By breaking the color barrier for the Presidency, like Louis Armstrong, Sammy Davis, Jackie Robinson, Sidney Poitier and Martin Luther King, Obama becomes a Folk Hero.

This makes him the darling of the Press and gives him a strong Teflon coating. In addition, by breaking the biggest color barrier on Earth, the Presidency of the United States, Obama goes beyond mere Folk Hero status and attains Super Folk Hero.

27% say they will never vote for a black, 24% for a woman, I think it was 35% for a Mormon and 53% for an atheist.

Fortunately, Obama is NOT a black woman Mormon atheist. Because he is just a black man, he has an excellent chance to romp over the Republicans, who will be cast as the Folk Villians in 2008 against Super Folk Hero.  The Dems have not had a Super-Powered Folk Hero run for President since maybe Andrew Jackson.  JFK and FDR were great candidates but they became Folk Heroes AFTER they were elected.  Obama is a Super-Powered Folk Hero before the first vote has been cast.

This Folk Hero Status would also be granted to the female or Hispanic in the race if they had the charisma and skills to pull it off. But clearly they do not.

So besides the incredible skills and charisma of Obama, he has another terrific advantage:

He's black.

Clinton Endorser and Iowa Campaigner Governor Ted Strickland of Ohio says “Iowa Unattractive in the Wintertime” and that the Caucuses are “Hugely Undemocratic” and “Must Be Brought To An End”.

This is going to help Edwards and Obama, there is no doubt.

Voters in Iowa (and New Hampshire) are a defensive bunch when it comes to their “first-in-the-nation” status. It's one reason why candidates were so willing to pledge to avoid campaigning in Michigan and Florida when both states jumped ahead in the primary calendar.

So a few eyebrows were probably raised when one of Hillary Clinton's most prominent backers, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, lashed out against not only Iowa's spot on the calendar, but also its arcane caucus process – something of which the state's Democrats are very proud.

According to the Associated Press, Strickland called the caucuses “hugely undemocratic” and, because they require attendance at a certain time, intentionally exclude those who might be working or are too old or too sick to get to the caucus venue.

“I'd like to see both parties say, 'We're going to bring this to an end,'” Strickland told The Columbus Dispatch for a story Monday. His comments came only days after campaigning for Clinton in Iowa over the weekend.

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2007/12/31/politics/horser…

This story already has big coverage:

Key Clinton Backer Slams Iowa Caucuses As “Undemocratic”
CBS News, NY – 19 hours ago
Voters in Iowa (and New Hampshire) are a defensive bunch when it comes to their “first-in-the-nation” status. It's one reason why candidates were so willing …

Clinton Surrogate Veers Off Script
New York Times, United States – 22 hours ago
By Jeff Zeleny JEFFERSON, Iowa – Over the weekend, Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio was traveling alongside Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton here, asking voters to …

Prominent Clinton backer criticizes Iowa caucuses
CNN International – Dec 31, 2007
CEDAR FALLS, Iowa (CNN) — Days before the Iowa caucuses, a prominent Hillary Clinton supporter criticized the state's privileged role in the presidential …

Oh-eight (D): Channeling Howard Dean?
MSNBC – Dec 31, 2007
CLINTON: Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland's critique of Iowa's role in the nominating process didn't go over well with some Iowans. “In an interview with The …

Ohio governor and Clinton backer criticizes Iowa caucuses
Toledo Blade, OH – Dec 31, 2007
AP COLUMBUS, Ohio — The governor of Ohio, a must-win state for presidential candidates, is criticizing the Iowa caucuses. Gov. …

Ohio governor and Clinton backer criticizes Iowa caucuses
WDTN, OH – Dec 31, 2007
AP – December 31, 2007 9:15 AM ET COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – Governor Ted Strickland is criticizing the Iowa caucuses, saying the process is undemocratic because …

Strickland gets a chilly reception in Iowa
Columbus Dispatch, OH – Dec 31, 2007

This is a Bleeding Heartland ALERT.  The Des Moines Register has SCRUBBED and cleaned up the article about Hillary appointing AgBiz Exec Philippi of the NPPC to be her rural co-chair for the nation.  This article was blogged on by the mighty DesMoinesDem.  NOW THE SAME LINK FROM DesMoinesDem's diary, given below, leads to a heavily redacted and revised article that is not so ruinous for Clinton. 

 IN THE INTEREST OF SEEING HOW YOUR IOWA NEWS IS BEING MANIPULATED, HERE IS THE ARTICLE AND THEN I WILL GIVE YOU THE SCRUBBED QUOTES. THIS IS TRULY OUTRAGEOUS. HILLARY'S PROBLEM IS THAT THE BAD VERSION WAS PRINTED AND ALREADY READ BY THE STATE. THIS AFTER HILLARY HOLDING HER "RURAL CONFERENCE" IN THE OFFICES OF MONSANTO'S LOBBYIST!

This is a national story right here on this blog, DMD did a diary on it, as did DailyKos, AND NOW THE ARTICLE HAS BEEN SCRUBBED AND REVISED.

Here's the rewritten article:

Farmer Garry Klicker and some other family-farm advocates say Democrat Hillary Clinton's choice of a leader of her rural campaign committee casts doubt on her credibility on small-farm issues.

Clinton picked the owner of a large-scale livestock operation who has promoted national corporate agriculture interests to be co-chairwoman of "Rural Americans for Hillary."

That's Joy Philippi, who owns a fourth-generation Nebraska family farm with 2,000 hogs. Philippi is a recent past president of the National Pork Producers Council.

"That's the poster organization for corporate agriculture," said Klicker, who owns about 120 acres in rural Bloomfield and raises about 130 cows and calves.

Klicker said that because Clinton picked Philippi, he doesn't believe the candidate when she says she will champion small farms if she is elected president.

"I'm just very disappointed that Hillary would turn her back on us like this," said Klicker, who said he is unsure whom he will caucus for but is leaning toward Democrat Joe Biden. "She says she'll do one thing, yet when you surround yourself with people who are against the rest of us, we can't expect anything good to happen on family farm issues."

The pork producers council has lobbied against some environmental standards for the hog industry. Its members have fought efforts to give local authorities control over where livestock facilities are built, how owners must control odor, and where or how they dispose of byproducts.

Clinton, however, has called for tightening control over confined-animal feeding operations, known as CAFOs, and says she supports "local control over CAFO-siting decisions." She has said she would seek more federal control over air and water pollution from corporate factory farms.

Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, which advocates for small farmers, also questioned Clinton's choice to pick Philippi.

"Independent, sustainable hog farmers know NPPC does not stand up for their interests," said Lisa Whelan of the community improvement organization.

Reached by telephone Thursday night after her farm chores, Philippi said: "I think people may be blending the policy of a national organization with my personal opinions."

The Clinton campaign asked state Rep. Mark Kuhn, a Charles City Democrat who has pushed for local control, to respond on its behalf. Kuhn said he trusts Clinton to be true to her word in bringing prosperity to rural America.

This was scrubbed from the rewrite of this article (in bold):

Klicker said that because Clinton picked Philippi, he doesn't believe the candidate when she says she will champion small farms if she is elected president.

"I'm just very disappointed that Hillary would turn her back on us like this," said Klicker, who said he is unsure whom he will caucus for but is leaning toward Democrat Joe Biden. "She says she'll do one thing, yet when you surround yourself with people who are against the rest of us, we can't expect anything good to happen on family farm issues."

The pork producers council has lobbied against some environmental standards for the hog industry. Its members have fought what's known as local control, which would give local authorities control over where livestock facility construction, how owners must control odor, or where or how they dispose of bi-products.

That"s the opposite of Clinton's stance. Clinton has called for tightening control over confined-animal feeding operations, known as CAFOs, and says she supports local local control over CAFO siting decisions. She has said she would seek more federal government control over air and water pollution from corporate factory farms.

Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, which advocates for small farmers, also questions Clinton's choice to pick Philippi, who was the mouthpiece for the hog factory industry during her time as National Pork Producers Council president.

"Independent, sustainable hog farmers know NPPC does not stand up for their interests", said Lisa Whelan of the community improvement organization.

When Philippi was asked Thursday if she is personally opposed to local control efforts and government regulations of CAFOs, she said: "That's the opinion of some. I think that"s probably one of the misconceptions I don't mean to avoid your answer, but I don't want something that's going to be adversarial for the campaign. "

As council president, Philippi testified against requiring fruit, vegetables and meat producers to label the food's untry of origin so that consumers could make better decisions about what to buy. Clinton often hails this as a much-needed idea.

In October, Philippi publicly criticized the federal farm bill, saying the legislation would make the U.S. pork industry less competitive globally.

And she has been vocal in her opposition of ethanol subsidies, records show. She explained Thursday that her personal opinion is that the subsidies are not necessary, partly because they raise the price of feed corn for her animals.

Klicker remains unconvinced. "It' inconsistent for a pro-small farm politician to choose a confined-animal feeding operation owner like Philippi to be the face on her rural campaign, and to possibly influence policy in the future," he said.

Confined-animal feeding operation owners well-run facilities are a safe, efficient way to raise livestock and compete in the world market. But some Iowans like Klicker believe the facilities foul the air and the water, reduce neighbors' property values, and drive small farmers out of business.

"It' a terrible example for Hillary to set. It' politics at its worst," he said. "You pick someone to get a few more votes, someone who is actually the enemy of those who have been supporting you all along."

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?…

I especially loved this scrubbed quote from the Agribusiness exec Philippi:

I don't mean to avoid your answer, but I don't want something that's going to be adversarial for the campaign.

How stupid does Hillary's new co-Chair think farmers are??

Please email the newspaper if you think it is wrong for the Des Moines Register to revise history by cleaning up this campaign report of a huge Clinton betrayal/blunder in this way.

This really could hurt Hillary in second choices and might even peel some first choices off. And please email to media, thanks. We bloggers don't like scrubbing and stealing elections like this!

Here is the link to DesMoineDem’s original diary:

http://www.bleedingheartland.c…

Hillary is hoping no one brings this up… 

Mrs. Clinton largely sat on the sidelines when it came to Wal-Mart and unions, according to board members. Since its founding in 1962, Wal-Mart has aggressively fought unionization efforts at its stores and warehouses, employing hard-nosed tactics — like firing union supporters and allegedly spying on employees — that have become the subject of legal complaints against the company.

A special team at Wal-Mart handled those activities, but Mr. Walton was vocal in his opposition to unions. Indeed, he appointed the lawyer who oversaw the company’s union monitoring, Mr. Tate, to the board, where he served with Mrs. Clinton.

During their meetings and private conversations, Mrs. Clinton never voiced objections to Wal-Mart’s stance on unions, according to Mr. Tate and John A. Cooper, another board member.

“She was not an outspoken person on labor, because I think she was smart enough to know that if she favored labor, she was the only one,” Mr. Tate said. “It would only lesson her own position on the board if she took that position.”

Mr. Tate, a prominent management lawyer who helped stop union drives at many major companies, said he worked closely with Mr. Walton to convince workers that a union would be bad for the company, personally telling employees when he visited stores that “the only people who need unions are those who do not work hard.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/19/us/politics/19cnd-walmart.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

I never really thought about her time at WALMART.  She was on the board from 1986 to 1992.

NAFTA caused much of the New Poor in Mexico

For those who don't know, the Clintons' NAFTA not only impoverished American farmers and textile workers and their families, but also wiped out the Mexican corn-growing economy and the lives of 15 million people. About 5 million of those have illegally crossed into the US — just because of NAFTA allowing cheap subsidized corn from the US into Mexico, dropping the corn price there 70%.

Next year NAFTA fully kicks in, meaning an additional 500,000 economic refugees that we ourselves caused. The former corn farmers and unemployed workers don't come because we are great, they come because the policies of both governments is starving their children.

And the Clintons pushed NAFTA through without the safeguards wanted by the Democrats. Remember Hillary chuckled and said it didn't work out the way we wanted!

NAFTA Will Boost Mexican Emigration to US

Mexico, Dec 16 (Prensa Latina) Mexican emigration to the United States will increase as of January 2008, when the tariffs on corn and beans will be lifted within the framework of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), expert Steve Suppan said on Saturday.

In statements to Prensa Latina, the experts from the Institute of Agricultural and Commercial Policies, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the United States, described rural migrations caused by NAFTA as the migration crisis that broke out in 1994, when the first NAFTA adjustments were made.

“There are many Mexican workers with little options and they resort to the hard march to the North seeking higher wages to help their families in their communities of origin,” he noted.

Suppan noted that the situation will worsen as 300,000 farmers and 200,000 people from Mexican cities are expected to emigrate, due to the lack of development opportunities.

Experts are concerned at a forced economic exodus to the United States, a situation that will increase food insecurity in Mexico, he said.

The big economy will flood the small economy with its products and tragedy will mostly affect indigenous groups who had guarded their basic resources for humankind but are starving at present.

The governments of the United States, Canada and Mexico could renegotiate the NAFTA if they took into account the harm they are causing to the disposed, because only the big private consortiums will benefit instead of farmers and small businesspeople.

Suppan referred to the world campaign in favor of preserving food resources, especially corn, as a human right of economic use, and pointed out that the campaign could even be taken to the United Nations if there were political will.

http://www.plenglish.com:80/article.asp?ID=%7B1DB4A700-…

Clinton Is New to Nafta Criticism, Obama Says

By Jeff Zeleny

MARION, Iowa — Senator Barack Obama is accusing Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of waiting until she was a presidential candidate to suggest that the North American Free Trade Agreement -– enacted during her husband’s administration -– was a mistake.

“I think it’s important to note that Senator Clinton was a cheerleader for Nafta for more than a decade. As of a year ago, she was calling it a boon to the economy,” Mr. Obama told reporters here today. “It seems to me that the only thing that has changed in the last year is that it’s now election time.”

Mr. Obama opened a two-day Iowa campaign swing in this city outside of Cedar Rapids. As he delivered his criticism, he glanced down to his printed notes, which rested on a podium.

“As some of you probably heard at the debate the other night, Senator Clinton called Nafta a mistake,” Mr. Obama said. “I was pleased to hear her say that because, as more than 10,000 jobless Iowans know, that’s exactly what Nafta has been.”

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/clinton-n… /

Yet despite these differences, most experts agree that the plans are similar in their most striking elements. Both Clinton and Obama advocate creating a new federal group insurance program. Anyone happy with their current health insurance could keep it. Otherwise, they could join the national insurance pool, which, the candidates like to point out, offers the same benefits that members of Congress enjoy. Edwards has a similar national public insurance plan, but would also create regional pools of private insurance companies, increasing the number of choices available.

Seddon Savage, president of the New Hampshire Medical Society, noted that all three plans believe health care should be part of the “social contract of society.” All three emphasize cost controls and cost savings, and focus on disease prevention.

“The details of the programs have some minor and some significant differences, but what all the plans are trying to do is set a direction, set basic principles,” she said. “I suspect if any one of these candidates is elected, we'll have a commitment to addressing these issues. We'll have a national dialogue, and details may change.”

John Thyng, campaign director for the advocacy group New Hampshire for Health Care, said with the exception of the mandate, the three plans are virtually the same.

http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID…

 

Robert Reich and others state that mandates will not ensure universal coverage, that at least 15% will still be uninsured becasue they cannot afford it.

in my view Obama’s would insure more people, not fewer, than HRC’s. That’s because Obama’s puts more money up front and contains sufficient subsidies to insure everyone who’s likely to need help – including all children and young adults up to 25 years old. Hers requires that everyone insure themselves.

Yet we know from experience with mandated auto insurance – and we’re learning from what’s happening in Massachusetts where health insurance is now being mandated – that mandates still leave out a lot of people at the lower end who can’t afford to insure themselves even when they’re required to do so.

HRC doesn’t indicate how she’d enforce her mandate, and I can’t find enough money in HRC’s plan to help all those who won’t be able to afford to buy it.

I’m also impressed by the up-front investments in information technology in O’s plan, and the reinsurance mechanism for coping with the costs of catastrophic illness. HRC is far less specific on both counts. In short: They’re both advances, but O’s is the better of the two. HRC has no grounds for alleging that O’s would leave out 15 million people.”

One aspect of the healthcare debate that has divided Democratic candidates is whether individuals should be required to purchase coverage – Clinton and Edwards favor a mandate, while Obama does not. A slight majority of Democratic voters who were polled – including pluralities of Clinton and Edwards supporters – opposed such a requirement.

Opposition to the notion of an individual health insurance mandate — “should individuals be required to buy health insurance” — is greatest among the less well-educated and downscale voters that are the core of Clinton's base in New Hampshire and elsewhere.

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_stump/archive/2007/1…

This is very funny and well-done:

OK — whose campaign does the next Christmas song parody?

CONCORD MONITOR: CONDOLEEZA RICE TOLD HILLARY CLINTON THAT “DICK MIGHT HAVE GOTTEN CONFUSED” ABOUT THE WAR AUTHORIZATION  BEING FOR WAR INSTEAD OF INSPECTORS

When Hillary couldn't MAKE UP HER MIND about IRAQ, she ended up turning to Condoleeza Rice for guidance! Hillary asked if the Authorization would be used to put inspectors back in or take us to war as DICK CHENEY was implying. Rice convinced her to vote for the war with these very words: “Yes, that's what it's intended to do. I think Dick might have gotten confused.”

And Hillary bought it. About Dick Cheney maybe getting confused about the almighty power she was thinking about giving him!

THEN TO TOP IT ALL OFF SHE DOES NOT EVEN READ THE N.I.E., AS BOB GRAHAM DID, WHICH STATED IN THE FOOTNOTES THAT THERE HAD NOT BEEN WMD IN IRAQ SINCE 1995!

Clinton: Rice linked Iraq vote, inspections
Submitted by Monitor Staff on Fri, 2007-12-21 19:47.

Following up on what Ambassador Richard Holbrooke told us earlier this week regarding Hillary Clinton's vote to authorize the use of military force against Iraq, we asked Sen. Clinton today if it was correct that Colin Powell had persuaded her that the resolution could be a vote to avoid war rather than a vote for war.

She replied: “No, it wasn't Colin Powell. it was Condi Rice. Condi Rice told me specifically when I was still weighing all of the evidence, and I had been to the White House one last time — I think, if I'm not mistaken, it was Oct. 8 — and I'd had the whole presentation by the CIA and others and I hadn't asked any questions, I had listened. And I went back to my office, and Condi Rice called me and said, You didn't ask any questions, do you have any questions? I said I only have one: Will you use this authorization to put inspectors back in, so that we can find out whether any of this is true, how much WMD he still has or has reconstituted? She said, Yes, that's what it's intended to do. I think Dick might have gotten confused.”

Monitor: And you had no reason to doubt her?

Clinton: “I did not. Because — certainly I didn't rely on the Bush administration. I did a lot of my own due diligence, I talked to a lot of people in my husband's administration, I talked to Tony Blair, I talked to a lot of sources, and I had the same question: Do you think he still has these kinds of capacities? And the rationale made sense to me. When we got there after the first Gulf War, he was much further advanced in his nuclear program and we knew he had used chemical weapons. When we discovered his nuclear program in '91, the inspectors went in and for seven years dismantled everything that they could find. In '98, he threw the inspectors out, which at least to me raised the possibility that they were getting close to something, and therefore he wanted them out. The Americans and the British bombed every site that he prevented the inspectors from going to that we had a record of, but we had no good intelligence as to what was or wasn't there. And the idea behind any concern about Saddam Hussein was rooted in his personality and his governing philosophy. He was a megalomaniac.

“Putting inspectors back in — which the United Nations voted for, the Security Council was all in favor of — was a way to really put some checks and balances to find out what he really did have. What we know now is that Bush had no intention of letting the inspections run their course. But the argument of putting inspectors back in, backed up by force — because Saddam never did anything that didn't have at least the backup threat of force — was not on its face totally illegitimate. So I was willing to give him the authority to do that, and he misused the authority.”

http://www.yourconcord.com/primaryblog/clinton_rice_lin…

Lisa Belzberg

According to Huffington Post, Bill Robinson, the NY Times and the LA Times are sitting on a “Big Clinton Story” that involves his affairs since leaving the White House. Clearly a lot of Indie and other voters would not want to put Bill back in there to cheat again on national TV, just too plain old embarassing.

A Big Clinton Story

Look, I am concerned. I've just spent two weeks travelling and speaking with media elites in L.A., Chicago, NYC, and D.C. and among other things, I was repeatedly told that The New York Times and The L.A. Times are “sitting on a BIG Clinton story.” What concerns me is that this story has nothing to do with Hillary, her policy positions, her record, or her presidential potential. The “big story” everyone is sitting on apparently has to do with the many current affairs of Bill Clinton, whom, they will allege, has a gal in every port.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-robinson/the-big-cli…

This story is out there and will come out eventually — Could Hillary win nationally with such a headwind? The newspapers are sitting on these alleged affairs, already reported in the press, perhaps until after the primaries and hoping to kill the Democrat's chances? 

This is from April 2002 and seems to be what the HuffPo was speaking of.  I found it in a few minutes:

Clinton linked with wealthy socialite

THE tangled love life of Bill Clinton was again under the microscope yesterday when he was romantically linked with a glamorous blonde.

A magazine photo showed the former president of the United States in an intimate pose with the Canadian socialite Lisa Belzberg, 38.

They were photographed by Newsweek in front of a refrigerator at her mansion in Katonah, New York. It rekindled long-standing speculation about the pair, who have been spotted together at a number of functions over the past year.

According to the New York Post, Ms Belzberg, a millionairess separated from her husband, the Seagram alcohol heir Matthew Bronfman, about a month ago following a liaison with Mr Clinton.

…

“Friends were stunned to see the photo of Clinton in front of Lisa’s stainless steel Sub-Zero refrigerator with Jonathan Alter’s cover story on the ex-president,” the paper reported. The article claimed Mr Clinton and Ms Belzberg were involved in an encounter last month.

“She was seen flirting with Clinton at the Super Bowl party he hosted in his Harlem offices,” it added. At the time Mr Clinton joked of his relationship with Ms Belzberg: “She married a guy worth $6 billion, but she still likes to flirt with me.”

A spokeswoman for Ms Belzberg, who runs the educational organisation PENCIL , insisted that she has not been involved in another relationship since her split from Mr Bronfman. “There is no-one else,” she said bluntly.

http://news.scotsman.com/billclinton/Clinton-linked-wit…

According to 6/12/02 Page Six of the New York Post: WHATEVER there was between Lisa Belzberg and Bill Clinton, it appears to be over. Belzberg, the brainy blonde behind the PENCIL nonprofit group that helps the public school system, was rumored to be more than friends with the former president, who lives just 10 minutes away from the mother of two in Westchester. “She's heartbroken,” said one source. But there is little chance of reconciliation with her husband, Matthew Bronfman. The Seagram heir, who split with Lisa in February, is said to be very happily dating a fashion industry executive, Stacy Kaye.

Inside Politics 6/13/02: “The New York Post reported yesterday that the relationship between former President Bill Clinton and Lisa Belzberg 'appears to be over.' If we do the math, that means that Mr. Clinton and the pretty blonde socialite lasted seven weeks. “Tabloid rumors of a romance between the two appeared around April 23, claiming the pair met at a Christmas party last year. Mr. Clinton behaved like 'a big old hound dog' and later, trysts reportedly took place in mid-afternoons on the 24th floor of New York's chichi Hudson Hotel.”

What is your political analysis? What if this reporting were announced after she had the nomination sewn up? What impact would it have? 3 points down? 5? 10?

Or maybe you think she'd get some sympathy and gain more votes?  She got elected in NY after Monica, after all.  So maybe this would have zero impact.

I was shocked when I found this out. I had assumed Bill had reformed, so as not to endanger Democratic chances to take back the White House. This is obviously the Big Clinton Story talked about on HuffPo. Why are they sitting on the story?  This was already in the NY papers and will come out eventually!

WOW!  I just read Obama's rural development plan and I am totally blown away!  I have NEVER in my life seen such a detailed plan at any stage of any campaign.

 It's very long but I URGE you to read it all:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/ruralplan/

Here is Edwards Rural Plan, it does not compare in scope or specificity:

http://johnedwards.com/issues/rural/

Rural areas have languished long enough, Obama really steps up the plate and delivers, more than any other candidate in history.

Hillary's Electability and Inevitability is way down.  This is a telephone survey by Zogby.  Clinton barely beats Romney for example but Obama cleans his clock by 18 points.  According to this poll Obama is far more electable than Hillary, who this poll shows would lose badly to McCain, by 7 points, while Obama beats McCain by 4 points.

Released: December 20, 2007
Zogby Poll: Obama Leads Top Republicans

Telephone survey shows fellow Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Edwards would defeat some GOPers, lose to others

UTICA, New York – Illinois Sen. Barack Obama would defeat all five of the top Republicans in prospective general election contests, performing better than either of his two top rivals, a new Zogby telephone poll shows.

His margins of advantage range from a 4 percent edge over Arizona Sen. John McCain and a 5 percent edge over Arkansas' Mike Huckabee to an 18 percentage point lead over Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, the survey shows. Against New York's Rudy Giuliani he leads by 9%, and against Fred Thompson of Tennessee he holds a 16 point edge.

Obama Obama leads Romney 53%-35%
Obama leads Huckabee 47%-42%
Obama leads Giuliani 48%-39%
Obama leads McCain 47%-43%
Obama leads Thompson 52%-36%

The telephone survey included 1,000 likely voters nationwide and carries a margin of error of +/- 3.2 percentage points. The poll was conducted Dec. 12-14, 2007.

Democrat Hillary Clinton of New York would defeat Romney by a narrow 46% to 44% margin and Thompson by a 48% to 42% margin. She would lose to Huckabee 48% to 43%, to Giuliani 46% to 42%, and to McCain by a 49% to 42% margin. The data suggest that Clinton has improved her position slightly. A November Zogby Interactive poll showed her losing by small margins to all five of the top GOP candidates.

Democrat John Edwards of North Carolina would beat Romney, Huckabee, and Thompson, but would lose to Giuliani and McCain, the Zogby survey shows.

…

The performance of the Democratic candidates among independent voters is notable. For instance, Clinton trails Giuliani by one point (43% for Giuliani, 42% for Clinton among independents), but Obama leads Giuliani among independents by a huge 56% to 31% edge. Edwards leads Giuliani, 52% to 38% among independents. Clinton has similar trouble among independents against McCain, in that she trails with 37% support to his 46% support. In a prospective Obama versus McCain match-up among independent voters, Obama leads, 51% to 35%. Edwards and McCain are tied at 42% apiece among independents.

As among independents, Obama is the Democrat moderates like best, but his edge among moderates over Edwards is not nearly as pronounced as with independents. For instance, against McCain, both Edwards and Obama lead, but Clinton loses badly. Obama leads McCain by a 51% to 37% edge, while Edwards leads McCain by a 47% to 41% margin.

Clinton loses to McCain among moderates, with McCain winning 51% and Clinton winning 38%.

http://www.zogby.com/news/Read…

THIS PRIMARY IS ABOUT OCTOBER 2002 AND THE WAR VOTE BY EDWARDS AND CLINTON

Why Obama? This is the main reason I am voting for Barack: because he had the good sense to be against the War in Iraq in 2002, calling it a “Dumb War”. Edwards meanwhile co-sponsored the Authorization of Force Resolution and said on the floor: “We know Saddam has WMD”.

Here is the devastating video of Edwards' floor speech to send us to war on a lie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

What was Obama's speech on Iraq a month later? He called it a dumb war. Here's a video interview. Who had better judgement? Who was more for peace and diplomacy? Who is the true diplomacy-first leader? Barack Obama:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

Here is Hillary, trusting BUSH all the way:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

Think it's pretty clear who is a true leader instead of a calculating politician.

And Clinton? She is even worse than Edwards, not reading the NIE again, not even the summary! And then she even did something Joe LIEberman did not do, definitively link al Quada and Saddam:

HILLARY'S WAR According to Senate aides, because Clinton was not yet on the Armed Services Committee, she did not have anyone working for her with the security clearances needed to read the entire N.I.E. and the other highly classified reports that pertained to Iraq. She could have done the reading herself. Senators were able to access the N.I.E. at two secure locations in the Capitol complex. Nonetheless, only six senators personally read the report, according to a 2005 television interview with Senator Jay Rockefeller, Democrat of West Virginia and then the vice chairman of the intelligence panel. Earlier this year, on the presidential campaign trail in New Hampshire, Clinton was confronted by a woman who had traveled from New York to ask her if she had read the intelligence report. According to Eloise Harper of ABC News, Clinton responded that she had been briefed on it.

''Did you read it?'' the woman screamed. Clinton replied that she had been briefed, though she did not say by whom. The question of whether Clinton took the time to read the N.I.E. report is critically important. Indeed, one of Clinton's Democratic colleagues, Bob Graham, the Florida senator who was then the chairman of the intelligence committee, said he voted against the resolution on the war, in part, because he had read the complete N.I.E. report. Graham said he found that it did not persuade him that Iraq possessed W.M.D. As a result, he listened to Bush's claims more skeptically. ''I was able to apply caveat emptor,'' Graham, who has since left the Senate, observed in 2005. He added regretfully, ''Most of my colleagues could not.''

On Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2002, Senate Democrats, including Clinton, held a caucus over lunch on the second floor of the Capitol. There, Graham says he ''forcefully'' urged his colleagues to read the complete 90-page N.I.E. before casting such a monumental vote. In her own remarks on the Senate floor on Oct. 10, 2002, Clinton noted the existence of ''differing opinions within this body.'' Then she went on to offer a lengthy catalog of Saddam Hussein's crimes. She cited unnamed ''intelligence reports'' showing that between 1998 and 2002 ''Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile-delivery capability and his nuclear program.'' Both the public and secret intelligence estimates on Iraq contained such analysis, but the complete N.I.E. report also included other views. A dissent by the State Department's intelligence arm concluded — correctly, as it turned out — that Iraq was not rebuilding its nuclear program.

Clinton continued, accusing Iraq's leader of giving ''aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members.'' This statement fit squarely within the ominous warning she issued the day after Sept. 11.

Clinton's linking of Iraq's leader and Al Qaeda, however, was unsupported by the conclusions of the N.I.E. and other secret intelligence reports that were available to senators before the vote. Indeed, the one document that supported Clinton's statement, a public letter from the C.I.A. to Senator Graham, mentioned ''growing indications of a relationship'' between Al Qaeda and Iraq but acknowledged that those indications were based on ''sources of varying reliability.'' In fact, the classified reports available to all senators at the time found that Iraq was not allied with Al Qaeda, and that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden harbored feelings of deep mistrust and enmity for each other.

…

Nevertheless, on the sensitive issue of collaboration between Al Qaeda and Iraq, Senator Clinton found herself adopting the same argument that was being aggressively pushed by the administration. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration officials had repeated their claim frequently, and by early October 2002, two out of three Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was connected to the Sept. 11 attacks. By contrast, most of the other Senate Democrats, even those who voted for the war authorization, did not make the Qaeda connection in their remarks on the Senate floor. One Democratic senator who voted for the war resolution and praised President Bush for his course of ''moderation and deliberation,'' Joe Biden of Delaware, actively assailed the reports of Al Qaeda in Iraq, calling them ''much exaggerated.'' Senator Dianne Feinstein of California described any link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda as ''tenuous.'' The Democratic senator who came closest to echoing Clinton's remarks about Hussein's supposed assistance to Al Qaeda was Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. Yet even Lieberman noted that ''the relationship between Al Qaeda and Saddam's regime is a subject of intense debate within the intelligence community.''

For most of those who had served in the Clinton administration, the supposed link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda had come to seem baseless. ''We all knew it was ,'' said Kenneth Pollack, who was a national-security official under President Clinton and a leading proponent of overthrowing Saddam Hussein. Pollack says he discussed Iraq with Clinton before her vote in 2002, but he won't disclose his advice.

The Saddam-Al Qaeda link, so aggressively pushed by the Bush administration, was later debunked as false. So how could Clinton, named in 2006 by The Washingtonian magazine as the ''brainiest'' senator, have gotten such a critical point wrong? Referring to the larger question of her support for the authorization, Clinton said in February of this year, ''My vote was a sincere vote based on the facts and assurances that I had at the time.''

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/f…

This is the most important difference in this primary: the Iraq War Vote.

Amazing endorsement of Obama by Basu! 

BY REKHA BASU • THE REGISTER

December 19, 2007

I remember wishing Hillary Clinton would run. Not last January, when she announced, but before the 2004 election, when someone with her intellectual heft and stature was needed to stand up to the Bush/Rove/ Rumsfeld cabal and dismantle its agenda.

But Clinton didn't run then, and when she jumped into this year's race, days after Barack Obama, it was a different field and a different moment.

This moment belongs to Obama.

…

This newspaper has endorsed Clinton on the Democratic side. I respect its decision. But after sitting through most of the same candidate meetings, watching, reading, listening and searching my conscience, I've concluded Obama is the one who can best pull off what needs to happen.

Clinton is smart, hard-working, gutsy and tough enough to absorb all the muck that's come her way. But Obama is simply a better candidate. He's that rarest of leaders, combining roots in white Midwestern America with black Africa, and experience both organizing in barrios and editing the Harvard Law Review. He's got idealism, compassion and intellect. And he lacks the baggage Clinton comes with, including all the controversies that swirled around her husband's White House. Nor is he compromised, as she has been, by the Senate vote that got us into this quagmire in Iraq.

Clinton is likable – and polarizing. But Obama is a uniter whose very life experience promises a new chapter for America.

…

 Who can unite a divided public and excite people's sense of possibilities? That's where Obama leaves the rest of the pack behind.

Momentum is a hard thing to quantify. It almost has to be understood viscerally. I witnessed it in Hy-Vee Hall a couple of weeks ago, sandwiched between an unprecedented 18,000 people, all sharing a palpable sense of enthusiasm and hope. They were black, white, Latino, Asian, old, young, middle-aged and disabled.

Many had probably come to see Oprah. But when it was Obama's turn, he had them mesmerized. Some cheered and waved signs in the air. Some hugged one another, and some even got teary. It was as if no one could quite believe this youthful but commanding man, who spoke their language and echoed their dreams, might actually run America.

…

Now is also the time to signal the world that America is not a monolithic dinosaur but dynamic and evolving, harnessing its diversity to enhance its strength. Obama could do that.

http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071219/OPINION01/712190340/1036/Opinion