Leading America - The Chronicles of President Barack Obama

2009-10-29T16:05:00.001-07:00

Though the credit bureaus must give you free annual reports, their important numbers will cost you. Now 3 sites offer free peeks at those scores, but how helpful are they?

If you're curious about your credit scores, you might have tried one of the plethora of Web sites and services that offer some free credit information, then lure you into paying for your scores, usually as part of a credit-monitoring package.
Weird stuff that hurts your credit

Consumers are entitled by law to free credit reports-- which are simply records of your borrowing and repayment history -- but the numerical scores derived from those reports will cost you, in part because credit-reporting agencies aren't required by law to provide them for free to consumers along with the reports.

Now a handful of company Web sites give consumers at least free glimpses at their credit scores. The sites -- Credit.com, Credit Karma and Quizzle -- offer a window into the key factors that go into calculating your scores, what you can do to improve them and how your credit stacks up against other people's. Last week, for example, Credit.com launched free credit report cards that show consumers how they're likely to rate across five credit-scoring models.

All three sites, which have ties to the credit industry, aim to make money through advertising or through fees if users sign up for products offered on the site, such as credit-monitoring services, credit cards or mortgages.

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2009-06-17T07:29:00.000-07:00

Obama Signs Credit Card Reform Bill

President Barack Obama warned overeager shoppers and greedy credit card companies alike on Friday to act responsibly as he signed into law a bill designed to protect debt-ridden consumers from surprise charges.

The White House staged a signing ceremony in the Rose Garden, an indication of the legislation's importance to Obama. Though opposed by many financial companies, the bill cleared Congress with broad support.

Obama made clear that he didn't champion the changes with the intention of helping those who buy more than they can afford through "reckless spending or wishful thinking."

"Some get in over their heads by not using their heads," the president said. "I want to be clear: We do not excuse or condone folks who've acted irresponsibly."

And yet, he said, for many of the millions of Americans who use credit cards and carry a balance, trying to get out of debt has been made difficult and bewildering by their credit card companies.

Obama said many "got trapped" because of the downturn in the economy that has turned family budgets on their heads. But, he said, "part of it is the practices of the credit card companies."

He criticized policies that allowed for confusing fine print; the sudden appearance of unexplained fees on bills; unannounced shifts in payment deadlines, interest charges or rate increases even when payments aren't late; and payments directed to balances with the lowest interest rates rather than the highest.

"We're here to put a change to all that," Obama said.

One part of the bill Obama did not publicly celebrate at the signing, a gun amendment. The measure by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., allows people to bring loaded
guns into national parks and wildlife refuges.

The addition of the amendment to the bill — and Obama's acceptance of it — was viewed as a bitter disappointment for gun-control advocates.

They watched gun-rights supporters gain a victory from a Democratic-controlled Congress and a Democratic president that they couldn't achieve under a Republican Congress and president. Many blamed the National Rifle Association, which pushed hard for the gun law.

The new credit card rules, which go into effect in nine months, prohibit companies from giving cards to people under 21 unless they can prove they have the means to pay the debt or a parent or guardian co-signs. A customer also will have to be more than 60 days behind on a payment before seeing a rate increase on an existing balance. Even then, the lender will be required to restore the previous, lower rate if the cardholder pays the minimum balance on time for six months.

And consumers also will have to receive 45 days' notice and an explanation before their interest rates increase.

Last year, the Nilson Report estimated that more than 700 million credit cards were in circulation in the United States. That's more than two cards for every man, woman and child.

The president noted that nearly half of all Americans carry a balance on their credit cards, and that their average balance is more than $7,000. According to the Federal Reserve, the nation is some $2.5 trillion in debt, a figure that does not include home mortgages.

Obama decried the "uneasy, unstable dependence" that a minority of card users have on credit.

"So we're not going to give people a free pass, and we expect consumers to live within their means and pay what they owe," Obama said. "But we also expect financial institutions to act with the same sense of responsibility that the American people aspire to in their own lives."

Good move!!!

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President Obama’s Remarks on the U.S. Auto Industry

2009-03-30T13:19:00.000-07:00

Editor’s note: This morning President Obama delivered a speech on the U.S. auto industry covering events of this past weekend and recapping much of the news from the last several months. What follows are the remarks as prepared for the President and circulated ahead of time by the White House Press Office. The actual speech varied somewhat from the prepared remarks, but what follows contains the substance. We highlighted one section for added emphasis since it makes reference to a new initiative for moving more new vehicles.

Remarks of President Barack Obama

Announcement on the Auto Industry

One of the challenges we have confronted from the beginning of this administration is what to do about the state of our struggling auto industry. In recent months, my Auto Task Force has been reviewing requests by General Motors and Chrysler for additional government assistance as well as plans developed by each of these companies to restructure, modernize, and make themselves more competitive. Our evaluation is now complete. But before I lay out what needs to be done going forward, I want to say a few words about where we are, and what led us to this point.

It will come as a surprise to no one that some of the Americans who have suffered most during this recession have been those in the auto industry and those working for companies that support it. Over the past year, our auto industry has shed over 400,000 jobs, not only at the plants that produce cars but at the businesses that produce the parts that go into them, and the dealers that sell and repair them. More than one in ten Michigan residents is out of work – the most of any state. And towns and cities across the great Midwest have watched unemployment climb higher than it’s been in decades.

The pain being felt in places that rely on our auto industry is not the fault of our workers, who labor tirelessly and desperately want to see their companies succeed. And it is not the fault of all the families and communities that supported manufacturing plants throughout the generations. Rather, it is a failure of leadership – from Washington to Detroit – that led our auto companies to this point.

Year after year, decade after decade, we have seen problems papered-over and tough choices kicked down the road, even as foreign competitors outpaced us. Well, we have reached the end of that road. And we, as a nation, cannot afford to shirk responsibility any longer. Now is the time to confront our problems head-on and do what’s necessary to solve them.

We cannot, we must not, and we will not let our auto industry simply vanish. This industry is, like no other, an emblem of the American spirit; a once and future symbol of America’s success. It is what helped build the middle class and sustained it throughout the 20th century. It is a source of deep pride for the generations of American workers whose hard work and imagination led to some of the finest cars the world has ever known. It is a pillar of our economy that has held up the dreams of millions of our people. But we also cannot continue to excuse poor decisions. And we cannot make the survival of our auto industry dependent on an unending flow of tax dollars. These companies – and this industry – must ultimately stand on their own, not as wards of the state.

That is why the federal government provided General Motors and Chrysler with emergency loans to prevent their sudden collapse at the end of last year – only on the condition that they would develop plans to restructure. In keeping with that agreement, each company has submitted a plan to restructure. But after careful analysis, we have determined that neither goes far enough to warrant the substantial new investments that these companies are requesting. And so today, I am announcing that my administration will offer GM and Chrysler a limited period of time to work with creditors, unions, and other stakeholders to fundamentally restructure in a way that would justify an investment of additional tax dollars; a period during which they must produce plans that would give the American people confidence in their long-term prospects for success.

What we are asking is difficult. It will require hard choices by companies. It will require unions and workers who have already made painful concessions to make even more. It will require creditors to recognize that they cannot hold out for the prospect of endless government bailouts. Only then can we ask American taxpayers who have already put up so much of their hard-earned money to once more invest in a revitalized auto industry. But I am confident that if we are each willing to do our part, then this restructuring, as painful as it will be in the short-term, will mark not an end, but a new beginning for a great American industry; an auto industry that is once more out-competing the world; a 21st century auto industry that is creating new jobs, unleashing new prosperity, and manufacturing the fuel-efficient cars and trucks that will carry us toward an energy independent future. I am absolutely committed to working with Congress and the auto companies to meet one goal: the United States of America will lead the world in building the next generation of clean cars.

No one can deny that our auto industry has made meaningful progress in recent years. Some of the cars made by American workers are now outperforming the best cars made abroad. In 2008, the North American Car of the Year was a GM. This year, Buick tied for first place as the most reliable car in the world. And our companies are investing in breakthrough technologies that hold the promise of new vehicles that will help America end its addiction to foreign oil.

But our auto industry is not moving in the right direction fast enough to succeed. So let me discuss what measures need to be taken by each of the auto companies requesting taxpayer assistance, starting with General Motors. While GM has made a good faith effort to restructure over the past several months, the plan they have put forward is, in its current form, not strong enough. However, after broad consultations with a range of industry experts and financial advisors, I’m confident that GM can rise again, provided that it undergoes a fundamental restructuring. As an initial step, GM is announcing today that Rick Wagoner is stepping aside as Chairman and CEO. This is not meant as a condemnation of Mr. Wagoner, who has devoted his life to this company; rather, it’s a recognition that it will take a new vision and new direction to create the GM of the future.

In this context, my administration will offer General Motors adequate working capital over the next 60 days. During this time, my team will be working closely with GM to produce a better business plan. They must ask themselves: have they consolidated enough unprofitable brands? Have they cleaned up their balance sheets or are they still saddled with so much debt that they can’t make future investments? And above all, have they created a credible model for how to not only survive, but succeed in this competitive global market? Let me be clear: the United States government has no interest or intention of running GM. What we are interested in is giving GM an opportunity to finally make those much-needed changes that will let them emerge from this crisis a stronger and more competitive company.

The situation at Chrysler is more challenging. It is with deep reluctance but also a clear-eyed recognition of the facts that we have determined, after a careful review, that Chrysler needs a partner to remain viable. Recently, Chrysler reached out and found what could be a potential partner – the international car company Fiat, where the current management team has executed an impressive turnaround. Fiat is prepared to transfer its cutting-edge technology to Chrysler and, after working closely with my team, has committed to building new fuel-efficient cars and engines here in America. We have also secured an agreement that will ensure that Chrysler repays taxpayers for any new investments that are made before Fiat is allowed to take a majority ownership stake in Chrysler.

Still, such a deal would require an additional investment of tax dollars, and there are a number of hurdles that must be overcome to make it work. I am committed to doing all I can to see if a deal can be struck in a way that upholds the interests of American taxpayers. That is why we will give Chrysler and Fiat 30 days to overcome these hurdles and reach a final agreement – and we will provide Chrysler with adequate capital to continue operating during that time. If they are able to come to a sound agreement that protects American taxpayers, we will consider lending up to $6 billion to help their plan succeed. But if they and their stakeholders are unable to reach such an agreement, and in the absence of any other viable partnership, we will not be able to justify investing additional tax dollar to keep Chrysler in business.

While Chrysler and GM are very different companies with very different paths forward, both need a fresh start to implement the restructuring plans they develop. That may mean using our bankruptcy code as a mechanism to help them restructure quickly and emerge stronger. Now, I know that when people even hear the word “bankruptcy” it can be a bit unsettling, so let me explain what I mean. What I am talking about is using our existing legal structure as a tool that, with the backing of the U.S. government, can make it easier for General Motors and Chrysler to quickly clear away old debts that are weighing them down so they can get back on their feet and onto a path to success; a tool that we can use, even as workers are staying on the job building cars that are being sold. What I am not talking about is a process where a company is broken up, sold off, and no longer exists. And what I am not talking about is having a company stuck in court for years, unable to get out.

It is my hope that the steps I am announcing today will go a long way toward answering many of the questions people may have about the future of GM and Chrysler. But just in case there are still nagging doubts, let me say it as plainly as I can – if you buy a car from Chrysler or General Motors, you will be able to get your car serviced and repaired, just like always. Your warrantee will be safe. In fact, it will be safer than it’s ever been. Because starting today, the United States government will stand behind your warrantee.

But we must also recognize that the difficulties facing this industry are due in no small part to the weakness in our economy. Therefore, to support demand for auto sales during this period, I’m directing my team to take several steps. First, we will ensure that Recovery Act funds to purchase government cars go out as quickly as possible and work through the budget process to accelerate other federal fleet purchases as well. Second, we will accelerate our efforts through the Treasury Department’s Consumer and Business Lending Initiative. And we are working intensively with the auto finance companies to increase the flow of credit to both consumers and dealers. Third, the IRS is today launching a campaign to alert consumers of a new tax benefit for auto purchases made between February 16th and the end of this year – if you buy a car anytime this year, you may be able to deduct the cost of any sales and excise taxes. This provision could save families hundreds of dollars and lead to as many as 100,000 new car sales.

Finally, several members of Congress have proposed an even more ambitious incentive program to increase car sales while modernizing our auto fleet. Such fleet modernization programs, which provide a generous credit to consumers who turn in old, less fuel efficient cars and purchase cleaner cars have been successful in boosting auto sales in a number of European countries. I want to work with Congress to identify parts of the Recovery Act that could be trimmed to fund such a program, and make it retroactive starting today.

Let there be no doubt, it will take an unprecedented effort on all our parts – from the halls of Congress to the boardroom, from the union hall to the factory floor – to see the auto industry through these difficult times. But I want every American to know that the path I am laying out today is our best chance to make sure the cars of the future are built where they’ve always been built – in Detroit and across the Midwest; to make America’s auto industry in the 21st century what it was in the 20th century – unsurpassed around the world. This path has been chosen after consulting with other governments that are facing this crisis. We have worked closely with the Government of Canada on GM and Chrysler, as both companies have extensive operations there. The Canadian Government has indicated its support for our approach and will be announcing their specific commitments later today.

While the steps I am talking about will have an impact on all Americans, some of our fellow citizens will be affected more than any others. And so I’d like to speak directly to all those men and women who work in the auto industry or live in the countless communities that depend on it. Many of you have been going through tough times for longer than you’d care to remember. And I will not pretend the tough times are over. I cannot promise you there isn’t more pain to come. But what I can promise you is this – I will fight for you. You are the reason I am here today. I got my start fighting for working families in the shadows of a shuttered steel plant and I wake up every single day asking myself what I can do to give you and working people all across this country a fair shot at the American dream.

When a community is struck by a natural disaster, the nation responds to put it back on its feet. While the storm that’s hit our auto towns is not a tornado or a hurricane, the damage is clear, and we must respond. That is why today, I am designating a new Director of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers to cut through red tape and ensure that the full resources of our federal government are leveraged to assist the workers, communities, and regions that rely on our auto industry. Edward Montgomery, a former Deputy Labor Secretary, has agreed to serve in this role. Together with Labor Secretary Solis and my Auto Task Force, Ed will help provide support to auto workers and their families, and open up opportunity in manufacturing communities. Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and every other state that relies on the auto industry will have a strong advocate in Ed. He will direct a comprehensive effort that will help lift up the hardest hit areas by using the unprecedented levels of funding available in our Recovery Act and throughout our government to create new manufacturing jobs and new businesses where they are needed most – in your communities. And he will also lead an effort to identify new initiatives we may need to help support your communities going forward.

These efforts, as essential as they are, will not make everything better overnight. There are jobs that cannot be saved. There are plants that will not reopen. And there is little I can say that can subdue the anger or ease the frustration of all whose livelihoods hang in the balance because of failures that weren’t theirs.

But there is something I want everyone to remember. Remember that it is precisely in times like these – in moments of trial, and moments of hardship – that Americans rediscover the ingenuity and resilience that makes us who we are. That made the auto industry what it once was. That sent those first mass-produced cars rolling off assembly lines. That built an arsenal of democracy that propelled America to victory in the Second World War. And that powered our economic prowess in the first American century.

Because I know that if we can tap into that same ingenuity and resilience right now; if we can carry one another through this difficult time and do what must be done; then we will look back and say that this was the moment when America’s auto industry shed its old ways, marched into the future, and remade itself, once more, into an engine of opportunity and prosperity, not only in Detroit, and not only in our Midwest, but all across America.

What do you think? Comments?

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Obama Plans Small-Business Lending Boost

2009-03-16T09:36:00.000-07:00

The Obama administration announced Monday that the 21 largest banks receiving government money must report monthly on how much lending they do to small businesses.

All other banks getting taxpayer help are being asked to report quarterly on small business loans. Even banks that are not taking government funds are being told by the administration to "make an extra effort" to increase small business lending.

The announcement was part of a broad package aimed at boosting the credit available to struggling small business owners that President Barack Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner were unveiling in an East Room ceremony. The White House figures that making billions in federal loans available to small businesses was one way to address misgivings over the widely unpopular bailout program, which has sent hundreds of billions to large financial institutions like Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. with few strings attached.

The rescue program has appeared to do little so far to loosen credit, the lifeblood of the American economy.

In brief comments Monday morning with Geithner before the official announcement, Obama called small businesses "one of the biggest drivers of employment that we have." He said he had pressed his economic team to specifically help owners of small businesses and get credit flowing to them again, and he called the newest initiatives only a first step.

The measures includes $730 million from the stimulus plan to immediately reduce small-business lending fees and to increase the government guarantee on some Small Business Administration loans to 90 percent. The government also is taking aggressive steps to boost bank liquidity with up to $15 billion aimed at unfreezing the secondary credit market.

Often primary bank lenders will seek to sell the SBA loans in the secondary market, allowing them to use the proceeds of the sale to make new loans to other small business owners, but skittish investors have been staying away. Under the administration's initiative, the government will step in to buy these loans to help unlock the frozen credit market, using money from the recently passed bailout package in the range of $10 billion to $20 billion, one official briefed on the plan said.

While the SBA typically guarantees $20 billion in loans annually, new lending this year is on track to fall below $10 billion, according to the administration.

The reporting requirements for financial institutions receiving government bailout funds are the first, the White House said.

The plan comes amid Republican efforts to cast doubt about Obama's ambitious budget, in particular the proposal to raise taxes, starting in 2011, on individuals earning more than $200,000 and on households earning more than $250,000. Those provisions also hit small businesses.

Geithner also ordered the Internal Revenue Service to issue a series of new rules for temporary but significant tax breaks, meaning that small businesses:

_That earn up to $15 million will be allowed to claim losses for the past five years in the current tax year;

_May write off up to $250,000 in investments this year.

_Can reduce estimated tax payments to 90 percent of the previous year's filing.

_Are allowed to take larger depreciation deductions within the first year of property purchases.

_And will see 75 percent of capital gains excluded for those who invest in small businesses.

What do you think? Comments?

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Obama Opens Up Stem Cell Work, Science Inquiries

2009-03-09T17:43:00.001-07:00

By SETH BORENSTEIN and BEN FELLER

Obama ends funding ban for stem cell research

From tiny embryonic cells to the large-scale physics of global warming, President Barack Obama urged researchers on Monday to follow science and not ideology as he abolished contentious Bush-era restraints on stem-cell research. "Our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values," Obama declared as he signed documents changing U.S. science policy and removing what some researchers have said were shackles on their work.

"It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda — and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology," Obama said.

Researchers said the new president's message was clear: Science, which once propelled men to the moon, again matters in American life.

Opponents saw it differently: a defeat for morality in the most basic questions of life and death.

"The action by the president today will, in effect, allow scientists to create their own guidelines without proper moral restraints," Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said.

In a crowded ornate East Room, there were more scientists in the White House than Alan Leshner, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science had seen in his 30 years in Washington. "More happy scientists than I've seen," he added.

The most immediate effect will allow federally funded researchers to use hundreds of new embryonic stem cell lines for promising, but still long-range research in hopes of creating better treatments, possibly even cures, for conditions ranging from diabetes to paralysis. Until now, those researchers had to limit themselves to just 21 stem cell lines created before August 2001, when President George W. Bush limited funding because of "fundamental questions about the beginnings of life and the ends of science."

Science, politics and religion have long intertwined and conflicted with each other. In his actions Monday, especially with the stem cell decision, Obama is emphasizing more the science than the religion, when compared with his predecessor, science policy experts say. But they acknowledged politics is still involved.

Don't expect stem cell cures or treatments anytime soon. One company this summer will begin the world's first study of a treatment using human embryonic stem cells, in people who recently suffered spinal cord injuries. Research institutions on Monday were gearing up to ask for more freely flowing federal money, and the National Institutes of Health was creating guidelines on how to hand it out and include ethical constraints. It will be months before the stem cell money flows; the average NIH stem cell grant is $1.5 million spread out over four years.

Scientists focused on a new sense of freedom.

"I think patients everywhere will be cheering us on, imploring us to work faster, harder and with all of our ability to find new treatments," said Harvard Stem Cell Institute co-director Doug Melton, father of two children with Type I diabetes who could possibly be treated with stem cells. "On a personal level, it is an enormous relief and a time for celebration. ... Science thrives when there is an open and collaborative exchange, not when there are artificial barriers, silos, constructed by the government."

Opponents framed their opposition mostly, but not exclusively, on moral grounds and the scientifically contested claims that adult stem cells work just as well.

Said Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America: "President Obama's order places the worst kind of politics above ethics. Politics driven by hype makes overblown promises, fuels the desperation of the suffering and financially benefits those seeking to strip morality from science."

In Congress, Reps. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., and Mike Castle, R-Del., said they would seek a quick vote on legislation to codify Obama's order in federal law, after failing twice in the past to overturn Bush's restrictions. DeGette said she doesn't want stem cell research to become "a pingpong ball going back and forth between administrations."

But Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., chairman of the Republican study committee, said the president's new policy would "force taxpayers to subsidize research that will destroy human embryos." De Gette and Castle said their legislation tries to minimize destruction of embryos.

Stem cells are typically derived from fertility clinic surplus, destined for destruction.

Obama also said the stem cell policy is designed so that it "never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction." Such cloning, he said, "is dangerous, profoundly wrong, and has no place in our society or any society."

In addition to the stem cell order, Obama issued a memo designed to ensure openness about scientific research and give whistleblower protection to scientists.

Promoting science "is about letting scientists like those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it's inconvenient — especially when it's inconvenient," Obama said.

Science and politics often conflict, said Granger Morgan, professor of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University and a former science advisory board chairman for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — perhaps illustrated no more wildly than in 1897 when the Indiana legislature attempted to change the mathematical concept of pi to 3.2. Science should provide the facts that politicians use for their decisions, Morgan and Leshner said.

Many scientists and environmental activists complained that the Bush administration had censored and marginalized science. That's a perception that Bush science adviser John Marburger repeatedly called untrue and unfair, as he addressed a series of occurrences that troubled critics.

In 2006, the White House edited out congressional testimony about public health effects of global warming by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Julie Gerberding. A 2003 EPA global warming document was edited by nonscientists at the White House. A NASA political appointee tried — and failed — to silence the agency's top climate scientist.

Former Surgeon General Richard Carmona resigned in 2006, complaining about White House interference on global health issues: "The problem with this approach is that in public health, as in democracy, there is nothing worse than ignoring science or marginalizing the voice of science for reasons driven by changing political winds."

Obama advisers contend that all has changed. The government has already put on hold rules about scientific input on endangered species, reinstating advice that had been excised during the Bush administration.

Public policy must "be guided by sound scientific advice," said Dr. Harold Varmus, the Nobel Prize-winning co-chairman of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. The new memo Obama signed is "mainly a way of trying to prevent tampering with any advice," Varmus told MSNBC.

What do you think? Comments?

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Obama Vows: "U.S. Will Emerge Stronger!"

2009-02-24T19:42:00.000-08:00

President Delivers Prime-Time Speech Before Congress

Historic speech.

By JENNIFER LOVEN, AP

President Barack Obama promised a nation shuddering in economic crisis Tuesday night that he would lead it from a dire "day of reckoning" to a brighter future, summoning politicians and public alike to shoulder responsibility for hard choices and shared sacrifice. "The time to take charge of our future is here," Obama declared, delivering his first address to a joint session of Congress.

Offering words of reassurance to an anxious nation, he declared, "Tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before."

"We are a nation that has seen promise and peril," he said. "Now we must be that nation again."

Cheered robustly as he entered the House chamber, Obama grinned, shook hands and kissed lawmakers and stopped for a lengthy embrace with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, back on the bench only this week after surgery for pancreatic cancer.
To deal with the current crisis, deepening each day, the president said more money will be needed to rescue troubled banks beyond the $700 billion already committed last year.

He said he knows that bailout billions for banks are unpopular — "I promise you, I get it," he said — but he also insisted that was the only way to get credit moving again to households and businesses, the lifeblood of the American economy.

Along with aid for banks, he also called on Congress to move quickly on legislation to overhaul outdated regulations on the nation's financial markets.

"I ask this Congress to join me in doing whatever proves necessary," Obama said. "Because we cannot consign our nation to an open-ended recession."

Thinking longer-term, Obama said in a speech lacking many specifics and devoid of initiatives that both political parties must give up favored programs while uniting behind his campaign promises to build better schools, expand health care coverage and move the nation to "greener" fuel use.

Just five weeks after his inauguration, Obama addressed an ebullient Democratic congressional majority and an embattled but reinvigorated GOP minority as well as millions of anxious viewers.

Despite the nation's economic worries and the lack of support for his plans from all but a few Republican lawmakers, Obama enjoys strong approval ratings across the nation.

Louisiana's young, charismatic governor, Bobby Jindal, delivering the televised GOP response, exhorted fellow Republicans to be Obama's "strongest partners" when they agree with him. But he signaled that won't happen much, calling Democrats in Congress "irresponsible" for passing the $787 billion stimulus package that Republicans have criticized as excessive and wasteful.

"The way to lead is not to raise taxes and put more money and power in hands of Washington politicians," Jindal said, according to excerpts of his remarks released by the Republican Party. "Who among us would ask our children for a loan, so we could spend money we do not have, on things we do not need?"

Jindal is considered a likely presidential contender in 2012.

Obama spoke as bad economic news continued to pile up, felt all too keenly in U.S. homes and businesses. Some 3.6 million jobs have disappeared so far in the deepening recession, which now ranks as the biggest job destroyer in the post-World War II period.

Americans have lost trillions of dollars in retirement, college and savings accounts, with the stock market falling nearly half from its peak of 16 months ago.
And new polls — some with his public support rising and others with it dropping — show that the political climate can be as precarious as the economic one.

Aware that his and his party's fortunes will suffer if he cannot right the economic picture, Obama sought to blend the kind of grim honesty that has become his trademark since taking office with a greater emphasis on optimism.

"The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation," he said.

The central argument of his speech was that his still-unfolding economic revival plan has room for — and even demands — simultaneous action on a broad, expensive agenda including helping the millions without health insurance, improving education and switching the U.S. to greater dependence on alternative energy sources.

This is the big lift of his young presidency: bringing the public behind what are sure to be enormous outlays on contentious issues.

His hope was to begin to persuade the country that those longer-term items on his presidential agenda are as important to the nation's economic well-being as unchoking credit and turning around unemployment numbers.

"The only way this century will be another American century is if we confront at last the price of our dependence on oil and the high cost of health care, the schools that aren't preparing our children and the mountain of debt they stand to inherit," Obama said. "That is our responsibility."

He urged lawmakers to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases that cause climate change by creating a cap-and-trade system of limits and pollution allowances, especially for industries such as utilities with coal burning power plants.

And he said the budget he is sending to Congress on Thursday will call for $15 billion a year in federal spending to spur development of environmentally friendly but so far cost-ineffective energy sources such as wind and solar, biofuels, clean coal and more fuel-efficient vehicles.

He said his budget request also will create new incentives for teacher performance and support for innovative education programs. He asked every American to commit to completing a year or more of higher education or career training.

New in office, he wasn't charged with producing a formal State of the Union status report. But for all intents and purposes, that's what it was: a night for the president to sketch out his priorities in a setting unmatched the rest of the year.

It took nearly 15 minutes for him to make his way through a House chamber packed with lawmakers eager to welcome the nation's first black president into a Capitol built by slaves. The gallery included a special section hosted by first lady Michelle Obama in which guests were selected to serve as living symbols of the president's goals.

Cramming the floor was virtually the entire leadership of the federal government, including Supreme Court justices and all but one Cabinet member, held away in case disaster struck.

Pre-speech, Wall Street was in a better mood than it had been in for days: Stocks were up after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the recession might end this year.

In contrast to many State of the Union addresses by George W. Bush, Obama did not emphasize foreign policy. He touched on his intention to chart new strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan and to forge a new image for the U.S. around the world even as he keeps up the fight against terrorism.

With the economy dominant, Obama said the mess was one he inherited. "We have lived through an era where too often, short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity, where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter or the next election," he said.

He aimed to show he was tackling the situation with both urgency and strict oversight for how the staggering sums are being spent. The massive stimulus plan, an overhaul of the separate $700 billion bailout for the financial sector, and a $275 billion rescue for struggling homeowners are already in place, and more is on the way, Obama said.

Even as Washington pours money into the economic recovery, Obama said the budget deficit, at $1.3 trillion and ballooning, must be brought under control.

He promised he would slash it by half by the end of his term in 2013, mostly by ending U.S. combat in Iraq and eliminating some of Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy.

He said his budget officials have identified a total of $2 trillion in savings over the next 10 years, also including ending education programs "that don't work" and payments to large agribusinesses "that don't need them," eliminating wasteful no-bid contracts in Iraq and spending on weapons systems no longer needed in the post-Cold War era, and rooting out waste in Medicare.

"Everyone in this chamber, Democrats and Republicans, will have to sacrifice some worthy priorities for which there are no dollars," he said. "And that includes me."
He touted his decision to end the practice of leaving Iraq and Afghanistan war spending out of the main budget. "For seven years, we have been a nation at war. No longer will we hide its price," Obama said.

What do you think? Comments?

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Congress Trumps Obama - Cuffs CEO Bonuses

2009-02-14T08:22:00.001-08:00

Stimulus restricts compensation, erases massive Wall Street pay packages

The stimulus package Congress passed last night imposes new limits on executive compensation that could significantly curb multimillion dollar pay packages on Wall Street and goes much further than restrictions proposed by the Obama administration last week.

The bill, which President Obama is expected to sign into law next week, limits bonuses for executives at all financial institutions receiving government funds to no more than a third of their annual compensation. The bonuses must be paid in company stock that can be redeemed only when the government investment has been repaid. With the measure, lawmakers seek to address public outrage over extravagant Wall Street paydays even as taxpayers bail out the industry.

Obama: Stimulus is a 'historic step'

Unlike the rules issued by the White House, the limits in the stimulus bill would apply to top executives and the highest-paid employees at all 359 banks that have already received government aid.

"This is a big deal. This is a problem," said Scott Talbott, chief lobbyist for the nation's largest financial services firms. "It undermines the current incentive structure."

Talbott said banking executives expected certain restrictions would be applied to them but are concerned that some of the most highly paid employees, such as top traders, who bring in hefty sums for the company, would flee to hedge funds or foreign banks that have not accepted U.S. government funds.

The White House restrictions capped executive pay at $500,000 and allowed companies to award unlimited stock. Those rules applied only to institutions that receive government funds in the future and under limited circumstances.

Significant impact seen

Bonuses make up much of financial executives' take-home pay, so the new rules could significantly diminish their compensation. For example, Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein made $68.5 million in 2007 -- a Wall Street record -- but $67.9 million of that was in bonus and other incentive pay that analysts said would be subject to the new rules.

Citigroup's top executive, Vikram Pandit, has voluntarily agreed to a $1 salary until his company returns to profitability. In theory, this means that Pandit would be allowed an annual bonus of pennies.

Critics of excessive executive pay assert that companies have always found ways around compensation rules. Yesterday, they noted that more stringent measures -- such as a $400,000 cap on all forms of compensation -- did not survive last-minute wrangling by House and Senate leaders on the final compromise stimulus bill. To offset the new rules, inserted by Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), compensation boards could just significantly raise the base salary of executives, the critics said.

"Congress missed a huge opportunity to set a strict and measurable limit on executive pay," said Sarah Anderson, a director at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington. "I'm afraid companies will find ways to shift compensation to other pots and continue to make massive payouts that have so outraged the American people."

But several compensation experts said that is unlikely, given the glaring spotlight on an issue that is not expected to go away anytime soon. Excessive compensation has received increasing scrutiny as the pay gap between executives and average workers widened in recent years. Public furor reached a boiling point with news that billions of dollars in bonuses were paid to Wall Street employees last year even as the banks took billions in taxpayer bailout money.

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Deal on Economic Stimulus Bill — Cut to $780 Billion

2009-02-06T16:55:00.000-08:00

With job losses soaring nationwide, Senate Democrats reached agreement with key Republicans Friday night on an economic stimulus measure at the heart of President Barack Obama's plan for reviving the economy.

"The American people want us to work together. They don't want to see us dividing along partisan lines on the most serious crisis confronting our country," said Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, one of two GOP senators who signaled support for the bill.

Officials put the cost of the measure at $780 billion in tax cuts and new spending combined. No details were immediately available, and there appeared to be some confusion among senators about the price tag.

The agreement capped a tense day of backroom negotiations in which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, joined by White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, sought to attract the support of enough Republicans to give the measure the needed 60-vote majority.

In addition to Collins, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said he would vote for the bill.

Officials said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's vote would probably be needed for passage, too. The Massachusetts Democrat, battling a brain tumor, has been in Florida in recent days and has not been in the Capitol since suffering a seizure on Inauguration Day more than two weeks ago. The senator's office did not comment.

At $780 billion, the legislation would be smaller than the measure that cleared the House on a party-line vote last week. It also would mean a sharp cut from the bill that has been the subject of Senate debate for a week. That measure stood at $937 billion.

Beyond the numbers, though, any agreement would mark a victory for the new president and would keep Democratic leaders on track to fulfill their promise of delivering him a bill to sign by the end of next week.

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Obama Officials Tell Citibank To Ditch Plans For $50 Million Private Jet

2009-01-28T11:16:00.001-08:00

According to a report from ABC News, President Obama is not taking kindly to corporate greed, especially when it's funded by taxpayer money.

The high-flying execs at Citigroup caved under pressure from President Obama and decided today to abandon plans for a luxurious new $50 million corporate jet from France...

ABC News has learned that Monday officials of the Obama administration called Citigroup about the company's new $50 million corporate jet and told execs to "fix it."

On Monday, the news broke that bailed out bank was going through with its $50 million private jet purchase even though it had recieved $45 billion in government funds:

The New York Post's Jennifer Keil and Chuck Bennett reported in Monday's paper that Citigroup, which has received $45 billion in government bailout funds, is about to upgrade to a new $50 million, twelve-seat corporate jet.

The plane, the Dassault Falcon 7X, is a luxurious jet with a range of 5,950 nautical miles (meaning it can fly from New York to all of Europe and South America, as far east as Riyadh, and as far west as Honolulu or Petropavlovsk, Russia). The Post reports it has "plush interior with leather seats, sofas and a customizable entertainment center."

Nice huh?

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Al-Arabiya's Game Changing Interview with Barack Obama: A New Punctuation Point in US Foreign Policy

2009-01-28T09:10:00.000-08:00

Warch the interview here:

Hisham Melhem, Washington Bureau Chief for Al Arabiya, was trying to chase down an interview with former U.S. Senator and new presidential envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell. Pounding all of his channels, friends, networks, Melhem was informed Sunday that "something" might be in the works -- but keep expectations modest.

By Monday morning (yesterday), Melhem was told that he'd likely get Mitchell, and then later in the morning, he received a call telling him that he'd "either be very happy, or made miserable" by what the White House was planning. And then Melhem was asked if he would like to interview President Barack Obama at 5 pm Monday -- but that the bureau would have to keep the interview secret until it happened.

The Al Arabiya Bureau Chief said that was not a problem and that he'd adjust his schedule -- with enormous grin accompanying his response.

Al Arabiya is part of a major Arabic news network, considered second in global coverage to Al Jazeera, which may yet see a nod from the Obama administration down the road -- but seeing that George W. Bush may have joked and/or been serious about bombing an Al Jazeera office in Baghdad, Al Jazeera may still be too much of a leap for the bounding forward new US President.

Obama's exchange with the Al Arabiya journalist (here is transcript), which was only supposed to last about six or seven minutes got extended a bit as press secretary Robert Gibbs saw how well it was going.

This interview is the initial punctuation point in Obama's global public diplomacy. By most accounts, Obama's decision -- shocking to some, refreshing to others -- to talk to the Muslim world in his first formal, sit down press interview hit the ball out of the park.

While Al Arabiya's Bureau Chief did query Obama on which Muslim capital he would first go to in the world (I think it will be Jakarta), Obama's interview -- which Al Arabiya quickly got up on YouTube and also broadcast all around the world through their own networks -- is consistent with Obama-style Facebook political networking and activism. He is using social networks and a hybrid of new media and old media to change the diplomatic game.

It doesn't matter which Muslim capital Obama goes to now because he just reached out to the hearts and minds of Muslims in every capital and frankly, Muslims everywhere -- including inside the United States.

Obama stood by America's alliance with Israel, but said also that Israel and others would have to make sacrifices to achieve stable peace.

He is telegraphing to the Muslim world that the lives of those who live in the Middle East and who are Muslim, wherever they are, matter -- and can't be discounted. Former Ambassador to the UN John Bolton used to decry any effort at talking about the moral equivalency of a death of an innocent in Palestine or in Lebanon when compared to the death or maiming of an Israeli innocent.

Obama talked about the needs and tragedies that have befallen Palestinians and Israelis. And he offered hope to Arab citizens and talked of health care and education -- a vision of the future, that could challenge more rigid groups that have been resisting engagement with the US and Europe and who have been strident in their opposition to Israel.

Barack Obama's first moves have been utterly brilliant. And in his interview, most of it focused on the importance of ending the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. He acknowledged the interconnectedness of the problems in the region, but he noted how important the Middle East Peace process and crisis is.

And I think he was responding personally and sincerely to Prince Turki al-Faisal's warning in the Financial Times this week that the Arab Peace Proposal offered by King Abdullah would not remain on the table indefinitely, and that the window could be closing in the wake of the Gaza crisis. Obama was asking Prince Turki, who previously served as head of Saudi intelligence for more than two decades and as Saudi Ambassador to the US, and the King of Saudi Arabia to hang in there a bit more. Obama's messenging was subtle but clear.

Some will argue that this is not much. That this is optics -- not substantive change.

I totally disagree. Ron Suskind was on target when he reported several years ago that Bush administration officials believed that they could "make their own reality."

Presidents -- in the right period of their presidencies -- can make and shape their own reality. They do so at their peril because someone could eventually demonstrate a gap between the fiction the President is creating and the reality everyone else is grounded in.

But Obama gets to make his own reality at the moment -- and is imposing it -- in a respectful, humble, and powerful way.

His style matters -- just like Bush's swagger did -- and it is this act of humility towards the Muslim world which may animate hope in the nations around the world and in the Middle East specifically.

Everyone will have to adjust now. The Saudis will leave the peace deal on the table. The Israelis have to remake themselves -- even if Netanyahu succeeds Olmert. Hamas will have to find a way to become differently postured -- if not on Israel, then at least on some level of international acceptability with American partners. Arab stakeholders are going to have to snap out of positions shaped more by status quo thinking and inertia that things will never change and get with the Obama program.

What Obama did has provided a new punctuation point in American foreign policy, and it is not "continuous" foreign policy at all. This is a new game and a very impressive new leader.

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Two-Thirds Approve of Obama's Start

2009-01-25T09:50:00.001-08:00

The Obama PresidencyPrintShareText SizeAAAWASHINGTON (Jan. 25) - Barack Obama is enjoying about a two-thirds approval rating for his first days as president, a poll released Saturday found.

The Gallup Organization survey found 68 percent of Americans approve of Obama's performance as the nation's chief executive. That's a number near the high end for new presidents, but short of President John F. Kennedy's 72 percent in 1961.

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President Obama’s first 100 days

2009-01-21T19:10:00.000-08:00

The first 100 days

The following 2008 article discusses Obama’s first 100 days and what problems and issues should first be addressed under Obama’s presidency:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/12/15/100_days/

Good article!

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President Obama's Inauguration: Hits and Misses

2009-01-20T15:28:00.001-08:00

U.S. President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle examine the bible used for his swearing-in ceremony.

* We've all talked about now-President Barack Obama's historic inauguration for months. From momentous moments to little flubs, there was a lot to see on Inauguration Day. Here's our list of hits and misses from today:

Hit: The Speech

The jury (aka, pundit spin) is still out, but the initial reaction is that Obama's speech was both pragmatic and hopeful. He acknowledged the nation's grim economic problems, but assured the crowd he would quickly get to work. As the New York Times reports:

Mr. Obama promised to take “bold and swift” action to restore the economy by creating jobs through public works projects, improving education, promoting alternative energy and relying on new technology.... "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America."

Miss: First-timers

As first-timers on the inaugural stage, no one can blame President Obama and Chief Justice John Roberts for being nervous. Debate initially swirled around who actually messed up the oath, but MSNBC's play-by-play clears it up.

First, Obama jumped in before the "do solemnly swear" phrase, which seemed to throw the chief justice off his stride. Roberts rendered the next phrase as "that I will execute the office of President to the United States faithfully."

"That I will execute," Obama repeated, then paused like a school teacher prompting his student with a slight nod. Roberts took another shot at it: "The off ... faithfully the pres ... the office of President of the United States."

While it's technically a flub, it was also nice to see a little levity during a serious moment. AP explains that Roberts will most certainly get another chance to get it right.

Roberts is the youngest chief justice in more than 200 years. He easily could still be in his role a quarter century from now, long after Obama has left office.

He and Obama are similar in many ways. Both are late baby boomers. Roberts is 53, Obama 47. And both got their law degrees from Harvard and made rapid ascents to power. But their politics diverge sharply.

Hit: Huge crowds

According to the AP, more than 1 million people squeezed into the National Mall to see Barack Obama sworn-in as the first African American president of the United States. Despite the crush and long hours on their feet, the crowds were filled with enthusiasm, hope and a little reality.

Cleveland Wesley, 56, Texas: "Houston didn't desegregate until 1967. Our formative years were in segregation...This situation is so emotional, it's basically an unreal experience."

Jackie Applewhite, 48, Illinois: "It's something I can share with my students...I can encourage my students to study and tell them that education is the key to success."

Larry Stroschien, 69, S.D.: "President-elect Obama is just walking into a shipwreck ... I think this man has more challenges in front of him than any since FDR."

Miss: Clinton confirmation

Several members of Obama's Cabinet and high-level appointees were confirmed in the Senate after Obama's swearing-in. One person who will be hanging back: Hillary Clinton. AP reports that Sen. John Cornyn of Texas is blocking her confirmation:

Cornyn's spokesman says the senator has concerns about foreign donations to Bill Clinton's foundation:

"Senator Cornyn is a strong proponent of complete transparency and has fought for as much throughout his time in office. He is keeping all of his options on the table."

His objection could delay Clinton's confirmation by a day or two, but barring any extraordinary circumstances, she is widely expected to win approval from the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Hit: First Fashion

No, not Barack. We're talking about the Obama women: First lady Michelle Obama wowed the crowds in a sparkly yellow-gold sheath dress with a matching coat by Isabel Toledo. Always the practical shopper, she topped her outfit with olive-green gloves from J.Crew and green shoes. First daughters Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, strutted their fashion feet in colorful pink and blue coats, also from J. Crew.

Stylists like red-carpet and editorial stylist Mary Alice Stephenson swooned as well. From AP:

"What's so powerful about Michelle Obama is we all see ourselves in her. She's a modern woman who is fashionable and even flamboyant in her style and she is still taken seriously," she said. "The dress is elegant, appropriate and has the individual style stamp of Michelle Obama and is timely for a woman in her 40s — and she wears embellishment during the day. Hallelujah!"

Ruben Toledo, husband of designer Isabel, revealed to Women's Wear Daily that they didn't even know that Mrs. Obama had picked one of her outfits:

"We're levitating - we really are," Ruben Toledo said minutes after watching Michelle Obama on CNN in an ensemble by his wife Isabel. 'We had no idea. We hoped she would wear something because she has bought Isabel's clothes before. We never know what's going to happen," he said. "'It's just another shock, but a great shock.'"

Miss: Troubled Wall Street

But not even the historic inauguration could lift Wall Street out of the doldrums. As AP reports, immediately following Obama's speech, the major indexes fell more than two percent:

Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange paused at times to watch the inauguration ceremony and Obama's remarks, but the transition of power didn't erase investors' concerns about the struggling economy.

At the closing bell, major indexes were down more than four percent and the Dow Jones Industrials tumbled 332 points.

Inauguration Day isn't even over yet, but the clock has already started counting down Obama's First 100 Days.

Lili Ladaga

God Bless President Obama!

2009-01-20 12:09:47

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Text of President Obama's Inaugural Address

2009-01-20T14:35:00.000-08:00

OBAMA: My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because we the people have remained faithful to the ideals of our forebears, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land — a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America — they will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted — for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things — some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act — not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions — who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control — and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort — even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West — know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment — a moment that will define a generation — it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence — the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed — why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

"Let it be told to the future world ... that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet (it)."

America, in the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

2009-01-20 12:09:47

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One Nation, After All

2009-01-19T06:28:00.001-08:00

How Obama is changing racial politics in America.

WHAT OBAMA MEANS - For Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Future

(A review by Richard Thompson Ford of the book written by Jabari Asim.)

Barack Obama's historic struggle to become the nation's first black president is over, but the fight over the meaning of his victory has only begun.

Obama's victory is the culmination of decades of black political struggle, social advancement and cultural achievement. Obama promises to continue this cultural transformation with a new style of racial politics: more productive and less antagonistic than that of the "charlatans and camera hogs with whom we are all too familiar" (a group in which the Reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson figure prominently) but no less committed to social justice. Asim, editor of the NAACP's journal the Crisis and former deputy editor of Book World, insists that Obama is the latest and most inspiring of a long line of "dedicated champions of black advancement."

Because of Obama "it's becoming cool to be thoughtful, temperate and monogamous," writes Asim, and Americans "may come to associate blackness with brilliance, thoughtfulness, confidence, and radical optimism."

By contrast, Obama's detractors, left and right, have suggested that the new president inevitably will be limited by the racial politics of the past. Last year the conservative commentator Shelby Steele argued in A Bound Man that Obama was tethered, by his liberal ideology and racial loyalty, to a counterproductive politics of grievance that exaggerates white racism and denies the need for individual responsibility among blacks.

By contrast, left-leaning black social commentators such as Cornel West, Tavis Smiley and Jesse Jackson have complained that, to win elections, Obama pandered to white voters, ignoring his responsibility to blacks.

Asim has the better argument: Black politics is undergoing a healthy transformation away from the confrontations of the culture wars and toward a new maturity. This change means that black politicians can faithfully and effectively serve multi-racial constituencies without being seen as sellouts, Americans of all races can grow comfortable with black role models and authority figures, and blacks can acknowledge their internal divisions without fear of disintegration.

As Asim argues, "Obama's rise doesn't spell the end of oppression, but it exposes the fallacy of referring to all black Americans as particularly oppressed or oppressed specifically because of their blackness."

What Obama Means dispatches a formidable battery of references to pop and high culture with the machine-gun pacing of a music video. Often, the results are both entertaining and insightful. Asim's enthusiasm for his subject keeps the reader engaged, and the strength of his underlying thesis about changing race relations usually grounds his heavily anecdotal exposition.

But the rapid fire can turn scattershot. For example, in a scant four paragraphs, W.E.B. Du Bois competes for attention with Booker T. Washington, Amiri Baraka, Haki Madhubuti, Malcolm X, Ida B. Wells, Paul Robeson, Langston Hughes, Fannie Lou Hamer, James Baldwin and Edward Said -- not to mention Barack Obama. In such tight space Asim can't develop that crowd of examples or explain their relevance to his larger thesis; he can do little more than refer to them and race on.

The book is most persuasive when Asim's examples stick closely to Obama's distinctive strengths: The chapters on politics and oratory are far stronger than those that compare Obama to professional athletes and popular musicians. In the weaker passages, the attempts to connect pop cultural figures to Obama occasionally misfire. For instance, Asim argues that Obama's biography parallels that of the musician Prince as told in the film "Purple Rain."

But the connections are superficial (both men are of mixed parentage, each struggled with his identity before finding his voice), and although Asim clearly doesn't intend to insult either one, the comparison to an artist infamous for his eccentricity, emotional volatility and narcissism trivializes Obama.

What Obama Means makes a compelling case for optimism about Obama's presidency and the coming changes in U.S. race relations. But Asim lacks critical distance, a quality that, perhaps, can come only with greater historical distance. Obama is a walking Rorschach test, a reflection of our racial aspirations and anxieties. Steele thought Obama was bound by the politics of racial grievance because Steele believes that that is the defining weakness of modern racial politics.

West and Smiley worry that Obama will sell out the black poor because they think the black elite is riddled with sellouts. Similarly, Asim sees Obama as the harbinger of the type of racial politics that Asim himself thinks we need. Such reactions, whether critical or adulatory, don't do justice to Obama because they treat him as an avatar of his race, rather than as an individual with his own character and ideas.

Seeing Obama as a symbol, not a man, makes it easy to criticize him for imagined or projected defects; it can also make it easy to celebrate him for virtues he has to yet to exhibit. Much about him remains unknown. It is unclear, for instance, how much emphasis Obama will place on past discrimination. While his background as a community organizer suggests he has a deep commitment to racial justice, there's little doubt that some of his supporters think their willingness to back a black candidate for president relieves them (and perhaps the nation as a whole) of responsibility to redress the many persistent effects of America's history of racism.

Asim makes a plausible case that Obama's inauguration will usher in a renewed commitment to social justice tempered by a cool-headed pragmatism -- an end to the divisive and counterproductive racial politics that has come to dominate civil rights activism since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. But we may be too close to the Obama phenomenon, both psychologically and historically, to get a good read on what Obama means. ·

Richard Thompson Ford is a professor at Stanford Law School and author of "The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse."

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How Exactly Will Obama Get All His Stuff into the White House?

2009-01-14T10:17:00.001-08:00

By Christopher Beam

The "First Movers"?

A moving van is parked outside the White HouseAfter Barack Obama is sworn in on Jan. 20, he and his family will move into the White House. But how exactly will the president-elect get all his belongings into his new home?

Will he hire movers?

Yes. The president-elect is responsible for arranging transportation for his furniture, clothes, and personal effects from Chicago to a White House storage facility in Maryland (where they also keep antiques, Easter decorations, paintings, etc.). The Secret Service oversees the whole process, which usually happens the week before the inauguration. It provides an escort for the moving vehicles and screens all items—books, desks, chairs—before they enter the facility. But Obama has to cover the transportation costs, either with personal funds or money raised for his campaign or transition.

Once the incoming president's stuff is on White House grounds, the residence staff takes custody of his possessions. The chief usher, who coordinates move-in day, provides the staff with White House floor plans and photos that indicate where each item goes.* (The first time Obama visited the White House post-election, he and the chief usher discussed furniture arrangements, food preferences, and other logistical issues.)

The Inauguration Day move-in takes about six hours. It starts at 10:30 a.m., when the sitting president and the first lady have a traditional tea with the president-elect before heading over to Capitol Hill for the swearing-in. Once they leave, the 93-person staff shifts into high gear. (They don't hire outside help for security reasons as well as privacy.)

The operations personnel does the heavy lifting while a housekeeping detail helps prepare the bedrooms, curators make sure the furnishings and décor are just so, florists worry about bouquet arrangements, and the chefs prepare the post-inauguration dinner. At the same time, the staff moves the ex-president out. Items get loaded into boxes, which get loaded into vans and then military cargo planes that carry everything to the former president's new residence. With only two elevators, it's organized chaos.

Who pays for all this? Congress draws up an annual executive residence budget, which gets a little extra funding every four years to cover move-in costs, such as packing equipment and overtime for staff members. The first family also gets a redecoration fund to cover draperies, carpets, paintings, and other costs.

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Obama will gain from honouring McCain

2009-01-14T07:36:00.001-08:00

By James Forsyth

In a classy gesture, Barack Obama is holding an inaugural eve dinner to honour John McCain. (There are other dinners that night for Colin Powell and Joe Biden). But it is also smart politics, as it costs Obama little and gains him much.

McCain is a genuine American hero and the evening will be seen, and is presumably intended to be seen, as a sign that Obama is moving from being the candidate of one party to the president of the whole country. McCain isn’t going to run for president again and his support for various initiatives—think immigration reform and climate change legislation—would give them a pleasing bi-partisan sheen.

The dinner will make Obama’s administration appear bi-partisan without actually having to compromise on policy.

The soft-focus side of bi-partisanship is something that Obama has excelled at throughout his career. His 2004 convention address, which put such rocket boosters under his rise, was an exercise in it. Now, that he is president we can expect much more of it. I suspect that, for example, the meetings with all previous Secretaries of State and Defense that the Bush administration instituted in its second term will become major events. Last week’s lunch for all living presidents was, after all, the idea of Obama’s chief of staff.

The conspicuous appearance of bipartisanship will make it harder for those within the Republican Party who argue that the party shouldn’t cooperate with the incoming president on the grounds that it should want clean hands if everything goes wrong.

McCain, who will be keen to restore his image as a bi-partisan figure after the election campaign, will be in the cooperation camp. It is to Obama’s benefit to boost his standing and isolate those who are reluctant to work with him.

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Obama Hails an 'Extraordinary Gathering'

2009-01-07T13:42:00.001-08:00

First White House reunion of all living former U.S. leaders since 1981

Presidents meet in Oval Office

Jan. 7: President George W. Bush hosts President-elect Obama as well as former Presidents Clinton, Bush Sr. and Carter at the White House for lunch.

President-elect Barack Obama hailed a rare Oval Office gathering of all U.S. presidents as an extraordinary event on Wednesday as the current occupant, President George W. Bush, reminded his predecessors and successor that the office "transcends the individual."

"I just want to thank the president for hosting us," the president-elect said, flanked by former President George H.W. Bush on one side and his son on the other.

Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, both smiling broadly, stood with them.

"All the gentlemen here understand both the pressures and possibilities of this office," Obama said. "For me to have the opportunity to get advice, good counsel and fellowship with these individuals is extraordinary."

In a swift photo opportunity, the current president wished Obama well before all five men headed to a private lunch that lasted about 90 minutes.

"I want to thank the president-elect for joining the ex-presidents for lunch," Bush said, even though he's not quite a member of that club yet.

"One message that I have and I think we all share is that we want you to succeed. Whether we're Democrat or Republican we care deeply about this country," Bush said. "All of us who have served in this office understand that the office itself transcends the individual."

He added: "We wish you all the very best, and so does the country."

Bush and Obama also met privately for roughly 30 minutes. That one-on-one meeting, coming just 13 days before Obama's inauguration, likely focused on grim current events, with war in the Gaza Strip and the economy in a recession.

It had been an entire generation since the nation last saw the tableau of every U.S. president together at the White House. The presidents have gathered at other locations over the years, most recently for the funeral of President Gerald Ford in Washington.

Obama suggested holding the gathering when he met Bush at the White House in November.

All parties seemed determined to keep details of what was discussed confidential.

Describing the lunch only in broad terms after it ended, Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs said: "The president and the former presidents had helpful advice on managing the office, as well as thoughts on the critical issues facing the country right now. The president-elect is anxious to stay in touch with all of them in the coming years."

Obama has sought to strike a balance as the power curve bends his way. Before taking office, he is publicly rallying Congress behind a massive economic stimulus plan. But he remains deferential to Bush on foreign affairs and will not comment on Israel's deadly conflict with Hamas on grounds that doing so would be dangerous for the United States.

"You can't have two administrations running foreign policy at the same time," Obama said at a news conference earlier in the day.

Vice President-elect Joe Biden also held a private meeting with former President Bush at the White House on Wednesday.

'We'll just share war stories'

Considering the bond they hold in history, U.S. presidents get together infrequently, particularly at the White House. And when they are in the same room, it is usually for a milestone or somber moment — a funeral of a world leader, an opening of a presidential library, a commemoration of history.

Not this time.

"It's going to be an interesting lunch," Bush told an interviewer recently. When asked what the five men would talk about, Bush said: "I don't know. I'm sure (Obama's) going to ask us all questions, I would guess. If not, we'll just share war stories."

They have plenty of those, political and otherwise. Their paths to power have long been entwined.

Carter lost the presidency to Ronald Reagan, whose running mate was George H.W. Bush. Bush later won election but lost after one term to Clinton. Then Bush's son, the current president, defeated Clinton's vice president, Al Gore. And this year Obama won after long linking his opponent, John McCain, to Bush.

Campaign rivalries

Those campaign rivalries tend to soften over time as presidents leave the White House and try to adopt the role of statesmen — although Carter, even as an ex-president, has had some critical public words for the current president's foreign policy.

All five men were to pose for a group photo in the Rose Garden, but a January rainstorm scrapped that plan. So the noontime photo opportunity — the media's only glimpse of them — was moved indoors to the Oval Office.

The presidents and Obama were having lunch in a private dining room off the Oval Office, where no one else was expected to join them.

"All of us would love to be flies on the wall and listening to that conversation," White House press secretary Dana Perino said.

The rare presidential joint appearance also offered Bush, who ends his two terms deeply unpopular, to again show he is rising above the fray.

The last White House event to draw the former presidents was a November 2000 celebration in honor of the White House's 200th anniversary. But one of the former presidents, Ronald Reagan, who was afflicted with Alzheimer's, was unable to attend.

All the presidents were last at the White House in 1981: Richard Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan, who was president then. The three former presidents were there before leaving as part of the U.S. delegation to the funeral of Egypt's Anwar Sadat, who had been assassinated.

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Obama Plan Includes $300 Billion in Tax Cuts

2009-01-05T05:10:00.000-08:00

President-elect Barack Obama plans to include about $300 billion in tax cuts for workers and businesses in his economic recovery program, advisers said Sunday, as his team seeks to win over Congressional skeptics worried that he was too focused on government spending.

The legislation Mr. Obama is developing with Congressional Democrats will devote about 40 percent of the cost to tax cuts, including his centerpiece campaign promise to provide credits up to $500 for most workers, costing roughly $150 billion. The package will also include more than $100 billion in tax incentives for businesses to create jobs and invest in equipment or factories.

The overall economic package, of $675 billion to $775 billion, is taking shape as Mr. Obama arrived in Washington and planned to begin trying to build support in Congress and among the broader public for his approach to stimulating the economy. Mr. Obama, who flew to the capital on Sunday to join his family in a hotel suite while awaiting his inauguration, planned to meet with Congressional leaders on Monday and deliver a speech on Thursday laying the ground for his emerging economic program.

Although some tax cuts were always expected to be included in Mr. Obama’s economic package, his team disclosed the scope and some details of the plans on Sunday at a time when Republicans have begun voicing criticism of what they describe as an open-checkbook approach to spending. By focusing more attention on the tax cuts in the plan, Obama aides hope to frame it as a balanced, pragmatic approach.

Radical reforms

Mr. Obama will use his public events this week to promise what one adviser called “radical reforms” to impose more control over the regular federal budget down the road. Among other areas, the president-elect will focus on changing Pentagon contracting and aid to corporate America, advisers said. He will also designate a chief performance officer and a chief technology officer on Wednesday to help make government more efficient, they said.

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Memo To Obama: Remember Promises of Humility

2009-01-04T16:30:00.001-08:00

By RUSSELL A. MILLER Guest columnist at the Tampa Tribune

In the first year of his presidency George W. Bush was forced to confront the crisis of global terrorism. He responded by aggrandizing his power as president under the theory of a "unitary executive." The controversial and thoroughly repudiated policies that resulted, including warrantless surveillance of Americans' phone conversations, torture, and disregard for the basic constitutional rights of detainees, represented the most sweeping assertion of unchecked executive power in generations.

It was a credit to his campaign that Barak Obama strenuously rejected President Bush's vision of an all-powerful president and promised that, if elected, he would operate within constitutional and statutory restraints that had been flouted by the Bush administration.

That was before Obama won the election and acquired the powerful mantle of the presidency. And that was before it was clear that his first year in office also would be dominated by a crisis, albeit this time taking the form of a severe recession.

But what was worth criticizing with respect to the Bush administration goes equally for the Obama administration. The president-elect campaigned for a less robust presidency. It would be an unfortunate and ironic turn if he now invoked the faltering economy to justify an executive power grab.

To keep his promise President-elect Obama should revisit the $700 billion bailout bill enacted by the lame-duck Congress in September and insist upon congressional oversight of the use of the rescue funds. He should refuse to sign any future legislation that seeks to respond to the economic crisis but fails to ensure the executive branch's political accountability through congressional oversight. He should refuse to follow President Bush's alarming example in awarding billions in emergency bailout dollars to the auto industry when Congress expressly had refused to do so.

In the face of the Bush administration's national security abuses I argued that Congress must restore the checks and balances within which our federal government was meant to operate. I won't change my tune because there is a different party in the White House or because the crisis this time is economic in nature.

Our finely wrought system of constitutional governance gives Congress the responsibility for formulating and enacting policy through deliberative and representative processes. This system makes us our own masters. Threats and crises always have been used to justify expansions of executive power, but doing so fosters unchecked and unaccountable power that often operates beyond our reach and against our interests.

This should have been established, once and for all, by the 1975 Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities. The "Church Committee," as it came to be known after its chairman, Idaho Sen. Frank Church, pursued a sweeping investigation of the executive branch's Cold War abuses in the secretive intelligence and security empire that successive presidents from both parties had built up beyond the reach of Congress.

The 14 volumes of reports the committee produced remain the most comprehensive public accounting of the workings of America's shadowy intelligence community. They reveal a confounding range of compromises and crimes that were justified as necessary to counter the nuclear-armed threat posed by the Soviet Union.

Americans were spied on. Foreign leaders were assassinated. Martin Luther King Jr. was blackmailed. In the words of Frederick A.O. Schwarz Jr., counsel to the Church Committee, these executive excesses did not make us safer and they certainly made us less free. We should have been consulted, via Congress' oversight of these activities, on these dreadful policies.

The parallels between the work of the Church Committee and the Bush administration's abuses in the war on terror are clear. The president again betrayed our highest principles in order to spy on Americans at home and to undertake human rights violations abroad. But the Church Committee stands for a more general lesson that is no less relevant for President-elect Obama as he responds to the worsening economic crisis.

The Church Committee's investigation stands as a monument to faith in constitutional governance and a stubborn commitment to the Founding Fathers' vision of limited and representative government secured by checks and balances, even in the face of serious national trials. Obama is being handed billions of dollars in discretionary authority to confront the economic crisis. He would be wise to wield that power humbly and with due deference to Congress, just like he promised he would.

Russell A. Miller is an associate professor of law at Washington & Lee University School of Law. Contact him at millerra@wlu.edu.

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Not yet in office, Obama has full plate

2009-01-02T05:31:00.000-08:00

by: Viviana Hurtado NECN/ABC

The Obama family left Hawaii, ready to face much colder weather in Chicago before heading to Washington this weekend. Beyond the frigid temperatures, the incoming President will face some of the most daunting international and domestic challenges.

On the top of the list, convincing Congress to support what some economists said could be a trillion-dollar stimulus package to shock the economy out of a deepening recession. But that will require a Presidential lobbying campaign of lawmakers, with the first formal approach scheduled for Monday, when the President-elect is expected to meet with Congressional leaders.

"The Congress is ready to spend money," Cokie Roberts said. "And he (Obama) can really do a great big series of economic measures, including he could do some important things on health care."

Other domestic challenges include reforming education and weaning the United States off of its dependence on foreign oil by developing green technologies.

Peace in the Middle East has skyrocketed to the top of the President-elect's agenda, as the fighting between Israel and Hamas continued to escalate. Not to be forgotten is the need to stamp out the seeds of extremism with roots in Pakistan, and the continuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"He's got the Bush people that put the, were in the war at the end of the administration," ABC News political analyst Matthew Dowd said. "He's got to get us out in some lengthy timetable that probably has to be 18 months or less."

Political watchers said the scope of the economic problems may require the President-elect to break some campaign promises right away, like raising taxes on those making more than $250,000 a year.

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Plans for Obama inaugural ball discussed in Wichita

2008-12-28T10:40:00.001-08:00

WICHITA, Kansas--If you can't make it to Washington D.C. for Barak Obama's historical inauguration, don't worry there will be plenty of excitement in Kansas, where the president elect has family ties.

On Saturday, the Obama Kansas Change Committee continued discussing plans for what it is calling the Obama Kansas Historical Inaugural Ball.

The all day event will feature lunch, a church service, a parade and of course live television coverage of Obama's swearing in in Washington.

Donations of $150 are required, you must RSVP by January sixth.

Call (316) 729-7109 for more information.

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Barack Obama: Yes, He Could

2008-12-27T09:00:00.001-08:00

Quite A Year, As Illinois Senator Claims Presidency

President-elect Barack Obama Accepting The Mantle
(AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

The Rise Of Barack Obama

In one of the most talked about Presidential campaigns in U.S. history, Barack Obama took the nation and the world by storm. Joel Brown reports on his meteoric rise to the White House.

In the first week of 2008, Barack Obama rocked the political world with a win in the Iowa caucuses. But the question remained: Could this black man with a rich personal history and sparse elective resume make it all the way to the presidency?

Yes, he could.

Obama took us along on a wild ride, smashing political and racial barriers as he was elected the nation's 44th president in an electoral landslide. His message of hope and change - and the viral YouTube mantra of "Yes, we can" - resonated with millions of voters after eight years of George W. Bush.

All election years are for the history books, but this one seemed especially historic: The racial angle. The high stakes. The fascinating personalities. The huge amount of money raised. The intense, sometimes over-the-top interest in this campaign.

"It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America," Obama told his supporters gathered in Chicago's Grant Park on election night, and multitudes more in a restive nation.

It was quite a year.

Iowa is 95 percent white and 2.5 percent black, hardly hospitable numbers for a black candidate.

Yet, on Jan. 3, Obama glided to a win in the leadoff Iowa caucuses, a victory that signaled the strength of his campaign organization and the candidate's appeal beyond racial lines. It was Obama's oratory - delivered by memory - at the state's Jefferson-Jackson dinner months earlier that got Democrats thinking about the Illinois senator as their nominee.

"I never expected to be here. I always knew this journey was improbable. I've never been on a journey that wasn't," Obama told the Iowa audience.

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2008-12-25T16:32:00.000-08:00

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Obama's Staff Cleared in Blagojevich Affair

2008-12-25T11:27:00.000-08:00

Internal report conducted by the future White House legal counsel has cleared the staff of US president-elect Barak Obama of any wrongdoing in the Blagojevich affair.

Rod Blagojevich is the governor of Illinois, the state that Mr Obama represented in the US Senate before being elected president. The governor is suspected of attempting to sell to the highest bidder the Senate seat left vacant by Mr Obama.

The internal report has determined that none of Mr Obama's staff were involved in the attempted sale. In particular, the role of Mr Obama's future chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel came under particular scrutiny. The report determined that, while Mr Emanuel had discussed the vacant seat with Mr Blagojevich, and suggested a possible candidate, he had offered the governor no reward for choosing that candidate.

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Obama unveils team for stimulus, jobs

2008-11-24T09:27:00.000-08:00

As expected, president-elect names Geithner as his treasury secretary

CHICAGO - President-elect Barack Obama on Monday unveiled his economic team amid expectations that he would urge the next Congress to quickly pass a massive stimulus plan that would dwarf even his campaign proposals to salvage the country's financial wreckage.

"I've sought leaders who could offer both sound judgment and fresh thinking, both a depth of experience and a wealth of bold new ideas — and most of all, who share my fundamental belief that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers," Obama said at the start of a Chicago press conference. "That in this country, we rise and fall as one nation, as one people."

As expected, the president-elect named Timothy Geithner, the New York Federal Reserve president, as his treasury secretary. Wall Street stocks jumped on Friday when word of Geithner's appointment began to leak.

Geithner, 47, will team with Lawrence Summers, a treasury secretary under former President Bill Clinton and former Harvard University president, who will take over the National Economic Council.

Obama also named three others on his economic team:

Christina Romer as director of the Council of Economic Advisers. Romer is a U.C. Berkeley professor of economics, and co-director of the Program in Monetary Economics at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Melody Barnes as director of the Domestic Policy Council. Co-director of the Agency Review Working Group for the Obama transition team, she also served as the senior domestic policy advisor to Obama during the campaign. Barnes previously worked at the Center for American Progress and as chief counsel to Senator Ted Kennedy.
Heather Higginbottom as deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council. She was Obama's policy director during the campaign and earlier served as Sen. John Kerry's legislative director.

Democratic officials also said Obama plans to name New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson as commerce secretary, adding a prominent Hispanic and one-time Democratic presidential rival to his Cabinet. Richardson served as U.N. ambassador in the Clinton administration and later as energy secretary.

Obama was speaking against a backdrop of increasing calls for him to assert himself well before he takes office Jan. 20 in the midst of the most severe U.S. financial crisis in eight decades.

In the latest bailout, the U.S. government announced late Sunday it had agreed to shoulder hundreds of billions of dollars in possible losses at the banking giant Citigroup, and to put a fresh $20 billion into the stricken company.

Obama's team will confront an economic crisis that continues to deepen in spite of hundreds of billions of dollars in federal emergency spending in recent weeks.

"The stakes are high," said Julian Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. "This is a really dangerous moment ... for the economy. It’s almost as if no one’s in control. Now people are looking to (Obama) to find out at least what’s going to happen in the next few months, if not the next few weeks."

Except for one short news conference, Obama has kept a low public profile since his November 4 victory over Republican John McCain, remaining in Chicago to pick his Cabinet but not formally announcing any of his choices.

Other members of Obama’s team are likely to include:

Peter Orszag, a former Clinton administration economic aide, as the White House budget director. Orszag has been director of the Congressional Budget Office since January 2007.

Jason Furman, Obama’s top economic policy coordinator during the presidential campaign, is likely to get a senior role, probably as the No. 2 official at the National Economic Council.

Tax cut/stimulus package

Top aides said Sunday that Obama wants Congress to use its large Democratic majority when it convenes Jan. 6 to prepare tax cuts for low- and middle-income earners as part of the massive government intervention designed to pull the country out of its frightening economic nosedive.

Some economists have endorsed spending up to $600 billion to revive the economy. Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, and Clinton-era Labor Secretary Robert Reich, a member of Obama's economic advisory board, both suggested $500 billion to $700 billion.

Before winning the presidency Nov. 4, Obama had said he looked to create a $175 billion stimulus package. While the new plan will be significantly larger, it was expected to incorporate his campaign ideas for tax cuts and new jobs in energy technologies to lessen dependence on foreign oil and to reduce carbon emissions.

"I don't know what the number is going to be, but it's going to be a big number," Goolsbee said on Sunday. "It has to be. The point is to, kind of, get people back on track and startle the thing into submission."

Over the weekend, Obama directed his team to erect a plan to create 2.5 million new jobs by the end of 2010, and aides said his broader economic program was designed to quickly offer tax relief to lower- and middle-income earners.

No tax hike on wealthiest for now

Significantly the plan would not offer an immediate tax increase on wealthy taxpayers. During the campaign, Obama said he would raise taxes on people making more than $250,000.

"There won’t be any tax increases in the January package," said one Obama aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the details of the Obama package have not been fleshed out.

Obama could delay any tax increase to 2011, when current Bush administration tax cuts expire.

House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio urged Obama to make that explicit. "Why wouldn’t we have the president-elect say, 'I am not going to raise taxes on any American in my first two years in office?'"

'Want to hit the ground running'

Obama senior adviser David Axelrod earlier unambiguously voiced Obama's overall expectations.

"Our hope is that the new Congress begins work on this as soon as they take office in early January, because we don't have time to waste here, " he said on Sunday. "We want to hit the ground running on January 20th."

Congress will have two weeks to hold hearings and write legislation between its return to Washington in early January and Obama's inauguration.

Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the second-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, acknowledged a readiness for quick action.

"We expect to have during the first couple of weeks of January a package for the president's consideration when he takes office."

Axelrod also warned executives of the U.S. auto industry to draw up plans to retool and restructure their industry if they want the billions of dollars they are seeking from Congress. Otherwise, Axelrod said, "there is very little taxpayers can do to help them."

Fighting terrorism

Obama also delved into one of the most pressing foreign policy issues facing his presidency, calling Afghan President Hamid Karzai by telephone and telling him that fighting terrorism there and in the region would be a top priority, Karzai's office said on Sunday.

The Saturday conversation between Obama and Karzai was the first reported contact between the two since the Nov. 4 election. The United States has some 32,000 American troops in Afghanistan, a number that will be increased by thousands next year.

Fighting terrorism and the insurgency "in Afghanistan, the region and the world is a top priority," Karzai's office quoted Obama as saying during the conversation.

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Great expectations: Obama will have to deliver

2008-11-05T14:43:00.000-08:00

Over and over, Barack Obama told voters if they stuck with him "we will change this country and change the world." They did, and now their expectations for him to deliver are firmly planted on his shoulders. Many supporters greeted his victory with euphoria.

Impatient for a new American era and overcome by a black man's historic ascension to the White House, they took his achievement for their own — weeping, dancing in the streets, blaring happy horns into Wednesday morning.

But campaign rhetoric soon collides with the gritty duties of governing, and hard realities stand in Obama's way.

The youthful president-elect appears to know this. His victory speech emphasized humility far more than his fabled confidence, with remarks heavily leavened by references to the difficulties before the nation.

He declared "change has come to America" and closed with his "yes we can" campaign slogan, but not before speaking of the certainty of setbacks. "The road ahead will be long," Obama warned. "We may not get there in one year or even one term."

Atop Obama's challenge list is the global and domestic turmoil that he inherits. None of it is his own making, but it will shape his presidency before he lifts one finger.

The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Two wars in unstable, hostile lands. Other foreign hot spots such as Pakistan and Congo, nuclear standoffs with North Korea and Iran. A warming planet.

Then there are high health care and energy costs, sunken home values, wiped-out retirement and investment accounts. A federal deficit that is exploding as the nation throws money at its economic problems, sure to crimp Obama's ability to spend his way to solutions.

He also faces challenging political realities.

Obama has a largely liberal voting record and owes a debt to the left wing of the Democratic Party, which mobilized millions on his behalf. These folks embraced his promises to end the Iraq war, move toward universal health care coverage and address harsh terrorist interrogation practices.

But Obama also appealed to the broader electorate as a pragmatist who pledged virtually party-blind government. He will have to decide whether it is better to disappoint the more liberal troops out of the gate or wait until later.

"A lot of people are not going to be happy in the first two years," said Democratic strategist Joe Trippi.

Matt Bennett of the center-left group Third Way said that Obama is for centrist ideas such as middle-class tax cuts and seems likely to wait on contentious goals such as overhauling the U.S. health care system.

"We do believe him when he says he's a moderate," Bennett said. "We think that's how he's going to govern."

Once the changeover happens, those who believed his "change we can believe in" slogan will want things to move quickly.

How might he go about it?

Even after nearly two years in the spotlight, little is understood about the 47-year-old first-term senator's approach to leadership. His resume: community organizer, eight years as state legislator, and less than four as U.S. senator.

As a lawmaker, he has displayed a knack for working with Republicans on a handful of favorite issues. But he has devoted most of his time in the Senate to running for president. Unlike the past seven presidents, he was never a governor or vice president. And unlike John F. Kennedy, the last senator to move directly to the presidency, Obama has not commanded troops in wartime.

Personally, he's a bit of an enigma, too.

He did lead his campaign, a huge, nearly billion-dollar operation. Throughout, he showed himself to have a detached, cerebral decision-making style that can sometimes seems out of sync with his natural charisma.

He also showed himself to be a highly disciplined, CEO-style manager. The leak-proof, tightly managed and orderly Obama operation mimics the Bush White House, and flows from "No Drama Obama" himself — a man so focused that he didn't give himself a day off from working out, even the morning after winning the presidency.

In keeping with his measured demeanor, Obama did nothing flashy his first day as president-elect, keeping to breakfast with his family and a thank-you visit to campaign workers.

All that said, he's got plenty of things in his favor.

First and foremost, he was elected exactly the way he wanted to be — in an electoral landslide. He took not only traditionally Democratic states, but once-solid Republican territory too. That allows him to claim, credibly, a broad mandate for his ideas.

So the Democrats who run Capitol Hill, for all their savvy in the ways of Washington and potential disagreements with their president, might think twice about clashing too aggressively with him. On a more practical level, they will not want to risk missing out during the midterm election cycle two years from now on Obama's eye-popping fundraising skills.

Further, the much-vaunted technological side of Obama's campaign means he could appeal directly to voters around recalcitrant lawmakers, using e-mail, text messages, Facebook and other tools.

Said Trippi, "I would not like to be a member of Congress standing in the way of passing his energy bill."

Still, Obama's honeymoon with the public — both anxious and hopeful — could be fragile.

One of the many revelers who spontaneously flocked to the White House after Obama's win, chanting, screaming and waving signs like, "Why Wait? Evict Bush Now," summed it up.

"I came down here to make a prayer ... that we'll be able to change the nation and the world," said Hollis Gentry.

Associated Press writers Deb Riechmann and Charles Babington contributed to this story.

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Obama Is Elected President as Racial Barrier Falls

2008-11-05T09:02:00.001-08:00

By Damon Winter/The New York Times

Senator Barack Obama with his wife, Michelle, and Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. with his wife, Jill, in Chicago on Tuesday night.

Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday, sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease as the country chose him as its first black chief executive.

"Now comes the tough part, of course. But the symbolism of this magnificent choice by the American people cannot but illuminate the world."

The election of Mr. Obama amounted to a national catharsis — a repudiation of a historically unpopular Republican president and his economic and foreign policies, and an embrace of Mr. Obama’s call for a change in the direction and the tone of the country.

But it was just as much a strikingly symbolic moment in the evolution of the nation’s fraught racial history, a breakthrough that would have seemed unthinkable just two years ago.

Mr. Obama, 47, a first-term senator from Illinois, defeated Senator John McCain of Arizona, 72, a former prisoner of war who was making his second bid for the presidency.

To the very end, Mr. McCain’s campaign was eclipsed by an opponent who was nothing short of a phenomenon, drawing huge crowds epitomized by the tens of thousands of people who turned out to hear Mr. Obama’s victory speech in Grant Park in Chicago.

Mr. McCain also fought the headwinds of a relentlessly hostile political environment, weighted down with the baggage left to him by President Bush and an economic collapse that took place in the middle of the general election campaign.

“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer,” said Mr. Obama, standing before a huge wooden lectern with a row of American flags at his back, casting his eyes to a crowd that stretched far into the Chicago night.

“It’s been a long time coming,” the president-elect added, “but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment, change has come to America.”

The focus shifted quickly on Wednesday to the daunting challenges facing the president-elect, with his supporters offering sober reflections of what lies ahead.

“We’re in deep trouble,” said Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat and leader in the civil rights movement, on the Today show on NBC.

“We’ve got to get our economy out of the ditch, end the war in Iraq and bring our young men and women home, provide health care for all our citizens,” Mr. Lewis said. “And he’s going to call on us, I believe, to sacrifice. We all must give up something.”

Mr. McCain delivered his concession speech under clear skies on the lush lawn of the Arizona Biltmore, in Phoenix, where he and his wife had held their wedding reception. The crowd reacted with scattered boos as he offered his congratulations to Mr. Obama and saluted the historical significance of the moment.

“This is a historic election, and I recognize the significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight,” Mr. McCain said, adding, “We both realize that we have come a long way from the injustices that once stained our nation’s reputation.”

Not only did Mr. Obama capture the presidency, but he led his party to sharp gains in Congress. This puts Democrats in control of the House, the Senate and the White House for the first time since 1995, when Bill Clinton was in office.

The day shimmered with history as voters began lining up before dawn, hours before polls opened, to take part in the culmination of a campaign that over the course of two years commanded an extraordinary amount of attention from the American public.

As the returns became known, and Mr. Obama passed milestone after milestone —Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Iowa and New Mexico — people rolled spontaneously into the streets to celebrate what many described, with perhaps overstated if understandable exhilaration, a new era in a country where just 143 years ago, Mr. Obama, as a black man, could have been owned as a slave.

For Republicans, especially the conservatives who have dominated the party for nearly three decades, the night represented a bitter setback and left them contemplating where they now stand in American politics.

Republican leaders began on Wednesday what will likely be a lengthy re-examination of their brand, as Democrats hope to shape a long-term realignment of the electoral map.

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If Obama Loses, Who Gets Blamed?

2008-11-03T05:21:00.001-08:00

His loss would be disastrous for the media and political establishment.

By John Dickerson

If Barack Obama wins the election, it will be historic. And if he loses, it will be pretty historic, too: It would mark the biggest collective error in the history of the media and political establishment.

An Obama loss would mean the majority of pundits, reporters and analysts were wrong. Pollsters would have to find a new line of work, since Obama has been ahead in all 159 polls taken in the last six weeks. The massive crowds that have regularly turned out to see Obama would turn out to have meant nothing. This collective failure of elites would provide such a blast of schadenfreude that Republicans like Rush Limbaugh would be struck speechless (another historic first).

This situation lends a feeling of unreality to the proceedings as we begin to measure the time until Election Day in hours. It is the elephant on the campaign plane. No one is letting on. Journalists aren't supposed to. Plus, we've been wrong so often, and politics can be so unpredictable, it would be dumb to say that Obama is going to win big.

John McCain is still running hard, and Obama isn't doing any premature celebrating. Members of his staff are on a hair-trigger for any stories that might suggest he or they are displaying overconfidence. Aides said Obama was reacting to the apparent good news with trademark equilibrium though they did say he was happy to be at the end of his journey. "He's exhilarated," said David Axelrod. "He smells the finish line."

Despite Obama's even keel, there are a few small signs that suggest Obama is feeling good. He's flashing that magazine-cover smile, the one that takes over his face, a little more often. On the stump, where he's given nearly the exact same speech for a week, he's started to show some of the looseness of his earlier campaign. "Don't be hoodwinked," he said of McCain's claims, a standard line, to which he added a less regular filigree: "Don't be bamboozled, don't fall for the okey-doke."

In Columbus, Obama even gave a shout-out to McCain. Talking about the need to improve the political discourse, he said that also included the need for more humor. "John McCain was funny yesterday on Saturday Night Live," he said. "I didn't see it last night but I saw it on YouTube. That's what our politics should be about, the ability to laugh at ourselves."

Obama has had the most fun with Dick Cheney, who recently said he was "delighted" to endorse John McCain. "You've never seen Dick Cheney delighted, but he is," Obama told a crowd here, chucking to himself. "It's kinda hard to picture, but it's true." He went on to congratulate McCain. "He had to work hard for it!" The rain started pouring in the middle of his Cheney routine, but Obama didn't miss a beat. "Did you notice that it all started when I started talking about Dick Cheney? We've been through a nation of storms but sunshine is on the way."

In Cleveland, Bruce Springsteen opened for Obama. When he was finished, the Obama family joined him, and Springsteen brought up his wife Patty Scialfa and their three kids. Suddenly it was like we were all in the vestibule of a holiday party as The One and The Boss implored their children to step forward and shake the hands.

Share this article on DiggBuzz up!Share this article on BuzzWhen the rally in Cleveland concluded, Obama was drenched but lingered for a moment in front of the crowd, estimated at 80,000, and did a few tiny little dance steps to "Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours," the Stevie Wonder song that plays after each rally the minute he stops speaking.

It's hard to guess at a candidate's inner feelings. It is particularly hard with Obama, whose emotions are as carefully constrained as a Bonsai tree and who keeps the press at a chilly distance. It could be that Obama is just happy to be with his family. Since Saturday, Obama's wife Michelle and children, Malia and Sasha, have been with him. The girls are clearly delighted to be in his company. At most stops, Michelle introduces her husband and implores the audience to help her husband finish the quest he started in their name 21 months ago. "I would love to give credit to my husband," she said, "but this race is not about him but all of us, all of you. He's taken us 85 percent of the way. The rest is on us."

Obama told the crowd in Cleveland that the family time is shaping his mood. "The last few days I've been feeling good," he said. "You start thinking that maybe we might win an election November 4."

Great: Now another American institution could be in peril: If Obama loses, we may have reason to doubt the power of family, too.

2008-10-26T15:35:00.000-07:00

3 Tips to Choose the Best Credit Repair Service

By Link Robertson

Many credit repair services make it sound as if all you have to do is pay them and your credit report will be fixed. However this is not true, below is a criteria you should use when choosing a service.

Do Not Pay Large Fees

Many services will charge large upfront fees. Instead look for more standard rates such as $179 for a start up fee and then a monthly fee of $100 or less. Some services will charge per action, I do not suggest this as your fees can add up quickly to more than $100 / month.

Also you should avoid a company that says you must make a large upfront payment, these companies are typically not effective services and are looking to make a quick buck at your expense.

Look For Refunds Not Guarantees

Credit repair can not be guaranteed, esspecially upfront. This is similar to a defense attorney guaranteeing that you will be found innocent of a criminal charge - IT CAN NOT BE DONE

I strongly suggest you avoid any service that make a guarantee, instead look for a refund policy or warranty. Many good services will offer a refund if their service is ineffective or you are not satisfied.

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Leading in polls, Obama plays it safe

2008-10-11T07:34:00.000-07:00

Refers to McCain as 'my opponent,' let's allies respond to sharp attacks

Alex Brandon / AP

Sen. Barack Obama at a rally at the Genoa Park and Amphitheater in Columbus, Ohio, on Friday.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Leading in polls with 25 days to the election, Democrat Barack Obama is playing it safe, offering careful proposals to address the economic crisis while letting allies respond to John McCain's sharpest charges.

The Democratic presidential nominee, famous for his unscripted oratory, now reads his speeches from TelePrompTers, reducing the chance of gaffes. He has not held a news conference in two weeks, although he has done several one-on-one interviews with national and local reporters.

He now refers to Republican John McCain as "my opponent" more often than by name. And he offers carefully limited, comparatively non-controversial remedies for the nation's financial crisis.

Publicly, Obama's aides say he keeps a calm demeanor and measured tone because he doesn't want to fuel the anguish and panic caused by the economic meltdown. Privately, they acknowledge there is no desire to shake up a campaign dynamic that is inching him closer to the White House.

"I don't like to yell," Obama told more than 10,000 people in Columbus on Friday, his fifth large rally in hotly contested Ohio in two days. He was referring to a sound-system glitch, but it could have been a metaphor for his home-stretch strategy.

"He's responding just right, and the polls are reflecting it," said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who campaigned with Obama this week and helped lead the counterattacks against McCain. When GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin spoke in Ohio on Thursday, Brown said, she spent too much time on issues such as Obama's ties to Vietnam War-era radical William Ayers, now a college professor in Chicago.

"People are saying, 'What about our jobs, what about the banking situation?'" Brown said.

On Friday as McCain rolled out a new TV ad with his sharpest language yet about Ayers, the sharpest Democratic response came from Obama's running mate, Joe Biden, who told an audience in Springfield, Mo., that McCain is trying to "take the lowest road to the highest office in America."

Careful balance

Obama is seeking a careful balance these days. He criticizes details of McCain's chief economic proposals, and he briefly and broadly disputes Republican attacks on his character, not getting into details. That seems to satisfy Democratic stalwarts who feel recent nominees were too slow to respond to character attacks.

Obama devotes more time to explaining his own long-standing proposals for tax cuts and energy investments. On Friday, he added a temporary program of tax breaks, low-interest government and government-backed private loans for small businesses having trouble borrowing to meet payrolls, maintain inventories or expand.

When this careful rhetoric threatened to bore crowds seeking rhetorical fireworks and when the economic problems turned into a crisis, he added more upbeat lines to his stump speech.

"Now is not the time for fear," Obama said at every Ohio stop this week. "Now is the time for resolve and steady leadership."

Unless asked, he does not mention McCain's and Palin's fiercest line of attack: that he has associated with Ayers, a former 1960s radical who helped found the violent Weather Underground. When questioned on a radio talk show this week, Obama said that when he began working with Ayers on two nonprofit organization boards in Chicago a quarter century later he thought that the college professor, who lives in his neighborhood, had been rehabilitated.

Increasingly, high-profile supporters take the sharper jabs at McCain before Obama comes on stage. On a sunny street with a few thousand people in Chillicothe, Ohio, on Friday, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland played the part.

"The McCain-Palin campaign and some of their followers unfortunately want you to be afraid of Barack Obama," he said, adding that "others" have spread untruths about the nominee.

The money mess Obama or McCain will inherit

2008-09-23T10:38:00.000-07:00

The next president's domestic policy cake has already been baked.

The next president’s foreign policy and defense script has long since been written.

To simplify only slightly, it consists of winding down Iraq, declawing Iran and Hugo Chavez, and keeping Russia calm.

And now, after a scary and tumultuous fortnight of economic woes and corporate bailouts, his domestic narrative has also been outlined. And global credit markets, the Bush administration and Congress are holding the pen.

For the president-elect, this will consist largely of navigating the vast and bewildering new economic world order created by Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke.

Unprecedented presidential inheritance

Of course, new administrations always deal with the consequences of the previous one, but this kind of thing has never happened.

Who is Henry Paulson?

Sept. 22: Fearing he wouldn't have much influence, Henry Paulson had to be talked into becoming Treasury Secretary two years ago. Now he's putting his stamp on the entire global economy. NBC's Pete Williams reports.

Imagine if Herbert Hoover had constructed the New Deal just before turning it over to Franklin Roosevelt. Or if James Buchanan had declared war on the South before Abe Lincoln took the oath.

No wonder Barack Obama has said that, if he wins, he’ll keep Paulson in power at least through the transition. Obama will need the treasury secretary to explain this new system he’s supposed to run.

Indeed, Paulson has been on the phone almost every day with both Obama and John McCain.

It’s more than a courtesy. In a sense, a new administration already is in office. These days, George W. Bush rarely emerges from the West Wing.

The new economic machine
And what is the new machine that Obama or McCain will inherit?

Think of it as the world’s largest government-run “sovereign wealth fund.”

Economic decision-making in America is now fully in the hands of bureaucrats. And they don’t have the independent power Americans once had.

While no one can go it alone in a globalized world, we have lost the power acquired — and ultimately abused — after World War II to set the terms of trade.

Until recently, we could afford to make fun of Brussels. Now we are Brussels, with its hive of bureaucrats. Ours is located in Washington.

New York — the city of Alexander Hamilton, J.P. Morgan and the Rockefellers — has now ceased to be the capitol of capital.

What it means for the president-elect

Our greed, folly and ineptitude are to blame. So is a willful refusal to acknowledge that there is no free lunch and that what goes up must come down. We have officially ruined what it took us a hundred years to build: the credibility of Wall Street and dollar-centric commerce.

This is the reality that Obama or McCain will have to deal with.

That means higher taxes, lower spending and a scaling back of grand plans. It means a new realism and a long slog into the future.

The main task of the next president is already set. He’s got to make the act of digging out sound exciting. We’ve done it before. All it takes is leadership.

Another Lincoln or FDR will do.

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Nielsen: Almost 40 million watch Obama speech

2008-09-04T05:29:00.001-07:00

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- Almost 40 million people watched Sen. Barack Obama's acceptance of the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday night, according to Nielsen Media Research. That figure, which includes both broadcast and cable networks, is nearly twice the four-day average of the 2004 Democratic National Convention. And with 7.6 million black viewers, the event was the fifth most-watched nonsports program among African-Americans in 11 years, Nielsen added.

AWESOME!!!

Obama Casts McCain as Rich, Out of Touch

2008-08-21T15:45:00.001-07:00

RICHMOND, Va. – Democrat Barack Obama Thursday depicted John McCain as rich, out of touch and less a foreign-policy expert than he claims — part of the increasingly negative tone of the presidential hopeful's message as he tries to fight the perception that his campaign has stalled.

Two national polls released Wednesday showed McCain has drawn almost even with Obama in the last few weeks, thanks to an aggressive new tone and a series of negative campaign commercials painting Obama as a tax raiser who is ill-prepared to lead in a dangerous world. That, in turn, has prompted Obama to step up his rhetoric against McCain.

Both an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll and a CBS News/New York Times survey found the race close — Obama with 45 percent to 42 percent for McCain.

At a town-hall meeting here, Obama was introduced by Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, widely believed to be on Obama's short list of possible vice presidential contenders. The two met privately for about 15 minutes before the campaign appearance. Kaine later batted away questions about his prospects.

"I'm going to let the campaign speak for the campaign," he said.

Speaking to supporters, Obama chided McCain for an interview he gave to the Politico Web site where he said he didn't know how many homes he owns. McCain's wife, Cindy, is an heiress to a large beer distributorship whose wealth is estimated to be at least $100 million.

"If you're like me, and you've got one house, or you are like the millions of people who are struggling right now to keep up with their mortgage so they don't lose their home, you might have a different perspective," Obama said.

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Obama proposes $7K credit for fuel-efficient cars

2008-08-06T08:44:00.000-07:00

Automotive News

LANSING, Mich. (Reuters) -- Barack Obama proposed tapping the strategic oil reserve on Monday to help lower gas prices, reversing an earlier stance, and called rival John McCain a tool of big oil companies as rising energy costs took center stage in the U.S. presidential campaign.

In a speech assessing the country's energy future, Obama called for a $7,000 tax credit to help consumers buy fuel-efficient cars, set a goal of 1 million plug-in hybrid cars on U.S. roads by 2015 and proposed a requirement that 10 percent of U.S. energy comes from renewable sources by the end of his first term.

Obama, celebrating his 47th birthday, also unveiled a package of steps designed to end U.S. reliance on oil imports from the Middle East and Venezuela within 10 years, including tax credits for buyers of fuel-efficient hybrid cars.

In a speech in Michigan, a battleground in November's White House election and home to the struggling U.S. auto industry, he proposed releasing 70 million barrels of light oil, easier to refine into gasoline, from the emergency U.S. stockpile.

The Democratic senator from Illinois said the light oil could be replaced later with heavier crude in a swap designed to bring quick relief from high gasoline prices.

"We have to make a serious, nationwide commitment to developing new sources of energy and we have to do it right away," Obama said.

McCain fired back in Pennsylvania, criticizing Obama's opposition to nuclear power and offshore drilling and calling on Congress and Obama to return to Washington from their summer break to try to solve the country's energy challenges.

"Anybody who says that we can achieve energy independence without using and increasing these existing energy resources either doesn't have the experience to meet the challenges we face or isn't giving the American people straight talk," McCain said in Lafayette Hill, a suburb of Philadelphia.

The Obama campaign responded with a challenge.

"If Senator McCain is willing to pass a compromise that provides immediate relief to consumers in the form of a $1,000 energy rebate and makes a serious investment in renewable energy, Senator Obama would be happy to join him in calling on Congress to return," said Obama spokesman Bill Burton.

"But if he continues to reject any compromise that takes away tax breaks for the same oil companies that have given millions to his campaign ... we'd rather not waste the American people's tax dollars,"

Two daily tracking polls show McCain, a Republican senator from Arizona, has in the past week wiped out Obama's narrow national lead in the campaign for the Nov. 4 election.

The faltering U.S. economy, including rising gas prices, rank as the top issue for American voters in most polls.

AD SAYS MCCAIN 'IN OIL'S POCKET'

Obama's new television advertisement said McCain was "in the pocket" of oil companies. The ad pictured McCain standing with President George W. Bush. "After one president in the pocket of Big Oil -- we can't afford another," it says.

The McCain camp said the ad failed to mention McCain opposed a 2005 energy bill that provided billions in tax breaks for energy producers, including oil companies. Obama voted for the bill, which was backed by the Republican president.

The McCain campaign also blasted Obama's proposal on the strategic oil reserve, noting he said just weeks ago that it should be used only for genuine emergencies.

"Tapping the strategic oil reserve is not a substitute for a real plan to increase supply through additional drilling and nuclear power," McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said.

"The last release of oil from the strategic reserve came in response to Hurricane Katrina, but the only crisis that has developed since Barack Obama last rejected this idea two months ago is a slide in his poll numbers," he said.

Obama's reversal on tapping the emergency oil stockpile is his second shift on energy issues in recent days.

On Friday he dropped his blanket opposition to offshore oil drilling and signaled he would be open to limited drilling as part of a compromise energy package in Congress aimed at reining in prices.

But Obama said in Michigan that oil companies should first focus on drilling on 68 million acres to which they have access but have not touched.

McCain has called for opening new areas of U.S. coastline to offshore oil drilling, which polls show is supported by a majority of Americans, and nuclear power. McCain plans a visit to a nuclear power plant on Tuesday.

In Michigan, Obama also pushed his proposal for a windfall tax on the soaring profits of big oil firms, which will pay for a $1,000 tax rebate for low- and middle-income families.

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Obama Addresses Over 200,000 In Berlin Speech

2008-07-26T08:44:00.000-07:00

Sen. Barack Obama's speech in Berlin is generating extensive, and generally positive, media coverage, which casts the Illinois senator's foreign trip as a largely successful attempt to present him to the American people as a potential commander in chief.

As the Wall Street Journal puts it, Obama sought "to burnish his image as a global statesman," which "a spokesman for Sen. McCain called...'a premature victory lap.'" Obama "confidently walked onto a stage at the foot of Berlin's Victory Column to intermittent chants of 'Obama, Obama, Obama!' Some in the crowd compared the address to the rock concerts and sports events that sometimes draw hundreds of thousands of people to the Tiergarten." The Chicago Tribune says the setting "evoked historic addresses by Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan," and "offered an opportunity" for Obama "to demonstrate his capacity to represent American ideals to the international public," and USA Today says Obama "is betting he can win votes at home by proving he can win hearts abroad."

All three networks led with the story last night. NBC Nightly News reported, "As one local journalist here put it, if the election were held today, Barack Obama could sail to victory by a margin of seventy percent or more as president of Germany, perhaps even all of Europe. The only problem is Senator Obama is running for President of the United States." The CBS Evening News reported, "They've been calling this the 'Obama Show' in Berlin. His appeal here, part exotic politician, part rock star. And a rock festival-sized crowd of more than 200,000 gathered to see him." Obama "told them a lot of what they wanted to hear, that Europe and the US had drifted apart and that he would pull them back together."

Original Source: US News & World Report
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Poll: Obama isn't closing racial divide

2008-07-16T05:09:00.000-07:00

Blacks, whites hold vastly different views of the state of race relations

Scott Olson / Getty Images
Presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) speaks to attendees at the 99th annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Monday.

Americans are sharply divided by race heading into the first election in which an African-American will be a major-party presidential nominee, with blacks and whites holding vastly different views of Senator Barack Obama , the state of race relations and how black Americans are treated by society, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

The results of the poll, conducted against the backdrop of a campaign in which race has been a constant if not always overt issue, suggested that Mr. Obama’s candidacy, while generating high levels of enthusiasm among black voters, is not seen by them as evidence of significant improvement in race relations.

After years of growing political polarization, much of the divide in American politics is partisan. But Americans’ perceptions of the fall presidential election between Mr. Obama, Democrat of Illinois, and Senator John McCain , Republican of Arizona, also underlined the racial discord that the poll found. More than 80 percent of black voters said they had a favorable opinion of Mr. Obama; about 30 percent of white voters said they had a favorable opinion of him.

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Nearly 60 percent of black respondents said race relations were generally bad, compared with 34 percent of whites. Four in 10 blacks say that there has been no progress in recent years in eliminating racial discrimination; fewer than 2 in 10 whites say the same thing. And about one-quarter of white respondents said they thought that too much had been made of racial barriers facing black people, while one-half of black respondents said not enough had been made of racial impediments faced by blacks.

The survey suggests that even as the nation crosses a racial threshold when it comes to politics — Mr. Obama, a Democrat, is the son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas — many of the racial patterns in society remain unchanged in recent years.

Indeed, the poll showed markedly little change in the racial components of people’s daily lives since 2000, when The Times examined race relations in an extensive series of articles called “How Race Is Lived in America.”

As it was eight years ago, few Americans have regular contact with people of other races, and few say their own workplaces or their own neighborhoods are integrated. In this latest poll, over 40 percent of blacks said they believed they had been stopped by the police because of their race, the same figure as eight years ago; 7 percent of whites said the same thing.

Nearly 70 percent of blacks said they had encountered a specific instance of discrimination based on their race, compared with 62 percent in 2000; 26 percent of whites said they had been the victim of racial discrimination. (Over 50 percent of Hispanics said they had been the victim of racial discrimination.)

And when asked whether blacks or whites had a better chance of getting ahead in today’s society, 64 percent of black respondents said that whites did. That figure was slightly higher even than the 57 percent of blacks who said so in a 2000 poll by The Times. And the number of blacks who described racial conditions as generally bad in this survey was almost identical to poll responses in 2000 and 1990.

“Basically it’s the same old problem, the desire for power,” Macie Mitchell, a Pennsylvania Democrat from Erie County, who is black, said in a follow-up interview after participating in the poll. “People get so obsessed with power and don’t want to share it. There are people who are not used to blacks being on top.”

White perceptions, by contrast, improved markedly from 1990 to 2000, but have remained steady since. This month’s poll found that 55 percent of whites said race relations were good, almost double the figure for blacks.

The nationwide telephone poll was conducted July 7-14 with 1,796 adults, and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. In an effort to measure views of different races, the survey included larger-than-usual minority samples — 297 blacks and 246 Hispanics — with a margin of sampling error of six percentage points for each subgroup.

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Black and white Americans agree that America is ready to elect a black president, but disagree on almost every other question about race in the poll.

Black voters were far more likely than whites to say that Mr. Obama cares about the needs and problems of people like them, and more likely to describe him as patriotic. Whites were more likely than blacks to say that Mr. Obama says what he thinks people want to hear, rather than what he truly believes. And about half of black voters said race relations would improve in an Obama administration, compared with 29 percent of whites.

About 40 percent of blacks said that Mr. McCain, if elected president, would favor whites over blacks should he win the election.

There was even racial dissension over Mr. Obama’s wife, Michelle : She was viewed favorably by 58 percent of black voters, compared with 24 percent of white voters.

Among black voters, who are overwhelmingly Democrats, Mr. Obama draws support from 89percent, compared with 2 percent for Mr. McCain. Among whites, Mr. Obama has 37 percent of the vote, compared with 46 percent for Mr. McCain.

After a Democratic primary season in which Mr. Obama had difficulty competing for Hispanic votes against Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton , Mr. Obama leads Mr. McCain among Hispanic voters in the likely general election matchup by 62 to 23 percent. Mr. Obama is viewed favorably by more than half of Hispanic Americans, compared with Mr. McCain, whose favorability rating is just under one-quarter. By significant margins, these voters believe that Mr. Obama will do a better job of dealing with immigration ; Mr. McCain has been trying to distance himself from Republicans who have advocated a tough policy on permitting illegal immigrants to stay in the country.

Over all, Mr. Obama leads Mr. McCain among all registered voters by 45 percent to 39 percent.

White voters, much more so than black voters, are divided in their political loyalties. Mr. Obama draws significant support among white Democrats. Yet still, among just Democrats, blacks were more apt than whites in the poll to express positive views of Mr. Obama across a range of questions. For example, black Democrats were 24 points more likely than white Democrats to have a favorable opinion of Mr. Obama.

“I don’t like some of his policies, like on energy,” said Bob Beidelman, 69, a white Democrat from York, Pa., about Mr. Obama. “Also I don’t like statements his wife made. She seems like a spoiled brat to me.”

He added: “I’m one of those white people who clings to guns and the Bible, and those things that Barack said kind of turned me off,” he said. “This isn’t a black and white thing. If a conservative African-American like former Congressman J. C. Watts was running, I’d have bumper stickers plastered all over my car supporting him.”

The survey found extensive excitement among African-Americans about the prospect of Mr. Obama’s candidacy, a factor that could prove important in pushing voter turnout. The poll found that 72 percent of black voters said they expected Mr. Obama to win.

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The high levels of enthusiasm for Mr. Obama among black Americans suggested that there was less of a divide among them about his candidacy than suggested by occasional tension among black leaders. Last week, Mr. Obama was criticized by the Rev. Jesse Jackson as “talking down to black people” by going before black audiences and urging parents to take more responsibility for their children.

“He’s got all these enthusiastic young people working for him,” said James Wilson, 75, a property manager from Philadelphia who is black. “I’m a person who would never give money and they called on the phone and got me to give.”

The poll found that Mr. McCain is yoked to the legacy of President Bush — majorities believe that Mr. McCain, as president, would continue Mr. Bush’s policies in Iraq and on the economy. Mr. Bush’s approval rating on the economy is as low as it has been in his presidency, 20 percent; and even while there has been an increase in the number of Americans who think the war is going well, there has been no change in the significantly large number of people who think it was a mistake to have invaded.

Kevin Sack, Dalia Sussman and Marina Stefan contributed reporting.

This article, Poll finds Obama isn't closing divide on race, first appeared in The New York Times.

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Obama exhibits calm in the swirl of history

2008-06-04T07:39:00.000-07:00

Protean figure inspires devotion in supporters, consternation in critics

Jim Mone / AP

He gives the appearance of a strikingly laid-back victor, this presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., speaks at a primary night rally in St. Paul, Minn., on Tuesday.

On the day before the night he made history, Barack Obama shot hoops at the Back Bay Club in Chicago, and called the odd superdelegate or two. Then he and his wife, Michelle, kissed their daughters goodnight and, with a half dozen of their best friends, rode to Midway Airport to catch a flight to St. Paul to claim his prize. He sat on the plane, legs crossed, chuckling, chatting, giving little hint of what roiled within.

Mr. Obama has written of his “spooky good fortune” in politics, and vaulting ambition and self-possession define his rise.

He turned down a prestigious federal appellate court clerkship while at Harvard to work as a community organizer. He wrote an autobiography at the age of 33, and another 11 years later. He brushed aside a liberal mentor who stood in his way in Illinois. After just two years in the United States Senate, he announced that he would run for the presidency and then upended a Democratic Party powerhouse.

On the cusp of becoming the first African-American to capture a major party nomination, Mr. Obama remains a protean political figure, inspiring devotion in supporters who see him as a transformative leader even as he remains inscrutable to critics.

‘Rorschach test’ for voters

He has the gift of making people see themselves in him and offers an enigmatic smile when asked about his multiracial appeal.

“I am like a Rorschach test,” he said in an interview with The New York Times. “Even if people find me disappointing ultimately, they might gain something.”

He is a liberal who favors regulating Wall Street and stanching housing foreclosures, negotiating with foreign enemies and disengaging from the war in Iraq. He speaks eloquently about America’s divisions of race and class, and says the old rhetoric of racial grievance has exhausted itself.

But his insistence that he can bridge the nation’s ideological chasms without resort to partisan warfare leaves some with the nagging sense that he makes it sound too easy, and that his full measure as a politician has yet to be taken.

He has stumbled and fumbled more than once. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton confounded him, pushing him back on his heels, his irritation too apparent. He falls in love with his words and perhaps his celebrity, acknowledging after Texas that he had become too dependent on arena politics and too aloof in smaller settings.

He is a deliberative fellow in a manic game. When his now-retired pastor, the Rev Jeremiah Wright, offered incendiary views on race and politics, Mr. Obama was slow to recognize how quickly Mr. Wright’s words inflamed voters’ doubts about him.

Michelle Obama, who is also a Harvard-trained lawyer and whose fires often burn hotter than those of her husband, pointedly advises Mr. Obama to forswear the cerebral and embrace the visceral. As Republicans attack him as unknown and untested, Mr. Obama could recall her advice in the months to come.

He was raised literally and metaphorically offshore, in Indonesia by his white mother and in Hawaii by his white grandparents. He is very much an American but tends to view the incongruities of politics with the distancing eye of an outsider.

A life examined

One of the curiosities about Mr. Obama is his professed lack of interest in the writers who pore over that life, trying to deconstruct his fractured family and geography. He claims not to read profiles that pile high in his plane.

“It just encourages the narcissism that is already a congenital defect for a politician,” he says. “I find these essays more revealing about the author than about me.”

The same might be said of Mr. Obama’s autobiography, which is less a straightforward chronicle than a carefully framed coming-of-age narrative. He describes himself as a young man adrift, although few friends recall thinking him so lost.

He carries a reputation as a Natural, and insists on calm. He did not interview each prospective campaign aide, but he laid down a rule: No drama kings or queens welcome. He confides in only a handful of advisers, particularly David Axelrod, the campaign guru with the appreciation for Chicago-style politics, and rarely displays public agitation about the measuring stick of his profession, electoral wins and losses. Told in February that he had won the caucuses in Maine, an overwhelmingly white state that he had expected to lose, he nodded, mumbled “That’s great,” and turned back to a phone call.

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Sit Back, Relax, Get Ready to Rumble

2008-05-12T05:30:00.000-07:00

He's taken everything in stride, it seems. How Obama and his team will battle the GOP onslaught.

By Richard Wolffe and Evan Thomas | NEWSWEEK

How do you know if Barack Obama is unhappy with what you're saying— or not saying? At meetings of his closest advisers, he likes to lean back, put his feet on the table and close his eyes. If he doesn't like how the conversation is going, he will lean forward, put his feet on the floor and "adjust his socks, kind of start tugging at them," says Michael Strautmanis, a counselor to the campaign. Obama wants people to talk, but he doesn't want to intimidate them. "If you haven't said anything, he'll call on you," says Strautmanis. "He's never said it, but he usually thinks if somebody is very quiet it's because they disagree with what everybody is saying … so Barack will call on you and say, 'You've been awfully quiet'." There are no screamers on Team Obama; one senior Obama aide says he's heard him yell only twice in four years. Obama was explicit from the beginning: there was to be "no drama," he told his aides. "I don't want elbowing or finger-pointing. We're going to rise or fall together." Obama wanted steady, calm, focused leadership; he wanted to keep out the grandstanders and make sure the quiet dissenters spoke up. A good formula for running a campaign—or a presidency.

It worked against Hillary Clinton, whose own campaign has been rent by squabbling aides and turf battles. While Clinton veered between playing Queen Elizabeth I and Norma Rae, Obama and his team chugged along with a superior 50-state campaign strategy, racking up the delegates. If the candidate seemed weary and peevish or a little slow to respond at times, he never lost his cool. But the real test is yet to come. The Republican Party has been successfully scaring voters since 1968, when Richard Nixon built a Silent Majority out of lower- and middle-class folks frightened or disturbed by hippies and student radicals and blacks rioting in the inner cities. The 2008 race may turn on which party will win the lower- and middle-class whites in industrial and border states—the Democrats' base from the New Deal to the 1960s, but "Reagan Democrats" in most presidential elections since then. It is a sure bet that the GOP will try to paint Obama as "the other"—as a haughty black intellectual who has Muslim roots (Obama is a Christian) and hangs around with America-haters.

Obama says he's ready for the onslaught. "Yes, we know what's coming," he told a cheering crowd as he won the North Carolina primary last week. "We've seen it already … the attempts to play on our fears and exploit our differences to turn us against each other for pure political gain—to slice and dice this country into Red States and Blue States; blue-collar and white-collar; white, black, brown." Hillary Clinton was not above playing on those fears. Refusing to concede defeat last week, she cited an Associated Press poll "that found how Senator Obama's support among working, hardworking Americans, white Americans, is weakening again." As Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson wrote: "Here's what she's really saying to party leaders: There's no way that white people are going to vote for the black guy. Come November, you'll be sorry." A top Clinton adviser, speaking anonymously so he could be more frank, says the Clinton campaign has actually been holding back, for fear of alienating other Democrats. The Republicans "won't suffer from such scruples," this adviser says. Sen. John McCain himself has explicitly disavowed playing the race card or taking the low road generally. But he may not be able to resist casting doubt on Obama's patriotism. And the real question is whether he can—or really wants to—rein in the merchants of slime and sellers of hate who populate the Internet and fund the "independent expenditure" groups who exercise their freedom in ways that give a bad name to free speech.

For Obama, the challenge will be to respond quickly and surely—but without overreacting or inviting an endless cycle of recriminations. Team Obama has been a model of tight, highly efficient organization, certainly in contrast to most presidential campaigns. The few tensions that have emerged have been between those who want to stick to the high ground and those who want to fight a little dirtier. (Such debates could intensify in a hard-hitting general campaign.) The campaign has at times been a little slow to fight back. Some of this deliberation is a measure of the candidate's personality. Obama disdains cable-TV talk-show shoutfests as trivial sideshows, and he tends to discount the seriousness of campaign gaffes and flaps. As a result, he was slow to denounce the most recent round of tirades by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. By failing to alert Obama to the gravity of the Wright fiasco, "I don't think we served him well," admits his chief strategist, David Axelrod.

But Team Obama has been consistently able to outstrategize the opposition, and it does have a plan for the coming mud war. In conversations with NEWSWEEK, Obama's aides have signaled their intention to put McCain on the spot. They note that McCain himself has been the victim of a smear. In the South Carolina primary in 2000, GOP operatives spread the rumor that McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child. Recently, when a reporter asked McCain, "Does it bother you at all that you might actually benefit from latent prejudice in the country?" he answered: "That would bother me a lot. That would bother me a great deal." And last week his wife, Cindy, told NBC News, "My husband is absolutely opposed to any negative campaigning at all." So if McCain's camp does try to exploit Obama's ties to the fiery Reverend Wright, the Obama-ites can question his sincerity—is he really the "Straight Talk" candidate? And if McCain can't stop others from the sort of innuendo and code that Republicans have learned to frighten voters, Obama can cast doubt on McCain's credentials as a commander in chief. ("In other words," says liberal political pundit Mark Shields, "they can say that McCain is either a hypocrite or impotent.")

Some early skirmishes reveal the strategy. In North Carolina, the state Republican Party aired a TV ad suggesting that Obama might be "too extreme" because of his ties to the Reverend Wright. McCain told the North Carolina GOP to take down the ad, but he said that he couldn't force the state party to act, and the ad stayed on the air. "I assume that if John McCain thinks it's an inappropriate ad, that he can get them to pull it down since he's their nominee and standard-bearer," Obama declared. A campaign spokesman said, "The fact that Senator McCain can't get his own party to take down this misleading personal-attack ad raises serious questions about his promise that he will run a civil, respectful campaign."

At the time of the Pennsylvania primary, the McCain campaign sent out a letter suggesting that Obama was the candidate of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group ("Barack Obama's foreign policy plans have even won him praise from Hamas leaders," read the letter). McCain, by contrast, portrayed himself as "Hamas's worst nightmare." (In fact, Obama and McCain have the same position on Hamas —no talks, no recognition, no outreach.) Last week Obama told CNN: "This is offensive. And I think it's disappointing because John McCain always says, 'Well, I'm not going to run that kind of politics' … For him to toss out comments like that, I think, is an example of him losing his bearings as he pursues this nomination."

Longtime McCain strategist Mark Salter quickly charged that Obama was guilty of "ageism," i.e., that the Democrat was trying to slyly slip in the issue of the Republican candidate's age with his crack about McCain's "losing his bearings." It's easy to see how the presidential campaign could swiftly descend into tit-for-tat name-calling. Obama's advisers insist that the race will be about the big issues because there are stark contrasts between the candidates on Iraq and the economy. But if McCain thinks he can't win on those issues—if the war remains unpopular and the Bush downturn goes on—he will be sorely tempted to run down his opponent. The McCain campaign is now poring over Obama's record, looking for weaknesses that can be exposed without race-baiting or hitting below the belt. They want to brand Obama as a "superduper liberal who is out of the mainstream," says one McCain adviser who did not wish to be identified discussing internal campaign strategy.

A campaign insider who declined to be identified for the same reason says McCain aides are studying a private, 52-page dossier, compiled for the aborted 2004 campaign of Illinois Republican Senate candidate Jack Ryan (slated to be Obama's opponent until disclosure of some embarrassing records related to his divorce forced him to drop out). The dossier, a copy of which was obtained by a campaign insider who declined to be identified for the same reason says McCain aides are studying a private, 52-page dossier, compiled for the aborted 2004 campaign of Illinois Republican Senate candidate Jack Ryan (slated to be Obama's opponent until disclosure of some embarrassing records related to his divorce forced him to drop out). The dossier, a copy of which was obtained by NEWSWEEK, brands Obama as "in favor of coddling sex abusers" and "shamefully soft on crime and drugs." It hits, for instance, Obama's vote in 2001 against a GOP-sponsored measure to toughen penalties against "gangbangers," pushed after a particularly brutal gang killing in Chicago. Charlie Black, McCain's top strategist, tells NEWSWEEK he had not personally reviewed the Ryan dossier, but saw no problem with using Obama's votes on justice issues in the Illinois Legislature. "What's wrong with that?" he says. (An Obama spokesman says the criticism in the dossier was "long ago debunked," and that the candidate "is supported today by law-enforcement officials across Illinois and the nation. NEWSWEEK, brands Obama as "in favor of coddling sex abusers" and "shamefully soft on crime and drugs." It hits, for instance, Obama's vote in 2001 against a GOP-sponsored measure to toughen penalties against "gangbangers," pushed after a particularly brutal gang killing in Chicago. Charlie Black, McCain's top strategist, tells NEWSWEEK he had not personally reviewed the Ryan dossier, but saw no problem with using Obama's votes on justice issues in the Illinois Legislature. "What's wrong with that?" he says. (An Obama spokesman says the criticism in the dossier was "long ago debunked," and that the candidate "is supported today by law-enforcement officials across Illinois and the nation.")

McCain's top aides include some veterans of past Republican attack campaigns, like campaign strategist Steve Schmidt, who was in charge of rapid response for Bush-Cheney '04, and Black, whose experience goes all the way back to the campaigns of right-wing Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina. John Weaver, McCain's former chief strategist who resigned from the campaign last summer but keeps ties to McCain, suggests that McCain could try to block low-road smears. "He could say, 'If any major donors or political operators do that, then you will be persona non grata in my administration'," says Weaver. But McCain himself has said that he will not "referee" between various independent groups who always want to have their say in presidential campaigns. (The model is the notorious Swift Boat Veterans for Truth who unfairly but effectively questioned John Kerry's war record in 2004.) Black tells NEWSWEEK McCain was powerless to stop the "527s," named after the provision of the tax code that covers political expenditures by nonprofits, from running attack ads on their own. "Look, there's nothing we can do about the 527s," says Black.

Another McCain adviser, who asked for anonymity discussing internal campaign strategy, bluntly warned: "It's going to be Swift Boat times five on both sides … The candidates will both do their best publicly to mute it. But in a close race, I don't see how to shut that down." Indeed, two of the most experienced attack artists are already gearing up. Floyd Brown, who produced the infamous "Willie Horton" commercial that used race and fear of crime to drive voters away from Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis in 1988, produced an ad before the North Carolina primary accusing Obama of being soft on crime. He tells NEWSWEEK that Obama is "extremely vulnerable" to questioning about his ties to Chicago fixer Tony Rezko, who has been indicted for political corruption. (Obama is not linked to any wrongdoing.) Another target is former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers, whose association with Obama will remind voters of bomb-throwing student radicals of the 1960s. "There's plenty of stuff out there," says Brown. "I'm kinda like in a candy store in this election."

Then there's David Bossie, already deep into a mudslinging campaign against Obama through a political organization called Citizens United. Bossie is planning a widespread DVD release of a documentary that will portray Obama as a "limousine, out-of-control leftist liberal … more liberal than [Vermont Sen.] Bernie Sanders, who is a socialist," Bossie tells NEWSWEEK. McCain has little leverage over Bossie, who has run ads attacking McCain as too liberal in the past.

It's possible that aiming low will backfire. In the recent special election for a solidly Republican House seat in Louisiana, the national GOP ran an ad tying the Democratic candidate, Don Cazayoux, to Obama and his allegedly "radical agenda." The Democrat won—taking away the seat from the Republicans for the first time in 33 years. The result was "a sharp wake-up call for Republicans," declared former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich. "The Republican brand has been so badly damaged that if the Republicans try to run an anti-Obama … anti-Reverend Wright campaign, they are simply going to fail," Gingrich wrote. "This model has already been tested with disastrous results."

Maybe so, but desperate times can call for desperate measures. With his huge Internet network of donors, Obama can raise much more money than McCain. The Republicans will need those independent expenditures to try to keep up, no matter how distasteful the attack ads they buy.

The last Democratic presidential candidate, John Kerry, dithered and failed to quickly strike back when he was attacked by the Swift Boat veterans. The Obama team says it will not make the same mistake. "You fight back aggressively and play jujitsu," says David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager. Obama has a much more disciplined, focused team than Kerry, whose organization was prone to infighting and lacked strong leadership.

Obama has been fortunate in his senior advisers. Obama's chief strategist, David Axelrod, combines big-picture idealism and Chicago School politics of hard knocks. Plouffe is sure and steady. Having managed the successful campaign to get the mercurial Bob Torricelli elected in New Jersey to the Senate in 1996, Plouffe impressed Democratic political gurus. In 1997, Steve Elmendorf, chief of staff to former House Democratic leader Richard Gephardt, hired Plouffe as his deputy. "There are a lot of people in politics who are good strategists and there are a lot of people who are good managers," says Elmendorf. "There are not a lot of people who can do both, and David can do both." The genius of Axelrod and Plouffe was to combine astonishing (even to them) fund-raising potential on the Internet with grass-roots organizing. While Clinton was aiming for a knockout by sweeping Super Tuesday, Axelrod and Plouffe were methodically organizing a state-by-state, district-by-district strategy—including states that most political experts ignored. For example, Idaho: Obama won by 60 points and netted more delegates than Clinton took out of either Ohio or Pennsylvania.

Obama "doesn't micromanage," Axelrod tells NEWSWEEK. But, he adds, "there's never a doubt who the alpha dog is." The day after his big defeat in Ohio and his popular-vote loss in Texas, Obama traveled to the large corporate offices in Chicago that serve as his campaign headquarters. The mood was grim; they had, after all, blown their third chance to end the primary season early—after the shock of New Hampshire and the muddled results of Super Tuesday. Obama toured the office, visiting every desk to thank his mostly young staffers for their efforts and urging them to keep their chins up. Then he walked into a conference room for a far tougher two-hour conversation with his senior staff. "We rise or fall together," he started out. "I'm not pointing fingers at any single person because we all share responsibility." He talked through his own mistakes as a candidate and went around the table asking people for their input in the postmortem. Speaking calmly but intensely, he then took control to explain how he saw it. He worked his way through a detailed, handwritten list of what went right and wrong—including how they misspent time and money, how they relied too much on impersonal rallies and how the schedule was flawed.

At the end of the meeting, Obama stood up and began to walk out of the room, before wheeling around to say one more thing to his somber staff: "I'm not yelling at you and I'm not screaming. Although for $20 million for two primaries and the results we got, I could," he said, laughing. "But I'm not."

Obama's almost preternatural equanimity has helped keep his campaign on an even keel. Although he can seem slightly humorless on TV, as he is fencing with an inquiring anchorperson or debating an opponent, he has a light touch in the office, and he can laugh off adversity. Obama has shown signs of exhaustion, and he has appeared increasingly gaunt. Mocked for not finishing his waffles, he has made a joke about his newfound willingness to drink beer in blue-collar bars and sop up the gravy at working-class diners. After he lost the Pennsylvania primary to a beer-swilling, whisky-downing Hillary, Obama mordantly announced to his staff, "OK, now I'll eat anything."

Some candidates are feared and respected by their staffs, but they are very rarely liked after a few grueling months on the campaign trail. Obama seems to have retained the affection of his. As the crucial North Carolina and Indiana primaries approached, Axelrod pulled a series of all-nighters to try to close the deal. After the campaign plane landed at one brief stop in Charlotte, N.C., Obama asked how Axelrod was doing. "I'm really tired," Axelrod said. Obama put his hand on his shoulder and said, "Why don't you stay here and have a nap?" Axelrod reluctantly agreed: "You know, I think I will." To those around, it spoke to the unconventional and close partnership between the candidate and his consigliere.

On the night before Indiana and North Carolina, Axelrod appeared unusually grim and gloomy. The final night of internal polling showed Obama 12 points down in Indiana against Clinton—a disastrous collapse after two or three days of closing the gap. The campaign's pollsters cautioned that the last night's sample seemed weird and they should rely instead on the three-day rolling average of 2 points. But Axelrod feared the worst, that Wright had sunk the campaign in Indiana and possibly in North Carolina, too.

The next day, after visiting some polling stations, Obama arrived back at his hotel and stopped by the coffee shop, where he urged some curious bystanders to vote for him. When a NEWSWEEK reporter asked him about Axelrod's gloomy prognosis, Obama shrugged and said: "It is what it is. We've had a month, two months of bad stuff. It's been hard to change the storyline." He smiled and walked out to get ready for his now traditional Election Day game of basketball. If he was at all worried, as his senior staff was, he hid his concerns successfully from the outside world.

There is no ready training for commander in chief, and no real way to predict how a man or woman will perform once in the Oval Office. Campaigns can deceive voters, or at least mask shortcomings. After watching his father's triumph in 1988 and failure in 1992, George W. Bush had a good feel for the mechanics of campaigning: the importance of money, message and geography. His 2000 campaign was well managed by a tight group of loyal aides, with little infighting. It was only after he became president that voters began to grasp Bush's failings as an executive—his disdain for expert opinion, his stubborn approach to policy or rivals, his fatal lack of follow-through.

Obama, at least, seems to be more curious than the current president. Ruchi Bhowmik, a legislative counsel in Obama's Senate office, is one of the staffers whom Obama has called upon because she was too quiet in a gathering. "When he's at a meeting, he's very inclusive and a very good listener," she tells NEWSWEEK. "He's not looking to dictate what everyone is discussing, and he wants to hear what everyone is thinking. He doesn't discount things." On Capitol Hill, Senator Obama has been a foe of "knee jerk" thinking, says Bhowmik. "Obama's response is, 'Well, we've always done it that way—why?' "

Presidential campaigns may be in some ways little more than glorified stress tests, not true measures of the potential for presidential greatness. Still, they do offer significant peeks into personal character. Obama "does not get rattled," says Bhowmik. "I've never seen it." He has "grace under fire." In the coming campaign, he will need it.

Link to original post from Newsweek.

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Obama strongly denounces former pastor

2008-04-29T15:55:00.000-07:00

Obama calls Wright's recent comments 'wrong and destructive'

April 29: Speaking out about his former pastor, Barack Obama said, “I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened by the spectacle that we saw yesterday.”
MSNBC

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Tuesday he was outraged by the latest divisive comments from his former pastor and rejected the notion that he secretly agrees with him.

Obama is seeking to tamp down the growing fury over Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his incendiary remarks that threaten to undermine his campaign at a tough time. The Illinois senator is coming off a loss in Pennsylvania to rival Hillary Rodham Clinton and trying to win over white working-class voters in Indiana and North Carolina in next Tuesday's primaries.

"I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened by the spectacle that we saw yesterday," Obama told reporters at a news conference.

After weeks of staying out of the public eye while critics lambasted his sermons, Wright made three public appearances in four days to defend himself. The former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago has been combative, providing colorful commentary and feeding the story Obama had hoped was dying down.

On Monday, Wright criticized the U.S. government as imperialist and stood by his suggestion that the United States invented the HIV virus as a means of genocide against minorities. "Based on this Tuskegee experiment and based on what has happened to Africans in this country, I believe our government is capable of doing anything," he said.

And perhaps even worse for Obama, Wright suggested that the church congregant secretly concurs.

"If Senator Obama did not say what he said, he would never get elected," Wright said. "Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls."

Obama stated flatly that he doesn't share the views of the man who officiated at his wedding, baptized his two daughters and been his pastor for 20 years. The title of Obama's second book, "The Audacity of Hope," came from a Wright sermon.

"What became clear to me is that he was presenting a world view that contradicts who I am and what I stand for," Obama said. "And what I think particularly angered me was his suggestion somehow that my previous denunciation of his remarks were somehow political posturing. Anybody who knows me and anybody who knows what I'm about knows that I am about trying to bridge gaps and I see the commonality in all people."

In a highly publicized speech last month, Obama sharply condemned Wright's remarks. But he did not leave the church or repudiate the minister himself, who he said was like a family member.

On Tuesday, Obama sought to distance himself further from Wright.

"I have been a member of Trinity United Church of Christ since 1992, and have known Reverend Wright for 20 years," Obama said. "The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago."

Obama said he heard that Wright had given "a performance" and when he watched news accounts, he realized that it more than just a case of the former pastor defending himself.

"His comments were not only divisive and destructive, I believe they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate," Obama said. "I'll be honest with you, I hadn't seen it" when reacting initially on Monday, he said.

Wright had asserted that criticism of his fiery sermons was an attack on the black church. Obama rejected that notion.

Obama said his earlier mild reaction came because he gave him the benefit of the doubt, but that evaporated when he saw Wright's speech. Wright's comments may well have severed the relationship.

"He has done great damage, I do not see that relationship being the same," said Obama.

Wright recently retired from the church. He became an issue in Obama's presidential bid when videos circulated of him condemning the U.S. government for allegedly racist and genocidal acts. In the videos, some several years old, Wright called on God to "damn America." He also said the government created the AIDS virus to destroy "people of color."

Obama said he didn't vet his pastor before deciding to seek the presidency. He said he was particularly distressed that the furor has been a distraction to the purpose of a campaign.

"I gave him the benefit of the doubt in my speech in Philadelphia explaining that he's done enormous good. ... But when he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS. ... There are no excuses. They offended me. They rightly offend all Americans and they should be denounced."

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Obama Won't Back Down

2008-04-12T11:46:00.000-07:00

"Just like her last tall tale about dodging sniper fire in Bosnia, Senator Clinton has misfired with her latest negative ad," Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan said. "The fact is, Barack Obama takes no money from Washington lobbyists or PACs, while Senator Clinton has taken more than any Democrat or Republican in this race, and that includes oil companies."

Meanwhile, Obama released yet another TV spot in Pennsylvania, his 10th in the run-up to the April 22 primary. "Billy" addresses the entwined relationship between legislators and big industry in Washington and presents the Illinois senator as an outsider who would change the broken system.

The ad features footage of Obama talking to a small crowd, offering what he calls "an example of the same old game playing in Washington." He tells the story of former Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., who headed the House Energy and Commerce Committee from 2001 to 2004, and is now president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).

While the ad itself doesn't directly answer Clinton's charge, it pushes largely the same message as the previous Obama spot now under attack from Clinton: that Obama is an outsider candidate, uninfluenced by lobbyists. More broadly, it attempts to rebut the argument that Obama does not have enough Washington experience. "You know I don't want to learn how to play the game better," Obama says of D.C. politics. "I want to put an end to the game playing."

NBC News/National Journal reporter Aswini Anburajan reports that the spot comes directly from Obama's stump speech and that Tauzin's story is Obama's favorite example of how lobbyists interfere with policymaking in Washington.

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Not So Black and White: Will Racial Politics Foil Obama?

2008-03-21T15:54:00.000-07:00

Even Obama Allies Flounder While Talking About the Candidate's Race

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama D-Ill., speaks about Iraq and the economy, March 20, 2008, at the University of Charleston in Charleston, W.Va.

Share In his speech about race Tuesday, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., challenged the country to have a national conversation about race. He's certainly getting one.

But while Obama suggested the country use the rage behind the incendiary comments made by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, to move beyond the racial grievances of the past, Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign seems to be using the controversy to make the argument to party insiders, or superdelegates, that Obama has too much baggage to win in November.

Asked in Indiana today about these pitches to superdelegates, who will ultimately decide who the Democratic nominee will be, Clinton seemed to acknowledge the arguments being made on her behalf, saying, "My campaign has been making the case that I am the most electable."

Asked if Wright was part of that argument, Clinton only shrugged.

Is that dirty politics?

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said, "There is nothing fair about politics. If you want fairness, you should go into another field."

Clinton needed revotes in Michigan and Florida to help her catch up to Obama in delegates, but that's not happening. Her only path to the nomination is convincing superdelegates to overrule the majority of pledged delegates, and Wright appears to be Exhibit A in her case.

Some are more hesitant about making this case. Presumptive GOP nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., today suspended a campaign staffer for sending out a link to a video that attempts to tie Obama not only to Wright but to the black power movement, rappers Public Enemy and Malcolm X.

Former Clinton surrogate Geraldine Ferraro, the 1984 Democratic vice presidential nominee, continued to inject herself into the racial debate, responding to Obama's comments in his speech that it would be easy to dismiss Wright, "just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro in the aftermath of her recent statements as harboring some deep-seated bias."

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Controversial minister leaves Obama campaign

2008-03-15T06:03:00.000-07:00

Presidential candidate condemns words but not ministry of former pastor

Obama on Rev. Jeremiah Wright

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., condemned racially charged sermons by his former pastor Friday and urged Americans not to reject his presidential campaign because of “guilt by association.”

Obama’s campaign announced that the minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., had left its spiritual advisory committee after videotapes of his sermons again ignited fierce debate in news accounts and political blogs.

Obama did not clarify whether Wright volunteered to leave his African American Religious Leadership Committee, a loose group of supporters associated with the campaign, or whether the campaign asked him to leave.

“I think there was recognition that he’s obviously on the verge of retirement, [that] he’s taking a sabbatatical and that it was important for him to step out of the spotlight in this situation,” Obama said.

Wright was the latest in a series of advisers to Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., who have stepped aside as supporters of both candidates trade racially charged accusations.

Obama rejects comments

Obama spoke warmly of Wright, who retired last month as pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Wright is a man “I’ve known for 17 years, [who] helped bring me to Jesus, helped bring me to church,” he said.

“I strongly condemn” Wright’s statements, but “I would not repudiate the man,” Obama said. “He’s been preaching for 30 years. He’s a man who was a former Marine, a biblical scholar, someone who’s spoken at theological schools all over the country.

“That’s the man I know,” Obama said. “That’s the man who was the pastor of this church.”

But Obama acknowledged that “there’s no doubt this is going to be used as political fodder, as it has been in the past.”

“What I hope is [that] what the American people will trust is what I believe,” he said, that “my values, my ideas, what I’ve spoke about in terms of bringing the country together will override a guilt by association.”

But the sermons, at least one of which was delivered long before Wright retired last month, revived uncomfortable questions about Obama’s ties to the minister, whom conservative critics have accused of advocating black separatism.

A videotape of one sermon captures Wright using a harsh racial epithet to argue that Clinton could not understand the struggles of African Americans.

“Barack knows what it means, living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people,” Wright said on Christmas Day of last year. “Hillary can never know that. Hillary ain’t never been called a [N-word]!”

In another sermon, delivered five days after the 9/11 attacks, Wright seems to imply that the United States had brought the terrorist violence on itself.

“We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York, and we never batted an eye,” Wright says. “We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is brought right back in our own front yards.”

In a later sermon, Wright revisits the theme, declaring: “No, no, no, not God bless America — God damn America!”

Obama: I didn’t hear inflammatory sermons

Obama took the title of his 2006 autobiography, “The Audacity of Hope,” from a sermon by Wright, who baptized him and officiated at his wedding. He has called Wright “a sounding board for me to make sure that I am speaking as truthfully about what I believe as possible.”

In his remarks on MSNBC, Obama expanded on a brief posting that was made under his name earlier Friday afternoon on the Huffington Post Web site.

“The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation,” the posting said, adding that over the years, “Rev. Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life.

“In other words, he has never been my political advisor; he’s been my pastor. And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor, and to seek justice at every turn.”

Obama wrote that he had known of similar statements by Wright over the years, which he strongly condemned. He wrote that he chose to remain in the church because “Rev. Wright was on the verge of retirement, and because of my strong links to the Trinity faith community.”

Clinton adviser gives Obama a pass

There was no formal reaction from the Clinton campaign, but Lanny Davis, a senior adviser, said he took Obama at his word.

“I give Senator Obama completely — completely — the benefit of the doubt that he has nothing to do with this bigotry that’s being spewed forth by this man,” Davis said on MSNBC’s “Tucker.” “For me, that’s all he has to say.

“I think we should stop this guilt-by-association thing, because some of our supporters say stupid things,” Davis said.

But the videos created a firestorm among political observers and commentators.

“Mr. Obama obviously would not choose to belong to Mr. Wright’s church and seek his advice unless he agreed with at least some of his views,” Wall Street Journal columnist Ron Kessler, publisher of the conservative Web site NewsMax.com, wrote Friday.

Kathryn Jean Lopez, editor of the Web site of the conservative magazine National Review, wrote Friday that “now we know he’s contributed money to, voluntarily listened to, and publicly defended a cleric who peddles racial warfare.”

Others saw an attempt to “smear” Obama.

“How come righteous Republicans are rarely asked about the views of their spiritual advisers? Or why wasn’t George W. Bush (and the presidents preceding him) forced to distance himself from the anti-semitic comments of Billy Graham?” Ari Berman wrote Friday on the Web site of the liberal magazine The Nation, for which he is a contributing writer.

Why are sermons an issue now?

The videotapes of Wright’s sermons have long been available for sale on the church’s Web site, raising questions about why they suddenly became an issue again late Thursday, NBC’s Ron Allen reported.

Although both candidates have disavowed them, recent exchanges between supporters of Obama and Clinton have focused on themes of race and sex.

Geraldine Ferraro, the Democrats’ 1984 vice presidential nominee, resigned as an adviser to Clinton’s campaign Wednesday after she was quoted last week in a California newspaper suggesting that Obama owed his popularity to his race.

“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,” she said, according to the Daily Breeze of Torrance. “And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position.”

Last week, Obama’s foreign policy adviser, Samantha Power, a public policy professor at Harvard University, stepped down from the campaign after she was quoted in an interview with a Scottish newspaper calling Clinton a “monster [who] is stooping to anything.”

“You just look at her and think, ‘Ergh,’” Power said, according to The Scotsman.

Last month, Adelfa Callejo, a longtime Latino activist in Texas who supports Clinton, suggested that Latino voters would never accept Obama because of his race. “They never really supported us, and there’s a lot of hard feelings about that,” Callejo said.

And after Obama won the South Carolina primary, Clinton’s husband, the former president, dismissed the significance of his victory by saying it was to be expected because “Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice.”

Advisers said Obama and Clinton were distressed by the exchanges and had agreed in a brief conversation on the Senate floor Thursday to work together to put a stop to them.

“They approached one another and spoke about how supporters for both campaigns have said things they reject,” said Phil Singer, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign. “They agreed that the contrasts between their respective records, qualifications and issues should be what drives this campaign, and nothing else.”

The Associated Press reported that an adviser to Obama, speaking on condition of anonymity, gave a similar account of the conversation.

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Rock star Obama

2008-03-07T14:39:00.000-08:00

By Leonard Doyle

Barack Obama has made the cover of Rolling Stone. Unfortunately his ascent to iconic rock star status coincides with one of the most difficult weeks in his still unlikely bid for the presidency. Rolling Stone's editor Jan Wenner compares Obama to Abe Lincoln.

The story The Machinery of Hope: Inside the grass-roots field operation of Barack Obama, who is transforming the way political campaigns are run was obviously timed to go to press just as Obama snatched the nomination from Hillary. As with many of the best laid political (and editorial plans) it was not to be.

Still it can't do much harm to have the endorsement of Rolling Stone & its editor Jann Wenner. 'Like Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama challenges America to rise up, to do what so many of us long to do,' says Wenner, 'to summon "the better angels of our nature."'

Despite Obama's stumble while doing the Texas two step on Tuesday its a great piece of reporting, even if the gushing prose now rings a bit hollow.

What Tim Dickinson's piece explains very well though is that Obama's campaign has succeeded against all the odds not by attracting starry-eyed 'Kool-aid drinking' followers who place their faith in his message of hope, but 'by motivating committed activists who are answering a call to national service. They're pouring their lifeblood into this campaign, not because they are in thrall to a cult of personality but because they're invested in the idea that politics matter, and that their participation can turn the current political system on its ear.'

"We're seeing the last time a top-down campaign has a chance to win it," says the political maestro Joe Trippi fresh from running John Edward's underdog campaign. "There won't be another campaign that makes the same mistake the Clintons made of being dependent on big donors and insiders. It's not going to work ever again."

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Mainstream Black Columnists and Barack Obama

2008-03-05T15:41:00.000-08:00

Saul Friedman:

If race is not an issue in this presidential contest (and I believe it is and will be), then how come virtually every mainstream black columnist has been effusively and unabashedly supporting Sen. Barack Obama, and highly critical of and even caustic towards Sen. Hillary Clinton?

Columnists have every right to their views, even if they are one-sided. They are and should be free to give their points of view. But it’s the unanimity that bothers me, for journalism and columnists are supposed to provide a vigorous marketplace of ideas. They’re supposed to be suspicious of the conventional wisdom. And they’re supposed to do some critical reporting along with their commentary. Haven’t we learned anything from the conventional uncritical rush to war by our leading papers, and columnists?

I don’t know every black columnist working these days on papers through the country. And I’m not counting the right-wing black writers like Thomas Sowell, or Armstrong Williams. But I have read many of the mainstream columnists, who are among the finest writers in journalism. And they are almost as one in their praise of Obama and their ridicule of Clinton.

I would expect all these writers to rightly denounce making race an issue. But I wonder if their near unanimity has made an issue of race. The most prominent black columnists who have been wowed by Obama include Eugene Robinson and Colbert King of the Washington Post; Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald; Mary Maxwell, Chicago Sun-Times; Eugene Kane, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel; Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune; Les Payne, Katti Gray and Sheryl McCarthy, Newsday, and Cynthia Tucker, editor of the editorial page of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, which endorsed Obama.

Former NewsHour Media correspondent Terence Smith noted in his blog February 15, that Robinson had posed a two-part question in his Post column that day: “Are the news media being beastly to Hillary Clinton? Are political reporters and commentators…basically in the tank for Barack Obama?” Robinson’s answer was “no and no.” “My view,” said Smith, “yes and yes.”

He continued: “Hillary and her supporters have reason to complain about the tone of their press notices, if not the substance…A barely-suppressed glee often creeps into the commentary when Hillary loses another primary or caucus….By contrast, has the coverage of Obama been overly sympathetic? Have reporters romanticized the junior senator? Of course they have.”

What Smith did not mention, understandably, is that Robinson, who did not respond to my e-mail inquiry about black columnists and Obama, is one of the nation’s best and most influential black columnists, and a leader among Obama’s cheering section. Lately the Post’s Dana Milbank and media maven Howard Kurtz have recognized the unbalanced coverage and have seen it beginning to change, at least in the mainstream press.

Of course, many prominent white columnists, including liberals, have joined in the adulation of Obama and the nasty criticism of whatever Clinton says, how she looks, what she wears. Her most vigorous attackers have included the New York Time duo, Maureen Dowd, who compared Clinton to Dick Cheney, and Frank Rich, who said Sen. John McCain was “channeling” Clinton. But liberal white columnists have not been single-minded.

Newsday’s Sheryl McCarthy acknowledged that virtually every black columnist was supporting Obama, “I see nothing wrong with that,” she wrote me. “For about 140 years blacks have been voting for…white candidates…And now there is finally a viable black candidate who happens to be a very strong candidate. Why on earth wouldn’t they support him?….Aren’t black columnists people, citizens and voters? I can’t tell you why black columnists are largely supporting Obama.” She had supported John Edwards, she said, but switched to Obama because “he seemed to be part of a progressive groundswell and it seemed as if he could actually capture the nomination.”

Eugene Kane of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel acknowledged that he did not know of a single black columnist who wasn’t writing positively about Obama, but saw nothing wrong with that. Nor did he think he was supporting him. After he met Obama at a meeting of black journalists, Kane wrote months later, “Perhaps I did meet the first black president of the United States…last summer.” And the rest of the column was filled with effusive praise and not one critical word. He explained, “For me the excitement over Obama by some black columnists is more about his newsworthiness and less because black columnists are supporting him over someone else.”

There is one black columnist, Bill Maxwell, on the editorial board of the St. Petersburg Times, who dissents from the effusive coverage of Obama by journalists black and white. And he warned in a March 1 column, “The halo above Barack Obama’s head is dangerous. It is causing a lot of trouble for a lot of people, forcing them into silence…

“Because of the halo effect, too many people are afraid to sincerely criticize Obama for fear of being attacked…Many Anglo Democrats who do not support Obama are keeping their heads down and mouths shut…Most of our acerbic political cartoonists who have no trouble portraying Clinton as a gargoyle have sheathed their rapiers for Obama.”

Maxwell, who has written favorably of Clinton, said, “The attacks against ordinary blacks who do not support the Haloed One are nasty enough, but they pale in comparison with the abuse being absorbed by…members of the Congressional Black Caucus,” including Rep. Charles Rangel, of New York, and Rep. John Lewis, of Georgia, who was pressured to switch from Clinton to Obama.

If Obama is elected, Maxwell concluded, “We will be reluctant to challenge him, fearing that the albatross of racism…will come crashing down on us.”

In Ohio, Barack Obama talks about clean energy

2008-03-02T16:40:00.000-08:00

by John McCormick

NELSONVILLE, Ohio – If he was trying to appeal to the working-class residents of Ohio's Appalachia region, it did not look like it, at least on the surface.

In a region long economically depressed, Sen. Barack Obama's first event Sunday did not have the stereotypical blue-collar feel one typically associates with political events in such locations.

The 100 or so invited guests were well dressed, there was little talk about trade or union issues, and classical music (including the "Wedding March") played before and after his appearance.

There even was a multimillionaire in the room: Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), who endorsed Obama late last week.

Obama, meanwhile, talked about the future, not the past, as he argued for clean-energy technology and again stressed his religious practices to counter Internet-driven rumors that he is not Christian.

In his introduction, Rockefeller showered Obama with praise that even surpassed the highly flattering tributes he typically gets from those who serve as his warm-up acts.

"We grew up in different circumstances," Rockefeller started. "My life was a little easier than his."

Rockefeller said Obama's life experiences have prepared him for both domestic and international matters. "I've always had a feeling that true leaders understand the people they lead and the only way to do that is to be amongst them," he said.

Rockefeller said Obama's ability to inspire would help him fight for the nation's poor.

"The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer," he said. "They need someone they can look to who they trust, who is calm, who has incredible judgment and who is brilliant. The word brilliant is used all the time about Barack Obama and it ought to be used everyday by everybody."

Saying his position as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee puts him in a position to "pretty much know what's going on in every part of the world all the time," Rockefeller said he often saw Obama taking the time to study intelligence briefings in greater detail than most senators. He said he believes he is capable of the "nuanced judgments" necessary for a successful foreign policy.

Rockefeller said he sees Obama's poise when he starts taking "incoming fire" in candidate debates.

"You and I might react differently," he said. "He's always calm. In no way, misinterpret that to think that he's weak…He just is unflappable because he knows himself, because of his brilliance and because of his belief in doing the right thing for America."

Obama made a very brief visit to Rockefeller's state last night, spending the night at a Holiday Inn Express in Mineralwells, a newer hotel that was situated between a strip club and adult bookstore.

With solar panels outside and a flexible-fuel car parked near his podium, Obama spoke at length about the possibilities of a clean-energy economy.

Obama took note of a shoe and boot manufacturer that shut down in the town several years ago, saying that 177 jobs were lost and "many of them were shipped overseas."

Still, Obama said he was "hopeful" about the town's future because they are looking to technology, including alternative energy and fuel cells, for growth.

"What you’re doing, here, is what Americans have always done in times of challenge and times uncertainty: you’re standing up to say that your destiny will not be written for you, but by you," he said. "You’re reclaiming your own future."

Obama repeated his plan for a $150 billion fund over 10 years to boost the green energy sector.

"I’ll pass a law that says 25 percent of our electricity has to come from renewable energy sources by 2025, which will spur the development of new technologies and could create hundreds of thousands of new jobs on its own," he said.

Countering suggestions that he is some kind of policy romantic, Obama said his ideas are not "pie in the sky" and noted the nation has in the past made huge investments in its infrastructure.

With coalfields nearby, Obama noted that he comes from a coal state and repeated his pitch for clean-coal technology and made clear he believes coal will continue to be a vital part of the nation's energy supply.

"Clean-coal technology should be part of that mix," he said. "We are the Saudi Arabia of coal."

Obama maintained that the United States could profit from developing clean-coal technology and then licensing the techniques to other nations like China and India. "This could actually end up being an export," he said.

Asked about his faith, Obama said it is a topic that has been subject to "so much confusion that has been deliberately perpetrated." He was referring to Internet rumors that he is a Muslim.

"I pray to Jesus every night, try to go to church as much as I can when they're not working me," he said. "I used to go quite often. These days…I haven't been home on Sunday for several months now."

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Obama spends heavily to seek knockout blow

2008-03-01T18:16:00.000-08:00

He'll try to leverage his financial advantage to force out Clinton

Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama greets supporters at a rally in Selma, Texas, on Friday.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Taking advantage of his huge financial edge, Senator Barack Obama is buying large amounts of advertising and building extensive get-out-the-vote operations in Ohio and Texas in an effort to deal Hillary Rodham Clinton twin defeats on Tuesday that could end her bid for the presidency.

The intensity of Mr. Obama’s drive is especially apparent on television, where, using his huge financial advantage, he has outspent Mrs. Clinton by nearly two to one in the two states, helping him to eat deeply into double-digit leads in polls that she held just weeks ago.

But after a month in which she raised $32 million — a remarkable sum but still less than the $50 million or more brought in by Mr. Obama — Mrs. Clinton is fighting back. Their expenditures, combined with a travel schedule that sent Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama and their surrogates from border to border in Texas and Ohio, reflect the expectation that the voting on Tuesday may be climactic. Mrs. Clinton’s advisers have suggested that she will bow out of the race if she falters in either state, after 11 straight losses.

Their face-offs are not just on television. Mr. Obama has a town-hall-style meeting in Westerville, Ohio, on Sunday afternoon. Mrs. Clinton just announced one there, too. Mr. Obama will be at Westerville Central High School, Mrs. Clinton at Westerville North High School.

Close races in both states

Polls show the race deadlocked in Texas, while Mrs. Clinton’s lead in Ohio has been whittled away, though she does still lead.

“Senator Obama is spending a lot of money on TV — if this can be purchased, he can win it,” Gov. Ted Strickland, who has campaigned across the state with Mrs. Clinton, said in an interview. “I think we’ve survived the initial blast of the Obama phenomenon, and we’re now holding steady.”

In a sign of Mr. Obama’s confidence and his strategy of amassing delegates wherever he can, he spent part of Saturday in Rhode Island, which with Vermont votes on Tuesday.

Mrs. Clinton’s aides said she remained confident of winning Ohio and Texas and would press on with her campaign, as signaled by her increasingly tough attacks on Mr. Obama.

In recent days, Mrs. Clinton’s advisers have pointed to Mr. Obama’s financial advantage, in what appears to be an attempt to lay the groundwork to stay in the race should she lose by a small margin, or squeak to victory by a few votes in either or both states. “They are dumping a lot of money there,” said Mark Penn, Mrs. Clinton’s chief strategist, referring to the Obama campaign.

Narrow Clinton victory not enough?

That said, Mrs. Clinton once enjoyed double-digit leads in both states, and her campaign had told supporters concerned about her string of losses that her campaign would get back on track after solid wins in Ohio and Texas. Democrats said that a narrow victory in both states might not be enough to stanch a flow of uncommitted superdelegates — elected officials and party leaders — to Mr. Obama who have until now deferred to the request by Mrs. Clinton’s advisers to wait for the vote in the two states.

Mr. Obama has spent about $10 million on television advertising in Texas from early in February through Election Day, campaign officials said; Mrs. Clinton has spent just less than $5 million. Mr. Obama has spent about $5.3 million for television advertising in Ohio, compared with just under $3 million for Mrs. Clinton, the officials said.

Those figures do not take into account substantial advertising being presented for Mr. Obama by the Service Employees International Union . It also fails to include money that Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton spent in Texas on Spanish-language television and radio stations in a competition for Latino voters who Mrs. Clinton had once considered an unassailable part of her base. “I have many friends in Texas; I know your tradition and culture,” Mrs. Clinton said in one broadcasting in Houston this weekend, speaking into the camera as subtitles translate her remarks into Spanish.

Mr. Obama’s financial advantage is helping him beyond the airwaves.

His campaign flew 200 paid organizers from across the country to 10 campaign offices in Texas right after the Feb. 5 primaries, aides said, when some of Mrs. Clinton’s staff members were volunteering to work without pay. Another 150 were sent to build get-out-the-vote networks in Ohio, working for Paul Tewes, who was the Obama campaign’s director in Iowa, where Mr. Obama’s eight-point victory gave his campaign a boost.

opinions of John McCain

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Campaign spending proposal hems in Obama

2008-02-28T08:07:00.000-08:00

He's the one with the money — and a vow to accept a general election limit

Just 12 months ago, Senator Barack Obama presented himself as an idealistic upstart taking on the Democratic fund-raising juggernaut behind Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

That was when Mr. Obama proposed a novel challenge aimed at limiting the corrupting influence of money on the race: If he won the nomination, he would limit himself to spending only the $85 million available in public financing between the convention and Election Day as long as his Republican opponent did the same.

Now his challenge to his rivals has boomeranged into a test of Mr. Obama’s own ability to balance principle and politics in a very different context. After taking in $100 million in donations, Mr. Obama is the one setting fund-raising records, presenting a powerful temptation to find a way out of his own proposal so that he might outspend his Republican opponent. And the all-but-certain Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, is short on cash and eager to take up the fund-raising truce.

Mr. Obama was notably noncommittal about his previous proposal in Tuesday’s Democratic debate, indicating that he would add new conditions, especially on spending by independent groups, to his previous pledges to accept the deal. If nominated, “I will sit down with John McCain and make sure that we have a system that is fair to both sides,” Mr. Obama said, alluding to the need to close “loopholes.”

Campaign finance experts said the issue was a major test of Mr. Obama’s commitment. It is also a first glimpse of what might come in a general election fight between two candidates who have championed public integrity, opening themselves to accusations of hypocrisy.

On Wednesday, the McCain campaign stepped up its criticism of Mr. Obama after his statement at the debate.

“The fact is, Senator Obama signed a piece of paper and pledged to take public financing for his campaign if I did the same," Mr. McCain said. “I believe that Senator Obama should keep his commitment also, which means taking public financing. The rest of it is ground noise. The rest of it is irrelevant."

Some Democrats and Obama supporters, meanwhile, have sought to strike back at Mr. McCain by accusing him of exploiting the public financing system. They argue that Mr. McCain may have violated technicalities of the election laws by using his eligibility for public matching funds to help obtain a loan but then opting out of the matching funds at the last minute to avoid the spending restrictions they impose. “People aren’t exactly clear whether all the t’s were crossed and i’s were dotted,” Mr. Obama said in Tuesday’s debate. (The McCain campaign said it followed the law.)

The issue may be more sensitive for Mr. Obama, though, because has run in part on his record as an advocate of stricter government integrity rules, including the public financing system. Last February, he sought the election commission’s blessing on a public financing proposal in part to underscore his support for tighter election rules. (The filing was short of a commitment, but he later went further in a questionnaire from a coalition of government-integrity groups.)

Mr. Obama has argued that his campaign was already meeting the spirit of public financing laws because it had relied overwhelmingly on small donors instead of corporate patrons.

Still, with public financing for the general election phase of the campaign amounting to nearly $10 million a week, Mr. Obama’s hedging puzzles some.

“You ought to be able to run a campaign for two months on $85 million,” said Joan Claybrook , president of Public Citizen , which lobbies for stricter campaign finance laws. She called Mr. Obama’s recent remarks “a very bad signal.”

“This whole idea started with Senator Obama, and we think he and whoever the Republican nominee is ought to follow through,” said Fred Wertheimer, founder of the advocacy group Democracy 21.

David Plouffe, Mr. Obama’s campaign manager, said the campaign would not make a decision until the Democratic primary is settled. But in a recent column in USA Today, Mr. Obama appeared to set some new conditions. He argued that any bipartisan agreement to accept the limits of public financing would be “meaningless” if there were no provisions to close the “loopholes” that allow unlimited spending during the long primary season or by independent outside groups.

The article cited a possible model for an agreement: one reached by Senator John Kerry , a Democrat, and former Gov. William Weld, a Republican, in the 1996 Senate race in Massachusetts. That deal limited each campaign to spending about $7 million over the last four months of the race and counted any expenditure by an outside group seeking to help a candidate against that candidate’s limit. “We can have such an agreement this year, and it could hold up,” Mr. Obama wrote. “I am committed to seeking such an agreement if that commitment is matched by Senator McCain.”

Although Mr. Kerry and Mr. Weld later praised the deal as a positive step, it ended in accusations that each side had broken its word. With no real enforcement and no clear standard for judging outside spending, there was also no way to address issues until after the election.

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Barack Obama Will Preserve Social Security

2008-02-26T09:06:00.000-08:00

By GROMER JEFFERS JR. / The Dallas Morning News

CINCINNATI – Campaigning in Ohio on Monday, Barack Obama pledged to preserve Social Security and help get families enough money for retirement.

"For millions of Americans, Social Security is the difference between a comfortable retirement and a risk of poverty," Mr. Obama said at a roundtable discussion. "We have to make sure social security is there for future generations."

The Democratic candidate said he would not raise the national retirement age, cut benefits or privatize Social Security.

Instead, he would lift the cap on the payroll tax. Under the current system, the tax is capped at $97,000, which means the richest people in the nation are paying a similar tax rate than their poorer counterparts.

Mr. Obama said he would also help retirees by developing automatic workplace retirement plans. Such plans would allow employers to directly deposit money into a retirement account. The company could match additional contributions made by employees. The government would match contributions on the first $1,000 for families making less than $75,000 a year.

"We have to encourage savings so it's easy to retire," Mr. Obama said. "This would put a secure retirement within greater reach for millions of working families."

Mr. Obama said he also would develop ways to protect pensions and work to prevent "golden parachutes" for executives fleeing a sinking company.

"Even if you work hard and play by the rules, you risk losing everything if your company goes bankrupt," he said.

Mr. Obama is campaigning heavily in Ohio, where Hillary Rodham Clinton is leading and making a ferocious stand.

Both candidates are expected in Texas in the coming days. Both states have Democratic primaries on March 4.

At the roundtable discussion, he heard from Ohioans who had lost their jobs, insurance and ability to save for retirement.

Lenora Anderson wept openly when telling Mr. Obama how she struggled to care for her ailing mother, who had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

And Karen Roettele said she lost her construction job after her husband's death and now has to dip into her retirement savings.

Mr. Obama said he understood the tears. And he described how his mother died of cancer at age 53 and was worried about paying her bills.

"This stuff breaks me up," he said.

Colleen Munninghaff, a roundtable participant, said she was an undecided voter.

"I understand the younger kids are getting on the Obama bandwagon and that's great," she said. "But what are you going to do for us?"

Mr. Obama said that he was the better choice because he could bring people together to solve problems.

"We're going to need someone who can reach across the aisle," he said.

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Superdelegates in favor of Barack Obama

2008-02-24T19:42:00.000-08:00

by Zach Blaney

Barack Obama Hillary Clinton Utah According to the recent survey by The Associated Press, more than two dozen superdelegates have come to support of Barack Obama. This could be a big shock for Senator Hillary Clinton.

Barack Obama is in a very strong position right now. Many superdelegates have changed their opinion after 11 straight victories to credit of Barack Obama.

The fight between Senator Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is very close and the support from superdelegates will be very crucial in the final decision. Both campaigns are trying their best to get the support from nearly 800 democratic superdelegates.

Senator Hillary Clinton has support of 241 superdelegates as per The Associated Press survey. However, Barack Obama has gained in the past two weeks. Hillary Clinton is losing the support from some influential superdelegates.

Barack Obama has gained more strength after recent endorsements from various labour unions across the country.

Super delegate Christine Samuels said that Barack Obama can help unite the country and supported him. In New Jersey, two superdelegates shifted to Obama. Similarly, two democratic superdelegates from Utah have withdrawn their support to Hillary Clinton.

The statistics from delegates are also in favor of Barack Obama. As per the latest estimates by MSNBC, Barack Obama has support of 1183 delegates while Hillary Clinton has 1031.

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Obama draws thousands in Austin

2008-02-23T23:26:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama issued an appeal to Austin voters to join his crusade for change as he ended a four-day swing through Texas.

By GROMER JEFFERS Jr. / The Dallas Morning News

Sen. Barack Obama delivers a speech on Congress Avenue in front of the state Capitol in downtown Austin. 'There's something about me and Austin,' he said. 'We just get along.' Earlier, he visited Corpus Christi and the Rio Grande Valley. "The dream that so many generations fought for is slowly slipping away," Mr. Obama said. "We cannot afford to wait. ... Change in America doesn't happen from the top down. It happens from the bottom up."

He spoke at a rally in front of the state Capitol. Estimates of the crowd's numbers ranged from 8,000 to 15,000.

Mr. Obama is no stranger to large Austin gatherings. Last year, he drew 20,000 for an event along the shores of Town Lake.

"There's something about me and Austin," he said. "We just get along."

Mr. Obama is locked in a tight race with Hillary Rodham Clinton for Texas. With 228 delegates, it's the biggest prize left in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The crowd chanted "Obama, Obama" as he called for affordable health care, which he promised to accomplish by the end of his term.

"I cannot do it by myself; no president can," Mr. Obama said. "The question you have to ask yourself tonight is: Are you ready for change?"

Rumors flew regarding access and crowd size in the hours before the event. Some thought they had to R.S.V.P. to get in; they didn't.

Others, like the Jaroliks of Temple, were told by the campaign that people were camping out overnight to get a spot close to the stage.

They weren't, of course. But the pair of longtime Republicans showed up at 3 p.m. just in case to support Mr. Obama. The couple said they are excited by a campaign they said is breathing life into politics.

"We're not delusional," said Joe Jarolik, who attended the rally with his wife, Sara. "He does have a message of hope and change."

Before wrapping up his Lone Star State swing in Austin on Friday, Mr. Obama made appearances in Corpus Christi and the Rio Grande Valley, the base of Mrs. Clinton's support in Texas.

Hispanics could make up 35 percent to 50 percent of the electorate in the Texas Democratic primary, analysts say.

At a rally in front of about 3,000 people at the University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg, Mr. Obama discussed immigration and education.

Mr. Obama told the crowd that the nation needed a sensible immigration policy.

"We do have to deal with the border in an intelligent way," he said. "But we can't do it by just building a wall all across the border."

Mr. Obama said he favored a plan that secured the border, perhaps with barriers in some places. He also would penalize employers who hired illegal immigrants.

The Illinois senator also supports a path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

"We can be a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants," he said.

Mr. Obama also discussed proposals to help students deal with the cost of college.

Before the rally, he met with about 25 college-age residents on campus.

Among other things, Mr. Obama has proposed a $4,000 tax credit that could be used for college, providing the student returns the favor with community service.

"All across America, I meet young people with the grades and the drive to go to college, but they don't have the money," Mr. Obama said.

Staff writer Karen Brooks contributed to this report.

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Is Obama Open to Criticism?

2008-02-23T22:33:00.000-08:00

I am convinced of Barack's patriotism. Read this article and post a response.

Is Obama Open to Criticism?
By NEDRA PICKLER

Sen. Barack Obama's refusal to wear an American flag lapel pin along with a photo of him not putting his hand over his heart during the National Anthem led conservatives on Internet and in the media to question his patriotism.

Now Obama's wife, Michelle, has drawn their ire, too, for saying recently that she's really proud of her country for the first time in her adult life.

Conservative consultants say that combined, the cases could be an issue for Obama in the general election if he wins the nomination, especially as he runs against Vietnam war hero Sen. John McCain.

"The reason it hasn't been an issue so far is that we're still in the microcosm of the Democratic primary," said Republican consultant Roger Stone. "Many Americans will find the three things offensive. Barack Obama is out of the McGovern wing of the party, and he is part of the blame America first crowd."

Opponents of Sen. John Kerry proved in the 2004 election that voters are sensitive to suggestions that a candidate is not sufficiently patriotic. The Democratic presidential nominee's campaign was torpedoed by critics of his Vietnam War record called the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, even though he won multiple military honors and was lauded by his superiors.

The Swift Boat campaign started as a relatively small television ad buy that exploded into an issue that dogged Kerry for months. The Massachusetts senator has conceded since losing to President Bush that the campaign and his lackluster response to unsubstantiated allegations he considered unworthy of a reaction likely cost him the election. And the term even became part of the campaign lexicon — swift boating.

Obama already is the subject of a shadowy smear campaign based on the Internet that falsely suggests he's a Muslim intent on destroying the United States. Obama is a Christian and has been fighting the e-mail hoax, which also claims he doesn't put his hand over his heart during the Pledge of Allegiance, and he's been trying to correct the misinformation.

"Whenever I'm in the United States Senate, I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America," Obama frequently tells voters.

"I've been going to the same church for 20 years, praising Jesus," he adds.

Retired Major General Scott Gration, an Obama military adviser, said he expects the attacks will only increase if Obama wins the Democratic nomination.

"People are projecting things and taking things out of context," Gration said. "There's absolutely no question in my mind that Michelle and Barack are extremely patriotic, appreciate our freedoms and our values and everything else that the flag represents."

Officials with the McCain campaign and the Republican Party say they won't be suggesting Obama is less than patriotic, and instead plan to focus their criticisms on his record and inexperience if he wins the nomination. Well-funded outside groups, however, consider anything fair game.

Conservative Republican consultant Keith Appell, who worked with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, said Obama's opposition to the war will create a "striking contrast between McCain the war hero and Obama the poster child for the anti-war movement."

"If you are McCain, you want to play up the decorated war hero, loves his country, served his country," Appell said. "You want to play those themes up as much as possible, especially in comparison to Obama and his role in the anti-war movement."

On Monday, Michelle Obama told an audience in Milwaukee, "For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country. Not just because Barack is doing well, but I think people are hungry for change."

Cindy McCain, days later responded by saying, "I have, and always will be, proud of my country." Barack Obama has expressed frustration that his wife's remarks had been taken out of context and turned into political fodder — both the Obamas say she was talking about politics in the United States, not the country itself.

Last summer, Obama was photographed by Time magazine at an event in Iowa standing with his hands folded during the national anthem. His primary rivals Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson appear beside him, with their hands on their hearts.

It has been repeatedly reported that the moment came during the Pledge of Allegiance, but that's not the case.

In October, Obama told Iowa television station KCRG that he decided to stop wearing a U.S. flag lapel pin during the run-up to the Iraq war because it had become "a substitute for, I think, true patriotism."

"I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest. Instead, I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great and, hopefully, that will be a testimony to my patriotism," Obama said.

Obama's comments led conservatives and media commentators to question his patriotism.

"First he kicked his American flag pin to the curb. Now Barack Obama has a new round of patriotism problems. Wait until you hear what the White House hopeful didn't do during the singing of the national anthem," said Steve Doocy, co-host of "Fox and Friends" on the Fox News Channel.

"He felt it OK to come out of the closet as the domestic insurgent he is," former radio host Mark Williams said on Fox.

Gration said he had a copy of the national anthem photo e-mailed to him by a friend who didn't know the facts and questioned how a military man could support someone who doesn't honor the Pledge of Allegiance.

"I go to baseball games and football games and there's just a minority of us who put our hands over our heart. It's not an indication of patriotism," Gration said. Gration said he personally wears a flag pin, but "if I meet someone who doesn't have a lapel pin, it doesn't mean they are more or less patriotic than I am."

And, he added, "I don't think you can find Barack again not putting his hand over his heart at the national anthem."

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Barack Obama keeps winning form

2008-02-23T12:57:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama has been pushing a message of change.

Barack Obama has gained an 11th straight victory in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination by winning the Democrats Abroad primary.

He now faces his rival, New York senator Hillary Clinton, in a TV debate in Texas ahead of crucial primaries there and in Ohio next month.

She is seeking to revive her campaign with wins in the two key states in order to stop Mr Obama's momentum.

Mrs Clinton now needs a majority of the remaining delegates to beat Mr Obama.

He has at least 1,353 - according to an Associated Press projection - of the 2,025 delegates he needs to secure the Democratic nomination at the party's convention in August.

Mrs Clinton has 1,264 delegates.

Mr Obama won 65.6% of the votes cast by more than 20,000 US citizens in 164 countries.

Mrs Clinton polled 32.7%, according to the Democrats Abroad, an organisation sanctioned by the national party.

The Democrats Abroad system of dividing the delegates is unique, and could leave candidates with fractions of delegates.

Hillary Clinton needs big wins in Texas and Ohio
The primary was used to determine nine pledged delegates, each with half a vote.

Due to the system used for rounding up the figures, Mr Obama won 2.5 delegates, while Mrs Clinton won two.

The margin of victory was small but it continues Mr Obama's long-winning streak.

Meanwhile Wisconsin's primary on Tuesday was significant for Mr Obama, says the BBC's Jonathan Beale, because he ate into Mrs Clinton's support base of white women and lower-income workers.

Correspondents say the blue-collar vote will be crucial in the Ohio and Texas contests, and the Clinton campaign has already begun targeting lower-income workers in its ads.

But in his drive to become the first black US president, Mr Obama has gained important support from some powerful unions, including the Teamsters and the Service Employees International Union.

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Obama scores 10th straight victory

2008-02-20T05:08:00.001-08:00

By DAVID ESPO

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama cruised past a fading Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Wisconsin primary and Hawaii caucuses Tuesday night, gaining the upper hand in a Democratic presidential race for the ages.

The twin triumphs made 10 straight for Obama, and left the former first lady in desperate need of a comeback in a race she long commanded as front-runner.

"The change we seek is still months and miles away," Obama told a boisterous crowd in Houston in a speech in which he also pledged to end the war in Iraq in his first year in office.

"I opposed this war in 2002. I will bring this war to an end in 2009. It is time to bring our troops home," he declared.

Sen. John McCain, the Republican front-runner, won a pair of primaries, in Wisconsin and Washington, to continue his march toward certain nomination.

In a race growing increasingly negative, Obama cut deeply into Clinton's political bedrock in Wisconsin, splitting the support of white women almost evenly with her. According to polling place interviews, he also ran well among working class voters in the blue collar battleground that was prelude to primaries in the larger industrial states of Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Clinton made no mention of her defeat, and showed no sign of surrender in an appearance in Youngstown, Ohio.

"Both Senator Obama and I would make history," the New York senator said. "But only one of us is ready on day one to be commander in chief, ready to manage our economy, and ready to defeat the Republicans. Only one of us has spent 35 years being a doer, a fighter and a champion for those who need a voice."

In a clear sign of their relative standing in the race, most cable television networks abruptly cut away from coverage of Clinton's rally when Obama began to speak in Texas.

McCain easily won the Republican primary in Wisconsin with 55 percent of the vote, dispatching former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and edging closer to the 1,191 delegates he needs to clinch the GOP nomination at the party convention in St. Paul, Minn. next summer. The Arizona senator also won the primary in Washington, where 19 delegates were at stake, with 49 percent of the vote in incomplete results.

In scarcely veiled criticism of Obama, the Republican nominee-in-waiting said, "I will fight every moment of every day in this campaign to make sure that Americans are not deceived by an eloquent but empty call for change."

McCain stepped up his criticism of Obama on Wednesday, suggesting the Democrat doesn't have the experience or judgment on foreign policy and defense matters needed in a president.

"There are a lot of national security challenges and I know how to handle them. Senator Obama wants to bomb Pakistan without talking to the Pakistanis. I think that's dangerous," McCain said in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America." "I think that's an important factor — experience and judgment. Ready to serve and no on the job training."

McCain's nomination has been assured since Super Tuesday three weeks ago, as first one, then another of his former rivals has dropped out and the party establishment has closed ranks behind him.

Not so in the Democratic race, where Obama and Clinton campaign seven days a week, he the strongest black presidential candidate in history, she bidding to become the first woman to sit in the White House.

Ohio and Texas vote next on March 4 — 370 convention delegates in all — and even some of Clinton's supporters concede she must win one, and possibly both, to remain competitive. Two smaller states, Vermont and Rhode Island, also have primaries that day.

With the votes counted in all but one of Wisconsin's 3,570 precincts, Obama won 58 percent of the vote to 41 percent for Clinton.

With 100 percent of the vote counted in Hawaii, Obama had 76 percent to Clinton's 24 percent.

Wisconsin offered 74 national convention delegates. There were 20 delegates at stake in Hawaii, where Obama spent much of his youth.

Washington Democrats voted in a primary, too, but their delegates were picked earlier in the month in caucuses won by Obama.

The Illinois senator's Wisconsin victory left him with 1,303 delegates in The Associated Press' count, compared with 1,233 for Clinton, a margin that masks his 145-delegate lead among those picked in primaries or caucuses. It takes 2,025 to win the nomination at the party's national convention in Denver. Allocation of the 20 Hawaii delegates was not being calculated until later Wednesday.

Obama's victory came after a week in which Clinton and her aides tried to knock him off stride. They criticized him in television commercials and accused him of plagiarism for using words first uttered by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, a friend. He shrugged off the advertising volley, and said that while he should have given Patrick credit, the controversy didn't amount to much.

The voters seemed not to care.

Wisconsin independents cast about one-quarter of the ballots in the race between Obama and Clinton, and roughly 15 percent of the electorate were first-time voters, the survey at polling places said. Obama has run strongly among independents in earlier primaries, and among younger voters, and cited their support as evidence that he would make a stronger general election candidate in the fall.

Obama began the evening with eight straight primary and caucus victories, a remarkable run that has propelled him past Clinton in the overall delegate race and enabled him to chip away at her advantage among elected officials within the party who will have convention votes as superdelegates.

The economy and trade were key issues in the race, and seven in 10 voters said international trade has resulted in lost jobs in Wisconsin. Fewer than one in five said trade has created more jobs than it has lost.

The Democrats' focus on trade was certain to intensify, with primaries in Ohio in two weeks and in Pennsylvania on April 22.

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Obama passes Clinton in Gallup tracking poll

2008-02-19T15:54:00.000-08:00

by Frank James

Gallup's latest tracking poll shows what Sen. Barack Obama's campaign had hoped for and what Sen. Hillary Clinton's had feared, that the senator from Illinois's momentum would continue to eat into Clinton's core supporters--women, Hispanics and hard-core Democrats.

This is how Gallup's Jeffrey M. Jones put it:

PRINCETON, NJ -- The momentum in the Democratic nomination race has clearly swung toward Barack Obama. Not only has he won all of the post-Super Tuesday contests, but he has steadily gained in Gallup Poll Daily tracking to the point where he has overtaken Clinton as the national leader for the first time, holding a statistically significant lead in each of the last three tracking poll results.

Obama's standing has improved among most Democratic subgroups over the past several days. But one of the more substantial shifts has been the changing preferences of middle-aged Democratic voters, who have moved away from Clinton and toward Obama in the past week. Obama has also made gains among three other groups that have favored Clinton throughout much of the campaign -- women, Hispanics, and self-identified Democrats. Obama and Clinton are now running even among these three key groups in the most recent Gallup tracking data...

Throughout the campaign, exit polls have shown that Obama has appealed to younger voters, and Clinton to older voters. Even as the momentum has swung in Obama's favor, those basic relationships at opposite ends of the age spectrum still hold. The change in recent days has been in middle-aged Democratic voters' preferences. In the Feb. 5-9 period, Clinton led among Democratic voters aged 35 to 54 by a 49% to 42% margin. Now, Obama is the leader among this group by 51% to 42%.

If this shift of voters Clinton has relied on until now proves real and lasting, it would arguably make it next to impossible for her to perform as well as she needs to in the remaining states holding primaries, especially Texas and Ohio on March 4 and Pennsylvania on April 22 to capture the nomination.

But as we all should know by now, the only thing that matters is actual votes at polling places. So while the graph showing Obama's momentum is interesting, it's really got to taken with the proverbial grain of salt. Still, if you had to choose one, you'd obviously rather have Obama's curve than Clinton's.

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Superdelegates' loyalties tested

2008-02-17T11:51:00.000-08:00

Some with black constituencies shift eye to Obama

The outpouring of support for Barack Obama's presidential candidacy in African-American communities is shifting the political calculus for superdelegates with large black constituencies and causing some of them to reconsider promises of support for Hillary Clinton.

Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.), who represents a predominantly black suburban Atlanta constituency, announced late in the week that he was shifting his support from Clinton to Obama, citing an overwhelming vote for Obama in his congressional district. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who also endorsed Clinton, was quoted Friday in The New York Times saying he would vote for Obama at the nominating convention, though neither Lewis nor his spokeswoman responded to inquiries about his comments and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution quoted an aide describing the report as "inaccurate."

They and many other black elected officials are experiencing firsthand a powerful movement toward Obama, reflected not only in lopsided votes for him but also a surge in African-American turnout.

In South Carolina, Georgia and Virginia, Obama attracted more than 80 percent of the African-American vote, exit polls showed. Turnout among black voters was up 89 percent in Georgia and more than doubled in South Carolina and Virginia.

Confronted with that political reality at the same moment that Obama has seized the momentum in the campaign for the nomination, more black members of Congress are having second thoughts about endorsements of Clinton, said Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), an African-American who is lobbying fellow House members on behalf of the Illinois senator.

"I do know several who are struggling with the issue and are re-evaluating the landscape, re-evaluating the circumstances under which they were supporting Sen. Clinton," said Butterfield, who switched his support from home-state candidate John Edwards to Obama in early January, well before Edwards quit the race.

So far, the movement among black party and elected officials has been small. In addition to Scott and Lewis, Christine Samuels, an African-American politician from New Jersey, also announced Thursday that she would switch her support from Clinton to Obama.

But it is a visible fracture of support for Clinton among a segment of superdelegates that is especially sensitive to arguments from the Obama campaign that party officials should follow the will of their constituents when they cast their votes as superdelegates.

Despite the huge margins of support that Obama has consistently won among African-American voters, black party and elected officials have been much more divided on the presidential nomination. On the eve of the Iowa caucuses, the 43-member Congressional Black Caucus was about evenly divided among those who made public endorsements between Obama and Clinton, and even now 15 African-American members of Congress are announced as Clinton supporters.

Politicians are traditionally reluctant to reverse public endorsements; it devalues their word in future dealings. But a break with a politician's base also can be perilous, and allies of Obama are reminding colleagues of that.

Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee argued that such tactics amounted to a political threat.

"We believe that superdelegates ought to vote for the person they think would make the best president. It's disappointing that the Obama campaign would engage in threats and tactics like these. It doesn't sound very much like the politics of hope," Elleithee said.

By Mike Dorning, Washington Bureau Tribune correspondent John McCormick contributed from Milwaukee and Tribune correspondent Rick Pearson contributed from Akron, Ohio.

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Obama sweep of Potomac states pierces Clinton base

2008-02-13T08:27:00.000-08:00

Democratic presidential hopeful rolls through Virginia, Maryland and D.C., attracting a greater share of female voters

by: John Ibbitson

Barack Obama steamrolled through the Potomac primaries Tuesday night, adding Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia to his recent sweep of states by eating into the very heart of Senator Hillary Clinton's base of support.

With eight wins over four days, and with two more – Wisconsin and Hawaii – expected to follow next Tuesday, the Illinois senator's momentum would be considered unstoppable, were his opponent anyone other than Ms. Clinton.

The New York senator's campaign organization and deep ties to the Democratic Party establishment once made her victory seem inevitable. Now it is anything but.

Ms. Clinton flew to Texas Tuesday, where she must halt the Obama surge by winning there and in Ohio on Mini Super Tuesday, March 4.

Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain swept the Potomac Primaries, winning in Maryland, Virginia and Washington D.C.

What remains unknown is whether the size and scope of Mr. Obama's recent victories will erode her support among middle- and working-class voters and Latinos.

Exit polls Tuesday night suggest Ms. Clinton is facing exactly that problem. In previous states, the vote was split between African Americans and affluent liberals, who backed Mr. Obama, and Latino and middle- and working-class white voters, especially white women, who backed Ms. Clinton.

But in Virginia and Maryland Tuesday night, exit polls showed that Ms. Clinton's base is melting away, at least in the Chesapeake. The two candidates split the white vote evenly, with Ms. Clinton outpolling Mr. Obama among white women by only nine points, less than half her previously typical lead, according to The Associated Press. Mr. Obama led among white men.

And a Fox News exit poll put seniors, another core Clinton constituency, into Mr. Obama's column, by 53 per cent to 47 per cent. The Fox News poll also had Mr. Obama winning the Latino vote, 55 to 45 per cent. And among African Americans, Mr. Obama took nine votes out of 10.

The polls were reflected in the result. In Virginia, with 101 delegates at stake, Mr. Obama led Ms. Clinton by an emphatic 64 to 36 per cent, with most polls reporting. Early returns in Maryland, where polls were kept open late because of bad weather, showed a similar margin: 60 per cent to 37 per cent.

The District of Columbia, though it has only 37 delegates, was positively embarrassing: 75 per cent to 24 per cent for Mr. Obama over Ms. Clinton.

Because Virginia, Maryland and the capital district apportion their delegates based on proportional representation, Ms. Clinton will not be shut out of this region, but the wide margin of his victory ensures that Mr. Obama will enjoy a considerable advantage in the delegate count. He now leads Ms. Clinton both in popular vote and in delegates, despite Ms. Clinton's large lead among superdelegates – senior party officials who are entitled to vote at the Democratic national convention.

If current trends continue, they too might start reconsidering their pledge of allegiance to the Clinton clan.

As if she needed any more bad news, it was confirmed Tuesday night that Mike Henry, Ms. Clinton's deputy campaign manager, had quit, reinforcing the impression of disarray within Clinton campaign headquarters.

It didn't seem to faze Ms. Clinton, who at a rally in El Paso, Tex., Tuesday night declared that she would spend the next three weeks talking about how she would be “the president that will be required on Day 1, to be commander-in-chief, to turn the economy around.”

“I'm tested, I'm ready. Let's make it happen!” she urged, to lusty cheers.

Two new, competing narratives have emerged in recent days from the Clinton and Obama spin doctors. Ms. Clinton's supporters point out that only she has been able to win the big Democratic states: California; New York; New Jersey; Massachusetts (though Mr. Obama won his home state of Illinois). Mr. Obama, on the other hand, wins big in states that will certainly be taken by the Republicans in the general election: Kansas, Oklahoma, Alaska and the like.

But that is exactly why Democrats should support Mr. Obama, his side responds. California and New York will go Democratic regardless of who is the nominee, they say.

Mr. Obama, they argue, with his message of hope and reconciliation, can take the so-called purple states, such as Florida, Arizona, Ohio and Virginia, that the Democrats need to win (or win back) from the Republicans in order to take the White House.

Expect these narratives to rise in volume during the coming weeks as Mr. Obama seeks to wrest Ohio or Texas from Ms. Clinton's grasp, and she seeks to prevail in them as proof that she is the closer in the states that count.

On the Republican side, Arizona Senator John McCain continues to be plagued by the populist guerrilla campaign of former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who threw a scare into the McCain campaign by polling strongly in rural Virginia. In the end, Mr. McCain took Virginia, Maryland and D.C. and remains the presumptive Republican nominee. If Mr. Huckabee won every single remaining state, he would still not be able to erase Mr. McCain's lead.

But the former Baptist minister's popularity is a painful reminder that the conservative base of the Republican Party is far from reconciled to having Mr. McCain – with his liberal stands on immigration, the environment and campaign-finance reform – as their leader.

To add to the Republicans' woes, turnout in their primaries last night was half that of the Democrats' in Virginia and less than a third in Maryland.

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Obama Looking to Extend Streak

2008-02-12T14:18:00.000-08:00

Obama, Clinton face off in D.C., Md. and Va.

WASHINGTON - Democratic rivals Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton squared off Tuesday in primaries in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia, home to the White House, their long-sought prize.

With 168 delegates at stake, Obama hoped to erode if not erase the lead Clinton has held since the campaign began.

The Illinois senator won a string of contests in all regions of the country over the weekend, routing Clinton in a Louisiana primary as well as caucuses in Nebraska, Washington state and Maine.

Strong turnout anticipated
Early turnout in Virginia was reported high, and city officials in the District of Columbia were hoping that many newly registered voters would show up at the polls. Maryland election officials were also projecting a strong turnout, particularly in the Democratic race.

The final Maine returns had not been tallied when Clinton's campaign manager announced she was stepping down. Coming several days after the former first lady lent her own campaign $5 million, it was a fresh indication of the trouble the one-time front-runner is having fighting off Obama's strong challenge for the nomination.

Aides to the former first lady concede she is in the midst of a difficult period in which she could lose 10 straight contests. She is hoping to rebound on March 4, in primaries in Ohio and Texas, states where both candidates have already begun television advertising.

In fact, while still in Virginia on Tuesday, Clinton did satellite interviews with 10 TV stations in Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin, calling for more debates and addressing regional concerns such as the economy in Ohio and immigration in Texas.

A united ticket?

Asked about the possibility of sharing the November ticket with Obama, she said it was too soon to talk about such things, but in an interview with WTMJ in Milwaukee she echoed the comment her rival has been making about her: "I have the highest regard for him. He was my friend before this started, and he will be my friend going into the future."

Clinton began the night with 1,147 delegates, to 1,124 for Obama. Both are far from the 2,025 needed to win the nomination at the Democratic National Convention this summer.

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Why Republicans like Obama and what it means

2008-02-06T12:54:00.000-08:00

By PETER WEHNER
Washington Post

Barack Obama is not only popular among Democrats, he's also an appealing figure to many Republicans. Former GOP House member Joe Scarborough, now a host on MSNBC, reports that after every important Obama speech, he is inundated with e-mails praising the speech — with most of them coming from Republicans. William Bennett, an influential conservative intellectual, has said favorable things about Obama. So have Rich Lowry of National Review and Peggy Noonan. And so have I.

A number of prominent Republicans I know, who would wage a pitched battle against Hillary Clinton, like Obama and would find it hard to generate much enthusiasm in opposing him.

What is at the core of Obama's appeal?

Part of it is the eloquence and uplift of his speeches, combined with his personal grace and dignity. He seems to be a well-grounded, decent, thoughtful man. He comes across, in his person and manner, as nonpartisan. He has an unsurpassed ability to (seemingly) transcend politics. Even when he disagrees with people, he doesn't seem disagreeable.

"You know what charm is," Albert Camus wrote in The Fall, "a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question." Obama has such charm, and its appeal is not restricted to Democrats.

A second reason Republicans appreciate Obama is that he is pitted against a couple, the Clintons, whom many Republicans hold in contempt. Among the effects of the Obama-Clinton race is that it is forcing Democrats to come to grips with the mendacity and ruthlessness of the Clinton machine. Conservatives have long believed that the Clintons are an unprincipled pair who will destroy those who stand between them and power — whether they are political opponents, women from Bill Clinton's past or independent counsels.

When the Clintons were doing this in the 1990s, it was viewed by many Democrats as perfectly acceptable. Some even applauded them for their brass-knuckle tactics. But now that the Clintons are roughing up an inspiring young man who appears to represent the hope and future of the Democratic Party, the liberal establishment is reacting with outrage. "I think we've reached an irrevocable turning point in liberal opinion of the Clintons," writes Jonathan Chait of the New Republic. Many conservatives respond: It's about time.

A third reason for Obama's GOP appeal is that unlike Clinton and especially John Edwards, Obama has a message that, at its core, is about unity and hope rather than division and resentment. He stresses that "out of many we are one." And to his credit, Barack Obama is running a color-blind campaign. "I did not travel around this state over the last year and see a white South Carolina or a black South Carolina," Obama said in his victory speech last weekend. "I saw South Carolina." That evening, his crowd of supporters chanted as one, "Race doesn't matter." This was an electric moment. Obama's words are in the great tradition of Martin Luther King Jr. Obama, more than any figure in America, can help bind up the racial wounds of America. In addition, for the past eight years, one of the most prominent qualities of the American left has been anger, which has served it and the country very poorly. An Obama primary win would be a move away from the politics of rage.

The one thing that will keep Obama's appeal from translating into widespread support among Republicans is that he is, on almost every issue, a conventional liberal. And while rhetoric and character matter a lot, politics is finally and fundamentally about ideas and philosophy. Whether we're talking about the Iraq war, monitoring terrorist communications, health care, taxes, education, abortion and the courts, the size of government, or almost anything else, Obama embodies the views of the special-interest groups on the left. In this respect, he should borrow from the Clinton strategy in 1992, when Bill Clinton ran as a "New Democrat," championed free trade, promised to "end welfare as we know it" and criticized, on hawkish grounds, the "butchers of Beijing."

Bill Clinton ran an intellectually creative race whose ideas appealed to non-Democrats. Barack Obama has shown no such inclination so far (his speeches, while inspiring, mostly avoid a serious discussion of policies). If he wanted to demonstrate his independence from liberal orthodoxy, for example, he could come out in favor of school choice for low-income families, which would both help poor families and demonstrate support for some of the best faith-based institutions in America: urban parochial schools.

If Obama becomes the Democratic nominee and fails to take steps such as this, his liberal views will be his greatest vulnerability. Obama will try to reject the liberal label — but based on his stands on the issues, at least so far, the label will fit, and it will stick.

Barack Obama is among the most impressive political talents of our lifetime. If he defeats Hillary Clinton, the question for the general election is not whether he can transcend his race but whether he can reach beyond his ideology.

Wehner, formerly deputy assistant to President Bush, is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

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Super Tuesday Message from Barack

2008-02-06T03:42:00.000-08:00

The votes will be counted into the night and into tomorrow, but today we won states and we won delegates in every part of the country.

As of right now, we have won more states and delegates than Senator Clinton. It's a remarkable achievement we can all be proud of.

Tonight, we know one thing for sure -- our time has come, our movement is real, and change is coming to America.

At this moment in history, the stakes are too high and the challenges too great to play the same Washington game with the same Washington players and expect a different result.

This time must be different.

There will be those who say it cannot be done. But we know what we have seen and what we believe -- that when ordinary people come together we can still do extraordinary things.

Yes, we can.

Thank you so much,

Barack

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Why Obama won and what his win gets him

2008-01-27T11:20:00.001-08:00

Dual stunners: Total turnout exceeds GOP’s and Obama’s margin of victory
Sen. Barack Obama celebrates his resounding South Carolina victory Saturday night.

By: Tom Curry
National affairs writer

There were two true stunners Saturday night: the size of Sen. Barack Obama’s margin of victory over Sen. Hillary Clinton — 28 percentage points — but just as significant this number: Total turnout for Democrats in their primary was greater than the turnout for the Republican primary in this state, which is one of the most loyally Republican in the nation.

Four years ago about 293,000 Democrats voted in the state’s primary: Saturday Obama alone got more than that number of votes.

Why did Obama win South Carolina and what does this triumph portend for future contests?

One short answer: He and his campaign staffers worked.

Thus Obama vindicated Sen. Hillary Clinton’s own New Hampshire campaign slogan when she said, “Some believe you can get change by hoping for it. I believe you get change by working hard.”

Democratic activists here in South Carolina said that the Obama campaign had perhaps the most extensive field operation ever seen in this state.

Superb field organization
The reach of the Obama field operation extended even to such often forgotten places as Allendale County, which has the second smallest population of any of the state’s 46 counties.

To cite another locale, Obama had had about 20 supporters working out of his Greenville, S.C. office since mid-summer; Clinton had only five or six starting in the fall, according to one Greenville Democratic activist.

The Obama high command showed a skill for picking talent: Craig Schirmer, a veteran South Carolina get-out-the-vote expert, was in charge of Obama’s mobilization effort in the state.

Obama also won because Clinton and her strategists, sensing defeat, apparently decided to trim their effort in the state.

“They basically pulled out of the state,” said veteran Charleston, S.C. Democrat Phil Noble, the president of South Carolina New Democrats, and an Obama supporter.

The other Obama

2008-01-26T12:13:00.000-08:00

In Barack Obama's bid for the Democratic nomination, wife Michelle is fondly referred to as 'The Closer.'

He is, by both nature and image-maker design, the John Boy of presidential aspirants.Harvard grad, successful lawyer, devoted mother . . . and every morning she gets to wake up next to him.

COLUMBIA, S.C.–She's the other "supportive spouse" on the campaign trail, but she doesn't lecture the media or launch political assaults.

Michelle Obama has no legacy to protect, can't wax nostalgic about her eight years in the White House, doesn't appear to be seeking office herself.

She has her own story to tell.

On a recent day, when Bill Clinton was talking about political "hit jobs," she was reading The Big Hungry Bear to preschoolers, trading hugs with 5-year-olds, then talking at a round table about breastfeeding and her daughters' soccer games.

But make no mistake – 44-year-old Michelle Obama is a savvy, if reluctant, political campaigner, a woman whose elegant air cushions some blunt views, a woman who can switch from doting mother to dynamic speaker at a podium in a blink.

She is an unquestioned asset to her husband, Barack Obama, as he heads into today's South Carolina showdown with Hillary Clinton in their battle for the Democratic presidential nomination, working more subtly and quietly than Clinton's spouse, who likes to bloody a few noses and make a lot of noise along the trail.

The Obama campaign fondly calls her "The Closer," the one who seals the deal, the embodiment of her husband's brassy campaign theme by Stevie Wonder, "Signed, Sealed Delivered."

She, more than her husband, can speak about a typical African American upbringing in this country.

She talks to women, a demographic her husband must win back, and about the gap in opportunities for young black girls, and she has spoken openly about fears for her family's safety.

"Ain't no black people in Iowa," she said famously, touting her husband's ability to cut across racial lines for support.

"Something big, something new is happening."

Michelle Obama can point to her childhood in a one-bedroom apartment on the south side of Chicago, her rise through Princeton and Harvard, a successful law practice, and her positions on corporate boards and the University of Chicago, posts that allowed her to earn double her husband's salary, more than $300,000 according to published reports, when she gave it up to help her spouse of 15 years become president.

"My mother came home and took care of us through high school, my father was a city shift worker who took care of us all his life," she told a university crowd here this week.

"The only amazing thing about my life is that a man like my father could raise a family of four on a single city worker's salary."

She initially had qualms about her husband's presidential run and spent months under the radar, staying back in Chicago with the couple's daughters, 6-year-old Sasha and 9-year-old Malia.

But then, she told Vanity Fair in an interview, she realized this bid was not about her husband, but her entire family.

"We're running for president of the United States," she said.

Now, one of the Obama campaign's buttons features the family of four as "America's First Family."

The former Michelle Robinson first met Barack Obama, a law student three years her senior, when she was assigned to mentor him at the Chicago law firm of Sidley Austin.

She took it upon herself to try to fix him up with eligible women his age, but Obama finally asked her out.

On their first date, she told the Chicago Sun-Times, they went to the Art Institute, strolled the city's famous Michigan Ave. and caught a movie, Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing.

She had a more traditional view of commitment in a relationship; he was unconvinced of the strength of marriage as an institution.

On the couple's 15th wedding anniversary last October, she told the newspaper of the night he proposed, an evening that began with her telling him she was losing patience with his ambivalence when it came to marriage.

Then dessert arrived, a box on a plate. An engagement ring was inside.

"He said, `That kind of shuts you up, doesn't it?'" she recounted to the newspaper.

She is perhaps an even more commanding presence in a room than her husband, a statuesque woman, this day wearing a grey sweater and pinstriped suit, who demands attention and whose every movement is followed by every eye in the room.

On this day, she reads for a gaggle of 17 preschoolers, and she immediately charms, drawing each and every child into the exercise.

She hams it up with a giant university mascot and even shares a conspiratorial whisper with a tiny member of her group who tells her his parents really like her husband.

"Good," she whispers back, breaking into a large grin.

Then she moves upstairs to another room at this building on the University of South Carolina campus and talks about the challenges facing working women and young children in the United States and the need to elect someone who has "leadership, vision and character ... someone close enough to the ground to understand this."

She tells them she shops at Target, she stands in the morning chill on the soccer fields watching her daughters and agrees with another woman about inadequate maternity leave, saying that everyone pressures women to breast-feed, "but by the time you figure it out, you're back at work."

She tells them she would have no problem staying at home with her children, but that is not an option available to her or anyone in the room.

"During this entire process, I am constantly checking on my kids – `You okay?' `How you feelin'?'

"My disappointment as a woman, as a professional, is that my predecessors have been very good at playing the game, but the game itself is broken," she says. "Being a good mother should not be a barrier to being a good employee."

But she declines an invitation from the Star to discuss the other spouse, with whom Hillary Clinton famously equated her at a debate this week.

"Oh no, definitely not," she says.

But she had no qualms about doing it in a fundraising email.

"We knew getting into this race that Barack would be competing with Senator Clinton and president Clinton at the same time," she says in the appeal.

"We expected that Bill Clinton would tout his record from the '90s and talk about Hillary's role in his past success. That's a fair approach and a challenge we are prepared to face.

"What we didn't expect, at least not from our fellow Democrats, are the win-at-all-costs tactics we've seen recently.

"We didn't expect misleading accusations that wilfully distort Barack's record."

Their "smear tactics" turn people off government, she said.

She has had to learn that her words will always be magnified on the campaign trail. And she has had to check herself in dealing with reporters because her natural penchant is to lapse into sarcastic humour, a dangerous gambit in such a high-stakes race.

Earlier in the race, she made headlines with a comment that appeared to be an attack on the Clintons.

"Our view is if you can't run your own house, you certainly can't run the White House," she said in August. The campaign later said she was referring only to her home situation.

And when her would-be president comes home?

He does the laundry, makes the bed, takes out the garbage, she says.

"The girls need to see him doing that, and he knows I need him to do that," she says.

"That was a meeting of the minds that we had to reach.

"I wasn't content with saying, `You're doing important things in the world, so go off and be important and I'll handle everything else here.'

"The truth is, if I did that, I'd probably still be angry."

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2008-01-19T13:21:00.000-08:00

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When Attacked, Obama's Now Hitting Back Pt.1

2008-01-19T13:20:00.001-08:00

Sen. Barack Obama lost the New Hampshire primary after attacks from his main rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, went largely unanswered. (Kevin Clifford - AP)

RENO, Nev., Jan. 18 -- The hundreds of people who turned out at the University of Nevada on Friday heard Sen. Barack Obama deliver a lofty stump speech about bridging the nation's divides and creating a groundswell for change. But they also witnessed him engage in the more mundane task of rebutting attacks from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton on his positions on Social Security taxes and on the proposed nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

"When Senator Clinton implied that I'm for Yucca when I've never been for it, that's a problem. That erodes people's confidence in our politics," Obama said.

It was a sign of a lesson learned the hard way: Let no attack go unanswered.

After his victory in the Iowa caucuses, Obama arrived in New Hampshire more as the head of a movement than as a candidate, greeted by huge crowds that lined up for hours to hear a speech that could have been delivered at a suburban megachurch, all empowerment and inspiration.

While the Democratic senator from Illinois was holding his rallies, though, Clinton's campaign sent out a mailing accusing him of being soft in his support for abortion rights, organized 24 prominent New Hampshire women to send an e-mail echoing that charge and distributed a flier accusing him of seeking a big tax increase on working families. The charges were debatable, but Obama's only response was a hastily arranged automated phone call decrying the abortion attack. Clinton won the primary with strong support from the mailings' target audiences -- women and working-class voters.

Locked in a close race with Clinton that could continue well beyond the Feb. 5 primaries once seen as the campaign's decisive moment, the Obama team is determined not to make the same mistake. Much of the feel-good imagery was ditched in the New England snow, and it has been replaced by a more traditional campaign that rebuts and prebuts, brags about endorsements, and engages with -- rather than floats above -- the competition.

In Nevada, which holds its caucuses Saturday, the campaign has reverted to "town hall" meetings built around audience questions, rather than the rousing standalone speeches Obama gave in New Hampshire.

The shift in both tone and substance was apparent in a debate Tuesday in Las Vegas. Gone was the sense of easy confidence that Obama carried into the last debate before the Jan. 8 New Hampshire primary. This time he was all business on issues such as energy, the mortgage crisis and Iraq.

"We came into New Hampshire on a high," said David Axelrod, Obama's senior adviser. "The iconic rallies, combined with the polling, conveyed a sense that we were taking it for granted. She [Clinton] looked like she was working for it, scraping for it." He added, "This is a long process, and this is how you learn."

But the new, more aggressive strategy also poses a challenge for Obama: The more time he spends rebutting Clinton attacks, the more difficult it is for him to focus on the broader themes and uplifting rhetoric that have been drawing voters to him. While Obama may have the facts on his side -- at least in several instances -- engaging with the senator from New York may seem to many voters to be a wearying and obscure show of tit-for-tats that distracts from his overarching offer of a "new kind of politics."

But the need for such a rapid response is heightened by Obama's tendency to say things that his rival's campaign can seize on as fodder for attacks. On Friday, the Clinton campaign organized a conference call with several congressmen to lambaste Obama's remarks, in an editorial board interview in Nevada, about the transformative nature of Ronald Reagan, who, Obama said, "changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it." The Obama campaign quickly arranged its own call with congressmen, arguing that the remarks were a historical observation, not an endorsement of Reagan's politics.

On Friday night there was another attack, a radio ad from the Clinton campaign in which basketball star and Clinton friend Earvin "Magic" Johnson calls Obama a "rookie." The Obama campaign immediately produced a rebuttal noting that Johnson in his rookie year won the MVP award in the National Basketball Association finals.

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When Attacked, Obama's Now Hitting Back Pt.2

2008-01-19T13:16:00.000-08:00

Sen. Barack Obama lost the New Hampshire primary after attacks from his main rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, went largely unanswered,

Clinton's charge questioning Obama's credentials on abortion rights surfaced a month before the Iowa caucuses; she cited Obama's votes of "present," rather than "yes" or "no," on some abortion bills in the Illinois Senate as proof that he is shaky on the issue. The Illinois chapter of the National Organization for Women had criticized the votes, but the Obama campaign pointed to statements by Pam Sutherland, the head of the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council, saying the "present" votes were part of a strategy to protect legislators in vulnerable districts. Obama has 100 percent ratings from abortion rights groups.

But the mailing in New Hampshire, which stated in bold that Obama was "unwilling to take a stand on choice," arrived much closer to the vote there than in Iowa. His campaign rushed out an automated phone call two days before primary day, but on the final day of the campaign, volunteers reported with dismay that many voters were asking about Obama's stance on abortion rights.

This week, the campaign took a more combative approach. Last Saturday, Obama staffers called Sutherland to ask her to publicly explain the "present" votes. "The facts are the facts -- he helped us with a winning strategy," she said in a conference call with reporters the next day.

Clinton also attacked Obama's position on Social Security in a mailing that went to voters in New Hampshire and Nevada, accusing him of seeking a "trillion dollar tax increase on America's hardworking families." It was a reference to his statements that he would consider addressing Social Security's deficit by raising the $97,500 limit on salaries subject to payroll tax. At times, he has suggested a "doughnut hole" of untaxed salary above the current limit and taxing everything above $200,000.

Obama let the charge go unanswered in New Hampshire. But in Nevada he has offered a defense to his audiences, saying that raising the cap, particularly if limited to those earning more than $200,000, would make the tax more fair to working-class Americans, and noting that Clinton told a voter a few months ago that she was open to the idea. Her principal proposal for addressing Social Security is to restore "fiscal responsibility" and to appoint a study commission.

On Thursday came another Clinton broadside, a radio ad airing in Nevada that charged that Obama is "hip-deep in financial ties" to Chicago-based Exelon, a nuclear plant operator that supports the Yucca Mountain waste site, which is hugely unpopular in this state. Obama got Nevada supporters on the phone to assure reporters of his opposition to the Yucca site, and he rehashed it in his appearances.

In engaging more directly, the Obama campaign has mostly refrained from using its own radio ads or mailings to attack Clinton's record or proposals. A union backing him began running a harshly worded Spanish-language radio ad this week accusing Clinton of suppressing working-class voters because some of her supporters filed an unsuccessful lawsuit challenging caucus sites at Las Vegas casinos.

But, as the Clinton campaign points out, that does not mean that Obama has avoided attacks altogether -- he weaves them into his comments on the stump and in interviews, where his barbs have grown sharper. In Reno on Friday, he ridiculed an answer Clinton gave during the Las Vegas debate about her support for a 2001 Senate bankruptcy bill that was backed by credit-card companies and strongly opposed by consumer groups. Clinton said she was glad the measure never became law. "Think about that," Obama said. "She voted for it even though she hoped it wouldn't pass."

The crowd favorite was Obama's reenactment of how Clinton and former senator John Edwards (N.C.) responded during the debate to a question about their biggest weaknesses. Obama recalled his own answer -- that he is disorganized. "And Senator Edwards says, 'I'm just so passionate about poor people. And helping them.' And then Hillary says, 'My biggest weakness is I'm so impatient about bringing about real change to America.' "

Smiling, Obama added: "This is what I mean. This is political speak. This is what you learn in Washington, from all those years of experience."

Watching the new course Obama has taken, some campaign insiders like to think the New Hampshire loss was not the worst outcome for a candidate who is relatively new to the national stage, compared with Clinton, and followed a relatively easy path to the Senate. Had Obama won in New Hampshire, said one prominent Democrat, he might have become the prohibitive favorite for the nomination, "but he wouldn't be ready for the general election, he wouldn't be ready for the White House."

MacGillis reported from Washington.

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Kerry endorses Obama

2008-01-11T19:57:00.000-08:00

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Kerry endorses Obama

2008-01-11T19:55:00.000-08:00

January 12, 2008

CHARLESTON, South Carolina: Barack Obama has secured the endorsement of a pillar of the Democratic establishment, with the former presidential candidate John Kerry backing him to go all the way to the White House.

Senator Kerry announced his decision, which will be a blow for Hillary Clinton, as Senator Obama took his campaign to South Carolina on Thursday. That state's primary on January 26 will be the first big test of Senator Obama's appeal to black Americans.

Senator Kerry declared: "Martin Luther King jnr said the time is always right to do what is right. And I'm here because this is the right time to share with you that Barack Obama can be, will be and should be the next president of the United States."

Despite his failed presidential run in 2004, Senator Kerry remains a force within the Democratic Party, and brings volunteers and a mailing list of 3 million supporters. His decision could tempt uncommitted establishment figures to opt for Senator Obama.

Both men appeared at the College of Charleston, where Senator Kerry addressed doubts over Senator Obama's inexperience. Young visionaries such as Thomas Jefferson and Dr King had played pivotal roles in the nation's history, he said.

"We are electing judgment and character, not years on this Earth. It is the moral compass I see in Barack Obama that gives me confidence he will steer our country in the right direction."

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2008-01-07T16:44:00.000-08:00

Bill Bradley comes out for Barack Obama in New Hampshire

2008-01-07T16:41:00.001-08:00

BY ASSOCIATED PRESS
MANCHESTER, N.H. - Bill Bradley, a former presidential hopeful and senator, planned to endorse Barack Obama for president on Sunday, aides said.
Bradley, a hall of fame professional basketball player, will campaign on Monday for Obama, Obama aides told The Associated Press.

The aides, speaking on condition of anonymity in advance of the formal announcement, said they hope the endorsement will help Obama end the national front-runner status for Clinton, who placed a disappointing third in Iowa's caucuses last week and is deadlocked with Obama in New Hampshire according to a poll released Saturday.

"Barack Obama is building a broad new coalition that brings together Democrats, independents and Republicans by once again making idealism a central focus of our politics," Bradley said in a statement scheduled to be released on Sunday.

"Because of his enormous appeal to Americans of all ages and backgrounds, Obama is the candidate best positioned to win in November. ... His movement for change could create a new era of American politics — truly a new American story."

Obama remains in a tight race with Clinton, both posting 33 percent support in a CNN-WMUR poll conducted two days after Barack Obama's Iowa victory and released Saturday night. A second poll, from The Concord Monitor and Research 2000, shows Obama at 34 and Clinton at 33. Clinton now seeks to stop Obama's momentum in New Hampshire, where the presidential primary is on Tuesday.

Bradley ran in the 2000 presidential primary against Vice President Al Gore. He sought to paint himself as an alternative to the incumbent Gore, appealing to the party's liberal base. He failed to win, however, because many of New Hampshire's largest voting bloc — independents — flocked to Sen. John McCain's first bid.

Bradley briefly considered a 2004 bid but instead stayed a consultant. In that presidential primary, he supported then-Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.

"Bill Bradley has always called on Americans to reach for what is possible in our politics," Obama said in a draft statement. "As a presidential candidate and author, he has continued to challenge us to build a mandate for pragmatic solutions and progressive change, and I am truly grateful that he has endorsed my candidacy."

Obama's state director, Matt Rodriguez, was a top aide to Bradley's campaign here in 2000.

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Hillary Clinton 'desperate but not panicked'

2008-01-07T16:38:00.000-08:00

By Tim Shipman
Last Updated: 1:31am GMT 07/01/2008

Hillary Clinton's closest allies have launched a calculated bid to play down the significance of Barack Obama's victory in the first White House showdown last week and his credentials to run America.

New Hampshire stampede sets Obama up for second victory
In interviews with The Sunday Telegraph, Dick Gephardt, twice a Democrat presidential candidate, and Madeleine Albright, the former US secretary of state, joined a publicity offensive to rehabilitate the former First Lady as the only candidate qualified to be president, and tough enough to face down her Republican opponents.

Hillary Clinton now needs a good result
in New Hampshire to stay in the running

Mrs Clinton's friends were sent to campaign in New Hampshire, which holds its primary elections on Tuesday, after her third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses torpedoed her frontrunner status.

In a sharpening of the Clinton camp's rhetoric against Mr Obama, Mr Gephardt said the senator from Illinois had not accomplished much during his three years in Washington.

And Mr Gephardt, a former majority leader of the House of Representatives, suggested that Mr Obama's win, by 38 per cent to Mrs Clinton's 29 per cent, was not a "real loss" for her.

Both he and Mrs Albright questioned the rules of the caucuses, where victory is decided by the number of delegates the candidates win, rather than the number of votes they receive.

Mr Gephardt said: "It's still not clear how far apart they were. They were pretty tightly bunched. It wasn't a blowout victory for Obama. Obviously, you would rather win than lose, but I don't see it as a real loss."

Echoing Mr Obama's campaign slogan, he said Mrs Clinton "is as interested in change as her opponent, but she has the ability to get it done in the real world. Senator Obama is a talented individual but he has only just arrived, he really hasn't accomplished very much."

He warned that the Republicans would "beat up" the Democrat candidate, whoever it is, during the general election but said that only Mrs Clinton was "tested". Mr Gephardt did admit Mrs Clinton had "got to start winning" but insisted she could survive a second defeat in New Hampshire.

He also dismissed Mr Obama's success in attracting record numbers of independent and Republican voters in Iowa.

Mrs Albright questioned the Iowa result, saying: "I think there are issues about Iowa and the caucus system. We all want change but it's necessary to have the experience to make it happen."

Clinton advisers have revealed that there is unease in her campaign team about how to combat Mr Obama's popularity. On Friday, she wheeled out husband Bill - blamed by some in her camp for overshadowing his wife on the campaign trail. The former president declared that she could copy his "comeback kid" achievement in New Hampshire during the 1992 election.

The Washington Post reported yesterday that Mr Clinton had taken part in a conference call on Friday morning seeking to calm nerves among his wife's congressional supporters. One participant said of the mood in her camp: "There's desperation, but there's no panic."

Clinton advisers drew attention to Mr Obama's vulnerability to Republican attacks on his admissions of youthful drug use and inconsistencies over healthcare and gun control policy - but will not resort to attack advertisements before Tuesday's primary.

The Clinton camp knew well in advance that they were in trouble in Iowa.

A week before the caucuses, a group of former Oxford University friends of the Clintons' daughter Chelsea - now consultants, lawyers and accountants - flew to Des Moines to join the effort. Time and again when they knocked on doors they found that prospective Clinton voters had defected. "We kept finding people who had switched to Obama," one friend told The Sunday Telegraph. The same message came from a focus group of Democrat voters convened by the pollster Frank Luntz on the eve of the caucus. Phillip Williams, a 48-year-old metal machinist, said: "I have a problem with her credibility. She doesn't seem to be genuine."

In response to the defeat, Mrs Clinton bolstered her campaign in New Hampshire with experienced strategists who helped to revitalise John Kerry's campaign four years ago. With them is Steve Morgan, a British strategist who worked on Tony Blair's election victory in 1997 and was international media spokesman for both Mr Kerry and Al Gore.

He said of the Iowa result: "It's Obama's backyard. It would be like Gordon Brown going to Witney and beating David Cameron."

Mr Morgan will also run the campaign's outreach programme, wooing overseas voters, including 350,000 in Britain. He told The Sunday Telegraph: "There are 6.5 million American expats now - that's more voters than in the state of Massachusetts."

If Mrs Clinton does not get a good result in New Hampshire, planning for the November general election may prove academic.

David Gergen, a former adviser to her husband, said: "She has to win in New Hampshire. I think if she comes in second she will be crippled."

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Steely Clinton attacks Obama as new vote showdown looms

2008-01-07T16:36:00.000-08:00

Hillary Clinton launched a searing attack on surging rival Barack Obama, as polls showed Sunday he could inflict a second body blow to her White House hopes in the upcoming New Hampshire primary.

Clinton on Saturday used a tense face-to-face debate, three days before the next crucial 2008 test to argue her rival was inconsistent, inexperienced, and more fond of words than action.

"He could have a pretty good debate with himself," a steely Clinton said, trying to pin the damaging 'flip-flop label on Obama on hot-button issues like healthcare, national security and Iraq.

Clinton came out swinging after a humiliating third place in Thursday's leadoff Iowa caucuses, which validated Obama's soaring message of hope, change and cleansing America's poisoned politics.

"You have changed positions within three years on a range of issues that you put forth when you ran for the Senate and have changed," she said.

"You said that records matter."

She also argued his powerful rhetoric did not mean he would be effective in driving reform, and said her quest to be the first woman president showed she was an agent of change.

"Words are not actions. And as beautifully presented and passionately felt as they are, they are not action."

Obama, stature enhanced by his Iowa triumph, avoided serious gaffes, appeared unruffled by Clinton's attacks, and smoothly deflected them with his own political message.

"What I think is important that we don't do is try to distort each other's records as election day approaches here in New Hampshire.

"What I think the people of America are looking for are people who are going to be straight about the issues," Obama said.

New polls meanwhile showed the effect of Obama's Iowa momentum.

In a CNN/WMUR survey, one of the first since the Iowa caucuses, Obama and Clinton were locked up on 33 percent of likely primary voters. Obama was up four points from a similar poll in late December and Clinton was down one.

Another poll, by the Concord Monitor newspaper, had Obama with a slender one point lead over Clinton, 34 to 33 percent.

The Clinton campaign rejected the idea Obama was vaulting from victory in Iowa, to a win in New Hampshire on Tuesday, saying his poll 'bounce' was negligable.

In a rare moment of levity, Clinton was asked why people appeared to like Obama more.

"Well that hurts my feelings," Clinton said, sparking laughter from the audience, ... "But I'll try to go on."

"He's very likable. I agree with that. ... I don't think I'm that bad," said Clinton, showing the softer side her campaign has tried to highlight to head off claims that she has a polarizing character.

Obama, adding bite to a sugary exchange, joked "You're likeable enough, Hillary," before she went back on the attack.

"In 2000, we, unfortunately, ended up with a president who people said they wanted to have a beer with, who said he wanted to be a uniter, not a divider."

"I'm offering 35 years of experience making change."

The Republican debate was the more bruising.

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who won the Republican Iowa caucuses, had to defend his remark that President George W. Bush's foreign policy had been arrogant.

Arizona Senator John McCain, who tied for third in Iowa but leads polls in New Hampshire, said he was the one Republican consistently right on Iraq.

"I know how to lead, I have been involved in these issues and I know how to solve them," said McCain.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney took countless attacks: at one point he accused Huckabee of mischaracterizing his position and Huckabee shot back, "which one?"

McCain accused Romney of distorting his views on illegal immigrants.

"My friend, you can spend your whole fortune on these attack ads. But it still won't be true," McCain said.

Republicans gave Obama a taste of attacks he will face if he wins the nomination, in treatment which suggested he was now seen as the Democratic front-runner.

"Senator Obama does not have the national security experience and background to lead this nation," McCain said.

New Hampshire and a few other states hold "semi-open" primaries that allow independents to get involved on the side of their choice.

Independents comprise some 44 percent of the approximately 850,000 voters in the state and can have a decisive role. Some candidates shape their message to appeal to this crucial bloc.

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2008-01-05T09:04:00.000-08:00

The Obama Phenomenon

2008-01-05T09:00:00.002-08:00

The Obama Phenomenon
By: BOB HERBERT
Published: January 5, 2008
Manchester, N.H.

The historians can put aside their reference material. This is new. America has never seen anything like the Barack Obama phenomenon.

I was surprised all day Thursday, before the results of the Iowa caucuses were in, by the apparent serenity of the Obama forces here in New Hampshire. The stakes were enormous, but the campaign staff members and volunteers seemed as cool as the candidate.

The students, veterans, middle-aged moms, retirees and others working steadily to make Barack Obama president seemed to accept as fact that the country is ready for profound change and that their job is to help make it happen.

“We’ve been busy knocking on doors, making phone calls, inputting data and basically just spreading hope,” said Kathryn Teague, a 19-year-old who has taken a year off from Keene State College to work in the campaign.

There is no longer any doubt that the Obama phenomenon is real. Mr. Obama’s message of hope, healing and change, discounted as fanciful and naïve by skeptics, drew Iowans into the frigid night air by the tens of thousands on Thursday to stand with a man who is not just running for president, but trying to build a new type of political movement.

By midnight, Joe Biden and Chris Dodd had been chased from the race; John Edwards was all but literally on his knees; and the Clintons were trying, for the umpteenth time, to figure out how to remake themselves as the comeback kids.

Shake hands with tomorrow. It’s here.

Senator Obama’s victory speech was a concise oratorical gem. No candidate in either party can move an audience like he can. He characterized his stunning victory as an affirmation of “the most American of ideas — that in the face of impossible odds, people who love this country can change it.”

Mr. Obama has shown, in one appearance after another, a capacity to make people feel good about their country again. His supporters want desperately to turn the page on the bitter politics and serial disasters of the past 20 years. That they have gravitated to a black candidate to carry out this task is — to use a term I heard for the first time this week — monumentous.

The Clintons, especially, have seemed baffled by the winds of change. They mounted a peculiar argument against Senator Obama, acknowledging that voters wanted change but insisting that you can’t achieve change by doing things differently. Senator Hillary Clinton has had a devil of a time trying to cope with the demand for change while shouldering the legacy of an administration that defined the 1990s.

Barack Obama has none of that baggage.

But for all the talk of change, it’s just one of the factors driving the Obama phenomenon. The simple truth is that hardly anyone — in politics, in the news media or anywhere else — realized what an extraordinary candidate Senator Obama would turn out to be.

He’s smart, hard-working, charismatic, good-looking and a whiz at fund-raising.

He has an incandescent smile, but it’s not frozen in place. He seems authentic. When he laughs, you have the feeling it’s because something is funny.

People are lining up to believe in him. He has the easy demeanor (in a long, lanky frame) of someone who’s comfortable with himself. Even when he fires up a crowd, he doesn’t get too hot. He has the cadences that remind you of King but the cool that reminds you of Kennedy — John, not Robert.

If the Clintons are going to stop Mr. Obama, they need to do it now. If he wins the New Hampshire primary Tuesday, the news media will go nuts and he will head toward the Jan. 19 caucuses in Nevada and the Jan. 26 primary in South Carolina (where half the voters are African-American) with incredible momentum.

I expect that African-Americans, under those circumstance, would view his campaign with almost religious fervor. All those questions about whether he’s black enough would be history. Mr. Obama would be perceived by many as within striking distance of the presidency, and there will be very few blacks in favor of stopping that train.

However this election turns out, Mr. Obama can be credited with a great achievement. He has drawn tons of people, and especially young people, into the political process. More than anyone else, he has re-energized that process and put some of the fun back into politics. And he’s done it by appealing openly and consistently to the best, rather than the worst, in us.

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2008-01-05T09:00:00.001-08:00