said, “Today, I’m proud to lend my support and strong endorsement to Barack Obama and his candidacy for President of the United States. Barack Obama is the most qualified person – Democrat or Republican – to lead our country in the face of enormous challenges – the very real threat of terrorism, economic uncertainty, and instability at home and abroad.

“I am not just supporting Barack Obama because of his strength on national security. I am equally proud of his commitment to rebuild America – so that we’re a country of equality and prosperity – where no segment of society is left behind. I know Barack Obama will fight and win the battle for health care, good paying jobs, and energy security.

“Barack Obama is a uniquely gifted, brilliant and strategic thinker, who genuinely understands the hopes and desires of the American people. There is nothing sheltered about his life; he’s always had to work hard, and he’s always fought to make his community and his country better.

“A leader like Barack Obama just doesn’t come along very often, and as voters who care passionately about the future of our country, we cannot afford to squander this opportunity.”

Senator Obama said, “Senator Rockefeller’s leadership in the Senate has strengthened our national security and advanced economic opportunity, and I am honored to have his support. Nobody understands the unconventional threats of the 21st century better than Jay Rockefeller, and I look forward to partnering with him as President to strengthen our intelligence community and protect our homeland. Together, we will work to reclaim the American Dream for working families at home, and to restore our security and standing abroad.”

Come on John - Time to Step Up to the Plate!

Edwards Can Put Obama Over the Top

February 29, 2008 01:13 PM ET | John Mashek | Permanent Link

Former Sen. John Edwards can end any real suspense over next Tuesday's Democratic primaries in Ohio and Texas by backing Barack Obama.

In the wake of 11 straight losses in primaries and caucuses by Hillary Clinton and defections by some key superdelegates, Edwards could settle the outcome.

The former presidential candidate and vice presidential nominee in 2004, Edwards has won only 50 delegates or so. He probably can't deliver all of them. But his endorsement of Obama would weigh on labor voters in union-heavy Ohio.

Clinton needs more than a simple victory next Tuesday. She needs decisive wins, and the latest polls, especially in Texas, are not encouraging.

When he was a candidate, the populist Edwards went after Clinton in several debates. His main point was that change was needed in Washington and Clinton represented the past.

Obama is decidedly the new player this year, and his constant theme has been the need for change. It is a compelling reason for Edwards to make his choice.

In backing Obama, Edwards would be following the lead of Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, another candidate who spoke well but managed little support. Dodd announced his support of Obama earlier this week.

And it would help, too, if Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware would step in and back Obama. Biden showed a lot of common sense in the earlier debates and shied away from any angry words at Clinton. In my book, he would be an excellent secretary of state in an Obama administration.

The hour grows late for Clinton. No one doubts her smarts and grasp of the issues—especially healthcare, where she is stronger than Obama. However, the verdict is almost in on the race. And John Edwards could very likely decide it so Democrats can move on. Unity will be needed to defeat John McCain, who has the legacy of George W. Bush to defend in the fall. Some legacy.

University of Maine Professor, Sharon Tisher: Give Obama 'super' support

By Bangor Daily News Staff Friday, February 29, 2008 - Bangor Daily News

Gov. John Baldacci and Maine’s other Democratic superdelegates should respect the popular Maine vote and cast their support to Barack Obama. The people who attended the Maine caucuses have spent months watching these candidates in debates and talking with their friends and neighbors about the extraordinary choices in the next presidential election. They, rather than those in Augusta or Washington, have the best collective judgment on the ultimate question — who is best equipped to win in November and to lead the country in the post-Bush recovery? Personal loyalties are important, but they do not trump democracy.

I did not take my decision to support Obama over Sen. Hillary Clinton lightly. The deciding evidence for me was an article in the New York Times Magazine last summer, "Hillary’s War" by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta (June 3, 2007). This was a thoroughly researched article for which Clinton declined to be interviewed.

According to the article, on Oct. 8, 2002, two days before the fateful Senate vote to authorize an invasion of Iraq, the Senate Democrats held a luncheon caucus to discuss the resolution. Florida Sen. Bob Graham, then chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, "forcefully," in his words, urged his colleagues to read the 90-page National Intelligence Estimate which had been made available on Oct. 1 to the senators. Graham advised that this report was the deciding factor in his decision to vote "no."

The report, released to the public in 2004 , was in 2002 so highly classified that Clinton could not send her staff to read the report and brief her on it. She had to go herself to one of two secure locations in the Capitol complex to read it. This she declined to do, according to the Times piece. The report, had Clinton read it, would have revealed the tenuous basis for the trumped-up allegations of weapons of mass destruction that were being used to justify the invasion.

Hence Clinton’s campaign claims about her 2002 vote, "probably the hardest decision I have ever made" based on the "facts and assurances that I had at the time," are misleading. More disturbingly, it is my conclusion that she based her vote on a Machiavellian calculation that in order to be elected in 2008, she had to appear "strong on defense" (although the vote was authorizing an offensive, not defense). To that end, she was not merely a passive follower of President Bush’s leadership on the war, but one of the most outspoken among Senate Democrats fueling fears of Saddam Hussein’s weapons arsenal. That calculus trumped her better judgment and the best interests of the nation, especially those men and women who have lost their lives or their health in Iraq.

Clinton has increasingly emphasized the value of her "experience." Experience played an unfortunate role in her vote to authorize the invasion. In explaining her vote on the Senate floor, Clinton noted, "Perhaps my decision is influenced by my eight years of experience on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, in the White House, watching my husband deal with serious challenges to our nation."

As the Gerth and Van Natta article noted, "Bill Clinton served as her main counsel on the Iraq war vote." President Clinton had, in 1998, authorized more than 400 cruise missiles and 650 air attacks against suspected WMD sites in Iraq. He was on record in asserting that Hussein had WMDs and would deploy them. He was wrong, but it is easy to see that his feelings would have had a powerful influence on Clinton.

I perceive Obama as one who is truer to his own principles, highly qualified to lead the nation, and who has crossover appeal to Republicans, independents and Democrats alike.

Choosing Clinton by superdelegate vote in defiance of the popular primary and caucus vote would be disastrous for the Democratic Party. It would be enough for me, a dyed-in-the-wool Nader Blamer for the Bush debacle, to consider voting for a third-party candidate.

In the end I would not, because I know Clinton is capable and far better than the alternative. However, there just might be enough disaffected Democrats and independents out there to, once again, tip a very delicate balance against a Democratic victory in November.

Sharon Tisher is an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Maine.

Though Florida Does Not and Should Not Count, a Couple of Interesting Items are in the Sarasota Herald Tribune

Switching from Clinton to Obama

Jim Winding

Published Friday, Feb. 29, 2008 at 4:30 a.m.

Sarasota — I voted for Hillary Clinton in the Jan. 29 primary. She has an in-depth knowledge of all the issues and would be an excellent Democratic nominee and president.

I closely observed Barack Obama in the subsequent weeks. He also has an in-depth knowledge of all the issues. His approach to problem solving is solid. He has inspired voters from all segments of the electorate to participate in the primary process. These voters will enable the Democrats to expand their pluralities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. This will ensure that an Obama presidency can effectively implement the programs for which he is campaigning.

On Saturday, I will be voting for an Obama delegate to the Democratic National Convention.

It's over for Clinton, expert says

By Jeremy Wallace
H-T POLITICAL WRITER

Published Thursday, Feb. 28, 2008 at 9:34 a.m.

SARASOTA — It is "nearly impossible" for Sen. Hillary Clinton to win the Democratic Party's nomination for president, one of the nation's best-known political scientists told an audience here Wednesday.

Even if Clinton wins critical votes in Ohio and Texas on Tuesday, Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said she would have to win by such large margins to catch up to Sen. barack Obama that it is hard to imagine.

While Clinton leads in Ohio in most public polling, she and Obama are nearly tied in Texas opinion polls.

Overall, Obama has 159 more pledged delegates than Clinton and leads the overall popular vote by 925,000 over Clinton, not counting Florida and Michigan, where candidates were banned from campaigning. Catching Obama in delegates would require Clinton to win more than 60 percent of the vote in all the states with primaries remaining, Sabato said.

Even when she was the clear favorite, Sabato said, he was convinced that Clinton would not win the nomination because of "Clinton fatigue." He said that in President Clinton's last year in office in 2000, polls showed his approval rating to be very low. People were fed up with the Clintons, he said.

When Bill Clinton became a big player in his wife's campaign, it only rekindled what people did not like about the Clintons, Sabato said.

"He overdid it," Sabato told about 200 people at the Ritz-Carlton.

The event was sponsored by the Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice, the Collins Center for Public Policy and the Institute for Public Policy and Leadership at The University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee.

Sabato also predicted that Democrats would easily hold both the House and the Senate in the 2008 elections, and said he expects Democrats to add to their majorities in both chambers.

Sabato is the author of "A More Perfect Constitution." The book explores ways to update and change the Constitution, which he argues is what the founders wanted. He quoted Thomas Jefferson and George Washington on the need for continued reassessment of the document.

"They expected us to have regular constitutional conventions," Sabato said.

Jeremy Wallace can be reached at 361-4966 or jeremy.wallace@ heraldtribune.com.

Obama Rolls Trough Texas

The Boss Delivers Quote of the Day

"I always look at my work as trying to measure the distance between American promise and American reality," Springsteen says. "And I think (Obama's) inspired a lot of people with that idea: How do you make that distance shorter? How do we create a more humane society? We've lived through such ugly times that people want to have a romance with the idea of America again, and I think they need to.

"The hard realities and how things get done are important, too, but if you can effectively convince people that it's possible to make things better, they get excited."

From Barack Obama - a message to John McCain and George Bush

With their words today, George Bush and John McCain called for staying the course with an endless war in Iraq and a failed policy of not talking to leaders we don’t like, but Americans of all political persuasions are calling for change. The American people aren’t looking for tough talk about fighting for 100 years in Iraq, because they know we need to end this war, finish the job in Afghanistan, and take the fight to al Qaeda. The American people aren’t looking for more of a do-nothing Cuba policy that has failed to secure the release of dissidents, failed to bring democracy to the island, and failed to advance freedom for fifty years, because they know we need to pursue new opportunities to achieve liberty for the Cuban people. If I am the Democratic nominee, I will offer the clearest contrast to John McCain’s call for four more years of George Bush’s policies, because I want to fundamentally change our foreign policy to secure the American people and restore our standing in the world.

Georgia Congressman John Barrow endorses Obama

By BOB KEMPER The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 02/28/08

WASHINGTON — Another top Georgia Democrat will announce today that he's backing Sen. Barack Obama in the Democrat presidential race.

Rep. John Barrow of Savannah, who represents a toss-up district and who had one of the toughest re-elections battles in the country in 2006, picked Obama over Sen. Hillary Clinton, saying Obama's already proven his willingness and ability to work in a bipartisan manner.

"He's the one who has shown in his work that he's able to work with all sides," Barrow said.

Obama now has the backing of all five of the Democratic congressmen from Georgia who have announced a preference. Clinton now has no public support from the state's congressional super delegates to the Democratic national convention this summer.

Barrow said Obama's bipartisanship more than makes up for his relatively short experience in Washington.

"The best indicator of what a person's going to do in the future is what they've done in the past," he said.

Barrows' announcement comes a day after Rep. John Lewis, an Atlanta Democrat, announced that he's switching his support from Clinton to Obama.

Down by the river in San Marcos, Texas, thousands cheer Obama

By Molly Bloom , W. Gardner Selby AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Thursday, February 28, 2008

SAN MARCOS — Thousands of Hays County residents, who have seen more national political figures in the past week than in the previous 40 years, roared for Barack Obama on Wednesday night at a spotlighted rally straddling both banks of the San Marcos River.

Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts stumped for the Illinois U.S. senator last Thursday. On Monday, Chelsea Clinton stumped for her mother, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. Then came Obama, who started a three-day return tour of Texas earlier Wednesday in Duncanville and was introduced in San Marcos by Lyndon Nugent, former President Johnson's grandson. Obama thanked Nugent for his support "and everything that his family has done for this country."

Looking over the crowd — estimated at about 12,000 by Texas State University Police Chief Ralph Meyer — Obama said, "Y'all do it big in Texas." Then he launched into his speech, which was briefly interrupted by someone calling out their love, and Obama replying, as he does often, "I love you back."

Obama, whose platform includes proposals to roll back tax cuts given to the wealthy and to make health insurance and college more affordable, drew a big cheer by reminding the crowd that President Bush won't be on November's ballot, though the cheers turned to boos when he added: "Now, that's the good news. Keep in mind that he is coming back to Texas.

"The American people tell me they are ready for a new direction," Obama told supporters