I reached my fundraising goal! But I cheated by donating more than half of that at the last minute.
Time is running out. If you happen to be online and catch this in the next 45 minutes, and you haven't spent the amount of time making phone calls or going door to door that you hoped (like I did), make up for it by making a donation.
Now! Go! You have like 40 minutes left!
Contact Senator Kennedy and tell him you appreciate and thank him for his endorsement.
Washington - 1-202-224-4543Mass. - 1-617-565-3170
I received this from another group. The Clinton Machine is at it again:
While "monitoring" the rivals website, I came across this. You know what to do. Thank Kennedy for his endorsement.
the mrs says:January 28th, 2008 at 11:44 am Hi Everyone, I have called Senator Kennedy's office to voice my disgust at his Obama endorsement, and how disappointed I am that the Senator is going against everything he has stood for all of his life. He is throwing his support to a Chicago crook over a Senate workhorse who has respect from her peers, both Democrats and Republicans. They are getting so many angry calls that they have put on extra people to answer the phones for just this issue. I asked and the woman on the other end of the line said that for the most part the calls are angry calls and people are pissed.
For anyone who wants to make Ted feel the heat, his numbers are Washington - 1-202-224-4543Mass. - 1-617-565-3170. It doesn't hurt to create a story about how this is divisive as well, when it makes no sense whatsoever that he would endorse Obama over Hillary. His choice, his mistake.What do you think he will do when the Rezko story catches the attention of the MSM? That is probably wishful thinking that the Rezko story would actually be looked into by the MSM.. It doesn't hurt to create a story about how this is divisive as well, when it makes no sense whatsoever that he would endorse Obama over Hillary. His choice, his mistake.What do you think he will do when the Rezko story catches the attention of the MSM? That is probably wishful thinking that the Rezko story would actually be looked into by the MSM.
The Boston Globe
COLUMBIA, South Carolina (Reuters) - Barack Obama expanded his lead on rival Hillary Clinton to 15 points heading into South Carolina's bitterly contested presidential primary, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Saturday.
Obama, an Illinois senator, gained two points on Clinton overnight to lead 41 percent to 26 percent just hours before voting began in Saturday's primary. John Edwards was in third place after slipping two points to 19 percent.
In Florida, where Republican presidential contenders meet in a critical primary on Tuesday, John McCain had a narrow 3-point advantage on rival Mitt Romney, 31 percent to 28 percent, in the state's initial rolling poll.
The polls in both states had a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.
Obama has led Clinton by double-digits in all four days of polls in South Carolina, fueled by a huge advantage among the black voters who are expected to make up about half of the electorate in the first Democratic primary in the South.
Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, was favored by 62 percent of black voters, with Clinton at 18 percent and Edwards at 5 percent.
Edwards, a former North Carolina senator who won the state during his failed 2004 White House run, and Clinton, a New York senator, were tied among white voters at 35 percent each. Obama was at 19 percent.
"Obama holds solid leads in every section of the state, and among both men and women," pollster John Zogby said.
Clinton and Obama have clashed fiercely during the last week over their records in an increasingly rancorous duel for the right to represent the Democratic Party in November's election.
South Carolina is the next test in their back-and-forth battle for the Democratic nomination. Obama won the first contest in Iowa but Clinton won the next two in New Hampshire and Nevada.
While Obama spent the week in the state campaigning, Clinton left for two days and will be gone again when the results are announced. About 10 percent of Democratic voters remain undecided.
Delegate Explainer
What exactly is a "delegate" and why are they so important to the candidates running for president? This interactive primer will explain the different types of delegates and how they are chosen in the nomination process for the Democratic and Republican parties.
Why Delegates Matter
Obama vs. Billary By Scott Galindez t r u t h o u t | Perspective The race for the Democratic Party nomination for president has increasingly become a three-way race. The problem for John Edwards is he is no longer the third person in the race, Bill Clinton is. To be fair, Edwards was the big winner in Monday night's debate in South Carolina, but most observers think it is too late to save his campaign. When I talked to Latino voters in Nevada who supported Hillary, they all talked about Bill Clinton's record, not Hillary's. Except for the exchange in Monday night's debate, the strongest attacks against Obama have come from the former president, not his opponent. In Nevada, Hillary was able to deny any connection to a lawsuit to prevent shift workers from voting on the strip, while Bill blew up at a reporter while defending the lawsuit. It was Bill that tried to claim Obama has not opposed the war from the beginning, based on his votes for funding, votes he has in common with Hillary, who now claims to oppose the war despite the same votes. It was Bill that claimed that Obama said he agreed with the ideas of Ronald Reagan when he clearly didn't. As the race moves to South Carolina, Hillary is staying away until Friday night, one day before the primary, while Bill Clinton is crisscrossing the state on her behalf. This has led Obama to state that sometimes he doesn't know who he is running against, Bill or Hillary. The Obama campaign began a "truth squad" in South Carolina to respond to negative criticism. Involved in the effort was former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota. People in South Carolina "don't want to see this backbiting, bitter give-and-take that we're beginning to see more and more of, especially from the Clinton campaign. It's wrong. Everybody knows it's wrong and it's got to stop," Daschle told reporters on a conference call. "Ultimately, it's going to divide us. And it's going to have a huge effect, a lasting effect if it doesn't stop soon." Asked about Bill Clinton's actions, Daschle said, "It's not presidential. It's not in keeping with the image of a former president." I am also puzzled as to why poor people think Bill Clinton was good for them. Clinton's domestic agenda was first announced as a gigantic jobs-creation program coupled with a determined effort to guarantee health care for all. The truth is, his focus on eliminating the budget deficit meant he did very little for the poor and working people in America. While he was much better than Reagan or Bush, there was definitely room for improvement. Clinton's small gestures toward social democracy did not come close to what was needed in a nation where one-fourth of the children lived in poverty; where homeless people lived on the streets in every major city; where women could not look for work for lack of child care; where the air, the water were deteriorating dangerously. More than being merely inadequate to the needs of America's millions of truly disadvantaged citizens, the Clinton administration actually attacked the disproportionately non-white poor in numerous interrelated ways. Clinton signed a punitive welfare reform bill that ended the federal government's guarantee of financial help to impoverished families with dependent children. He also scored points with conservatives by taking welfare benefits away from legal as well as illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, Clinton increased economic insecurity in poor and working-class American communities by signing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). NAFTA destroyed tens of thousands of American industrial jobs by tearing down long-established regulatory barriers to the movement of corporate capital and commodities across the US-Mexican border. Clinton claimed "the era of big government is over." O.K., Bill Clinton is not running for president, but since so many seem to be voting for him and not Hillary, I thought I'd remind them NAFTA and welfare reform were on his watch.
Scott Galindez is Truthout's Washington, DC Bureau Chief.
By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent
KINGSTREE, South Carolina (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama on Thursday defended the fierce tone of his recent exchanges with U.S. presidential rival Hillary Clinton and said he was forced to fight back because of her campaign's disregard for the truth.
Obama, an Illinois senator, said he was battling a "tough, well-honed political machine" operated by Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, but did not think their escalating feud would hurt the party in November's election.
"One principle that I think we want to firmly establish is, if people are making false assertions about my record, we will answer them," Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, told reporters.
The top two contenders for the Democratic nomination have engaged in a widening war of words, including a debate on Monday in which they traded a series of harsh and sometimes personal attacks.
Obama ran a tough radio ad accusing Clinton, a New York senator who would be the first woman U.S. president, of being willing to "say anything to get elected." The campaign used a fund-raising e-mail by Obama's wife, Michelle, to level similar charges.
Obama said the radio spot was in response to Clinton's ad, which he said distorted his comments about Republican ideas.
The Clinton radio ad used Obama's quote in Nevada last week that Republicans had been "the party of ideas" in recent years and implied he supported those ideas. Obama says he never claimed to like them -- a view backed by several independent analysts.
Read the rest here: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2426780920080124
"Jan. 24 (Bloomberg) -- The race for the Democratic presidential nomination is tightening as voters say they want both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on a national ticket, a Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll shows.
Clinton leads Obama, 42 percent to 33 percent, down from the 24-point advantage she held in early December. Three out of five supporters of each candidate say they would like Clinton or Obama, if nominated, to choose the other as a running mate."
Read all about it: Obama Gains on Clinton
"By packaging a story implying a sharp confrontation with that headline about Bill "getting in Obama's head," ABC strongly implied that Bill is getting in Obama's head and rattling him. But the video plainly shows that the event doesn't support that storyline."
Read All About It: Study finds Obama More Experienced Than Half His Rivals
"Sen. Obama’s campaign is an argument for a more unifying style of leadership. In a time of great partisanship, he is careful to talk about winning over independents and even Republicans. He is harsh on the failures of the current administration - and most of that critique well-deserved. But he doesn’t use his considerable rhetorical gifts to demonize Republicans. He’s not neglecting his core values; he defends his progressive vision with vigorous integrity. But for him, American unity - transcending party - is a core value in itself."
Read all about it: Obama most likely Democrat to unify America
It's more important than ever to get involved in phonebanking. And it's ridiculously easy to get started. Click on the Action link and select Action Center. Then click on Phonebank from Home. Every call you make goes a long way to counteracting the type of nonsense below:
Anti-Obama push-polling alleged in South Carolina
Supporters of Barack Obama in South Carolina said Monday that in the past day, black voters across the state have received biased polling phone calls, sometimes known as “push polls,” which they say are favorable to Hillary Clinton and distort Obama’s record.
Columbia city councilwoman Tamika Isaac Devine, an Obama supporter, said she received such a phone call Sunday night.
“[The caller] asked for the female in the household,” she told CNN, “then they asked my race.” Devine said the caller then launched into a series of positive statements about Clinton and negative statements about Obama, asking how each one affected her vote.
That included a direct comparison of Obama to President Bush. “They said that Barack Obama doesn’t want to be an operational president,” Devine recounted, “and they said he doesn’t want to manage things well, like George W. Bush.”
She said the calls also played on perceived African-American dislike of former President Ronald Reagan and Obama’s recent remarks about Reagan. “They asked, ‘Would you be more willing to vote for a candidate that thinks Ronald Reagan was a more transforming president than Bill Clinton?”
This comes after Obama told a newspaper that, “Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not.”
On Saturday, the campaign sent reporters what it said was a recording of a Nevada robo-call received by a supporter, in which the caller repeatedly emphasized Obama’s middle name, Hussein, and said the senator lied when he said he did not take money from special interest groups and lobbyists.
State Rep. Todd Rutherford, an Obama supporter, said Monday the South Carolina campaign was receiving reports of similar calls.
–CNN Radio Correspondent Lisa Desjardins
During the latest debate, Obama was attacked on present votes in the Illinois Senate. Here's the truth about these votes:
From Sam Graham-Felsen's Blog
Obama Was Praised for Standing Up on Tough Issues – Because His Senate Seat Was Not Vulnerable, He Used His Position To Help More Vulnerable Senators Do The Right Thing. Zorn wrote, “Obama, however, was in a safe district and never faced a serious challenge for his legislative seat. He had no need to shy from hard-line stands on gun control and abortion rights. He actually took such stands frequently and is now highly praised by advocates for both causes. [Chicago Tribune, Zorn, 3/9/04] Anyone Who Thinks A Present Vote Is A “Duck” Doesn’t Understand How the Process Works. “There is a presumption, if one is not familiar with the mechanics of the General Assembly, that a present vote is a “duck.” Pam Sutherland, the CEO and President of Illinois Planned Parenthood said of [this] Hull argument: “I think it’s not well-based…I think it’s somebody who doesn’t understand how the legislative process works.” [Chicago Daily Herald, 3/10/04]Criticizing Present Votes Indicates “You Don’t Have A Great Understanding Of The Process.” “‘Criticizing Obama on the basis of ‘present’ votes indicates you don’t have a great understanding of the process,’ said Thom Mannard, director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence.” [Chicago Tribune, Zorn, 3/9/04]Voting Present in the State Legislature is Used as A Signal to the Other Party, Not As a Way to Duck the Issue. “An aspect of Obama’s State Senate voting record that is drawing attention is his “present” votes. A present vote is a third option to an up or down “yes” or “no” that is used with great frequency in the Illinois General Assembly. It has many varied and nuanced meanings that, in the context of the actual bills, border on boring. It’s most important use is as a signal – to the other party, to the governor, to the sponsor – to show a willingness to compromise on the issue if not the exact bill, to show disapproval for one aspect of the bill, to question the constitutionality of the bill, to strengthen the bill. [Chicago Daily Herald, 3/10/04]Obama Would Vote ‘Present’ On Unconstitutional Bills, Saying He Tried To Resist Bad Votes That Make Good Politics. The AP reported, “Obama says his ‘present’ votes often come on bills that he believes are unconstitutional. ‘I have tried to not succumb to the temptation of voting on bad laws just because it makes for good politics,’ Obama said.” [AP, 9/9/04]
Bill Clinton attacks Obama on experience, and this video provides the evidence to refute this claim.
Watch the video here.
At the end of the day, if you count delegates to determine the winner so far, Obama's win in Nevada puts him ahead of Clinton, 38 to 36.
Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada: Obama 16 + 9 + 13, Clinton 15 + 9 + 12.
Onward and upward... South Carolina!
I'm going to do my best to take a super-long lunch and join the Gainesville for Obama group monday. If you are not working, I encourage you to attend.
From Pat McCollough
Please join the Gainesville for Obama group, Monday, 21 Jan, 12:00 noon, Gainesville downtown plaza, as we participate in the annual commemorative MLK Jr. March. Senator Obama has a dream too, and we can help that dream become a reality. We will display our support for Obama by marching (walking) with our signs. There will many other groups there also. This will be a high visibility event.The route is from the downtown plaza area, continue down east university ave , turn left onto waldo road, continue down waldo road to 8th ave...the end at the MLK center behind the fire station near Citizen's field. All participants must provide their own transportation back to the areas where they left their cars. Or, prior to the event, park at the MLK center, get transportation downtown and your car will already be in place.We may or may not have t-shirts, therefore we will have paper signs to pin on those who desire.
We can do this…”YES WE CAN”
Time: Monday, January 21 at 12:00 PMDuration: 2 hoursHost: Pat McColloughLocation: GAINESVILLE DOWNTOWN PLAZA (GAINESVILLE, FL)
From The Hill on 1/16/08Rove Previews Strategies against Clinton, Obama
Rove made it clear that most Republican attacks on Obama would focus on his “accomplishments and experience.” “He got elected three years ago, and he [has] spent almost the entire time running for president,” Rove said. Rove added that Obama has only passed one piece of legislation during his time in the U.S. Senate, and during his time in Illinois state Senate, Obama had “an unusual habit” of voting “present” instead of yes or no.
Let's be prepared to counter those arguments whenever we hear them. For starters, head to On The Issues to see exactly how the good Senator voted.
