Tag: Barack Obama (page 22)

Sen. Barack Obama got heckled today while giving a speech in Florida. The hecklers were African Americans who wanted to know why he hasn't spoken out for the AA community. The audience booed the hecklers, and to Obama's credit, he gave them an opportunity during the q and a following his talk to ask a question:

"My question is, in the face of the numerous attacks that are made against the African community, or the black community, by the same U.S. government that you aspire to lead," the man started, before naming sub-prime lending, police shootings of blacks, the Jena 6 case and Hurricane Katrina.

"In the face of all these attacks that are clearly being made on the African community, why is it that you have not had the ability to not one time speak to the interests and even speak on behalf of the oppressed and exploited African community, or black community, in this country?" he asked. As some in the audience booed, Obama started his response.

Obama's answer below:

This is a follow-up to my post last night on why I think the Obama campaign is floating Tim Kaine as a smokescreen in the Veepstakes and the frontrunner is Kathleen Sebelius.

Here's the latest veep sweepstakes numbers from 538.com. Law Prof Michael Froomkin at Discourse.Net says the Bayh numbers may be misleading. Froomkin thinks, as do I, that Sebelius may get the nod from Obama.

Why does Obama need Kaine as a smokescreen? To make Sebelius more palatable to Hillary supporters who will be more than a bit upset at his choosing a woman other than Hillary. [More...]:

I just spent two hours writing up a theory that came to me at midnight. The gist is that Sen. Barack Obama, by leaking to the mainstream media that Hillary is not on his shortlist while not discouraging talk about Virgina Gov. Tim Kaine, is manipulating a planned succession of leaks.

Obama has hit his truth in advertising wall: He's got to show he's the progressive candidate for real change because that is how he sold himself to American voters. He's committed to expending untold sums of money to go after unregistered voters in the swing states -- the young, minorities and others who firmly believe he represents change. If his VP choice doesn't also embody change from politics as usual in Washington, he becomes reduced to spouting just words about change, which in turn gives him an electability problem. [More...]

The group Vote Both is shutting down:

The two former Clinton staffers who started the group Vote Both say Obama's decision to offer Clinton a prime-time speaking role at the Democratic Party nominating convention and other signals suggest Obama will not chose her.

"Because it seems that Senator Obama has made his decision to offer the slot on the ticket to another candidate, we believe that continuing to ask him to pick Hillary is no longer helpful to our party's chances of winning in November," Adam Parkhomenko and Sam Arora wrote in an e-mail they planned to send Thursday to the 40,000-plus supporters who signed onto their online petition.

Hillary is likely to speak on the second night of the convention, August 26, which is the 88th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment giving the women the right to vote. Here's my recap of what it was when she spoke at the 2004 convention in Boston.

Obama's acceptance speech is on August 28, which is the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream" Speech, which by the way, included this line:

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Update: Lanny Davis makes a final pitch for Hillary -- like a last chance college try. Too late I think.

When Sen. Barack Obama accepts the Democratic Party nomination for President at Invesco Field in Denver, 75,000 will be in attendance. Who are they and what can they do for Obama? He's got it all planned out and it's very clever. If it works, the Republicans may not know what hit them in November.

The campaign recognizes that people who live in battleground states will be more effective at persuading their neighbors than the traditional advertising campaigns, which is why it's important to send the masses who will be in Denver out with instructions and training to bring in votes.

....Enter the 75,000 people who will have to come hours early for Obama's acceptance speech to get through security, most carrying cell phones. As they settle in their seats, campaign aides will be on stage asking them to text message their friends and use call sheets to get people to register. "There will be a lot of idle time. We put idle people to work," Hildebrand said.

Now consider how one gets to be one of the 75,000 in attendance, considering only 5,000 are delegates and the press accounts for another 15,000, leaving 55,000 seats. [More...]

The Washington Post and Chicago Tribune's Swamp are saying the same thing: Obama's veep vetting is focusing most heavily on Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, Joe Biden, and Sen. Evan Bayh.

Problem: If Joe Biden is the nominee, count me out. I couldn't even clap for the ticket.

Other reasons: His saying we may need to rethink the military draft. His inability to cure rampant injustices in his own state, where one of every four prisoners who died in prison since 2000 died of AIDS-related diseases and the states' prisons suffer from an atrocious lack of medical care.

I'm just warming up. I so hope Obama doesn't pick Biden. He is the antithesis of change and the embodiment of your father's Oldsmobile. [More...]

To balance the budget, Illiniois Governor Rod Blagojevich has vetoed funds earmarked to prevent and correct wrongful convictions:

In a state known for sending innocent people to prison, Gov. Rod Blagojevich has angered prosecutors and defense attorneys alike by vetoing millions of dollars lawmakers set aside to fight wrongful convictions and support sweeping death penalty reforms.

One budget cut eliminated first-time funding for a Downstate advocacy group with several key court victories on behalf of convicted defendants. Another veto blocked funds for videotaping interrogations in murder cases under a law championed by Barack Obama when he was a state lawmaker.

More than $5.5 million approved by lawmakers to prevent or correct wrongful convictions was among the $1.4 billion Blagojevich vetoed this month to bring the state budget in line, according to interviews and a review of budget documents. The vetoes included money to support the reforms he signed five years ago to ensure the integrity of the state's capital punishment process.

I can't help but wonder had Obama, who worked so hard for some of the reforms, been attending to his day job as well as campaigning, whether he might have talked some sense into Blagojevich. These cuts should have been something, even as a Senator no longer in state politics, he fought the Governor tooth and nail on.

John McCain takes a shot at Sen. Barack Obama and his Berlin speech today:

While Barack Obama took a premature victory lap today in the heart of Berlin, proclaiming himself a 'citizen of the world,' John McCain continued to make his case to the American citizens who will decide this election. Barack Obama offered eloquent praise for this country, but the contrast is clear. John McCain has dedicated his life to serving, improving and protecting America. Barack Obama spent an afternoon talking about it."

More...

James Leo Bishop was executed in Mississippi last night. His last words included an apology to his victims and a request for people to vote for Sen. Barack Obama:

Before he died Wednesday evening, death row inmate Dale Leo Bishop apologized to his victim's family, thanked America and urged people to vote for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

"For those who oppose the death penalty and want to see it end, our best bet is to vote for Barack Obama because his supporters have been working behind the scenes to end this practice," Bishop said.

There's no question Sen. Barack Obama is more attuned to the racial disparity in the application of the death penalty and plight of the wrongly convicted than John McCain. However, he's not a death penalty opponent.

Nonetheless, Mr. Bishop makes the right call between McCain and Obama. May he rest in peace. [More...]

I've been in court and missed Obama's speech in Berlin today. 200,000 people turned out to hear him. Here's the transcript. He told the assembled crowd he speaks to them as a citizen of the world.

One message: Tear down the walls.

The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.

The German paper says it was clearly taken from Ronald Reagan:

Obama's speech was a clear echo of former US president Ronald Reagan's call to then Soviet leader Mikhael Gorbachev in Berlin in 1987 to "tear down this wall," before the fall of communism.

A big theme was the war on terror: [More...]

I had the tv on in the background and this new ad came on. On my TV, the "Obama, Obama, Obama" (in response to the question, who's to blame for rising gas prices, was louder than it is in the video released by the McCain campaign.

It's clever to use real Obama supporters as the chanters but will anyone buy that Obama is responsible for ourrent high gas prices? A better argument (although also not true)would have been that if elected, Obama won't make prices go down. As a Senator, and one who has rarely been there to cast votes the last year and a half, it's just silly to blame our current gas prices on him.

For months, John McCain and Barack Obama have been unable to agree on town hall forum debates. Today, however, they agreed on their first joint appearance -- at a megachurch.

The Rev. Rick Warren has persuaded the candidates to attend a forum at his Saddleback Church, in Lake Forest, Calif., on Aug. 16. In an interview, Mr. Warren said over the weekend that the presidential candidates would appear together for a moment but that he would interview them in succession at his megachurch.

....He said that both had readily agreed, perhaps reflecting how each candidate is courting the evangelical audience to whom Mr. Warren ministers.

Warren says he is friends with both candidates and there will be "no gotcha" questions.

As far as I'm concerned, I've heard more than enough already about the candidates' faith and religion. [More...]