Tag: Barack Obama (page 42)

Update: Hillary's speech focused on policy. More on the dinner is here.

Update: As others have noticed, Obama didn't realize Montana holds primaries, not cacuses. See below.

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Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are speaking two hours apart tonight at the Mansfield-Metcalf Democrats Dinner in Butte, Montana. Obama's speech has already concluded.

“I know that there’s some people who have been saying that these caucuses — the caucus states out West with these small populations, they don’t really count all that much,” Obama said in a thinly veiled reference to Clinton.

“I don’t know about you but I think they’re pretty important,” he said to loud applause. “I think it’s important to note that we have seen record number of Americans who turned out for us in Idaho, and in Wyoming, and in Utah, and in Colorado.”

It's not just the size of the states, it's their composition that's the point. There is no chance Montana, Wyoming, Idaho or Utah will go Democratic in November. (More...)

Has Barack Obama peaked? That's one reading of the NY Times/ CBS poll of registered voters of both parties released today:

Senator Barack Obama’s support among Democrats nationally has softened over the last month, particularly among men and upper-income voters, as voters have taken a slightly less positive view of him than they did after his burst of victories in February, according to the latest New York Times/CBS The survey suggests that Mr. Obama, Democrat of Illinois, may have been at something of a peak in February, propelled by a string of primary and caucus victories over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, and that perceptions of him are settling down.

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Both candidates agree the popular vote count will be an important factor for superdelegates to consider in deciding how to cast their vote. It's one of several, others being their view of the candidate's electability in November and the pledged delegate totals.

So, how many human beings have gone to the polls so far and cast votes for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama?

The popular vote total is the votes cast by individuals in state primaries. Caucus votes don't count in the popular vote total because they are counted in terms of delegates, not votes, and many states don't count the number of people attending caucuses. More on this below.

Sources and Methodology below:

A new PA poll by Muhlenberg College and the Morning Call show Hillary ahead by 11 points. Full poll results are here.

Key findings:

1. With the Pennsylvania Presidential Primary under three weeks away, Senator Hillary Clinton maintains a double digit lead over Senator Obama in the Democratic race.

2. Democratic voters in the Keystone State were most likely to rank the economy as the key issue in terms of their vote in the Democratic Primary, with the Iraq War and health care also prominently mentioned.

3. Pennsylvania Democrats have generally favorable views of both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. However, Obama receives a larger percentage of unfavorable ratings than Clinton among likely voters in the state.

4. Keystone State Democrats are evenly divided on which of their candidates is more likely to beat John McCain in the general election.

5. Democratic voters in the Commonwealth are more likely to want Hillary Clinton to choose Barack Obama as her running mate than they are to support Obama choosing Clinton as his Vice President.

6. A majority of Democratic voters in Pennsylvania do not believe Hillary Clinton should drop out of the race if she loses the Pennsylvania Primary.

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Via the Washington Post: What does $40 million buy Obama? In addition to blanketing PA with ads,

In North Carolina, one of the two vital May 6 states, the Obama campaign's office count has risen to 16, including smaller locales like Hickory, Boone and Elizabeth City. Two Obama television ads are airing around the state, at a total cost of $800,000, according to a source familiar with the campaign's media budget. Today alone, an army of organizers and volunteers conducted 22 training and and voter registration sessions, focusing in particular on African Americans, students, and independents and Republicans.

In Indiana, the other May 6 contest, the Obama campaign has so far spent over $1 million on TV and radio ads. The office tally climbed today to 17. The Obama campaign's latest gimmick: a high school-outreach program that targets students who will turn 18 by the Nov. 4 general election, making them eligible as primary voters. Indiana students who register at least 20 of their peers by April 6 will be eligible to play three-on-three basketball with Obama, a big-time hoops fan and reputed aggressor on the court.

Obama has spent $3 million on Pennsylvania ads to date to Hillary's $500k.

There's probably something to like for everyone in this wide-ranging CBS/New York Times poll of all registered voters (not just Dems). (Full poll results here. (pdf.)

What stood out to me:

• Those polled who either voted or will vote in Democratic primaries prefer Obama to Hillary, 46% to 43%, a statistical tie. But, Obama fell from 54% in Februrary to 46% in March and April while Hillary rose from 38% to 43%.

• Obama does better than Hillary with Republicans. His support among Independents and Democrats is down a bit, but it's up among Republicans.

• Hillary leads Obama in who will do better with the economy and health care.

• Hillary and Obama both best McCain, with Hillary one point better than Obama. Whiile more people think Obama will win the nomination, they both beat McCain and are essentially tied here. [More...]

I miss the debates. It looks like we will get at least one more and probably 2. . Hillary Clinton has agreed to a CBS North Carolina debate on April 27, in advance of the state's primary. No final word on whether Obama agreed.

An invitation to debate in Indiana is also pending.

There will be a Philly debate on April 16.

Quinnipiac has a new poll out today (Big Tent Democrat's post on it is here.)

Results:

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton holds a 50 - 41 percent lead over Illinois Sen. Barack Obama among likely Pennsylvania Democratic primary voters and runs better against Arizona Sen. John McCain, the likely Republican nominee in Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.

By the numbers:

In general election match ups of the three largest and most important swing states in the Electoral College, the survey finds.

• Florida: Clinton 44 percent - McCain 42 percent; McCain beats Obama 46 - 37 percent;
• Ohio: Clinton beats McCain 48 - 39 percent; Obama gets 43 percent to McCain's 42 percent;
• Pennsylvania: Clinton tops McCain 48 - 40 percent; Obama leads McCain 43 - 39 percent.

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One of the complaints I've had with Barack Obama is the difficulty trying to pin him down on issues. His positions too often seem to shift over time.

Politico has a doozy today. Remember the questionnaire that Obama submitted -- the one where he later said he didn't mean some of the answers, but a staffer had filled it out incorrectly?

Turns out, the questionnaire has turned up, with his handwriting on it. There's the issue of parental notification for abortions. But to me, its the ones on the death penalty and gun control that stand out.

During his first run for elected office, Barack Obama played a greater role than his aides now acknowledge in crafting liberal stands on gun control, the death penalty and abortion — positions that appear at odds with the more moderate image he has projected during his presidential campaign.

The evidence comes from an amended version of an Illinois voter group’s detailed questionnaire, filed under his name during his 1996 bid for a state Senate seat.

Late last year, in response to a Politico story about Obama’s answers to the original questionnaire, his aides said he “never saw or approved” the questionnaire.

They asserted the responses were filled out by a campaign aide who “unintentionally mischaracterize[d] his position.”

But a Politico examination determined that Obama was actually interviewed about the issues on the questionnaire by the liberal Chicago nonprofit group that issued it. And it found that Obama — the day after sitting for the interview — filed an amended version of the questionnaire, which appears to contain Obama’s own handwritten notes added to one answer.

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Update: 10:30 pm MT: She's over $3 million now. That's $85,000.00 in the past hour alone. Thanks in part go to TL readers who contributed (see comments below), you helped push her over the top.

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For the past three days, Hillary Clinton has been fundraising online with a goal of raising $3 million by midnight, the end of the fundraising quarter. Right now, she's at $2,915,000. $1 million a day for someone the media is counting as down and out isn't bad.

Maya Angelou has a new post up at Hillary's site as part of part of a series in celebration of Women's History Month. The theme: Rise, Hillary, Rise.

She begins with a poem:

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

She adds,

This is not the first time you have seen Hillary Clinton seemingly at her wits end, but she has always risen, always risen, much to the dismay of her adversaries and the delight of her friends.

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Law Professor Ann Althouse examines the enduring flap over whether Barack Obama really was a law professor. (More on that at the end of this post.)

She makes a more important point-- that we shouldn't forget the other 9 exaggerations raised by the Clinton campaign.

1. Obama claimed credit for nuclear leak legislation that never passed.
2. Obama misspoke about his being conceived because of Selma.
3. Sen. Obama took too much credit for his community organizing efforts.
4. Obama's assertion that nobody had indications Rezko was engaging in wrongdoing 'strains credulity.' "
5. Obama was forced to revise his assertion that lobbyists 'won't work in my White House.'
6. 'Selective, embellished and out-of-context quotes from newspapers pump up Obama's health plan.'
7. Sen. Obama said 'I passed a law that put Illinois on a path to universal coverage,' but Obama health care legislation merely set up a task force.
8. 'Obama…seemed to exaggerate the legislative progress he made' on ethics reform.
9. Obama drastically overstated Kansas tornado deaths during campaign appearance.

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Barack Obama's campaign has acknowledged Sen. Obama made a factual error in stating the Kennedy family paid for his father's emigration from Kenya to the U.S. in 1959.

Addressing civil rights activists in Selma, Ala., a year ago, Sen. Barack Obama traced his "very existence" to the generosity of the Kennedy family, which he said paid for his Kenyan father to travel to America on a student scholarship and thus meet his Kansan mother.

The Camelot connection has become part of the mythology surrounding Obama's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Research subsequently revealed the Kennedy family didn't make a financial donaton until 1960.

Contrary to Obama's claims in speeches in January at American University and in Selma last year, the Kennedy family did not provide the funding for a September 1959 airlift of 81 Kenyan students to the United States that included Obama's father. According to historical records and interviews with participants, the Kennedys were first approached for support for the program nearly a year later, in July 1960. The family responded with a $100,000 donation, most of which went to pay for a second airlift in September 1960.

The Obama campaign has acknowledged the error: [More..]