HILLARY CLINTON'S DEFEATED; GOP SETS ITS SIGHTS ON OBAMA

Hillary Clinton's Defeated; GOP Sets its Sights on Obama

By Jay Bookman

Daniel Molokele Blog

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Even though Mike Huckabee lost Wisconsin by more than 15

percentage points, he has vowed to press on to Ohio and

Texas. But it would take a miracle for him to win his

party's nomination.

The exact same thing can be said of Hillary Clinton.

She too lost Wisconsin by more than 15 percentage points;

she too needs a miracle. And while she too vows to press

on, the race is over and she has lost.

Thanks to substantial defeats in Wisconsin and Hawaii --

giving her a losing streak of 10 in a row -- Clinton has

now fallen behind Barack Obama by more than 140 pledged

delegates. With 981 delegates still to be elected between

now and early June, it might at first glance seem possible

to overcome that gap.

But it's just not so. To pull ahead of Obama in elected

delegates, Clinton would have to win every one of the 16

remaining contests by margins of 15 to 20 percentage

points. There is no sign that such a sweep is possible.

Clinton's only other hope for a miracle lies with her

party's 800 superdelegates, who have the right to vote for

the nomination because they hold elective office or high

positions in the party.

However, those superdelegates show no sign of wanting to

get into the miracle business, nor should they. They

understand the outrage that would result if unelected

delegates try to overturn the verdict of Democratic primary

voters, particularly when the candidate the voters have

chosen is a black man.

Denying Obama the nomination under those circumstances

would alienate not just black Democrats, but also the many

young people drawn into politics by Obama. It would tear

the Democratic Party apart and doom its chances not just in

2008, but in 2012 and 2016 and perhaps beyond.

That is particularly true given the lingering bitterness in

the party over the 2000 presidential elections. Many party

regulars believe that race was settled by the Supreme

Court, not by the American people. They would not accept

party elders altering the outcome of a vote in a similar

manner.

Obama's victory has to impress and to a degree even

frighten Republican political professionals. Try as they

might, the Republicans have not been able to beat the

Clintons. They couldn't beat Bill, and in two Senate

elections they couldn't beat Hillary either.

Between them, the Clintons have been regarded as two of the

smartest, most fearsome politicians of their generation.

And yet Obama, coming out of nowhere, has now beaten them

both, in a campaign in which Hillary had all the initial

advantages.

In the past few weeks, GOP commentators have already begun

re-targeting their cannons from Clinton to Obama. In his

victory speech after the Wisconsin primary, John McCain

also focused almost exclusively on Obama. They fear Obama

not merely because he will be more difficult to beat as

president, but because he would make a lot of other

Democrats difficult to beat as well.

The reason is turnout.

It's pretty clear that Obama would bring a lot of young

people and black people to the polls that Clinton could not

have attracted, and they will vote Democratic. The

enthusiasm he has generated among those groups hasn't been

seen in a long, long time.

Conversely, a lot of Republicans who might have rushed to

the polls to vote against Clinton -- a payoff for the

party's 15-year investment in Hillary hatemongering --

won't be quite so motivated to vote against Obama.

Together, those trends could elect a lot more Democrats in

down-ticket races this fall, which in turn could help Obama

make good on his pledges of change.

In his campaign, Obama has talked fervently of a new spirit

of cooperation and post-partisanship in Washington. He has

been criticized by some as naive for those statements, but

I suspect there's hardheaded calculation behind the

rhetoric.

Obama knows that the best way -- the only way -- to

overcome partisanship in Washington is to have a lot more

votes on your side than the other guy does. And while

November is a long way off, he seems well-positioned to

make that strategy pay.

o Jay Bookman is deputy editorial page editor. His

column runs Monday and Thursday.

More at:

http://danielmolokele.blogspot.com/2008/02/hillary-clintons-defeated-gop-sets-its.html

Jai Maharaj

http://tinyurl.com/24fq83

http://www.mantra.com/jai

http://www.mantra.com/jyotish

Om Shanti

Hindu Holocaust Museum

http://www.mantra.com/holocaust

Hindu life, principles, spirituality and philosophy

http://www.hindu.org

http://www.hindunet.org

The truth about Islam and Muslims

http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate

DISCLAIMER AND CONDITIONS

o Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used for the educational

purposes of research and open discussion. The contents of this post may not

have been authored by, and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the

poster. The contents are protected by copyright law and the exemption for

fair use of copyrighted works.

o If you send private e-mail to me, it will likely not be read,

considered or answered if it does not contain your full legal name, current

e-mail and postal addresses, and live-voice telephone number.

o Posted for information and discussion. Views expressed by others are

not necessarily those of the poster who may or may not have read the article.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This article may contain copyrighted material the use of

which may or may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright

owner. This material is being made available in efforts to advance the

understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic,

democratic, scientific, social, and cultural, etc., issues. It is believed

that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as

provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title

17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without

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subscribing to USENET newsgroups or visiting web sites. For more information

go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

If you wish to use copyrighted material from this article for purposes of

your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the

copyright owner.

"MOST IMPRESSIVE U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE IN QUITE A WHILE" -

Senator Barack Obama

A CLOSE EXAMINATION BARACK OBAMA's QUALIFICATIONS and accomplishments

puts Hillary's "experience" to abject SHAME!

BOTTOM LINES: Don't throw your vote away on John "Lobbyist Lover"

McCain or Hillary "Give My Bill 'Nother Chance" Clinton. Two terms

of

your Nincompoop-In-Chief followed by either of these pretenders will

put our nation in even graver jeopardy!

----------------

"There's the Beef"

By Steven Pearlstein

The Washington Post

Friday, February 2, 2008; D01

During the course of our endless presidential campaigns, lots of

silly

things are said by the candidates and the press. But few are more

ridiculous than the idea that Barack Obama is just an empty suit.

We're talking here about a former president of the Harvard Law

Review.

Have you ever met the people who get into Harvard Law School? You

might not choose them as friends or lovers or godparents to your

children, but -- trust me on this -- there aren't many lightweights

there. And Obama was chosen by all the other overachievers as top

dog.

Compared with the current leader of the free world, this guy is

Albert

Einstein.

Given his youth and relatively short time in government, it's fair to

ask if Obama has the wisdom and experience to be president. But it's

quite another to suggest that he has no vision, no program, no

specifics.

Let's begin with the fact that he has written two books (all by

himself, unlike a certain other candidate). The first offers a

compelling personal narrative that, for some reason, is dismissed as

puffery by a presumptive Republican nominee who first ran for office

on the strength of his compelling personal narrative. The second book

is a thoroughly readable, intelligent and well-reasoned discourse on

politics and policy that offers a fresh perspective on a wide range

of

issues.

Obama has participated in 18 televised presidential debates in which

he has managed to hold his own not only with Hillary the Wonkette,

but

also with the Senate's leading light on foreign affairs, a former

United Nations ambassador and a former vice presidential candidate

who

was a skilled trial lawyer. I watched most of the debates, and while

I

didn't agree with everything he said, I don't recall thinking that

Obama was in over his head.

Now that Obama is sprinting toward the finish line in the Democratic

marathon, his opponents are suddenly asking, "Where's the beef?"

If it's beef you like, all you have to do is go to http://barackobama.com,

where you will find a refrigerator case packed with prime policy

meat.

That may come as something of a surprise to you, considering how

utterly lacking in substance the reporting and analysis has been over

the last year. But it's all there -- as much as or more than is

offered by other candidates and certainly as much as any voter would

require.

There is, for example, the 11-page, single-spaced energy plan that

features a cap-and-trade system that would require businesses to

purchase credits for 100 percent of their carbon emissions, along

with

a requirement that all electric companies produce a quarter of their

juice from renewable resources. Obama would also invest $15 billion

annually -- a big chunk of change, even by federal standards -- in

biofuels and other forms of clean energy. He wants to change the way

electricity rates are set to give utilities more incentives to save

power rather than produce it.

Those aren't uniquely Obama's ideas -- in one form or another,

they've

been part of the Democratic congressional agenda for years. And

considering how fiercely they are opposed by industry and free-market

Republicans, they aren't going to produce the kind of across-the-

aisle

compromise that Obama promises to deliver. But it's hardly like

there's nothing there.

Or perhaps you'd like to curl up with a copy of Obama's 15-page,

single-spaced health-care plan, including 65 footnotes. You'll find a

cogent analysis of what ails the health-care system, along with the

best thinking of Democratic health-care reformers on how to fix it:

disease management, computerized medical records, radical reforms of

the insurance market, tax subsidies for low-income families and

federal reinsurance for catastrophic illness. There's even a

requirement that businesses either offer health insurance to their

workers or pay into a universal health-care fund.

The plan would be expensive and involve a major federal intrusion

into

the marketplace, and there is a legitimate question as to whether the

plan would work better if everyone were required by law to buy health

insurance. But by any measure it is a serious plan that would win the

support not only of labor but also of major parts of the business

community, including hospitals and health insurers.

Finally, there's the 40-plus-page economic agenda that outlines

Obama's proposals for avoiding a recession, helping homeowners avoid

foreclosure, restoring the rights of workers to form unions,

improving

public education, combating poverty and shifting the tax burden from

the middle class to the upper class.

Once again, Obama has borrowed liberally from the standard Democratic

policy playbook, adding a few twists of his own. He's willing to

gently challenge the teachers' unions on merit pay, the trial lawyers

on medical malpractice and liberals on raising Social Security taxes

rather than pretending there's no problem with the retirement

program.

But this is hardly the kind of challenge to Democratic interest-group

politics that Obama's "change" rhetoric suggests.

Particularly disappointing is his willingness to parrot the labor

movement mantra about labor and environmental standards, which is

really nothing more than protectionist code. And there's no way Obama

can do all that he proposes and get anywhere close to balancing the

federal budget.

But such shortcomings are hardly unusual for a political campaign;

the

Clinton economic program is no better. And as we're all about to find

out, it's far better than the thin gruel offered so far by John

McCain, who, God help us, plans to bone up on economics by reading

Alan Greenspan.

McCain's economic program consists of extending the Bush tax cuts,

cutting corporate tax rates and banning taxes on the Internet and

cellphones. His "comprehensive" health-care reform program consists

of

two pages of platitudes with no specifics and no way to pay for

itself. And while he calls for "tough choices" in reining in

entitlement spending, he still hasn't found one he's willing to share

with us.

Barack Obama isn't a saint. He's not a savior. But in substance as

well as style, he's the most impressive presidential candidate to

come

along in quite a while.

[steven Pearlstein can be reached atpearlste...@washpost.com]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/21/AR2008022102826.html

mike hucakbee is in miracle business, not math business.

hillary is in solution business, not solid (reality).

<usenet@mantra.com and/or http://www.mantra.com/jai (Dr. Jai Maharaj)> wrote in

message news:20080221IVSk8SwupI6lUVJ8k2O4E21@Gat61...

> Hillary Clinton's Defeated; GOP Sets its Sights on Obama

>

> By Jay Bookman

> Daniel Molokele Blog

> Thursday, February 21, 2008

>

> Even though Mike Huckabee lost Wisconsin by more than 15

> percentage points, he has vowed to press on to Ohio and

> Texas. But it would take a miracle for him to win his

> party's nomination.

>

> The exact same thing can be said of Hillary Clinton.

>

> She too lost Wisconsin by more than 15 percentage points;

> she too needs a miracle. And while she too vows to press

> on, the race is over and she has lost.

>

> Thanks to substantial defeats in Wisconsin and Hawaii --

> giving her a losing streak of 10 in a row -- Clinton has

> now fallen behind Barack Obama by more than 140 pledged

> delegates. With 981 delegates still to be elected between

> now and early June, it might at first glance seem possible

> to overcome that gap.

>

> But it's just not so. To pull ahead of Obama in elected

> delegates, Clinton would have to win every one of the 16

> remaining contests by margins of 15 to 20 percentage

> points. There is no sign that such a sweep is possible.

>

> Clinton's only other hope for a miracle lies with her

> party's 800 superdelegates, who have the right to vote for

> the nomination because they hold elective office or high

> positions in the party.

>

> However, those superdelegates show no sign of wanting to

> get into the miracle business, nor should they. They

> understand the outrage that would result if unelected

> delegates try to overturn the verdict of Democratic primary

> voters, particularly when the candidate the voters have

> chosen is a black man.

>

> Denying Obama the nomination under those circumstances

> would alienate not just black Democrats, but also the many

> young people drawn into politics by Obama. It would tear

> the Democratic Party apart and doom its chances not just in

> 2008, but in 2012 and 2016 and perhaps beyond.

>

> That is particularly true given the lingering bitterness in

> the party over the 2000 presidential elections. Many party

> regulars believe that race was settled by the Supreme

> Court, not by the American people. They would not accept

> party elders altering the outcome of a vote in a similar

> manner.

>

> Obama's victory has to impress and to a degree even

> frighten Republican political professionals. Try as they

> might, the Republicans have not been able to beat the

> Clintons. They couldn't beat Bill, and in two Senate

> elections they couldn't beat Hillary either.

>

> Between them, the Clintons have been regarded as two of the

> smartest, most fearsome politicians of their generation.

> And yet Obama, coming out of nowhere, has now beaten them

> both, in a campaign in which Hillary had all the initial

> advantages.

>

> In the past few weeks, GOP commentators have already begun

> re-targeting their cannons from Clinton to Obama. In his

> victory speech after the Wisconsin primary, John McCain

> also focused almost exclusively on Obama. They fear Obama

> not merely because he will be more difficult to beat as

> president, but because he would make a lot of other

> Democrats difficult to beat as well.

>

> The reason is turnout.

>

> It's pretty clear that Obama would bring a lot of young

> people and black people to the polls that Clinton could not

> have attracted, and they will vote Democratic. The

> enthusiasm he has generated among those groups hasn't been

> seen in a long, long time.

>

> Conversely, a lot of Republicans who might have rushed to

> the polls to vote against Clinton -- a payoff for the

> party's 15-year investment in Hillary hatemongering --

> won't be quite so motivated to vote against Obama.

>

> Together, those trends could elect a lot more Democrats in

> down-ticket races this fall, which in turn could help Obama

> make good on his pledges of change.

>

> In his campaign, Obama has talked fervently of a new spirit

> of cooperation and post-partisanship in Washington. He has

> been criticized by some as naive for those statements, but

> I suspect there's hardheaded calculation behind the

> rhetoric.

>

> Obama knows that the best way -- the only way -- to

> overcome partisanship in Washington is to have a lot more

> votes on your side than the other guy does. And while

> November is a long way off, he seems well-positioned to

> make that strategy pay.

>

> o Jay Bookman is deputy editorial page editor. His

> column runs Monday and Thursday.

>

> More at:

> http://danielmolokele.blogspot.com/2008/02/hillary-clintons-defeated-gop-sets-its.html

>

> Jai Maharaj

> http://tinyurl.com/24fq83

> http://www.mantra.com/jai

> http://www.mantra.com/jyotish

> Om Shanti

>

> Hindu Holocaust Museum

> http://www.mantra.com/holocaust

>

> Hindu life, principles, spirituality and philosophy

> http://www.hindu.org

> http://www.hindunet.org

>

> The truth about Islam and Muslims

> http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate

>

> DISCLAIMER AND CONDITIONS

>

> o Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used for the

> educational

> purposes of research and open discussion. The contents of this post may

> not

> have been authored by, and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the

> poster. The contents are protected by copyright law and the exemption for

> fair use of copyrighted works.

> o If you send private e-mail to me, it will likely not be read,

> considered or answered if it does not contain your full legal name,

> current

> e-mail and postal addresses, and live-voice telephone number.

> o Posted for information and discussion. Views expressed by others

> are

> not necessarily those of the poster who may or may not have read the

> article.

>

> FAIR USE NOTICE: This article may contain copyrighted material the use of

> which may or may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright

> owner. This material is being made available in efforts to advance the

> understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic,

> democratic, scientific, social, and cultural, etc., issues. It is believed

> that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as

> provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with

> Title

> 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without

> profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the

> included

> information for research, comment, discussion and educational purposes by

> subscribing to USENET newsgroups or visiting web sites. For more

> information

> go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

> If you wish to use copyrighted material from this article for purposes of

> your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the

> copyright owner.