Tag: Barack Obama (page 43)

Via John Heileman at New York Magazine:

According to a Democratic strategist unaligned with any campaign but with knowledge of the situation gleaned from all three camps, the answer is simple: Obama blew it. Speaking to Edwards on the day he exited the race, Obama came across as glib and aloof. His response to Edwards’s imprecations that he make poverty a central part of his agenda was shallow, perfunctory, pat.

Clinton, by contrast, engaged Edwards in a lengthy policy discussion. Her affect was solicitous and respectful. When Clinton met Edwards face-to-face in North Carolina ten days later, her approach continued to impress; she even made headway with Elizabeth. Whereas in his Edwards sit-down, Obama dug himself in deeper, getting into a fight with Elizabeth about health care, insisting that his plan is universal (a position she considers a crock), high-handedly criticizing Clinton’s plan (and by extension Edwards’s) for its insurance mandate.

The take-away: [more...]

Rev. Jeremiah Wright made his first public appearance last night since the Obama embroglio. He got a thunderous welcome.

Barack Obama's former pastor, who canceled several public events after an uproar over his incendiary comments, surprised a Chicago congregation by attending an event to celebrate poet Maya Angelou's birthday.

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright got a raucous standing ovation when he entered Saint Sabina church on the South Side on Friday night, video from WBBM-TV showed. Members yelled "Hallelujah!" as Wright embraced the Rev. Michael Pfleger, Saint Sabina's pastor.

Here's more on the "thunderous welcome" and some video from cbs2chicago.

The University of Chicago has issued this statement about whether Barack Obama was a professor. Shorter version: Once Obama advanced to the position of "senior lecturer in law" from "lecturer in law," he was considered on a par with professors.

From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year.

Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School's Senior Lecturers have high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching.

Jerome Armstrong at MyDD explains why Hillary Clinton has some lifelines open to her in terms of the pledged delegate count and the upcoming ten races.

First, in Hillary's Own words, watch the video:

As Jerome says, Hillary sounds ready to go to the mat over Florida and Michigan. But,there's other options open to her as well. Jerome writes: [More...]

Barack Obama will be on the daytime chat show "The View" tomorrow. Here's what he had to say about Rev. Jeremiah Wright (received by e-mail from ABC News, no link):

• "I'm not vetting my pastor," Obama told "The View", "I didn't have a research team during the course of 20 years to go pull every sermon he's given and see if there's something offensive that he's said."

• "Had the reverend not retired, and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people, and were inappropriate and mischaracterize what I believe is the greatness of this country," Obama explained, "Then I wouldn't have felt comfortable standing in the church."

• Obama described Wright as a "brilliant man who was still stuck in a time warp."

• "It was a snippet of a man," Obama told ABC. "I don't purchase all the DVDs and I didn't read all the church bulletins." The candidate went on to explain, "Part of what my role in my politics is to get people who don't normally listen to each other, to talk to each other, who crazy things, who are offended by each other, for me to understand them and to maybe help them understand each other."

Update: Comments now closed.

Yesterday I mentioned that following Hillary Clinton's interview with Greta Van Susteren, Karl Rove came on and gave a laundry list of exaggerations by Barack Obama. He spoke really fast so I couldn't grab them all, but the transcript is now on Lexis. Here's his list:

"We have had Senator Obama said his parents met and joined -- got together at the Selma March, and that led to them being together and him being born. Well, he was born four years before the Selma March.

He claimed to be a constitutional law professor, and turned out not to be.

Claimed to speak fluent Indonesia as a child. His schoolteacher said that was not the case.

He claimed to be involved in an asbestos campaign in public housing in his book, and it turned out not to be the case.

More...

The new NBC/WSJ poll (pdf) out today has Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama tied at 45%. The margin of error is 3.7%. The poll was of all registered voters, not just Democrats. Both Hillary and Obama's unfavorability ratings increased somewhat from two weeks ago. Combining the "somehat "and "very negative" categories, Obama was at 28% unfavorable two weeks ago and is at 32% now. Hillary was at 43% and is now at 48%.

Given that these numbers include Republicans, I'm not surprised. What did surprise me is that the poll says it oversampled African Americans.

In addition, we oversampled African-Americans in order to get a more reliable cross-tab on many of the questions we asked in this poll regarding Sen. Barack Obama's speech on race and overall response to last week's Rev. Jeremiah Wright dustup.

I don't get it. Does anyone have an explanation or think the results are more reliable or less because of the oversampling?

Law Prof Paul Caron has examined the tax returns released by Barack Obama today for the years 2000 to 2006. You can read the returns over at his blog.

What is surprising, given the recent controversy over Obama's membership in the Trinity United Church of Christ, is how little the Obamas apparently gave to charity -- well short of the biblical 10% tithe for all seven years. In two of the years, the Obamas gave far less than 1% of their income to charity; in three of the years, they gave around 1% of their income to charity. Only in the last two years have they given substantially more as their income skyrocketed -- 4.7% in 2005 and 6.1% in 2006. (Of course, it is possible that the Obamas may have made gifts to other worthy causes that were not deductible for federal income tax purposes.)

New polls from Rasmussen are out today.

Nationally, Hillary maintains her recent and slight (and subject to the margin of error) lead over Obama. Today it's Hillary 46, Obama 43.

In the McCain contest (one I truly believe doesn't matter until we actually get a candidate): McCain beats Obama by 9 and Hillary by 5.

As to favorability,

Clinton is currently viewed favorably by 74% of Democrats nationwide, Obama by 67%.

As to the electoral college math,

Democrats l[are]leading in states with 200 Electoral College Votes. Republicans are favored in states with 189 Votes. When “leaners” are added to the total, the Democrats lead with 247 Electoral Votes to 229 for the GOP. A total of 270 Electoral Votes are needed to win the White House. Leaners are states that narrowly lean to one party or the other at this time but remain competitive.

[More...]

How refreshing to hear a politician, in this case David Paterson, the new Governor of New York, acknowledge using drugs in their youth and rather than apologize for it or calling it a mistake, point out:

"More Americans have tried a lot more during that period of time and gone on to lead responsible lives and hopefully have lived their lives to their fullest," he said.

Here's what Obama said about his drug use:

"I was a confused kid and was making a bunch of negative choices based on stereotypes of what I thought a tough young man should be," he said of the period depicted in that section of the book. "Those choices were misguided, a serious mistake.

I'll take more like Paterson please.

Update: The New York Times has a list of politicians and their comments on past drug use.

The latest Gallup poll shows Hillary and Obama in a statistical tie.

The results confirm Gallup's March 22 report showing that Clinton's recent lead in the race -- apparently fueled by controversy dogging the Obama campaign over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright -- had evaporated.

At the same time, thus far Obama has not been able to reestablish the clear frontrunner position he enjoyed in late February, and again in mid-March. As has happened so often over the past six weeks, the race among national Democratic voters has become "too close to call."

As to the popular vote, pledged delegates, super delegates, electability and electoral votes, here's some things to think about:

Barack Obama frequently cites his impressive record as an Illinois state legislator as an indicator of his experience in running for President.

Turns out, according to former Chicago reporter Todd Spivak, all of his legislative accomplishments were in his final 7th year and were handed to him by his mentor, Ill. State Senate President Emil Jones.

The Illinois legislature was dominated by Republicans for 26 years. These included Obam's first 6 years in the state Senate. Not surprisingly, says Spivak, he had no legislative achievements during these years.

Jones was instrumental in changing the legislative makeup, and after he did, he became Senate President. Here's the rest of the story: [More...]