Tag: Barack Obama (page 28)

Barack Obama escaped hot water over his mistaking Auschwitz for Buchenwald. Fair enough. But I have a new theory now -- one that's more a curious observation than a criticism, or perhaps a little of both.

He makes a lot of mistakes about his family history. It's like he's retelling stories he's heard from third parties, including campaign staff who looked the stuff up. Maybe, aside from his grandparents with whom he lived for several years, he didn't know their side of the family that well -- including the great uncle who was one of the first at Buchenwald. In other words, he's telling stories he's learned on the campaign trail rather than ones he grew up hearing.

It probably wasn't his father who mistakenly told him the Kennedy family paid for his travel to the U.S. to study in Hawaii. It probably wasn't his mother who told him the 1965 March in Selma, AL allowed her to marry his father (he was born in 1961). More likely, I think, campaign researchers and aides came up with it.

Just like the Boston Globe reported the campaign came up with the story about his Indiana "homestead." I doubt he even knew there was a family homestead before going to Indiana to campaign: [More...]

The San Francisco Chronicle reports on the electoral map challenges for Obama in November:

The same day that Obama enthralled the young, educated voters of Oregon, he was thrashed in Kentucky, losing many counties by 85 and 90 percent margins.

"I was shaking my head when I looked at the Kentucky results," said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center. "Single-digit numbers are something a fringe candidate gets. You put a Joe Smith, a placebo, on the ballot and they get 7 percent. ... The voters in Kentucky in our poll said they thought Barack Obama would be the next president, yet only 7 percent in some of these counties were voting for him."

And these were Democrats. Parts of pivotal Ohio and Pennsylvania mirror or include Appalachia.

Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico don't make up the difference:

Obama then would have to recoup those 41 electoral votes someplace else. Taking Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado would yield just 19, leaving him short even of Kerry's losing total.

Add Ohio and PA to Florida and one has to wonder what the superdelegates are thinking.

Comments now closed.

John McCain shows that he can twist the facts with the best of them:

"[Obama] really has no experience or knowledge or judgment about the issue of Iraq and he has wanted to surrender for a long time."

Granted, Obama hasn't done anything to distinguish himself on getting us out of Iraq (aside from his speech in 2002 before we went in) and his experience and knowledge are fair game, but to say he advocated surrender? That's just false.

I might add, of the three remaining candidates, McCain is by far the worst on Iraq.

The candidates are definitely tired. Here's Barack Obama in New Mexico on Memorial Day, opening his speech with:

On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in the audience here today -- our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.

Via Instapundit. On Obama's website, the line is missing from the text of his speech.

Was it video-shopped or did he say it? [Added: The video on his website includes the line, so it's real. Must have been an ad-lib]

Obama also played for the women vote in New Mexico today, singling out women veterans as particularly susceptible to post-tramautic stress disorder: [More...]

Here's some more number crunching I just received from a Talkleft reader as to electability in November, based on the past five Presidential Elections...

• There are FIVE "BELLWETHER STATES". These are states who have voted for the WINNER in ALL FIVE of the most recent Presidential elections. They are: Arkansas, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, and Tennessee.

  Number of these that HRC has won? FOUR (80%)
  HRC's Average Margin? 13.2%

• There are THREE "VERY SWINGY STATES". These are states who have voted Democratic in either 2 or 3 of 5 of the most recent Presidential elections. They are: Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia.

  Number of these that HRC has won? THREE (100%)
  
  HRC's Average Margin? 21.3%

Fidel Castro has written an op-ed in Cuba's state-run newspapers today criticizing Barack Obama for saying he planned to uphold the embargo against Cuba while easing restrictions on Cuban residents in the U.S. from visiting and sending money to their relatives on the island.

"Obama's speech can be translated as a formula for hunger for the country," Castro wrote, referring to Obama's remarks last week to the influential Cuban American National Foundation in Miami.....Castro said Obama's proposals for letting well-off Cuban Americans help poorer relatives on the island amounted to "propaganda for consumerism and a way of life that is unsustainable."

He complained that Obama's description of Cuba as "undemocratic" and "lacking in respect for liberty and human rights" was the same argument previous U.S. administrations "have used to justify their crimes against our homeland."

Castro didn't mention Obama's offer to meet with him or other Cuban leaders. McCain and Hillary would both continue the embargo. Hillary said this week she wouldn't meet with Cuban leaders until they've begun to enact some Democratic reforms. [More...]

Real Clear Politics calculates the popular vote six ways. I've reprinted all six below.

Not surprisingly, my view is that only the first two are valid because whatever happens with delegates, the Florida and Michigan elections were certified by the states and people pulled a lever or touched a screen or dropped off or sent in a ballot choosing a candidate and those votes must be counted.

The DNC and both candidates agree at least some FL and MI delegates will be seated at the convention. The delegate selection is based in large part on who their voters selected in their state's certified primaries -- the popular vote for the counties/districts in the two states. How can their votes not be counted in the popular vote total?

However you calculate the popular vote total today, here's the ultimate question: Between 1 and 2 million people may vote in Puerto Rico's open primary on June 1 (2 million voted in 2004.) If Hillary wins convincingly, not W. VA or KY numbers but convincingly, won't she clearly be ahead in the popular vote by any rational standard?

More...

Barack Obama is still in Florida. Today, he spoke at a luncheon for the largest organization of Cuban-American exiles -- a pretty conservative bunch. He told them he would meet with Cuba's new leaders.

The annual Cuban Independence Day banquet of the Cuban American National Foundation cheered Obama's avowed commitment to fostering democracy in Cuba. But the audience showed its wariness of his talk of meeting with Cuban leaders. Mere handfuls applauded that statement from among the crowd of at least 500.

....Foundation Chairman Jorge Mas Santos voiced the Cuban American community's enduring opposition to any U.S. president meeting with the Castro regime before political prisoners are released and free elections slated. The son of the foundation's late founder, Mas described any expectation of engaging Raul Castro in democratic reforms as "wishful thinking."

Did he win himself any votes today? He did say he would end the travel restrictions and limits on sending money home, but he would also maintain the embargo.

The Miami Herald reports: [More...]

I disagree with Big Tent Democrat on Obama's statement today on FL and MI. It's woefully inadequate and nothing he and the party haven't said before. It doesn't address the issue.

The issue is not seating the delegates at the convention. It's counting their votes and awarding delegates based on their votes BEFORE the nominee is chosen. It's about giving 2.3 million voters who took the time to go to the polls and who did nothing wrong have their votes count in deciding our party's nominee.

Obama is playing the same games he's always played on Michigan and Florida. He's not agreeing to let their votes count.

Saying they can be seated at the convention means they can cheer for the nominee and sit in on party platform and rules meetings. Big deal. If they can't have their votes count in determining the nominee, it's a shell game.

Obama sought to reassure Florida's Jewish community he is pro-Israel today. Here's what he had to say in response to a question about Rashid Khalidi.

“You mentioned Rashid Khalidi, who’s a professor at Columbia," Obama said. "I do know him because I taught at the University of Chicago. And he is Palestinian. And I do know him and I have had conversations. He is not one of my advisors; he’s not one of my foreign policy people. His kids went to the Lab school where my kids go as well. He is a respected scholar, although he vehemently disagrees with a lot of Israel’s policy.”

....“To pluck out one person who I know and who I’ve had a conversation with who has very different views than 900 of my friends and then to suggest that somehow that shows that maybe I’m not sufficiently pro-Israel, I think, is a very problematic stand to take," he said. "So we gotta be careful about guilt by association.”

He apparently didn't mention Khalidi hosted a fundraiser for him when he ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2000, or or that he attended a testimonial dinner for Khalidi and praised him when Khalidi left Chicago to chair Columbia's Middle Eastern Studies Department, or that while he served on the board of the Woods Fund, it voted to grant $40,000.00 to the Arab American Network, an organization headed by Khalidi's wife. From the LA Times: [More...]

Barack Obama has hired John Kerry's vice-presidential vetter. Here's my questions:

• Does Hillary want the vice-presidential spot on the ticket? Does she just want him to offer it to her so she can have the satisfaction of turning him down? Or, does she figure since she's promised to campaign for him if he's the nominee that she might as well still be campaigning for herself as well, even if it's just as the VP candidate?

• Can Obama win without Hillary on the ticket?

• Is serving as VP in Hillary's best interest -- or just Obama's?

• Last, if Obama, who we know doesn't want Hillary on the ticket, offers it to her due to pressure from Democratic party leaders, what does that say about his message of bringing change to Washington? [More...]

If you are curious about who is on the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee that will be deciding on Florida and Michigan, here's the list with their affiliations. (Don't laugh, it lists Donna Brazile as "uncommitted")

The tally: Hillary has 13 supporters, Obama 8 and 7, in addition to the 2 co-chairs have not yet endorsed. The member from Florida is an Obama supporter. One of the co-chairs, Alexis Herman, was one of Bill Clinton's cabinet members.

Co-Chairs - no endorsement
Alexis Herman (co-chair, Washington , D.C. )
James Roosevelt, Jr. (co-chair, Massachusetts )

Members - Clinton supporters (13)

Hartina Flournay (DC)
Donald Fowler (SC)
Harold Ickes, Jr. (DC)
Alice Huffman (CA)
Ben Johnson (DC)
Elaine Kamarck (MA)
Eric Kleinfeld (DC)
Mona Pasquil (CA)
Mame Reiley (VA)
Garry Shay (CA)
Elizabeth Smith (DC)
Michael Steed (MD)
Jaime Gonzalez, Jr. (TX)

Members - Obama supporters (8) [More...]