David Corn

Flip remarks

"With all that time to attempt all sorts of stratagems and raise all sorts of questions (real or trumped-up) about Obama, the contest is certainly not beyond hope (there's that word) for Clinton and her posse. And there's always the chance that external events will intervene in her favor. (Perhaps a news story will reveal that Obama once attended a meeting of community organizers at a--gasp!--mosque.) "

David:

Your "flip" remarks show that the democratic process irritates you if it doesn't favor your preferred candidate.

I think it is great that Obama may finally receive the scrutiny that other candidates have received.

Clinton Reduces Obama's Campaign to a Speech

ABC News ^ | 03/01/2008 | Eloise Harper

"Now I think you will be able to imagine many things Sen. McCain will be able to say. He has never been the president. He will put forth his experience. I will put forth my experience. Sen. Obama will put forth a speech he made in 2002."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bout sums it up, now doesn't it? Hillary is starting to kick some Hussien ass~~~

Obama almost as big with GOP as McCain

Republicans like Sen. Barack Obama nearly as much as they like their own likely presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, according to a new Fox 5/The Washington Times/Rasmussen Reports poll.

*****

That is if you believe polls. If any poll is right on the money it will be the first time in a long time - if ever.

Voter turnout 'steady' in El Paso

Early morning voters trickling into a polling place on El Paso's West side Tuesday were mostly voting for Democrats, but had a wide range of opinions about which candidate and why.
Richard Martinez, a technician for the El Paso Water Utilities who was just getting off the midnight shift, said he was voting for Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. "First of all he stands - he always stood - against going to Iraq. If he's going to get our guys out of there, we don't need to be there, good for him."

He said he also is concerned about how much money is being funneled out of the country to support the war.

Martinez said he always votes because "I want my people in there."

*****

I hope the turnout is huge. That is best for democracy.

Poll: One loss shouldn't end Clinton run

WASHINGTON, March 4 (UPI) -- Sen. Hillary Clinton should stay in the Democratic U.S. presidential race even if she loses one of two major primary states Tuesday, poll results indicate.

Two-thirds of Democrats asked said the U.S. senator from New York should keep campaigning even if she loses either primary in Texas or Ohio, an ABC/Washington Post poll indicated. Another 29 percent said she should quit if she losses either of Tuesday's large state primaries.

If she loses both, less than half -- 45 percent -- said they'd want her to continue, the poll indicated.

Besides Ohio and Texas, Vermont and Rhode Island had primary elections Tuesday.

By 50 percent to 43 percent, Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said they would prefer to see U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., nominated, the ABC poll indicated.

Should Obama win the presidential nomination, 36 percent of respondents said Clinton should be vice president.

Among Republicans, if presumptive nominee U.S. Sen. John McCain,. R-Ariz., gets the GOP presidential nod, 17 percent of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents said they'd like to see former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on the ticket as vice president.

Pollsters contacted 1,126 adults Feb. 28-March 2. The margin of error 3 percentage points for the entire survey, 4 percentage points for the Democratic portion and 5 percentage points for the Republican section.

****

It would be a different question to ask if HRC should stay in the race if she continues the politics of personal destruction.

I think her tactics have yet to be helpful in the least.

Either people have had enough of that crud or they will believe the lies and smears.

We'll see what the people in a few more states think today. BHO is up almost a million popular votes. That is a lead no matter how you cut it.

Obama Scant on Details the Day of Rezko Trial

Share March 03, 2008 7:24 PM

ABC News' Sunlen Miller Reports: In Chicago today is the first day of Tony Rezko's federal corruption trial and in San Antonio, presidential candidate Barack Obama was grilled about his relationship with the indicted real estate developer.

Obama disputed the claim that there hasn't been much transparency about this issue and referenced a press conference with Chicago reporters as evidence, a meeting which happened over two years ago in 2006 before he was a presidential candidate, "I took every question. I was there until everybody had satisfied their questions. So I mean, I just want to make that point an issue. You may still have questions, which I’m happy to answer, but I don’t think it’s fair to suggest somehow that we’ve been trying to hide the ball on this."

Then the specific questions came. When asked twice about fundraisers, with details, who was there and how many, Obama did not answer.

After about ten questions in a fifteen minute press avail. As he walked away from the podium a slew of questions were barreled at him. He said he was late and had already taken numerous questions.

But a slew of specific questions yielded few new answers from the Senator, just one day before the March 4th primaries, although he claimed, "I’ve been very open that I called it a boneheaded move."
~~~~~~~~~

What about that open transparency Mr Sen. Obama? What does change mean if you play the same old Washington politics?

Ex-White House Jesus-Freak-In-Charge Caught Plagiarizing The Pope

So Nancy Nall outs this guy for plagiarizing a couple of columns. Then her commenters find out he’s done it in more than a couple. Many more, in fact. Then Tim Goeglein, the plagiarizer in question, makes a mea culpa. Then he resigns after the Dear Leader says it’s a damn shame he didn’t live up to the high ethical and moral standards set by the Bush “administration.”

But it gets better. Now some newspaper in one of those flyover states - starts with an “I” I think - caught Goeglein lifting lines from … The Pope. Is nothing sacred?

And I thought conservatives didn’t believe in recycling.

Notes From the Crater [nancynall.com]

Confused Old ManTM Will Kill More Brown People, May Raise Your Taxes

If elected, we know that John McCain will continue killing brown people. He will almost certainly declare that we are a Christian nation. Without thinking, the Confused Old ManTM had also promised never to raise taxes never ever not even if you waterboarded him - the triump of hope over arithmetic. But now he's backpedaling:

The Wall Street Journal reports today that McCain is now distancing himself from the pledge not to raise taxes, saying his statement was not a firm commitment:

Q: On ABC's "This Week" on Feb. 17, in response to a question, "Are you a ‘read my lips' candidate, no new taxes?" you replied, "No new taxes." Did you mean that literally?

McCAIN: I'm not making a "read my lips" statement in that I will not raise taxes. But I'm not saying I can envision a scenario where I would, OK? But I'm not making it a centerpiece in my campaign.

In the WSJ interview, McCain appeared clueless about his own Social Security plan. In 2000, he supported President Bush's efforts to divert part of Social Security payroll taxes to fund private accounts. Asked about his current position, McCain said, "I'm totally in favor of personal savings accounts."

Why is McCain saying anything at all about Social Security when we all know he'll spend it all on those new wars he promised?

Texans head to polls in historic primary

Texans continued the early voting momentum Tuesday morning and headed to the polls to participate in a historic primary election that could signal the end for one of the Democratic contenders.

Some polling places reported a crush right when polls opened at 7 a.m. and a 20-minute wait was reported at Western Middle School in Frisco. But voting at several other locations, including the First Baptist Church of Denton, was brisk.

The race between Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama has been close and has electrified voters. The Texas Secretary of State office said early voters last week had already surpassed the total early-voting numbers for both the 1996 and 2000 elections.

That interest was expected to continue today.

*****

Good news for America is bad news for the GOP. That is unless all the turnout is for McCain, Huckabee or Ron Paul.

McCain embraces Bush’s failed Social Security plan

In 2000, McCain touted a Social Security privatization scheme, not unlike the proposal Bush made in 2005. Eight years later, his campaign decided to go in a different direction. At least, that was the idea.

[…]

Oh my. It’s one thing for McCain to flip-flop from his position from 2000; that was eight years ago. But for the candidate to reject his own campaign’s policy position — after a year of campaigning — is just remarkable.

And for McCain to embrace Bush’s biggest domestic policy debacle is even harder to understand. Does the senator not remember the public’s reaction in 2005?

Dean hits McCain's integrity: 'He doesn't seem to have any'

Of course not.

Dallas Morning News - We recommend Barack Obama

Texas Democrats have a chance to make history as they choose between two qualified presidential candidates. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton often seem to be singing from the same hymnbook, but that doesn't mean this race is a close call.

On questions of substance and leadership style, Mr. Obama is the better choice.

In sharp contrast to Mrs. Clinton's antics mocking his optimism, Mr. Obama has shown that it is possible to have both hope and intellectual heft. Her campaign has confused proximity to power with work experience, selectively taking credit for her husband's accomplishments.

*****

I think most people get it.

Looney Bin House?

Hillary is starting to kick some Hussien ass
Posted by: LBH | March 4, 2008 12:08 PM

With a win in November, she'll earn the chance to kick some Osama Bin Laden ass, too. Ironic, isn't it? With all his anti-Clinton reverse playbook strategery (sic), such as "we'll smoke 'em out" and "bring it on", George Bush never layed a finger on Osama bin Laden, public enemy #1.

Worse President ever.

What about that open transparency Mr Sen. Obama?
Posted by: LBH | March 4, 2008 12:54 PM

I must admit he has an excellent point, the best kind of transparency is the open kind.

Neil,

I agree, Hillary is your man - she voted for the war, she voted to fund the war and she voted to go to war with Iran. I say right on Neil!

Corn may be making accurate predictions about the nature of the Democratic Presidential Race from March 5 through April 22 but Tina does rightly identify a reluctant if not jaded attitude in Corn’s point of view. Maybe Corn wishes politics were different and Democratic candidates campaigns wouldn’t shit all over each other with disingenuous slime in order to gain the upper hand. Yea, me too.

I must admit he has an excellent point, the best kind of transparency is the open kind.
~~~~~

I'm in friggin shock~

I agree, Hillary is your man - she voted for the war, she voted to fund the war
Posted by: LBH | March 4, 2008 2:42 PM

Don't let it bother you than Hillary has a bigger pair than you. So does Barack. McCain on the other hand lost his in Vietnam. Is that why you support the guy?

"she voted to go to war with Iran"
Posted by: LBH | March 4, 2008 2:42 PM

I didn't know Congress declared war on Iran. Are you making it up or did the media fail to report it?

I would not vote for Hillary but believe that she is not only more qualified but would make a better president than Barrack. She will move to the center after the primary and govern more like her husband.

Barrack hasn't done anything in his short time in state legs and as a US Sen. No one including Corn can name a single leg. accomplishment for Obama. The dream ticket for you guys would have been a Hillary, Barrack ticket but we all know that won't happen now.

Give Barrack another four years to prove himself and then give him a shot.

"she voted to go to war with Iran"
Posted by: LBH | March 4, 2008 2:42 PM

I didn't know Congress declared war on Iran. Are you making it up or did the media fail to report it?
Neil
~~~

That's what the left wing neo-nut Democrats who support Obama said~ I don't happen to agree.

Don't let it bother you than Hillary has a bigger pair than you. So does Barack.
~~~~

Wow! didn't know you had such personal details of Barracks and Hillary's balls, but you can keep it to yourself bro~

~~~
McCain on the other hand lost his in Vietnam. Is that why you support the guy?

~~

I've never said that I support him. I just like to point out the bias form you neo-nuts. Besides, that is a really low life comment, can't you do better than that?

Record Turnout Expected in Tuesday's US Presidential Primary Elections

Record turnouts are expected in the U.S. presidential race as primary voters go to the polls in Texas, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont. The latest public opinion polls show Democratic Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama locked in very close contests in the delegate-rich states of Texas and Ohio. On the Republican side, Senator John McCain could secure his party's nomination with victories Tuesday over former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. VOA Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from Washington.

Dean hits McCain's integrity: 'He doesn't seem to have any'
~~~

As if anybody gives a rip what Dean say's or thinks~
Rahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Hey Neil, not only was Hillary right on voting for the war but here's another reason to support her:
~~~~~~

Hillary a Big Friend of Big Business

Monday, March 3, 2008 11:19 PM

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton likes to portray herself as a friend of the middle class and working people, but Business Week says "she's hardly an enemy of American business interests."

The magazine says Clinton is being backed some some major Wall Street names, such as Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack and Steve Rattner, managing principal of the Quadrangle Group. She also:

Has more maxed-out, executive-level donors than any other candidate.

Has received $3.9 million infrom donors associated with the health-care industry, the most of any candidate.

Has attracted large support from donors affiliated with Goldman Sachs, and they are her top contributors.

"On the stump, candidates often say things to voters that would make their contributors cringe, but in the end contributors have a good track record of getting what they want," Massie Ritsch, a spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, told Business Week. "No matter who is elected president, Wall Street will have a friend in the White House House."

Business Week says the Chamber of Commerce gave Clinton a 67% favorable rating, while Barack Obama's rating was 55% and John McCain's was 80%.

"[She] has been a New York senator for seven years, and New York is the financial capital of the U.S. and the world," says Roger Altman, senior Clinton economic adviser and co-founder of Evercore Partners, an investment and advisory company in New York. "CEOs and other business leaders have had the chance to work with her [at] very close quarters. If you ask leaders of the financial community if there's anything to be afraid of, 80% or more would say no."

Hillary’s Math Problem

Forget tonight. She could win 16 straight and still lose.

Hillary Clinton may be poised for a big night tonight, with wins in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island. Clinton aides say this will be the beginning of her comeback against Barack Obama. There's only one problem with this analysis: they can't count.

I'm no good at math either, but with the help of Slate’s Delegate Calculator I've scoped out the rest of the primaries, and even if you assume huge Hillary wins from here on out, the numbers don't look good for Clinton. In order to show how deep a hole she's in, I've given her the benefit of the doubt every week for the rest of the primaries.

*****

I think by tomorrow we will know better. I’m not sure the article is right on all the numbers but anything short of decisive victory will be a yawn.

If the last minute smears worked it is good news for McCain.

Hillary’s Math Problem

Voting brisk at North Texas polling sites, crowds expected tonight

[…]

Republican polling sites were not as busy. At Strickland Middle School (Precinct 403) in Denton, about 30 voters had cast their ballot by 9:30 a.m., according to an election official there. At Wester Middle School (Precinct 146) in Frisco, there was no wait to vote on the Republican machines in Republican-heavy Collin County.

*****

The last paragraph must be demoralizing to the republican party.

Whoop's wrong title

Voting brisk at North Texas polling sites, crowds expected tonight

Forget tonight. She could win 16 straight and still lose.
~~~~

Pretty un-democratic isn't it?

How Democrats Self-Destruct

By day’s end Hillary Clinton’s campaign will likely be over. If she chooses to keep it on life support seven more weeks, it’ll end on April 22 in Pennsylvania, where Barack Obama’s numbers are surging faster than John McCain’s born-again conservatism (the same John McCain who considered switching to the Democrats in 2001 and discussed joining the Democratic ticket over six meetings with John Kerry in 2004). Either way, Democrats are poised to do what they do best come November: lose.

A Democrat running against a Republican this year — any Democrat, whether black, female, androgynous Klingon or three-legged centaur — should have been guaranteed victory. Not an ordinary kind of victory, either. Considering the years of catastrophic misrule by the Dear Leader and his obliging escorts in courts and Congress, it should be a landslide similar to Lyndon Johnson’s over Barry Goldwater in 1964 (when Goldwater managed to win only his home state of Arizona and the South’s usual Confederate re-enactors).

But the same could have been said in 2004, when the Dear Leader’s bribing-by-tax-cuts had already mortgaged the nation’s future and his foreign wars were making American blood a cheaper export than cigarettes. The choice really was between a hoof and a Centaur. Ohio’s rigged precincts aside, the country chose the hoof, leading to the most Lincolnesque declaration of that whole campaign: “How can 59 million people be so dumb?” (the famous banner headline of the British Daily Mirror the day after the election).

Maybe 59 million people were taking too many tranquilzers, Prozac or sumthin'?

Obama, McCain projected to win Vt. primaries

12th straight loss doesn’t faze Clinton, who expects to prevail in Ohio

Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois won the Vermont’s Democratic presidential primary Tuesday night, while Sen. John McCain of Arizona was the winner on the Republican side, according to projections by NBC News.

The state’s delegates to the Democratic National Convention will be apportioned later based on the size of Obama’s win over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. It was Obama’s 12th victory in a race in which the Illinois senator had the momentum and the lead in the delegate chase in NBC News’ count, 1,194-1,037, going into Tuesday’s balloting.

*****

I wonder if we can get a bakers dozen?

capt has the day covered. To me its like the superbowl, TIVO the last ten minutes and see who won in the morning.

If you didn't see it last night, Patricia Arquette's MEDIUM had a murdering cannibalistic senator from Arizona with an Irish name. In the end he got away with covering up a murder.

Sub plot, her nine year old spends 10 minutes talking to an Indian who is calling about the credit card payment. Then she has a dream that his house is broken into - Dad must call him and warn him to lock the back door.

Watch it on NBC.com. It should replay just about the time of the election. I can't believe the news editors didn't nix it.

Speaking of fiction, (we all love it) what was it that Shrub said today about seeing a great state ahead?

First we need to stop exporting Made in the USA cluster bombs. Second, hire a secretary of state that isn't an oil baron, gun running bitch. Third, stop giving these things to Israel. Fourth, recognize that stability comes only through diplomacy and the participation of Iran. And last, why do the Saudi Princes wear robes? So we won't catch Shrub on camera.

I look forward to Obama winning the White House because I am sick of this PC progressive thing. I was a liberal since Jesus Christ was 12 years old and I'll be one forever!

Hey - we record Medium and haven't played it yet!

(spoiler. . )

Other than that - chapter and verse.

I'm with that 100%

(although I was a card carrying GOPher for a few decades)

At this writing looks like Clinton is gonna win RI, OH, leading in Texas. I wonder if the status quo will make this thing a disaster. Ask yourself some questions:

How many times did you see Obama wearing the African (sometimes referred to as Muslim) garb?

How many times did you hear about "Lou Farrakhan"?

How many times did your hear that Hillary was the safe bet?

Was Hillary behind the "Muslim pictures" (or maybe just Limbaugh)

Who was behind the message?

When will we stop being goated into being scared of what this country has to offer? The Clintons seem poised to show us, poised to show that maybe change is unattainable. Maybe we are fools to think that our government actually could work for us.

Just watch the media in the coming days. See how they turn the tables on hope, and set the table for the past. Things have been good for the investor class, they will be well served by the Clintons. If that is what you want, then that is what you will get. We deserve who ever we vote for.