Obama takes state by storm

By:Jason Miller / Chronicle
TelegramHIGHLAND HILLS

— Ba-Rock the Vote. Obamania. Call it what you will, but on Monday night, it was enough to bring 4,000 people out on a cold Northeast Ohio night to attend a campaign rally for Democratic Sen. Barack Obama.Supporters lined up around the gymnasium at the eastern campus of Cuyahoga Community College hours before Obama took the stage, hoping to catch a glimpse of the man who could become the nation’s first black president.“I just had to come and see what he had to say,” said Lorain resident Clifford Banter. “I want to vote for him, but I need to know that he is for real before I can vote for him.”Three weeks after he announced his candidacy for president, Obama hit the campaign trail — stopping off in Iowa and Ohio to stake out territory in the politically important states.Since his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, Obama has become a political celebrity, and Northeast Ohio got its first taste of his presidential aspirations Monday.Officials from the college crammed 1,600 people into the gymnasium, pushing it to its limit, and then began opening up auditoriums, classrooms and any other space they could find to take in the crowds of people who showed up to cheer on the senator.Tickets had been sold beforehand for the event — with some claims that 3,500 had been purchased. But the need to have a ticket to get in diminished as the extra rooms opened up.“We filled up the gymnasium, but we are setting up rooms with live feeds so they can see it right along with everyone else,” Assistant Dean Sabuur Abdul-Kareem said. “There are probably 4,000 people here, which is more than we expected, but we will make sure everyone gets to see this event.”Back in the gymnasium, the marching band from Shaw High School in Cleveland warmed up the crowd and set the tone of a rock concert as Obama made his way to the stage.“I’m all fired up now!” Obama proclaimed as he took the microphone. “In November of 2008, we expect to take Ohio.”Obama, a first-term senator, has some tough competition on the Democratic side, including New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, and former vice presidential candidate John Edwards.Speaking for just over 30 minutes, Obama slammed the administration for its poor handling of the Iraq war and told the audience that under an Obama administration, all combat troops would be removed from Iraq by March 31, 2008.Obama also proclaimed that if elected, he would provide standard health care for all Americans by the end of his first term.“The reason we haven’t done it yet isn’t because we don’t know how to provide a better health care system. It’s because the lobbyists are the ones writing the bills,” Obama said. “That is going to change.”After he finished speaking, Obama jumped down from the stage and began shaking hands with the crowd, reaching back to meet with screaming young girls and older men in suits and ties.“I can’t believe I got to shake his hand!” Sarah Wilderman from Cleveland said. “It’s like meeting The Beatles!”More than 20 minutes after finishing his address, Obama was in the midst of the surging crowd while Banter watched in the back with a smile on his face.“We still don’t know if he is as good as we hope he is, but nights like this sure give you hope,” Banter said. “Let’s see if he can keep it up

Black Voters Like Obama

By : The Nation-Yahoo

The big news in today's Washington Post/ABC poll is that black voters like Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record). He now leads Hillary Clinton among black voters by nine points, a huge shift from last month, when the same poll found black voters preferred Clinton by a whopping 40 percent.
Reporters had jumped on that early gap to write speculative stories about Obama's supposed trouble with the "black vote." The Washington Post ran a front page article last month under the headline "Obama's Appeal to Blacks Remains an Open Question," citing Clinton's "3 to 1" edge among black Democrats. (Never mind that everything is an "open question" when the candidate hasn't even announced yet.)
Then this month, The New York Times offered a front page news flash under the headline, "So Far, Obama Can't Take Black Vote for Granted." The article quoted Debra J. Dickerson's claim that "Obama isn't black" in an American racial context, and then explored why "some black voters" are "so uneasy" about Obama. One barber explained that Obama might not be right for the Presidency because he was not "born, raised, bred, [and] fed in America." Whatever. That kind of talk has been shredded by The Nation's Patricia Williams, among others. Now these new poll numbers should remove one crutch reporters were using to write premature stories about how black voters supposedly did not like Obama "enough."
The poll has already been shooting around the blogopshere. Olivier Willis, who has written about Obama and the "black vote," argues the new poll is a reminder that the "arguments in the media and academia about Obama's 'blackness' are just kind of nonsense noise in the real world." Over at MyDD, Chris Bowes thinks that with these numbers, if Obama "continues to rise among African-Americans while maintaining his young, progressive, netroots base, it may only be a matter of three or four months before he catches Clinton in national polls."
Yet so far, the most fascinating part of the new poll has been mostly ignored. It's a section that could be called Pick Your Prejudice. Pollsters asked voters how certain "attributes" of a candidate -- like being black or female or smoking cigarettes -- would affect their vote. If you believe the numbers, smokers have a much bigger challenge than black or female candidates. Over 20 percent of voters say they are less likely to vote for a smoker, while only 13 percent say that about a female candidate, and a slim 6 percent say so about a black candidate. (Apparently older candidates should hang it up now: 58 percent of voters claim they are less likely to vote for "someone who is over age 72.")
Of course, like most early presidential polling, these numbers are pretty meaningless -- and probably misleading. You don't usually find sexists by asking people if they are sexist. The data reveals more about which biases people think are acceptable than what actual prejudices are out there. On that score, Mitt Romney may have a bigger challenge than Obama: 29 percent of Americans admit they are less likely to vote for someone simply for being Mormon.

Obama keeps donors coming
Downtown breakfast raises up to $500,000

BY HOWARD WILKINSON

Even the event's organizer, state Sen. Eric Kearney, said he was astounded by the success of Monday's Barack Obama fundraiser at the Westin Hotel downtown, which might have raised as much as $500,000 for the Illinois Democrat's presidential campaign.
About 1,000 Obama supporters - including a handful of Republicans - crammed the main ballroom at the Westin. Dozens had to stand through the breakfast, lining the walls.
It was an unusually large fundraising event for Cincinnati, which spoke to the star power Obama carries. Former President Clinton drew 600 to a downtown hotel in October when he appeared at a fundraiser for John Cranley's congressional campaign.

No reporters or cameras were allowed inside. An impromptu news conference promised by a campaign aide failed to materialize.
Obama's security detail, concerned about moving him through a crowd of hundreds of supporters to where the media was camped out, whisked him out a side door.
The cheapest ticket was $100, but those who paid $1,000 or more got to spend about half an hour in a private room with Obama before the main breakfast.
Those who donated $2,300 - the maximum contribution allowed for the presidential primary cycle - had their picture taken with the candidate.

Asked afterward how much was raised, Kearney - whose wife, Jan-Michele Lemon Kearney, was a Harvard Law School classmate of Obama - said that while the checks were still being counted, the event raised at least $350,000 and perhaps as much as $500,000.
"It was unbelievable," Kearney said. "The people just kept coming."
What was most impressive was "how diverse a crowd it was - whites, blacks, Latinos, Asian folks, rich and poor," Kearney said. "It shows the broad appeal Barack has."
A considerable number of people bought "walk-up" tickets to the 8 a.m. breakfast.
As of Sunday night, about 750 tickets had been sold. In the end, at least 1,000 people paid to see and hear Obama, a first-term senator whose campaign has created much of the early buzz on the 2008 presidential campaign trail.
At the reception for large donors was one of Cincinnati's highest-profile supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose campaign has been trading barbs with Obama's campaign over the past week.
Class-action lawyer Stan Chesley, who has raised millions for Bill Clinton and for Hillary Clinton's campaigns, said he was there because he has "enormous respect" for Obama.
"Of course, I am supporting Hillary; but, mainly I want to see the best Democrats run for president. Senator Obama is very impressive."
The crowd inside the main breakfast event ranged from enthusiastic supporters of the Illinois senator to Democrats who have yet to make up their minds.
Myrtis Grace, of Bond Hill, a retired teacher, said Obama has "reignited my interest in politics."
"I worked for (John F.) Kennedy and for Bill Clinton, but I haven't been involved lately," Grace said. "But Senator Obama is inspiring. He's so passionate."
Cincinnati Councilwoman Laketa Cole, a Democrat, said she has yet to make up her mind about which presidential candidate to support, but came away impressed.
"I want to hear Hillary; I want to hear all of them," Cole said. "But he made a great speech, talking about bringing the country together, healing the divisions. I like that."

Republican supporter

Harold Brooks, a longtime GOP activist from Westwood, said he came because he plans to help organize a "Black Republicans for Obama" organization in Ohio.
"My party may not like it, but I support Sen. Obama," Brooks said. "He's the best candidate I've seen."
Obama's appearance in Cincinnati drew a response from the Hamilton County Republican Party in the form of a written statement from Maggie Nafziger, the party's executive director.
"Senator Obama's lack of leadership and liberal voting record is concerning," Nafziger said. "I am not sure he is prepared to function as head of the world's most powerful nation at such a crucial time in our nation's history."
Obama is the first of the announced Democratic candidates to campaign in Cincinnati.
After the Cincinnati event, Obama went on to Columbus and Cleveland, making the rounds of the major cities in a state that is likely to have a great deal to say about who becomes the 44th president of the United States.

Black Voters Shift to Obama

Sen. Barack Obama has cut Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's lead in half, thanks to a shift by black voters.
According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll, Clinton was favored by 41 percent of voters in January, when she announced her candidacy for president. Then came Obama (17 percent), former Sen. John Edwards (11 percent) and former Vice President Al Gore (10 percent).
In the latest poll, those numbers show Clinton still ahead (36 percent), followed by Obama (24 percent), Gore (14 percent) and Edwards (12 percent).
According to the Post, white voters' preferences remained the same, while black voters shifted their support in a major way. In the previous two polls, Clinton had the support of 60 percent of black voters, and Obama had 20 percent. In the latest poll, Obama surged into the lead, garnering the support of 44 percent of the black voters, to Clinton's 33 percent.

Other results of the poll, according to the Post:

Obama's favorability rating among blacks rose from 54 percent to 70 percent.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has surged ahead of Sen. John McCain for the Republican nomination. He now holds a 2-to-1 advantage among all GOP voters, 44 percent to 21 percent.
White evangelical Protestants are strongly supporting Giuliani rather than McCain.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich placed third in the GOP race, with 15 percent.

Obama fever hits all-time, unbearable high

By Ann Coulter

I'VE caught Obama fever! Obamamania, Obamarama, Obama, Obama, Obama. (I just pray to God this is clean, renewable electricity I'm feeling.)
Only white guilt could explain the insanely hyperbolic descriptions of Obama's "eloquence." His speeches are a run-on string of embarrassing, sophomoric Hallmark bromides.
In announcing his candidacy last week, Obama confirmed that he believes in "the basic decency of the American people." And let the chips fall where they may!
Obama forthrightly decried "a smallness of our politics" - deftly slipping a sword into the sides of the smallness-
in-politics advocates. (To his credit, he somehow avoided saying, "My fellow Americans, size does matter.")
He took a strong stand against the anti-hope crowd, saying: "There are those who don't believe in talking about hope." Take that, Hillary!
Most weirdly, he said: "I recognize there is a certain presumptuousness in this - a certain audacity - to this announcement."
What is so audacious about announcing that you're running for president? Any idiot can run for president. Dennis Kucinich is running for president. Until he was imprisoned, Lyndon LaRouche used to run for president constantly.
John Kerry ran for president. Today, all you have to do is suggest a date by which U.S. forces in Iraq should surrender, and you're officially a Democratic candidate for president.
Obama made his announcement surrounded by hundreds of adoring Democratic voters. And those were just the reporters. There were about 400 more reporters at Obama's announcement than Mitt Romney's, who, by the way, is more likely to be sworn in as our next president than B. Hussein Obama.
Obama has locked up the Hollywood money. Even Miss America has endorsed Obama. (John "Two Americas" Edwards is still hoping for the other Miss America to endorse him.)
But Obama tells us he's brave for announcing that he's running for president. And if life gives you lemons, make lemonade!
I don't want to say that Obama didn't say anything in his announcement, but afterward, even Jesse Jackson was asking, "What did he say?" There was one refreshing aspect to Obama's announcement: It was nice to see a man call a press conference to announce something other than he was the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby.
B. Hussein Obama's announcement also included this gem: "I know that I haven't spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I've been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change." As long as Obama insists on using Hallmark card greetings in his speeches, he could at least get Jesse Jackson to help him with the rhyming.
If Obama's biggest asset is his inexperience, then if by the slightest chance he were elected and were to run for a second term, he will have to claim he didn't learn anything the first four years.
There was also this inspirational nugget: "Each and every time, a new generation has risen up and done what's needed to be done. Today we are called once more, and it is time for our generation to answer that call." Is this guy running for president or trying to get people to switch to a new long-distance provider?
He said that "we learned to disagree without being disagreeable." This was an improvement on the first draft, which read, "It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice."
This guy's like the ANWR of trite political aphorisms. There's no telling exactly how many he's sitting on, but it could be in the billions.
Obama's famed eloquence reminds me of a book of platitudes I read about once called "Life Lessons." The book contained such inspiring thoughts as:
"When was the last time you really looked at the sea? Or smelled the morning? Touched a baby's hair? Really tasted and enjoyed food? Walked barefoot in the grass? Looked in the blue sky?" (When was the last time you fantasized about dismembering the authors of a book of platitudes?)
I can't wait for Obama's inaugural address when he reveals that he loves long walks in the rain, sunsets and fresh-baked cookies shaped like puppies.
The guy I feel sorry for is Harold Ford. The former representative from Tennessee is also black, a Democrat, about the same age as Obama, and is every bit as attractive. The difference is, when he talks, you don't fantasize about plunging knitting needles into your ears to stop the gusher of meaningless platitudes.
Ford ran as a Democrat in Republican Tennessee and almost won - and the press didn't knock out his opponent for him by unsealing sealed divorce records, as it did for B. Hussein Obama. Yet no one ever talks about Ford as the second coming of Cary Grant and Albert Einstein.
Maybe liberals aren't secret racists expunging vast stores of white guilt by hyperventilating over B. Hussein Obama. Maybe they're just running out of greeting card inscriptions.

Obama champions civil rights theme

By Jim Morrill

ORANGEBURG, S.C. -- In a city where civil rights history was written in blood, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was portrayed this weekend as an heir to African-Americans who paved the way.
"I want to thank him for giving hope and inspiration to a new generation of political activists, for giving life to the sacrifices of Rosa Parks [and] Septima Clark," US Representative Jim Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina, said at a rally. "Obama is ready and willing to run today because Rosa Parks sat down and because Septima Clark stood up."
Obama, a US senator from Illinois, picked up the theme Saturday before 2,000 cheering people at historically black Claflin University.
"I have never been in a political campaign where people thought I could win," he said. "At every juncture in history, there has been somebody who said we can't so we shouldn't even try. I am here to tell you, Yes we can."
Obama's appearance followed a Friday night rally in Columbia that drew 3,000 people.
It also occurred days after a black state lawmaker, Senator Robert Ford of Charleston, announced his support for Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and said that if Obama got the nomination, "then everybody else is doomed."
"Every Democrat running on that ticket next year would lose -- because he's black and he's top of the ticket. We'd lose the House and the Senate and the governors and everything," Ford said. He drew widespread criticism for the remarks and later apologized.
Most national polls have shown Clinton and Obama running one-two among Democrats. Today, Clinton will visit South Carolina, where the early 2008 primaries are expected to be pivotal for both parties.
In Orangeburg, Obama cut short his visit so he could return to Washington for a Senate vote. Though he spoke for less than 40 minutes, he was greeted like a rock star.
"In my opinion, he's the first serious African-American candidate for president," said Howard Walls, 54, an engineer who said he is still undecided about whom to support. "It's a dilemma. Doing the right thing culturally or doing the right thing civically."
Norma Price, 65, said Obama represents change and less partisanship.
"We all have the same issues in life whether we're Republicans or Democrats," she said. "And we just have to get together and solve those problems."
Obama, 45, said his campaign is about change. "People are hungry for something new and different," he said. "They want a new kind of politics. They're tired of seeing people tearing each other down."
Obama called Iraq "a war that never should have been authorized," a jab at rivals Clinton and former North Carolina senator John Edwards, who both voted to authorize the war in 2002.
Edwards later recanted his vote. Clinton has said, "If we knew then what we know now," she would not have voted for it.
Obama also talked about education, healthcare, and rural development. Though he offered few specifics, his statements satisfied many listeners.
Obama, Clinton, and Edwards are all vying for support from black voters. In South Carolina's Democratic primary, blacks make up about 50 percent of the vote.
Todd Shaw, a professor of politics and African-American studies at the University of South Carolina, said South Carolina has been good to black candidates before, most notably Greenville native Jesse Jackson, who won the primary in 1988.
The Rev. Randolph Sipio of North Charleston said Obama didn't have to come through the civil rights movement to understand it.
"You don't have to fall off a cliff," he said, "to understand the law of gravity."

Obama Not 'Black Enough'?

by Warner Todd Huston

Some of you may have noticed that Barack is not getting the automatic support from African American leaders that many assumed he would get since throwing his hat into the ring for the Democratic nomination for the presidency and Mr. Chude-Sokei makes an effort to inform us as to why this might be true. Unfortunately, while it has a few good points it misses the mark in too many ways.
The main point, according to Chude-Sokei, is that Obama isn't "black enough" to get the support of the standing Black American leadership because of his White/Hawaiian/African (meaning NOT African American, but real African) heritage.
This feeling of Obama not being "black enough" for Black American leaders to warm up to is, according to this piece, because of the growing community of immigrant blacks in the US who are not really African Americans in the way that black leaders prefer. Meaning that they aren't Americans but immigrants and they are immigrants that do not kow-tow to black American prejudices and racial political demagoguery causing Black leaders to distrust them.
And also because the immigrants are often better educated, or interested in being so, than their native born American fellows.
Naturally, Chude-Sokei completely avoids the fact that natural born African Americans are less educated and less interested in education but the inference is clearly there if the reader is paying attention.
A good proportion of immigrants tend to be better educated than African Americans, don't have the "chip" of racial resentment on their shoulder and exhibit the classic immigrant optimism about assimilation into the mainstream culture.
Now, Chude-Sokei is a professor at UC Santa Cruz, so his perspective is a bit different than the average person's and his claim that whites "exploit these differences" is absurd in the general population, even as it might be true in the University setting.
Many whites, however, exploit these differences to magnify the problems of African Americans while avoiding charges of racism. And because these differences often result in greater employment and more educational opportunities for immigrants and their descendants, they also feed tensions between native and immigrant blacks.
Like I said, this may be true in the University but it isn't that much of a factor in the rest of society.
Chude-Sokei also cites the threat to the absurd field of "Black Studies" that immigrant blacks from other nations present when they attend American Universities. It seems that immigrant blacks are little interested in this foolish field of study and for good reason. Black Studies don't further anyone's education or their viability for a career and immigrants little understand the focus placed on such nonsense. Apparently, the growing number of black immigrants attending Universities threatens the standing of these Black studies departments.
Still, this is a University localized point and has little effect on why Blacks aren’t warming to Obama too quickly. Ridiculously, Chude-Sokei seems to think the University is America itself.
Chude-Sokei also makes another key mistake common to the University set. He assumes that black pathology is still all the fault of White people. He says of immigrant blacks, "They also are less responsive to American racial traumas", as if these "traumas" are ongoing and still integral to how Blacks can fit into white society. If this were true then immigrants would find themselves in agreement with the so-called Black leadership in America who continually fan the flames of race hatred to justify their places of power.
But since black immigrants seemingly do not share that point of view, it is obvious that it is a chimerical claim that Black leaders use merely as a ruse to keep the cash flowing into their pockets.
In any case, all this goes to explain why Black leaders don't seem to be warming to Obama as far as this University professor is concerned. Obama, with this line of thinking, could possibly threaten their lock on their position as the advocates of all things black in the US.
But so what if Black leaders are not interested as much in Obama as one might think, how does that necessarily affect what the general Black American population thinks of him?
Here Chude-Sokei makes another mistake by staying so focused on the University experience and the stance of Black American leadership. As Shelby Steele, John McWhorter, and even Bill Cosby have so eloquently discussed recently, Blacks in America have developed an aberrant culture in America today. So, it really isn't the immigrant community that Black Americans find to be causing distrust -- or at least fostering an indifference to -- Obama, but the low trending culture developed by the native born.
Obama isn't "black enough" not because he might have an immigrant background but because he is educated, eloquent, smooth, and associates with whites. He eschews the thug, rapper lifestyle, the discounting of education and the general downgrading of achievement that is currently accepted by popular black culture in America today.
So, Blacks do not distrust Obama because he is an immigrant and therefore not "black enough". They distrust him because he is able and successful, smart and educated so that is what makes him not "black enough".
But, it doesn't surprise me that the L.A. Times and a University Professor completely misses the point.

Hollywood's glitterati line up for Obama

By Philip Sherwell

An early winner in Oscars week will stride up the red carpet in Los Angeles on Tuesday night - Barack Obama.

The Democratic presidential hopeful with the rock star buzz is the guest of honour at a Beverly Hills fundraising party where the celebrity count will match Sunday's post-Oscar bashes.

The reception, hosted by Steven Spielberg and his DreamWorks studio colleagues David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg, is expected to draw 700 of Hollywood's most influential players, including declared Obama supporters George Clooney, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Oprah Winfrey, Oliver Stone and superagent Ari Emanuel.

It is not only a major financial fillip to the 45-year-old Illinois senator's campaign. It is also a crucial boost to his battle with the Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, a favourite in Hollywood from her husband Bill's White House days.

The apparent defection of Spielberg, a long-time Clinton supporter, set off alarm bells in the New York senator's camp.

But the film director has since insisted that he has not committed to Mr Obama and has offered to co-host a future fundraiser for the former First Lady.

Mr Katzenberg and Mr -Geffen are, however, backing Mr Obama. The frantic tug-of-love over the loyalties of the biggest names in the entertainment industry reflects the crucial importance of the traditionally liberal world of Hollywood in Democratic presidential politics.

In this struggle for cash and cachet, cheerleaders for the Democrat "Big Three" -former vice-presidential candidate John Edwards also has his fans in Los Angeles - will be quietly working the crowds at the Oscars next weekend, urging donations and endorsements. But Mr Obama will steal a march on his rivals at the renowned Beverly Hilton Hotel in the heart of Tinseltown.

Guests are paying $2,300 (about £1,200) per ticket - the maximum individual donation per candidate under finance laws. For that they can grab a handshake and a chat with Mr Obama from 5.30pm to 7.30pm. Those who commit to raising $46,000 - buying 20 tickets - will be invited to a private dinner later at Geffen's Beverly Hills home for the full "Obamamania" experience.

Mr Obama's energy and charisma, his new-kid-on-the-block status and a life story made for the movies - he was born in Hawaii to a Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas - have all enhanced his profile in an industry always looking for the next big thing.

By contrast, Sen Clinton's support for the Iraq invasion has hurt her reputation among Hollywood's prominent anti-war contingent.

"It is certainly a very significant signal that three of LA's most respected and influential leaders are hosting such a prestigious event for Mr Obama," said Andy Spahn, a political consultant and adviser to the DreamWorks trio.

"There is a tremendous enthusiasm about Tuesday's event and it shows the seriousness and strength of his candidacy for people here. But Mrs Clinton has a deeper and longer-term commitment in California and has a lot of powerful supporters."

It is too early to declare a seismic shift in the political allegiances of the Hollywood power elite.

Sen Clinton retains the backing of key LA players such as the movie moguls Haim Saban and Steve Bing, the father of Elizabeth Hurley's son, Damian. Mr Bing donated $1 million to pro-Democrat groups in the 2004 White House race.

The pair, along with supermarket magnate Ron Burkle, will hold a Los Angeles fundraising gala for Sen Clinton in March, when celebrity backers such as Tom Hanks, Sharon Stone, Billy Crystal, Jerry Seinfeld and Martin Scorsese are likely to boost the star power.

Largely thanks to her husband, Sen Clinton enjoys a strong head start over her main rivals in Hollywood and has already recruited well-connected political fundraisers to head her West Coast effort.

Nonetheless, Tuesday night's party is the talk of the town, according to Paul Bond, business editor of the Hollywood Reporter and an expert on the nexus between politics and showbusiness.

"Hollywood's liberal establishment is very excited about 2008 and Tuesday's event certainly promises to be the political fundraiser of this campaign," he said.

It is not unusual for big names to hedge their bets by offering their help to more than one candidate in the early stages of a campaign.

Barbra Streisand, another long-time Clintonista, recently announced that she was making the maximum $2,300 donation to the former First Lady, Mr Obama and Mr Edwards.

And although Hollywood has long been regarded as a liberal bastion, there are some significant and wealthy Republican faces there too, many of whom came out of the political closet during the wave of patriotism that -followed the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

Rudolph Giuliani, the Republican frontrunner, finds a more favourable reception for his liberal social views in California than in his party's traditional heartland, and Hollywood supporters such as the actor Adam Sandler and Paramount chairman Brad Grey attended a recent fundraiser for the former New York mayor in Pacific Palisades.

With candidates needing to raise at least $75 million just to finance the fight for their parties' nominations, California's coffers are clearly crucial.

The Barack Obama phenomenon in US politics

"America, it's time to start bringing our troops home. It's time to admit that no amount of American lives can resolve the political disagreement that lies at the heart of someone else's civil war. Letting the Iraqis know that we will not be there forever is our last, best hope to pressure the Sunni and Shia to come to the table and find peace."

The words are those of Barack Obama, the second strongest Democratic Party contender after Hillary Clinton, to make a bid for the US Presidency at the next hustings for the prime political position. Besides his strong dissenting policy position on Iraq what is new about the 45 year old Democratic Senator from Illinois is that he is of Afro-American origin, having been born in Hawaii to a white American mother and a Kenyan father. On paper, therefore, Obama hails from one of America's many "ethnic minorities", which groups by 2050 are expected to constitute around half of the US population - an ever - burgeoning constituency which could swing the American vote in favour of a "black" US President before long.

The emergence in American public life of vibrant "black" personalities, such as Condoleezza Rice and Barack Obama prefigures a change in the power relations among America's whites and its so-called ethnic minorities, with the latter coming to wield more influence and power in American public affairs in the not too distant future. Sheer numbers and greater access to public education and other enabling and empowering factors in the American welfare system are likely to consolidate the power and influence of these "ethnic minorities" and help in changing the US' traditional image as a white majority state in the decades to come.

This should be no cause for discomfiture in any quarter. It only goes to prove that the US' image as a land of opportunity is not without foundation.

It testifies to the relative openness of American society and establishes that sound foundations have been laid to enable America to evolve towards a multicultural plural polity, which, to a degree at least accommodates the power aspirations of those who are seen as ethnic minorities.

The importance of the likes of Barack Obama in the US political process at the moment is that they could articulate alternative standpoints on vital national issues, such as the American military involvement in the Iraqi crisis, and galvanize public opinion in support of these policy positions. They thereby enrich public debate and add vibrancy to the democratic process by helping to broad-base national policy.

All in all, they render official policy more sensitive and receptive to alternative policy positions on national questions.

Based on these considerations, Obama's entry to the US Presidential race could be considered as most timely. It comes at a time when US foreign policy is itself coming under heavy questioning by sections of the American public. It is already common knowledge, for instance, that a sizeable section of the public is opposed to the US military intervention in Iraq. Besides, the political Executive is on a collision course with Congress - which represents public opinion - on the correct policy course in Iraq. Right now, there is substantial public opinion in favour of a deescalation of the US military presence in Iraq. Obama is even taking up the call of the public that "the boys should be brought back home."

Claiming that "It's time to turn the page, right here and now," Obama goes on to say that what has prevented the US from facing the challenges of the day is "the failure of leadership, the smallness of our politics - the ease with which we're distracted by the petty and trivial."

It is possible to see in these pronouncements a conception of the US as a great moral leader and not as a mere military power. It is essentially on the latter path that the current political leadership is taking the US.

What is needed, however, in the opinion of Obama and a sizeable section of the US public is that the US should be a moral leader which would help heal global divisions based on power considerations. Obama smacks of a catalyst who could help the US to traverse this moral path.

The sunday observer

Obama is proving that he's not the typical Chicago politician

BY STEVEN THOMMA McClatchy Newspapers

CHICAGO - Watching Barack Obama launch his presidential campaign, you'd never know he's from Chicago.

He staged the dramatic kickoff downstate in Springfield, far from his adopted hometown. He barely mentioned Chicago. And he didn't share the stage -- or the spotlight -- with any of the well-known Democratic politicians from Chicago. Not Gov. Rod Blagojevich, not Mayor Richard M. Daley. Not the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

His seeming slight of Chicago shouldn't be a surprise. For while Obama is from Chicago, he's not of it. At least not its politics.

The first-term Democratic senator didn't come up through the rough ranks of Chicago politics. He got his start as a neighborhood organizer who fought City Hall. He was just a bystander to the 1983-87 reign of the city's only African-American mayor, Harold Washington. He made his first unsuccessful run for Congress against an established black congressman, Bobby Rush. And he ran for the U.S. Senate against an Irish-American Democrat with deep roots in Chicago's political machine and broad support from the party establishment.

"He's an enigma," said Denny Jacobs, a former Democratic state senator from East Moline who served with Obama in the state Legislature.

"He's not the mayor's guy. He's not the aldermen's guy. He's not the county board chairman's guy. He's nobody's guy. Usually you're somebody's guy. In Chicago, that's a way of life."

It's not that Obama is at odds with Chicago politics. He's endorsed Daley for re-election, for example.

But being free of debts to Chicago's political establishments -- black or white -- gives him more freedom to seek the White House without being implicated in City Hall patronage investigations or having close ties to a controversial figure such as Jackson.

A native of Hawaii, Obama came to Chicago as a community organizer in 1985 -- nine years after the legendary machine politician Richard J. Daley, the current mayor's father, had died and two years after Washington became mayor.

Gradually known in the activist community, profiled in an alternative weekly newspaper, Obama was still far removed from the power centers of ward organizations or City Hall, where other young Chicago politicians sought their first steps up the ladder.

Eventually, he left to attend Harvard Law School, returning to Chicago to practice civil rights law and teach at the University of Chicago Law School.

That, too, set him apart in a city in which mayors and other politicians tend to get their degrees locally -- both Daleys went to DePaul University's law school and Washington went to Northwestern's -- and their real educations in ward politics.

While the University of Chicago is world renowned, with ties to 79 Nobel Prize winners and six currently on the faculty, it's hardly a hotbed of ward bosses.

"It's a conservative Democratic Party here," said Cynthia Canary, the executive director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform. "They're not progressive Democrats. Pro-development, cautious fiscal approach, not activist on social issues."

They're also prone to federal ethics investigations. There's one now in City Hall.

"Had he come up through those ranks," Canary said, "I doubt he would be a standard-bearer on issues like ethics and accountability in government. His message would be different."

Kaine backs Obama

RICHMOND - Gov. Timothy M. Kaine endorsed U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, a fellow Harvard Law School graduate, for president Saturday before each Democrat spoke to 3,500 party faithful at a $165-a-plate fundraising dinner.

Obama and his wife, Michelle, appeared at the governor’s mansion with Kaine and his wife, Anne Holton, where the four Harvard Law graduates spent 40 minutes talking inside.

Kaine became the second governor to endorse Obama, and the first outside the senator’s home state of Illinois.

“Even though it is still early, I am very happy to say that it is a very simple decision for me in terms of my assessment of where the nation is and these candidates to endorse Barack Obama to be our nation’s next president,” Kaine told a gathering of more than 50 state and national reporters.

“What you see in Senator Obama is excellence that begins with values,” Kaine said. He said Obama had focused on hard issues like “ethics reform in Illinois, and in a very difficult political environment trying to reform a death penalty law.”

Obama will “help us get into a politics that is better, a politics that is a lot more about results and about people than about toting up a win or a loss for a party or a partisan position.”

Both men said Virginia will be in play for a Democratic presidential candidate in 2008. Obama faces Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and perhaps as many as eight other Democrats in a February 12 primary across Virginia.

Obama said Americans can overcome current problems and love their country, starting “by reminding ourselves that we have overcome bigger challenges than we face today,” such as World War II.

He said Hurricane Katrina “reminded us that we should have high expectations for our government.”

“Here we are in the heart of what was the Confederacy and for me to be able to stand here as an African American reflects the enormous progress that this country has made,” Obama said. He called his candidacy for president “one more step that we have taken to live up to the essential creed that Virginia’s first citizen, Thomas Jefferson, wrote about in the Declaration of Independence.”

Brian J. Moran, D-Alexandria and the House of Delegates Democratic Caucus chairman, said, “Obama brings a fresh face and is inspiring and he’ll bring new ideas and that’s what I think the people of Virginia and this country are looking for.”

Richmond Mayor L. Douglas Wilder, the nation’s first elected black governor in 1989, later welcomed a crowd to the Richmond Convention Center and said, “Let us never forget, Virginia is nobody’s red state.”

Obama drew sustained applause from the record Democratic fundraising crowd when he spoke of ending the war in Iraq and improving the quality of education in America.

“We know that we need to pay teachers more if we are going to attract the next generation of educators,” he said. “We know that [the federal education act called] NCLB left the money behind.”

Obama told the crowd that “whether you were for the war [or against it], it’s time to bring an end to this war. … We know that it’s time to bring our troops home [from Iraq and] to deal with the unfinished business in Afghanistan.”

Speaking of Iraq, he said, “We’re fighting a war that should never have been authorized and should never have been waged.”

By Bob Gibson

America ready for black president, Obama insists

ORANGEBURG - Presidential contender Barack Obama, taking a fellow black lawmaker to task, said Saturday voters are ready to elect a black president.

"At every turn in our history, there's been somebody who said we can't," the Democratic senator from Illinois told a nearly all-black audience of about 2,000 at Claflin University.

"Some people said we can't do this, we can't do that, so we shouldn't even try. If I have your support, if I have your energy and involvement and commitment and ideas, then I'm here to tell you, 'Yes, we can.'●"

The comments drew the loudest ovation during a question-and-answer session in his first campaign swing through South Carolina, an early-voting state.

The first-in-the-South primary is seen as a test of candidates' abilities to reach black voters. Half of the state's Democratic primary voters are black.

Obama responded to comments made last week by Democratic state Sen. Robert Ford of Charleston, who helped mobilize black voters for former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards in 2004 but has offered his endorsement to Sen. Hillary Clinton in the 2008 presidential race.

Ford said Tuesday that Obama, a first-term senator, has much to prove. "The media made this guy bigger than life," he said. "This guy isn't tested and they made him a rock star."

Ford said one reason he was supporting Clinton is that he is skeptical that Obama can win the presidency and worries that his nomination could hurt other Democratic candidates.

"Every Democrat running on that ticket next year would lose - because he's black and he's top of the ticket. We'd lose the House and the Senate and the governors and everything," Ford said.

Ford drew widespread criticism for his comment and later apologized.

U.S. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., introduced Obama on Saturday, saying "Run, Barack, run."

"Obama is able to run today because Rosa Parks sat down," Clyburn said. "He is able to run today because Septima Clark stood up."

Parks, in 1955, refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Ala., sparking a mass boycott by thousands, mainly black women domestic workers who had long filled the buses' back seats.

Clark was an educator and activist for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People decades before the nation's attention turned to racial equality.

Clyburn says he is not endorsing a primary candidate.

State Democratic Party Chairman Joe Erwin tells candidates the race is open and the black vote is not monolithic.

Darcel Lancaster, an 18-year-old Claflin freshman, spent nearly two hours waiting in the morning's chill to be the first in line to see Obama. The biology major said she wouldn't commit to Obama's campaign.

"I'm going to look more into others," she said.

She doesn't expect him to win every black vote - including hers.

"Some people think he's not black enough," Lancaster said. If she picked Obama, it wouldn't be because of his race, she said. "He's not full black," Lancaster said.

U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut spoke earlier Saturday at a Richland County Democratic Party breakfast to a crowd of less than 100.

Both Dodd and Obama had to shorten their South Carolina visits to get back to Washington for a Senate vote on a resolution opposing the Iraq war.

By JIM DAVENPORT

Yes, we can' -- Obama hails diverse S.C. crowd

BY JIM DAVENPORT

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Presidential hopeful Barack Obama told thousands of cheering supporters Friday night that seeing such a racially diverse crowd in the shadow of the South Carolina Statehouse would have surprised people a generation ago.

''Twenty years ago, nobody would have believed this crowd right here in South Carolina,'' Obama said in his first campaign visit here.

Blacks make up about half of the Democratic primary voters in the state, which will hold the first presidential primary in the South in 2008. More than half of the 1,000 tickets the party distributed for the Obama event were picked up by blacks, a party official said.

Earlier in the week, a black state legislator said that if Obama won the nomination for president, it would lead to losses for Democrats in Congress and governorships.

''Everybody's entitled to their opinion,'' Obama told the crowd. ''But I know this -- that when folks were saying we're going to march for our freedom, somebody said we can't do that.''

When others said blacks couldn't sit at lunch counters, blacks did that, said Obama, who ended his thought with the declaration, ''Yes, we can.'' The crowd then started chanting the line.

Obama was to visit Claflin University, a historically black college, Saturday before returning to Washington for a vote on an Iraq war resolution.

Janice Davis, who plans to attend Obama's speech Saturday, said she looks forward to hearing his ideas, particularly on health care.

''I don't care if he was blue,'' said Davis, 40, who is still undecided. ''If he's not standing strong on the issues . . . then no, I don't care if he's black, blue, I wouldn't vote for him.''

AP

What Obama's Candidacy Will Mean for Black America?

The huffingtonpos

Now that Barack Obama's presidential candidacy is official, the puditocracy and bloggerazzi will examine his life to find out if he has what it takes to be the leader of the free world. Questions, intelligent and otherwise, will be asked and, in some instances, lies will be printed as fact. Some will wonder whether Obama can bridge America's racial divide and win over enough Whites to be a serious threat to win the nomination.

Others will want to know if his relative inexperience will be a net positive or negative. Still others will want to know why he is raining on Hillary Clinton's parade. All of these are legitimate and reasonable questions. However, the most interesting question to me is what his candidacy will mean for Black America. Obama's candidacy, for all its promise, will prove to be an uncomfortable test for African Americans because it will force Blacks to accept someone who is so different from the civil rights-based Black politics to which they are so accustomed.

Don't get me wrong. I believe that Barack Obama, politically and socially, sits firmly in the mainstream of Black America. I also believe that the overwhelming majority of Black America will rally around Obama once they get to know him. Universal health care, technological improvements for poor and rural communities, reforming the political system to make it fairer, energy independence, and ending the war in Iraq are all ideas that will play well in Black America. My point is that Obama, thankfully, represents a different picture of blackness. He is a worldly, well educated Black man married to a strong, well educated Black professional woman. Most rank-and-file Black people haven't had the variety of experiences that characterize Obama's life.

The extent to which Obama's candidacy is resonating with White America is amazing and seems to represent a sincere desire for something new and better in our politics. It also reveals a willingness among White voters to embrace someone who has Black skin, but is not seen as overtly Black - a sure disqualifier in American politics. Consequently, Obama will have to campaign in a deracialized way that doesn't scare Whites. That, of course, means that Black America will have to share him with the rest of the country in ways that may make some will make Blacks uncomfortable. This also represents the compromise that Blacks and Whites will have to make: Whites will enthusiastically support a Black candidate that is not "too Black," while many in Black America will have to support a Black candidate that some may see as not "Black enough."

There is no doubt that the sea of White faces that greeted Obama as he launched his campaign made some Blacks wonder how committed he is to Black people and why he didn't announce in his own home city of Chicago. The fact is that his campaign would have been dead-in-the-water had he announced on the south side of Chicago because the crowd would have been overwhelmingly Black, which would have scared many Whites around the country who are just getting to know Obama. That is an unfortunate and inconvenient truth that represents the tightrope Obama must walk as he seeks to straddle and battle his way to the White House.

These are some of the racial dilemmas that Obama's candidacy presents. Let's hope that all parties are up to the task of dealing with them honestly and fairly. This is a unique opportunity for the country to take a big step toward embodying many of the ideals that we seek to project to the world.

Why Obama will win

By: Matt Giancola.

The campaign for the presidency has started uniquely early. There are a number of reasons for this. The field is more wide open than it has been in decades, as there is no president running for re-election or a vice-president running, and both parties have a multitude of candidates who think that this is their year to get the government's biggest job.But there is only one man fit for the position.There are a number of Democrats running who are certainly qualified for the job. After eight years of the horrendously incompetent Bush and Cheney, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, or Bill Richardson would all be refreshing. Richardson is the governor of New Mexico, has many years of foreign policy experience and was the Secretary of Energy, a sector that will only gain importance in the coming decades. Edwards brings important domestic concerns to the table that are very often overlooked. He has been focusing on America's poor and how to rectify the huge income inequality that plagues our country. He has also set up a community service program through his campaign that allows supporters to take action and help those in the community. None of these Democratic candidates will become president however, and the Republican candidates have challenges as well. There is only one candidate who is capturing the minds of the public, who has the vision to lead the United States away from the failed policies that President Bush led us into, and can win both the primary and general election. That candidate is Barack Obama.Hillary Clinton, the current frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, is vulnerable on a number of fronts. Her support for the Iraq War has hurt among party activists. She still will not apologize for her vote to authorize the President to take us into this bloody and unnecessary war. Though Obama was not in the Senate when the votes for the war were cast, he has been against the war from the beginning. In 2002, before the invasion, he gave a speech in Chicago outlining the reasons why the United States should not invade Iraq. Had we followed his advice, we would not be in the dire situation we are now in; we could have focused our energies on fully destroying al-Qaeda, disarming North Korea and engage Iran diplomatically. Instead we are left in the middle of a civil war - a training ground for Jihadi terrorists. Not only would Senator Obama not have taken us in, but he also has a plan on how to get us out that involves redeployment. This approach takes the military out of harm's way but leaves them with the ability to act should the Iraqi government fall to insurgent forces.
It is not simply his foreign policy that makes him an attractive candidate to Democrats. His message of hope and overcoming obstacles that keep our nation down is a message that we have been in dire need of. Yes, he is the first African-American to have a real chance at winning the election, but his attractiveness is in his words, not his skin color. He speaks to the best in people, to bringing the country together. In his electrifying 2004 Democratic Keynote Address, he stated, "Hope in the face of difficulty, hope in the face of uncertainty, the audacity of hope: in the end, that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation, a belief in things not seen, a belief that there are better days ahead."And he has seen much suffering in his life. Working as a community organizer in inner-city Chicago after college, he saw the suffering of a people too often forgotten by their leaders. He toiled to get public housing inspected and cleaned, to get the police to sit down with the people - anything that would impact lives, whether they are small gestures showing that someone still cares, or new policies. After graduating Harvard Law with a stint as president of the Harvard Law Review, he became a civil rights lawyer, returning to inner-city Chicago. He could have become a high-priced lawyer. He could have worked for a wealthy corporation. He could have worked anywhere. Instead, he chose to help the people that needed it most.Voters have a lot to weigh in this election. Do they want an opportunist who will not recant on a failed war, or are they looking for something else - a meaningful, charismatic candidate who represents the best aspects of this country? With more than a year to go before the election, there is already a Facebook group with more than a quarter-million supporters. This is a staggering amount of support from an age group that apparently never votes. We need to move away from bungling Republican rule; Senator Obama represents the hope that resides in us all - that better days are ahead.

Why are black lawmakers already jumping on Clinton bandwagon?

BY MARY MITCHELL Sun-Times Columnist

Skepticism I understand. But when two black male legislators from the Deep South throw their hats in Hillary Clinton's ring at the start of a wide-open election, I want to slap them upside their heads.
Why are these black men so eager to drive Miss Hillary to the White House when Illinois' U.S. Sen. Barack Obama is also a front-runner?
State Senators Robert Ford and Darrell Jackson are considered key black political leaders in South Carolina because they backed John Edwards in 2004 and managed to hand Edwards 37 percent of the vote in a state where half the primary voters are black.
For those of you who don't understand why we keep harping on early primaries, it's simple. If a presidential candidate wins an early primary state -- like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina -- deep-pocket donors keep funding their campaigns.
The losing candidates are well on their way to becoming also-rans.
So you tell me why Ford and Jackson found it necessary to tell reporters that they were driving Miss Hillary so early in the game.
"It's a slim possibility for [Obama] to get the nomination, but then everybody else is doomed," Ford told a reporter with the Associated Press on Tuesday.
"Every Democrat running on that ticket next year would lose because he's black and he's top of the ticket. We'd lose the House and the Senate and the governors and everything," he said. "I'm a gambling man. I love Obama," Ford said. "But I'm not going to kill myself."
This, from a man who claims in his bio that from 1966 to 1972, at the height of the civil rights movement, he was arrested 73 times as a staff member with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
With friends like these . . .After coming under fierce criticism for comments that sounded a lot like the buzzwords some Democrats have long used to justify keeping African Americans off the top of the ticket, Ford, 59, apologized:
"If I caused anybody, including myself, any pain about the comments I made earlier, then I want to apologize to myself and to Senator Obama and any of his supporters," Ford said.
Jackson, who pastors a large congregation and also refers to himself as a businessman, says he considers Obama a "friend" but considers Clinton "our best shot."
If Jackson calls himself Obama's friend, I'd hate to see what he does to his foes. Why is it these black men, who obviously benefitted from the support of black people in their own political campaigns, like Clinton's chances better than Obama's?
Like any other Democratic presidential candidate, Clinton is dependent upon the black vote to put her over the top, and Jackson and Ford have the resources to churn out that vote.
So why don't they have as much faith in a black man as they do in a white woman?
A story a friend shared recently with me offers some clues. He recalled an incident in which he encountered Obama in the halls of the Illinois State Capitol. My friend was the only black person in a group that was in Springfield to lobby black legislators on a piece of insurance legislation.
Although Obama wasn't on the list, my friend said he passed him in the hall.
"There was a moment when Obama stopped and looked at us and indicated that he was open to talk. I looked at him as if he was just another light-skinned black man in a position of power," my friend said. "That's the thought that immediately crossed my mind. Now, I feel like I owe him," he said.
What does it mean to be black?Forget that Obama's bid for the presidency will force some whites to deal with any preconceived notions they have about black men. It is forcing blacks to check themselves, as well.
The discomfort some blacks have with Obama has nothing to do with his resume nor his ethnicity, but with the simple fact that he is a light-skinned black man who was able to cross over into mainstream America. The Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. couldn't do that. And the Rev. Al Sharpton certainly couldn't do it.
For me, the black experience has been growing up in poverty in a public housing project and overcoming that poverty to achieve a measure of success. For a dear friend, the black experience has been growing up in a solidly middle-class neighborhood -- after her family escaped the armed conflicts that once ravaged Nigeria. In fact, can anyone tell me what it means to be black these days?
The real problem here is that too many black leaders have lost confidence. They've given up on the hope in what they do could improve the quality of life for the people who put them in office in the first place, and it shows in our communities.
Political leaders like Robert Ford and Darrell Jackson are guarding their political turf in the same way drug dealers guard street corners. But worse, they are hatin' on a brother who dares to believe anything is possible.

Obama Has Traveled World in Senate Career

Barack Obama has been busy overseas in his brief Senate career

(AP) Barack Obama's two years in the Senate have taken him around the world, from Russia to Iraq to Kenya _ an itinerary more costly to taxpayers than any other senator who took office with him.The Illinois Democrat's travels in 2005 and 2006 cost taxpayers nearly $28,000 as he studied nuclear proliferation, AIDS, Middle Eastern violence and more.Eight other freshmen senators took office in 2005, and about $19,200 was the most anyone spent for government-paid travel, according to reports filed with the Senate Office of Public Records.Obama's journeys are unusual for such a junior senator, but not for someone thinking of a presidential run someday."Valuable or not, it's the thing they all do to show that they're knowledgeable about the world," said Stephen Hess, a George Washington University professor and former presidential aide.Obama, who announced his candidacy Saturday for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, was one of two freshmen members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the 109th Congress. He spent $18,822 in per diem and transportation costs in 2006 as he visited Middle East hotspots and toured Africa. The previous year he spent $8,313 visiting the former Soviet Union and the United Kingdom.The freshman with the next greatest spending on taxpayer-funded trips was Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., whose visits included China, Russia and the Middle East at a cost of about $19,200. Ranking third was freshman Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who spent $17,867 to visit China and Kuwait, among other places. Neither is a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.However, other freshmen also took trips _ both foreign and domestic _ funded by private groups, which Obama does not accept. If Coburn's privately funded trips are included, his total travel amounts to nearly $29,000 for the two years, more than any other freshman.Obama's travels were also eclipsed by some of the committee's more senior senators.Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., for instance, spent more than $61,000 on just taxpayer-subsidized trips during 2005-2006. Sen. Richard Lugar, the Indiana Republican who was then chairman of the committee, spent more than $94,000 in combined taxpayer- and privately funded trips.Obama's staff issued a brief statement saying he's proud that his Russia trip led to an anti-proliferation law and that his Africa trip encouraged people to be tested for AIDS. Staff members also released a letter from Lugar praising Obama's personal diplomacy on the African trip.Before he went to Africa, Obama told The Associated Press that the trip held "symbolic power" because he is the only black U.S. senator."What a trip like this does is it allows me to really target a wide range of issues that come up on the international stage and help Americans appreciate how much our fates are linked with the African continent," Obama said at the time.The official travel spending figures reported to the government don't include the cost of flights on military aircraft, which are often used on overseas trips by a congressional delegation. They also omit the staff time and security costs incurred by the U.S. embassies in the countries lawmakers visit.Senators often bring along aides at additional expense to taxpayers. Obama took his foreign policy adviser and communications director to the former Soviet Union at a cost of $18,576. On the African trip, he took two aides, spending about $6,000 in campaign funds to offset the cost of one.Obama's trips clearly aren't junkets and could educate him about important issues while strengthening his presidential resume, Hess said.In Africa, Obama was often treated like royalty. Adoring crowds showed up wherever he went in Kenya, the home of his father.Obama met several times with AIDS researchers and activists, and he and his wife publicly took an AIDS test to encourage Kenyans to do the same. He caused a stir by speaking out against corruption and the corrosive role of tribal loyalties in the Kenyan government. He also met with African presidents and activists, and traveled to remote villages, refugee camps and U.S. military posts.And, Obama found time to take his family on a safari _ something he did not bill to taxpayers.When Obama went to the Middle East, he met with Israel's foreign minister, spent two days in Iraq talking to officials and military commanders, and made stops in the Palestinian territory, Jordan and Kuwait.During his trip to the former Soviet Union, Obama joined Lugar in touring dilapidated weapons factories in Ukraine, watching workers destroy explosives and visiting the site where a nuclear missile was being dismantled.

The Associated Press

An attempt to trademark the name `Obama bin Laden'

MIAMI A Florida man has been denied the right to trademark the name "Obama bin Laden."In rejecting the request, a U-S patent office lawyer says the name makes a false connection between Illinois senator and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and terror mastermind Osama bin Laden.
The lawyer says the applicant (Alexandre Batlle) would have to get permission from both the senator and the fugitive terrorist in order to have the tradmark approved.
The applicant says he came up with the idea to amuse his friends but is also making money with it, selling "Obama bin Laden" T-shirts and mugs on his Web site.

The Associated Press

Hateful people fear Obama

By Merlene Davis
HERALD-LEADER COLUMNIST

By the time November 2008 rolls around, I'll probably be so sick of hearing about how one man or woman can straighten out this country I'll turn a deaf ear to it all.
But for now, I'm so truly fascinated by the 2008 race for president and the folks who crawl out from behind baseboards to e-mail or call me every time Sen. Barack Obama speaks or gets any air time.
When Obama formed an exploratory committee, a prerequisite for running for president, Obama's critics converged on me like roaches.
"Did you know his middle name is Hussein?"
"He is a Muslim! We can't have Muslims running this country!"
And my favorite: "Once a Muslim, always a Muslim!"
How weak can Christianity, the faith Obama professes, be?
Obama either has a lot of pests scared to death that he, as a Democrat, might succeed in his bid to be president, or these are just the vermin who are terrified they may have to say "Hail to the Chief" to a black man.
And just last week, when Obama announced his candidacy, one man wrote to make sure I would mention that Obama was comparing himself to Abraham Lincoln, a Republican.
Evidently a Democrat shouldn't identify with a Republican. This country's political system might collapse.
And then comes Australian Prime Minister John Howard. He said it was irresponsible of Obama to say he'd bring the troops home from Iraq by March 2008, a promise the senator made over the weekend.
"If I were running al-Qaida in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008, and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats," Howard said.
He is an ally of President Bush and is running behind in Australian polls to his opposition's Labor Party.
Obama said if the Australian prime minister thinks America's presence in Iraq was that important, he needs to send 20,000 more Australians over there to fight the war.
"Otherwise," Obama said, "it's just a bunch of empty rhetoric."
Obama has promised a different kind of politics if he were to be elected president. I think the difference is evident now. Who else would tell the leader of a friendly country to put his troops where his mouth is?
I'm not naive. I know the roaches are scrambling now to find something in Obama's background that could be his downfall. I expect that.
And I don't really believe he will be elected president in 2008.
The election is a long way away and might be as mind-numbing as in previous years. But, just maybe, when it comes to 18 months of the usual guarded words of aging white males who want to lead America, watching the campaigns of a female, Sen. Hillary Clinton; a Hispanic, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson; and Obama might keep my attention.
I'm always hoping for someone to vote for rather than someone to vote against.

Obama Was Right: 3,000 American Lives Wasted!

"We ended up launching a war that should have never been authorized and should have never been waged and to which we have now spent $400 billion and has seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted." Barack Obama.

The audience of 6000 roared with cheers and applause.

After Barack Obama uttered this line at a campaign stop in Iowa last weekend, he was pilloried by rightwing blogs, Fox News and a number of newspapers, including the New York Post and the Daily News.

He is dishonoring the dead and the rest of our fighting men and women, they charged.

The political classes had found their GOTCHA moment.

Hearing the roar of incoming Swift-boats, Obama backtracked and apologized, "Their sacrifices are never wasted."

But Obama should not have given in.

If the war was a mistake, and if American troops incite more violence than they prevent --- which Iraqis and most of the world believe -- then of course American lives were wasted, stupidly and wantonly, as were the lives of 600,000 Iraq civilians.

That's why we want to bring the troops home, stupid.

The families and loved ones of our slain and maimed warriors should focus their anger on the leaders that lied to us and our brave soldiers and caused this murderous, immoral, and totally inane war.

The best way for the families to honor their dead would be to make sure that the remaining solders are brought home as soon as possible, so that that there will be no more "wasting" and sacrificing of young American men and women.

If America can finally learn the lesson -- to stay out of stupid, greedy wars -- this will be the only way that these young lives will not have been lost in vain.

If we cannot learn this lesson, then -- Yes, Yes, Yes, their lives were wasted.

Our President has said that we must continue the Iraq mission so that these dead servicemen will not have died in vain. Let's kill more soldiers to honor the ones who have died already?

Cindy Sheehan, who lost her first born son Casey in Iraq, says the best way to honor his memory is to save the rest of the soldiers in Iraq. "I don't want any more people killed just because my son is dead."
·
"Our country has been overtaken by murderous thugs... gangsters who lust after fortunes and power; never caring that their addictions are at the expense of our loved ones, and the blood of innocent people near and far... The US government is now ruled by murderous hypocrites... criminals who should be arrested, charged appropriately, confined behind bars... In their secret hiding places, while celebrating newly won fortunes with their fellow brass, these men must surely congratulate themselves with orgies of carnal pleasure as they mock the dwindling multitudes who are yet so blind as to mistake them for God's devoted servants."

"Every member of Bush's executive branch (past and present) and every member of Congress who voted to give George the authority to invade Iraq have innocent blood on their hands. For the next State of the Union address, maybe the hypocrites in Congress should shamefacedly display blood-soaked hands, instead of proudly wriggling fingers stained with ink to symbolize sham Iraqi elections."

Source: The huffingtonpost

Can Barack Obama Really Win?

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson

National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre wasted no words when asked about presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's strong support for a ban on semi-automatic assault weapons, and severe limits on handgun purchases during his tenure in the Illinois senate. He called Obama's pro-gun control stance "bad politics."
He thundered that the NRA would talk about Obama's gun control activism. LaPierre's admonition was an ominous warning that the powerful gun-lobbying group would oppose Obama if he ran for president, and so would millions of other passionate gun owners that take their cue from the NRA.
LaPierre's outspoken opposition to Obama is yet another sign that candidate Obama will have more to worry about than race, and getting knocked for his political inexperience, and a skimpy Senate track record.
He's an unabashed liberal Democrat whose votes and views during his days in the Illinois senate on taxes, abortion, civil liberties, civil rights, law enforcement and capital punishment have so far drawn little public attention. But if he hits the campaign trail, Republicans and conservative interest groups will surgically dissect his state senate votes and they will find much there to pound him.
Senator Barack Obama and Michelle Obama on Sat Feb. 10, 2007
The National Taxpayers Union will point a hard finger at Obama for voting to impose 300 new taxes and fees on businesses in his last year in the state senate. Though the tax hikes were deemed necessary to help close Illinois's crushing budget deficit, business and taxpayer interest groups screamed foul.
Obama's vote to raise taxes and his consistent pro-labor votes marked him as another tax and spend Democrat with them. This has been the dread label that Republicans have tagged Democratic contenders with in elections past. This always strikes an angry chord with millions of voters that equate higher taxes with government waste, inefficiency and pork barrel favoritism. And even more insidiously, equate high taxes with special interest giveaways to minorities and the poor.
On the issue of abortion rights, Obama got a perfect rating from the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council. In 2001, he backed legislation that restrictioned medical support in certain types of abortions where the fetus survives. Pro-life groups interpreted that as a vote to strengthen abortion rights. Abortion is more than a campaign wedge issue. It's a major litmus test for right to life groups nationally. They have sold millions of voters on the notion that pro-choice support is tantamount to baby killing, and that a candidate that supports choice is not morally fit to be president.
Obama's vote and views on choice will make him a prime target for pro-life groups. In fact, it already has. He got a zero rating from the National Right to Life Committee for voting for stem cell research, for funding abortions abroad, and against parental notification in the U.S. Senate.
The shocking revelation that Chicago police routinely beat and tortured black suspects in murder cases during the 1970s and 1980s made national news in 2006. The brutality drew renewed demands from black leaders and civil liberties groups for reforms in police interrogation procedures. But even before the scandal broke, Obama had rammed through legislation that required police to videotape all interrogations of murder suspects.
He also took a leading role in overhauling the state's capital punishment system. The legislature took action on the death penalty after several death row inmates wrongly convicted were exonerated. Obama also played a big role in authoring legislation that required police to keep racial stats on unwarranted traffic stops. This was a measure to combat racial profiling.
Police unions and the Fraternal Order of Police rail that these actions are undue restraints on police, and death penalty backers rail that politicians that back capital punishment reform are fuzzy headed soft on crime liberals. That tag sunk the presidential candidacy of Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis in 1988. And since then Democrats have done everything to out law and order Republicans. Obama's pro-civil liberties votes and the 100 percent rating he got from the ACLU won't help him dodge the soft on crime label on the issue of crime and punishment.
Illinois senate Republicans praised Obama as a flexible politician and consensus builder who listened to the views of his Republican opponents. But the presidential campaign trail is a rough and tumble road. His Republican contender won't benignly praise his open-mindedness on the issues. He'll go for the political jugular and lambaste him as an anti-police, anti-business, pro abortion, pro labor, pro-gun control, tax and spend liberal Democrat. Conservative interest groups will tar him as a liberal Democrat who will bend way over to pander to labor, minorities, and women.
Obama's record on civil liberties, civil rights, abortion, and spending issues will endear him to millions of voters. But it will alienate millions more. And they vote in the crucial battleground states that are the key to the White House for a presidential candidate. That's a key candidate Obama won't hold.

Polls show Obama trailing Hillary in party nomination

By KEVIN J. KELLEY

With the first US presidential preliminary contest still 11 months away, Barack Obama appears to be trailing Hillary Clinton by a substantial margin in the race for the Democratic Party’s 2008 nomination.
A recent poll shows Mrs Clinton, a senator from New York, with 43 per cent support among Democratic voters nationwide. Mr Obama, a Kenyan-American representing the state of Illinois in the Senate, is running second with 15 per cent. John Edwards, the Democrats’ nominee for vice president in 2004, is third with 12 per cent.
The results are similar but more auspicious for Senator Obama in surveys taken in Iowa and New Hampshire, the states that will hold the first presidential primary elections early in 2008. Senator Clinton leads in both states with 35 per cent. But Senator Obama runs a fairly close second in New Hampshire with 21 per cent, although he musters only 14 per cent support in Iowa.
These findings reflect Senator Clinton’s greater prominence on the American political scene. In addition to spending eight years in the White House as first lady, she has been a member of the US Senate since 2000. She also benefits from the continuing popularity of her husband, who is expected to play a major role in her presidential campaign.
Senator Obama’s showing in the polls can be interpreted as highly encouraging, however.
He has served in the Senate only two years, and was almost entirely unknown outside Chicago, his home city, prior to the acclaimed speech he gave at the Democrats’ presidential convention in 2004. Senator Obama’s lead over Mr Edwards, a familiar figure to many Americans, suggests his poll ratings may rise substantially as the presidential race gains greater national attention.
Many political analysts believe Senator Obama does have sufficient time to build the kind of campaign infrastructure and fund-raising network that the Clintons have had in place for 15 years. These commentators expect the 45-year-old son of a deceased Kenyan economist to capitalise on his considerable charisma in the coming months.
Senator Obama is already demonstrating great appeal among young voters. Thousands of US university students turned out last month for an Obama-for-president rally, with most of the attendees promising to work as volunteers in their respective states.
The newcomer is also likely to show strength when the candidates file their initial 2007 fundraising reports in April. In this early test of candidates’ viability, some political experts are suggesting that Senator Obama may even exceed the amount of money Senator Clinton is able to raise in the first quarter of this year.
Because race plays such a central role in American history and politics, speculation abounds as to whether Senator Obama, whose mother was white, can win votes across the colour line. A commentator writing in the February 7 New York Times suggests Senator Obama will succeed in attracting white support — just as former Secretary of State Colin Powell, an African-American, did in presidential voter surveys in 1996.
More recent polls indicate that up to 95 per cent of white Americans say they would be willing to support a qualified black candidate for president.
Some analysts suggest Senator Obama could do well among white voters, who account for about 80 per cent of the American electorate, because he, like Mr Powell, is not viewed as combative on racial issues. Because he is not a descendant of African slaves, Mr Obama does not raise demands for compensation for past racial injustices, as do some black American politicians.
But Senator Obama is apparently facing challenges from Senator Clinton in securing what many analysts assume should be his electoral base among African-Americans.
A poll conducted recently by The Washington Post and ABC News found Mrs Clinton to be favoured by 60 per cent of black voters, compared to 20 per cent for Mr Obama. That showing reflects Senator Clinton’s greater familiarity among African-Americans as well as the esteem which Bill Clinton continues to enjoy in the black community. Because of his strong civil-rights stands and identification with African-American aspirations, Mr Clinton was sometimes referred to as “the first black president.”
Senator Obama’s lagging performance in the Post-ABC poll may also be attributable to the view among some African-Americans that he is not one of them.
African-American essayist Debra Dickerson recently declared in remarks quoted in The New York Times that “Obama isn’t black” in an American racial context. “I’ve got nothing but love for the brother, but we don’t have anything in common,” said Ms Dickerson. “His father was African. His mother was a white woman. He grew up with white grandparents.” Senator Obama’s Kenyan heritage may not be regarded positively by some US-born blacks who view themselves as having little in common with immigrants from Africa.
That perspective was offered in the February 1 Times story by Calvin Lanier, an African-American barber in Washington, DC.
“When you think of a president, you think of an American,” said Mr Lanier, 58, who is still considering whether to support Mr Obama. “We’ve been taught that a president should come from right here — born, raised, bred, fed in America. To go outside and bring somebody in from another nationality, now that doesn’t feel right to some people.”
In 2000, Mr Obama lost a race in Chicago for a seat in the US House of Representatives partly because his African-American opponent, Congressman Bobby Rush, depicted him as out-of-touch with black voters. Mr Rush emphasised Mr Obama’s education at Harvard, an elite US university, and his residence in a racially mixed but largely affluent section of Chicago.
Senator Obama has also yet to receive endorsements for his presidential campaign from either of the two most prominent African-American civil-rights leaders: Rev Jesse Jackson and Rev Al Sharpton.
Rev Jackson has said, however, that he is inclined to support Mr Obama. And Jesse Jackson Jr, another US congressman from Chicago, has already endorsed Senator Obama for president, as has John Lewis, a hero of the civil-rights movement who represents a Georgia district in the US House.
Some of the black Americans who say they view Senator Obama warily may be converted to his cause as the campaign proceeds. Ms Dickerson, for example, added in the Times article she is “willing to adopt him.” Senator Obama “married black (and) he acts black,” Ms Dickerson noted.
The senator’s wife, Michelle, is an African-American, and Mr Obama identifies himself as African-American.
Carol Swain, a black professor of political science at Vanderbilt University in the US, suggests African-Americans will rally behind Senator Obama because “he has a track record for being concerned about people who are poor, and it seems to be genuine,” she told the Times.
Senator Obama is “black enough,” African-American columnist Leonard Pitts Jr recently wrote.
“Assume for a minute Obama didn’t have a famous face,” Mr Pitts urged his readers. “Assume he was just another brother tooling down Main Street. Do you really think the cop who pulls him over for no good reason is going to change his tune if he is told Obama’s mama is white?
“Oh. Sorry, Mr Obama. I didn’t realise you were biracial. Have a good day.’”
Another element of uncertainty involves the sympathies of African-American women. Are they more likely to support Mrs Clinton, who could become the first female American president, or Mr Obama, who could become the first black American president?
“With Senator Obama in the race, Senator Clinton will have to work harder to lock down black voters who might otherwise have been hers for the taking,” observes Thomas Schaller, a political science professor recently interviewed by The Baltimore Sun. “For his part,” Mr Schaller added, Mr Obama would be wise not to underestimate the potential for female solidarity to trump race.”

Barack Obama v. John Howard
by Michael Fullilove

02.13.2007


It’s been a long time since an Australian prime minister made news in America, but that is just what’s happened in the past few days.

In response to a call by Senator Barack Obama call for U.S. troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by March 2008, Prime Minister John Howard unleashed a barrage. “If I was running Al-Qaeda in Iraq”, he said, “I would put a circle around March 2008 and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama but also for the Democrats.” In case the message was not received properly, he gave Obama this verbal slap: “He’s a long way from being president of the United States.”

There is a saying that in diplomacy, words are bullets. However in the context of a charged U.S. presidential campaign, these particular words were more like improvised explosive devices.

We should not exaggerate the damage done by Mr. Howard’s loose language. Indeed, one of the common criticisms of current Australian foreign policy is that Canberra has been too circumspect in putting contrary views to Washington. Our consistent support for America’s war in Iraq entitles us to speak our mind about its conduct.

Nevertheless this contretemps is developing in a troubling way.

Firstly, the tenor of Mr. Howard’s comments may have undercut Australia’s influence with the Democrats. Last year we began to hear murmurs that the unprecedented intimacy of the relationship between John Howard and President George Bush was rubbing some congressional Democrats the wrong way. The past 48 hours will only have reinforced the perception that the alliance has been politicized and personalized—as will the arrival in Australia next week of Vice President and uber-hawk Dick Cheney. Sure enough, one Democrat described Mr. Howard’s intervention as “bizarre” and another said that, given Howard and Bush have been “lockstep from day one on this war in Iraq . . . we don’t care what he says.”

The problem is Australians want Democrats to care what our leaders say. Democrats control both houses of Congress, and there is a reasonable chance they will soon occupy the White House too. We need to influence Democratic thinking on many issues, including Sino-U.S. relations and the disposition of U.S. forces in Asia (where we rely on our ally to keep a lid on interstate tensions). Mr. Howard has adroitly cultivated the current administration, but we need to think about how to retain that influence if President Bush’s successor is an anti-war Democrat who has no special feelings about our participation in Iraq and is more interested in renewing ties with disillusioned European allies.

Even more disturbing than Mr. Howard’s intervention, however, was Obama’s deadly response. The senator compared the 1,450 personnel Australia has deployed in and near Iraq with America’s deployment of roughly one hundred times that number. If Mr. Howard wants “to fight the good fight in Iraq”, said Obama, “I would suggest that he calls up another 20,000 Australians and sends them to Iraq, otherwise it’s just a bunch of empty rhetoric.”

Obama’s argument drew blood because it highlighted the gap between the Howard Government’s commentary on the importance of the struggle in Iraq and the actual scale of our deployment there. The Bush Administration has been very polite about this mismatch, but it seems that Democrats may not be so charitable.

Australia has a strong claim to being the most reliable U.S. ally, and that is how we like the Americans to see us. There is no doubt that tradition strongly influenced Mr. Howard’s decision to support the invasion of Iraq.

It is ironic, therefore, that as a result of his intervention we now have a serious candidate for the presidency making light of a dangerous deployment we have undertaken largely for alliance management reasons—and even implying that Australia is not living up to its full responsibilities.

“It’s flattering that one of George Bush’s allies on the other side of the world started attacking me the day after I announced”, Senator Obama said over the weekend. But Australia is not an ally of George Bush: we’re an ally of the United States. That is a critical distinction, one that is consistent with both sensible statecraft and Australian public opinion—and one that Canberra should be very careful to maintain.