Tag: Barack Obama (page 47)

Obama on the campaign trail today, explaining why he is experienced to be President:

"Look, I've lived overseas," said Obama. "I have family overseas. I have served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee."

I can't let that one pass. When did he live overseas? From the ages of 6 to 10 in Indonesia.

As to his service on the Foreign Relations Committee, do we need to mention again that the subcommittee on European Affairs that he chaired didn't hold a single hearing last year on NATO and Afghanistan, because he was too busy running for President?

Update: As Big Tent wrote earlier, there's good news for Hillary from the latest Texas and Ohio polls completed yesterday (More...):

Former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson (husband of Valerie Plame Wilson) writes in Huffington Post that Obama has shown "hollow" judgment on foreign affairs and has an empty record.

Among the points Wilson makes on Obama's 2002 statement on the Iraq War is one already conceded by Obama: that had he been in the Senate in 2003 and privy to the NIE and other information that the Senators were, he doesn't know how he would have voted:

During the 2002-2003 timeframe, he was a minor local official uninvolved in the national debate on the war so we can only judge from his own statements prior to the 2008 campaign. Obama repeated these points in a whole host of interviews prior to announcing his candidacy. On July 27, 2004, he told the Chicago Tribune on Iraq: "There's not much of a difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage." In his book, The Audacity of Hope, published in 2006, he wrote, "...on the merits I didn't consider the case against war to be cut-and- dried." And, in 2006, he clearly said, "I'm always careful to say that I was not in the Senate, so perhaps the reason I thought it was such a bad idea was that I didn't have the benefit of US intelligence. And for those who did, it might have led to a different set of choices."

More...

ABC News runs with the headline today, Obama: Witness for the Defense? The article has no facts, and is based on the opinion of one lawyer -- a federal prosecutor who was part of the team that prosecuted former Ill. Gov. George Ryan in 2006. Since the Ryan case, he's left the Government and has been a defense lawyer for a total of one year.

He says,

Sen. Barack Obama could be called as a witness for his longtime friend and accused Illinois fixer Tony Rezko, according to Chicago lawyers following the case.

...."I think it's realistic that that could happen during the trial," said Zach Fardon, a former Chicago federal prosecutor who was part of the team that convicted former Illinois Gov. George Ryan on corruption charges.

His theory: [More...]

A Cleveland Plain Dealer poll conducted by Mason Dixon of registered Democratic voters who plan to vote in the primary, has Hillary Clinton ahead of Barack Obama, 47% to 43%, with 90% of voters decided on their choice. (Actual poll results are here (pdf.) The margin of error is 4%. There are some geographic and issues differences that may be worth noting.

On NAFTA:

Voters surveyed said they see little difference between the candidates' positions on the North American Free Trade Agreement, which many Democratic voters blame for the loss of jobs in Ohio and which has been a central theme of both campaigns.

On health care, those surveyed prefer Hillary's plan to Obama's, 33% to 18%. Then there's the geographic difference, which may be significant:

The Plain Dealer poll shows that Clinton's biggest lead is among voters in southeast Ohio, a poor region of the state whose voters supported Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996. She leads Obama there, 55 percent to 32 percent; Obama's biggest lead is in the southwest, where he is up 52 percent to 36 percent.

It's not just that Bill Clinton won those areas in 1992 and 1996. It's that John Kerry and Al Gore didn't, and even though they blasted Bush in the northern parts of Ohio, they lost the state because of the southeastern rural vote. And, as Ohio goes, so tends to go the country in November: No Republican since Abe Lincoln has won the presidency without winning Ohio. On the Democratic side, in the last century, only FDR and JFK won the presidency without winning Ohio. (FDR lost Ohio most likely because the Republican VP candidate was from the state.)

More...

Sen. Hagel for Secretary of Defense? Sen. Luger for Secretary of State? Barack Obama believes that's one way to "neutralize John McCain."

A reporter from the Sunday Times (UK) traveled on Barack Obama's campaign plane last week. Both campaign advisors and Obama told him in interviews,

Obama is hoping to appoint cross-party figures to his cabinet such as Chuck Hagel, the Republican senator for Nebraska and an opponent of the Iraq war, and Richard Lugar, leader of the Republicans on the Senate foreign relations committee.

Senior advisers confirmed that Hagel, a highly decorated Vietnam war veteran and one of McCain’s closest friends in the Senate, was considered an ideal candidate for defence secretary.

....Asked about his choice of cabinet last week, Obama told The Sunday Times: “Chuck Hagel is a great friend of mine and I respect him very much,” although he was wary of appearing as though he was already choosing the White House curtains.

Obama made similar comments in Dallas this week:

[More....]

I've been learning a lot from the commenters on this site the past few weeks. Yesterday I wrote up this this New Yorker interview with Barack Obama from November, 2006, before he decided to run for President. I missed this statement by Obama, noted by Facta in Verba in the comments:

“By the way,” just as an aside. You know, I’m not a historian, so— There’s a hotel, I think it’s the Capitol Hilton, in Washington; and downstairs, where there are a lot of banquet halls, there’s a whole row of all the presidents. You walk by the forty-three that have been there and you realize there are only about ten who you have any idea what they did.

That's pretty funny. Especially coming from someone who taught Constitutional Law and is running for the Presidency. I wonder which ten Presidents they are.

After last week's debate when Barack Obama acknowledged he hadn't held a single hearing on Nato and Afghanistan during his year as chair of the European Affairs subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee because he was running for President, he's now giving lectures to Europe in his campaign speeches.

[He said] European governments had to pull their weight in Afghanistan and not rely so much on the United States to do the "dirty work" against Taliban fighters.....

He said the US needs more support from its NATO allies in Afghanistan and implied Germany should lift its ban on combat operations in the dangerous south.

More....

A new poll of likely Democratic voters from C-Span, Reuters and the Houston Chronicle, by Zogby shows a dead heat in Texas and Ohio with Hillary gaining and stemming Obama's recent lead there.

Democrat Hillary Clinton stemmed her losses and solidified her base in Texas, reversing a slide against rival Barack Obama in the race for their party’s presidential nomination, while Obama continued his thrust to catch her in Ohio as voters in these two big states prepare to vote on Tuesday, the latest Reuters/C-SPAN/Houston Chronicle two-day rolling telephone tracking polls show.

Hillary has closed the gap on the male vote, with Obama only leading in that category by 5%.

More good news for Hillary:

Clinton had a big day Friday in the Zogby call center, leading Obama by double-digits in the Texas survey. She retains a significant lead among Hispanic voters there, a key demographic in the Democratic primary.

In Ohio, the latest poll shows Hillary and Obama in a dead heat. [More...]

Paul Lukasiak continues his number crunching analysis at Corrente Wire today, and concludes,

Based on available exit polling from states that held primary elections, while Obama dominates the “Independent” voter, Hillary Clinton actually does slightly better among “Moderate” voters— and this is even more true in crucial swing states. The data suggests that a more comprehensive review of all such “electability” factors is required.

Paul's prior analysis on the vote is detailed here and explained here.

From a New Yorker interview, Testing the Waters with Barack Obama, November, 2006.

Where do you find yourself having the biggest differences with Hillary Clinton, politically?

You know, I think very highly of Hillary. The more I get to know her, the more I admire her. I think she’s the most disciplined—one of the most disciplined people—I’ve ever met. She’s one of the toughest. She’s got an extraordinary intelligence. And she is, she’s somebody who’s in this stuff for the right reasons. She’s passionate about moving the country forward on issues like health care and children. So it’s not clear to me what differences we’ve had since I’ve been in the Senate. I think what people might point to is our different assessments of the war in Iraq, although I’m always careful to say that I was not in the Senate, so perhaps the reason I thought it was such a bad idea was that I didn’t have the benefit of U.S. intelligence. And, for those who did, it might have led to a different set of choices. So that might be something that sort of is obvious. But, again, we were in different circumstances at that time: I was running for the U.S. Senate, she had to take a vote, and casting votes is always a difficult test.

That was before Barack Obama decided to vote for President. Which Obama do we believe now? [Hat tip to commenter Pavaoh}.

A newly released Fox News Ohio poll (pdf) of likely Democratic voters in Ohio has Hillary ahead of Barack Obama 46% to 38%. The margin of error is + or - 4%.

CNN takes a look at the "poll of polls" in both Ohio and Texas.

Two "poll of polls" calculated by CNN show competitive races in both Texas and Ohio. The Texas "poll of polls" of likely primary voters shows Obama at 48 percent, Clinton at 44 percent, and 8 percent unsure. In Ohio, Clinton has 47 percent, Obama has 40 percent, and 13 percent are unsure.

The "poll of polls" includes: [More...]

ABC News reports on the implications of Tony Rezko's trial for Barack Obama.

I think one line Obama may wish he never said when defending his toughness is,

"I come from Chicago politics. We're accustomed to rough and tumble," he said.

Chicago politics is well-known for being dirty. Perhaps he should have talked about his experience staying above the fray of it rather than implying he knew how to get into the fight.