Tag: 2008 (page 22)

Speaking at a meeting of the Newspaper Association of America in Pennsylvania today, Hillary Clinton outlined the agenda, if elected, for her first 100 days in office:

Clinton’s prospective 100-day agenda included the start of a troop withdrawal from Iraq and submitting a budget to Congress that rolls back some of President Bush’s tax cuts.

She also promised to “shut down Guantanamo” and “disavow torture,” as well as sign bills Bush has vetoed to expand federal embryonic stem-cell research and broaden government-supported health care to millions of lower-income children who now go without.

She said:

In short, starting from day one, the Bush-Cheney era will be over in name and in practice.

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Barack Obama launched a new ad attacking Hillary Clinton for taking lobbyist money. I think it is flat out deceptive.

Obama relies on lobbyists. His campaign spokesman called his refusal to take money from lobbyists "symbolic" and acknolwedged "it doesn’t solve the problem of money in politics."

Obama has a network of lobbyists supporting him:

While Obama has decried the influence of special interests in Washington, the reality is that many of the most talented and experienced political operatives in his party are lobbyists, and he needs their help.

Mike Williams, the director of government relations at Credit Suisse Securities, said of the network of lobbyists supporting Obama: “I would imagine that it’s as large as the Clinton list,” in reference to rival presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who is an entrenched favorite of the Washington Democratic establishment.

He said that while lobbyists cannot give money to Obama, they can give “policy” and “campaign support.” Indeed, K Street denizens have rare policy and national campaign expertise. Williams is actively building support for Obama among lobbyists and the corporate clients they represent.

Among the lobbyists helping Obama: [More...]

Speaking at the annual meeting of the Associated Press yesterday, Barack Obama offered up yet another expression of regret for his "bitter" remarks but again didn't apologize for them.

As I said yesterday, I regret some of the words I chose, partly because the way that these remarks have been interpreted have offended some people and partly because they've served as one more distraction from the critical debate that we must have in this election.

In other words, he doesn't accept the words offended some people, only that the way people interpreted them may have been offensive. And, he dismisses them as a "distraction."

He also repeated his life story: [More...]

Philadelphia Democrats held their Jefferson Jackson Dinner tonight. Both Hillary and Obama spoke separately.

Hillary rose above Bitter-Gate, never mentioning it, and included Obama in her praise:

"Neither Senator Obama nor myself could have dreamed we would be right here asking you for your votes," Clinton said, praising the pioneers of the civil rights and women's rights movements. "We are the beneficiaries of the work and sacrifice that so many of you and countless Americans have done over so many generations."

Obama went on the attack: [More...]

Obama on the campaign trail today:

“Around election time, the candidates can’t do enough. They'll promise you anything, give you a long list of proposals and even come around, with TV crews in tow, to throw back a shot and a beer,” Obama said, stirring laughter from an audience of steelworkers and steel industry executives.

First he mocks her as Annie Oakley, now he goes after her having a drink on a Saturday night (video here) -- something she's done with reporters in tow before.

Hillary hits back:

“With all due respect, this is the same politician who spent six days posing for clichéd camera shots that included bowling gutterballs, walking around a sports bar, feeding a baby cow, and buying a ham at the Philly market (albeit one that cost $99.99 a pound). Sen. Obama's speeches won’t hide his condescending views of Americans living in small towns," Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said in the statement.

A new Rasmussen national poll finds 56% of Americans disagree with Obama's remarks calling small town Pennsylvanians bitter and clinging to G-d and their guns. Only 25% approve.

45% said Obama is out of touch with small-town Americans and his words show an elitist view of them. (Questions asked and results are here.)

But it may make more difference in the general election than the primary. Democrats are less offended by the remarks, and liberal democrats, even less so:

Democrats are fairly evenly divided—34% agree with Obama and 43% disagree. Generally, Obama supporters agree with him while Hillary Clinton’s supporters disagree.

A plurality of politically liberal voters—46%--agree with Obama’s statement while 33% disagree. Moderate voters take the opposite view and disagree by a 51% to 27% margin. Seventy-four percent (74%) of conservatives disagree with Obama’s statement, only 12% agree.

Republicans and Independents on the other hand: [More...]

Obama on the campaign trail today:

Shame on her," Obama said, echoing one of Clinton's own atacks on him. "Shame on her, she knows better."

"She’s running around talking about how this is an insult to sportsmen, how she values the Second Amendment, she's talking like she's Annie Oakley! Hillary Clinton's out there like she's on the duck blind every Sunday, she's packin' a six shooter! C'mon! She knows better. That's some politics being played by Hillary Clinton. I want to see that picture of her out there in the duck blinds."

Hillary's campaign responds:

Reactions to the Faith forum?

Here comes the media spin.

Some of my final thoughts. The forum was held at a religious university. That probably affected the audience reaction. He wasn't speaking to the voting public, but to the religious voters.

He did another hyperbole. Now, not only is he the one who has done the most for gays and the most against anti-semitism, he's the one who's done the most to reach out to churches.

He didn't answer several questions directly, such as whether life begins at conception and whether he supports people making end of life decisions. On the latter, he restricted his answer to whether people should be able to use painkillers if that might hasten their demise.

Update: Comments now closed.

The second section of our live blog on CNN's Faith Forum is below the fold. Use the regular comments section below if you want others to see your comments. More...

Bump and Update: Hillary took off the restraints in PA today:

She made the argument that Sen. Barack Obama's comments could cost the party the election and that the party has been seen as out of touch by male candidates in the past. Clinton also criticized Obama for not "owning up to his remarks."

Original Post:

Don't miss reading John Harris and Jim Vandehei at Politico and their new article positing that far from trying to throw the proverbial kitchen sink at Barack Obama, Hillary has been exercising great restraint.

According to Politico, Hillary believes that Obama cannot win in November. The article says, if Hillary felt free to really speak her mind, here are the points she'd make:

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Newsweek spends three online pages discussing Obama's foreign policy experience. Shorter version: Is a multi-cultural upbringing the kind of foreign policy experience that makes one best equipped to be Commander in Chief or President? (More on this here.)

The article focuses on Obama having grown up in Indonesia. Some quotes from the article:

• Obama says he's more experienced than McCain or Hillary:

[L]ast week Obama signaled that he'd had enough of these attacks. Not only did he not lack experience, Obama cockily told a fund-raising crowd in San Francisco, but "foreign policy is the area where I am probably most confident that I know more and understand the world better than Senator Clinton or Senator McCain."

• From a neutral Democrat:

Even some Dems who'd favor him in any contest against McCain also worry that Obama is overplaying his experience. "I don't know whether he's drinking his own Kool-Aid," says a former senior member of the Clinton administration who is not backing either Democratic candidate but would talk only on condition of anonymity because of his private-sector job. "I'm all for talking to the Cubans, or to the Iranians. I'm just not sure he's the guy to do it. The biggest administrative job he ever had was collecting articles for the Harvard Law Review."

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Via Politico, here are Hillary Clinton's comments today in Indiana on Obama's gaffe. Video here.

Now, like some of you may have been, I was taken aback by the demeaning remarks Sen. Obama made about people in small town America. Sen. Obama's remarks are elitist, and they are out of touch. They are not reflective of the values and beliefs of Americans. Certainly not the Americans that I know — not the Americans I grew up with, not the Americans I lived with in Arkansas or represent in New York.

You know, Americans who believe in the Second Amendment believe it¹s a matter of Constitutional rights. Americans who believe in God believe it is a matter of personal faith. Americans who believe in protecting good American jobs believe it is a matter of the American Dream.

When my dad grew up it was in a working class family in Scranton. I grew up in a churchgoing family, a family that believed in the importance of living out and expressing our faith.

The people of faith I know don't "cling to" religion because they're bitter

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