April 4, 2008
Clinton Superdelegates are Easing to Obama (Brent Budowsky)
Behind the scenes there is private movement among some key superdelegates who support Clinton but recognize the inevitable. Public comments are starting to seep out, making the suggestion that if Hillary is behind in elected delegates and popular vote they reserve the right to switch to Obama.
This trend is more pronounced privately than publicly. I do not expect major switches before Pennsylvania, at least, but I do expect a growing line of public comments dropping more hints, as we have seen in recent days.
Stay tuned. Don't believe everything you hear on cable television. The more Clinton threatens to take a divisive fight to the convention, the more superdelegates pull away privately. Obama's $40 million money take for March was hugely important and well understood by the supers.
Obama now leads in elected delegates, popular vote, number of states won and fundraising by a large margin, and the superdelegate move to Obama has been almost 100 percent and huge over the last several weeks. Stay tuned — this is much closer to over than the pundits suggest.
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But don't we need Hillary around to keep this anti-American radical honest?
Comment by Igor R. — April 4, 2008 @ 4:14 pm
Brent;
I certainly hope so. Hillary dragging this out is becoming embarsesing. Telling Richardson one thing and then denying it without denying it. We shall see what the next few weeks bring.
Comment by Mike Coleman — April 4, 2008 @ 5:11 pm
I am a member of the Obama Movement (that's right, we're a movement), and you'd better believe that if superdelegates are foolish enough to overturn the will of the voters and deny Obama the nomination, myself and millions of voters will turn our backs on that liar and cheat, Hillary Clinton.
Comment by Kate Holder — April 5, 2008 @ 12:58 am
This makes me very happy, but I won't jump up and cheer just yet.
Comment by DT — April 5, 2008 @ 9:35 am
Thanks for all your posts. I heard you on Air America last nigt about Randi Rhodes. Thank you for that as well. I think Sam S. is wrong. I think that the station is censoring anti-Hillary people. Either way, the suspension was unwarranted to say the least.
Comment by Steve Shlafer — April 5, 2008 @ 11:57 am
At a charity function in Denver last week I listened to two early Hillary supers arrange a meeting with our Obama group to move to our side–quietly… this was a move to get a seat at the table but very telling indeed. These guys were rabid Hill supporters and had been promised more than a little access by Bill. They were scambling to make up to the Obama campaign and I had to hide my giggles.
Comment by Bink1 — April 5, 2008 @ 12:07 pm
Mike C, - what is "embarsesing" for a candidate who's leading in a large state like Pennsylvania primary to try to win that state? Don't we want someone to be elected President who's got a fighting spirit even during dark moments? Doing otherwise would be "embarsesing"…
Comment by Misha F — April 5, 2008 @ 4:35 pm
I hope this is true. It is time these superdelegates put a stop to this nonsense. It is an embarrassment to watch Hillary lie, embellish, attack another Democrat, and act like a republican. She has run a very bad campaign, and if that's any indication, we can only imagine how she will run the WH. The Democrats will be fools to nominate a candidate so damaged, and with too much baggage. The republican attack machine will have a wonderful time.
Comment by Traveler — April 5, 2008 @ 4:46 pm
The Bill Richardson endorsement is being downplayed by the media and, of course, by Senator and Bill Clinton. Only former presidential adviser to Bill Clinton, David Gergen, correctly labeled Richardson's move as "courageous." Gov. Richardson himself said of Sen. Obama that: "this guy is something special, and I want to be a part of it." Sen. Obama is going to hold dear such early examples of faith and loyalty, like Sen. Claire McKaskill and Kathleen Sebelius, and the trickle of support will become a flood sooner than later.
Comment by Rob A. — April 5, 2008 @ 8:34 pm
Too bad we have to wait for either one.
A Pew Research Center poll of 109 leading historians found that 61 percent of them rank Bush as “worst ever” among U.S. presidents. Bush’s key competition comes from Buchanan, apparently, and a further 2 percent of the sample puts Bush right behind Buchanan as runner-up for “worst ever.” 96 percent of the respondents place the Bush presidency in the bottom tier of American presidencies. And was his presidency (it’s a bit wishful to speak of his presidency in the past tense–after all there are several more months left to go) a success or failure? On that score the numbers are still more resounding: 98 percent label it a “failure.”–Scott Horton
Comment by Don Bacon — April 5, 2008 @ 9:06 pm
All of the "Big Media" should be called out and they should account for their actions!
Cheney, Obama, McCain, they have big EXPENSIVE PLANS for all of us.
The costs, we'll pay for them, and, we will scream about the Recession the whole time we do it.
Let's educate ourselves about the Nuclear Power Plants already in the works by Obama, McCain, and their good buddy Dick Cheney.
Does President Jimmy Carter and Al Gore want to go back in time to Nuclear Waste, to Cancer in children who live near these power plants? Go back in time to handicapped children being born near these Nuclear Power Plants?
I know one thing for sure, the BIG MEDIA on our televisions do want this, because of WHO PAYS THEIR BIG SALARIES!
No wonder the star of "Silkwood", Cher supports Senator Clinton.
What happen to windmills? Wind is too cheap to use for Cheney, Obama, and McCain I suppose they need a great money making scheme, even during a Recession.
How many of the 29 will be built in Texas, since Cheney is behind it all?
How dirty are some of these big energy companies, too bad Karen Silkwood isn’t around today, and she could tell us all, but oh yea, she was killed mysteriously while working for Ker-Mcgee at a plutonium plant. How dirty is G. E.? Pretty dirty if they think they can treat Americans like we live in a Communist Country!
They have monopolized the media and are attacking the Clinton’s all day every day, and we all know why, so they can get one of the two candidates they have bought and paid for elected, Obama or McCain.
Comment by Tonya — April 5, 2008 @ 10:53 pm
We don't need NUCLEAR, it's all about the money people!
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3258
Comment by Tonya — April 5, 2008 @ 10:56 pm
So very right Brent,The Dem party for the most part is led by cowards.Don't forget on the most significant event of the 21st century so far,most of the Dem leadership hopped on to Bush's train wreck(Iraq war).Like you I don't get people's fascination with Edwards(has nevr shown any leadership)& Gore for the most part is just spineless(he folded in 2000 supreme CT).Reid & Pelosi,anyone seen any kind of leadership coming from 'em lately ?Puh-pleaase.Maybe Obama can bring in new leaders and new blood.
Comment by BobJohnson — April 6, 2008 @ 1:13 am
Everyone knows about Bill Richardson too, what a loser! It's all about the money for him too! Obama has a lot of loser backing him!
Comment by Tonya — April 6, 2008 @ 2:50 am
I don't understand why the Obama supporters don't want to hear another Clinton name in the White house. They always say they are tired of Bush and Clinton's name. Well you have heard the Bush name for twelve years. And George H. Bush was just a clone Of Ronald {trickle down} Reagan. We had a Clinton in for only Eight years. Pretty damn good years at that. So I think it is time we even the score and give Hillary a try. She is a more than capable candidate and deserves to be the President.
Comment by Lois — April 6, 2008 @ 3:07 am
Is Obama really that inevitable? His popular lead vote of 700,000 includes 400,000 votes from Cook County, Illinois. Maybe he's not as strong as he appears, or maybe both are weak political sisters, whose only offerings are social programs, which offer hand outs, not hope, unity or change. Free government cheese is comprised of materials made by the private sector, purchased by the government with funds seized by the private sector, then distributed to individuals , some of whom despise the private sector, and others, who simply go the free cheese route.
Comment by Robert Rosencrans — April 6, 2008 @ 8:09 am
That should read, "funds seized from the private sector."
Comment by Robert Rosencrans — April 6, 2008 @ 8:10 am
Character matters in picking the next president and Hillary Clinton's is found wanting. Here is further insight into Hillary's character by a respected ealier colleague of Hillary Clinton. "As Hillary Clinton came under increasing scrutiny for her story about facing sniper fire in Bosnia, one question that arose was whether she has engaged in a pattern of lying. The now-retired general counsel and chief of staff of the House Judiciary Committee, who supervised Hillary when she worked on the Watergate investigation, says Hillary�s history of lies and unethical behavior goes back farther � and goes much deeper � than anyone realizes. Jerry Zeifman, a lifelong Democrat, supervised the work of 27-year-old Hillary Rodham on the committee. Hillary got a job working on the investigation at the behest of her former law professor, Burke Marshall, who was also Sen. Ted Kennedy�s chief counsel in the Chappaquiddick affair. When the investigation was over, Zeifman fired Hillary from the committee staff and refused to give her a letter of recommendation � one of only three people who earned that dubious distinction in Zeifman�s 17-year career. Why? �Because she was a liar,� Zeifman said in an interview last week. �She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality."� URL: :/stoptheaclu.com/archives/2008/04/01/h illary-was-fired-from-congressional-job- for-unethical-behavior/trackback
Then we have Mark Penn's free-trade negotations with the Columbians which calls into questions from some unions like Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa who said the account calls into question Clinton's own credibility on the trade pact. "How can we trust that a President Hillary Clinton would stand strong against this trade deal when her top adviser is being paid by Colombia to promote it?" Hoffa said. "To support this so-called `free trade agreement' is anathema to the labor movement and to anyone who supports working people, social justice or the environment." AND Then WE Have: Greg Tarpinian, executive director of Change to Win, which has endorsed Obama and represents a coalition of unions actively working against the trade pact, called on Penn to resign his campaign post. "It's time for Senator Hillary Clinton to send her vaunted `chief strategist' Mark Penn packing — back to his job consulting for union busting corporations and anti-labor governments for good," Tarpinian said in a statement.
Permalink | Trackback URL: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/04/04 penn-apologizes-as-labor-groups-call-fo r-his-resignation?mod=WSJBlog/trackback /
Every day Hillary supporters are speaking out in ways which continue to inflame race and gender, divide and conquer — that is no way to run or win a race! If she was really concerned about African Americans and Womens' Issues then she and her surrogates would not be stating daily staements which further fuel the gender and racial divisions in this country in a misguided strategy of divide & conquer. Hillary and her camp have been shown to untruthful and unethical. When they get caught in their lies, they laugh it off and say they misspoke, misspeaked, and misstated. They are not honorable people and she does not show the kind of character that should be running the highest office in the land.
Comment by Angellight — April 6, 2008 @ 9:25 am
As a nation, we are like a drowning person struggling to gash air, hanging on throughout the ordeal, hoping that rescue will arrive before it's too late. Like that drowning person, so too is our nation hanging on for rescue, but the nomination of the rescuer is delaying the process. Democrats just cannot afford to have such a hurtfully divisive contest to decide who the leader should be, without demoralizing a very important constituent. We need to regain a sense of solidarity within our ranks, by identifying the causes of what ails us and seeking the best ways to overcome them. We do need to spell out the differences between our two candidates, but we certainly do not need to be bludgeoning our comrades and diminish ourselves in the process. We do not need to play the types of games, with each other, that the Republican are only too willing to play against us. We have the winning hand; so let us not waste this opportunity to rescue our nations by tearing ourselves apart.
Comment by sicnarfe — April 6, 2008 @ 10:24 am
Well, isn't this just grand!
Remember last week when Hillary claimed there was no such thing as a "pledged" delegate.
In the words of Rev. Wright–I guess the chickens are coming home to roost for Hillary–aren't they!
It will be interesting to see her spin this. Now she will have to claim that once you say you are for her you can't change your vote.
Spin–Spin–Spin–Hillary!
Comment by Peaceseeker — April 6, 2008 @ 10:32 am
Cheney's bill is completely money motivated and everyone knows he is NO ENVIRONMENTALIST by any means. What this next article says is completely true, and like it or not, McCain is bought and paid for by G.E. and so is Obama, the thing that makes most of us mad is that it's a big secret.
Obama traveling the country speaking about fossil fuel and cleaner coal burning fuels is a BIG LIE, so see your man, if you support him LIES every time he makes a speech.
In 2005 Obama Voted FOR the Cheney Energy Bill (H.R.6) which ENABLED the nuke industry to make its Plans to build 29 new nukes-by Guaranteeing Taxpayer Payback of any nuke loans that default. (No nukes were built for the past 30 years because the banks wouldn’t loan the money - too risky)
G.E. is behind the whole thing and your BIG MEDIA is G.E. and it's subsidiaries, which is treating the American public just like China when they block certain programs and do not let their people know the truth, and if that isn't COMMUNISM than please tell me what is!
Comment by WE KNOW — April 6, 2008 @ 10:57 am
This may be one of the reasons SD's are easing to BO:
Watergate to Bosnia:
Hillary Clinton's former House Judiciary Committee boss, Jerry Zeifman, says he fired her "because she was a liar, and part of a cabal to block Richard Nixon's impeachment to avoid earlier Kennedy scandals coming out." The American Spectator's Philip Klein: "This revelation means that we can draw a straight line of lying encompassing nearly her entire 35-year career, from Watergate to Bosnia."
"Because she was a liar," Zeifman said in an interview last week. "She was an unethical, dishonest lawyer. She conspired to violate the Constitution, the rules of the House, the rules of the committee and the rules of confidentiality."
Comment by Docb — April 6, 2008 @ 11:25 am
Did this Pew Research Poll identify who these "leading historians" are what their party affiliation is? Certainly, Bush-43 is no worse than Jimmy Carter, unless they also judge Presidents on home building skills for homeless bums. That's the only way Jimmy Carter could lift himself a bit.
Comment by Misha F — April 6, 2008 @ 11:50 am
Kate, Hillary is just a compulsive liar, mostly about meaningless stuff. Obama is trying to hide his whole identity by using pleasant sounding words. Which one is worse?
Comment by Igor R. — April 6, 2008 @ 3:06 pm
I am in Chicago, and here, where we know him best, it is very difficult to find anyone who does not support him, and support him with certainty. I had actually met him as a campaign worker during his run for Senate at a 4th of July parade in Evanston, Illinois. My impressions of him was somebody very relaxed, confident and "comfortable," but not at all arrogant. When I spoke to him, I kept thinking "there is no way this guy cannot win the Senate." I do feel that today, but when you have Hillary constantly trying to "mess him up," it is of great relief that people are beginning to see through her. This is helping because she can no longer get away with putting him down while building up herself and McCain! The voters are listening and watching!
Comment by Gina — April 7, 2008 @ 12:16 am
I am now down to your words only. Please tell Randi to get on a "station" somewhere now! There are, too. many of us counting on her to pass along information. We are all doing what we can do to get our affiliates to do what they can. But you have her ear. Get her to speak through you until this all settles out.
Thanks, Brent.
Comment by Paula Gooding — April 7, 2008 @ 3:36 am
Brent, the most amazing thing is that HRC is braggin' on her "3 am crisis management qualifications" - but she has already had that test, and failed miserably. When confronted with dubious (to put it very nicely) Bush-Cheney rationals to attack and invade Iraq, Hillary voted for the war authorization. She now claims she was duped! That she didn't realize at the time that Bush would use the Senate war authorization to rush into war before exhausting all other possibilites. On top of that, she didn't even read the NIE that substantially debunked the administrations exaggerated "WMD threat" claims. (Remember, Doug Feith's OSP, Office of Special Plans, was set up as a parrallel "intel" agency in the Pentagon under Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, designed specifically to bypass the CIA, NSA, DIA, and other US intel agencies, that all said,"No, Iraq does NOT have a proven WMD program.")
Don't forget: #1. UN and IAEA inspectors were on the ground in Iraq, going wherever they were directed by the administration and/or US intel agencies on 24 hour notice; #2. near as we can figure, uranium and plutonium enrichment plants require vast amounts of electricity, you can not pack up and move such facilities on 24 hours notice! (Oak Ridge, Tenn, and Hanford Washington plants of US 'Manhatten Project' used well over 10% of all US WWII electric production, which is why they were located close to hydro-electric dams) #3. Bush-Cheney & Co. had stolen election 2000 in a most partisan and demeaning manner (and had run Clinton-Gore staffers out of town on a rail, tarred and feathered by the Rovian smear-op "White House Trashing Scandal" without one photograph of evidence!)#4. Bush had done nothing to beef up America's airline security in long summer of 2001, despite fact that Al Qaida had been unpunished for Oct. 2000 attack on USS Cole, and that Attorney Gen. Aschroft stopped flying public airliners citing a "Threat Assesment"
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/07/26/national/main303601.shtml
#5. that the anthrax attacks after 9-11 attacked only members of the "liberal media" and two Democrat senators - not the military or WH targets that one would suspect a Mideast terrorist organization would target; #6. That Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Libby, Cheney, and Jeb Bush had all signed the PNAC "attack Iraq at earliest possible moment!" NewAmericanCentury.org manifesto (put together by Kristol & Kagan) - way back in June of 1997!
http://newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm
Senator Clinton simply can not ask for a free pass on all these items (and many more - millions of Americans knew the Bush administration's rationals for war were false) - while claiming "EXPERIENCE" and specifically her ability to meet the challenge of a crisis.
Comment by LjBK — April 7, 2008 @ 5:10 am
Igor, you are a clever devil: Imagine creating a sentence with Hillary and Honest in it. Yet to answer your question, NO, there is no need to keep Hillary around for any reason except for, possibly studying the characteristics of the truly sociopathic.
Comment by james d granata — April 7, 2008 @ 7:39 am
I wonder how many times Mark Penn may have slipped a note to HRC asking her to earmark a little help for one of his NAFTA-advantaged clients. This thought and the dirty tricks her campaign pulled with those right-wingers in Canada just before the Ohio contest make me certain that her presidency would be as dishonest and troubled as her husband's term of office. I, too, would like to see a woman take the highest office in the land, but for pity's sake, not this woman!
Comment by barbara day — April 7, 2008 @ 11:07 am
Misha F.
If you had looked at the polls, PA is now even with over two weeks to go. Hillary missteps leading up to PA has put a dent in her message and having Mark Penn represent Colombia in Free Trade talks, the one that you hit Obama over the head with doesn't help her with PA folks. If that is not embarassing I don't know what is.
Comment by Mike Coleman — April 7, 2008 @ 1:33 pm
Gina represents the perfect Obama voter: she likes him because he is 'somebody very relaxed, confident and “comfortable,” but not at all arrogant' and everybody around her seems to like him. So Gina, you want to elect a radical Marxist because he's so likable? Well Gina YOU are what's wrong with America, to the extend that this thinking is replicated among the mindless Obama-bots.
Comment by Igor R. — April 7, 2008 @ 1:58 pm
James, yes, probably the last time someone sincerely called her honest was before she learned to speak, and yet she has done more to damage her idiotic cause of radicalizing America in the last three months than the Republican Party has done in the last 20 years.
Comment by Igor R. — April 7, 2008 @ 2:02 pm
Hillary is honest and you know that's why all politicians in Washington hate on the Clinton's, Washington can't stomach honesty! How can any Obama supporter call him honest? This man who has lost the popular vote in almost every state and uses the caucus to his advantage by flying his buddies in from Chicago to cause problems with the caucus in the states. They will go outside to long lines and say "I think that White Woman is cheating us" to oversized crowds.
Honesty is not an attribute of Mr. Obama, especially as he goes around and lies in every speech he gives, and really he should have been an actor, but he is no Denzel , looking more like Homer Simpson every day !
I would have took up for President Carter if anyone talked ugly about him, in fact I always have, but if he is going to give his Super Delegate vote away to Obama, I have lost all respect for a man who I used to adore.
I have lost all respect for the Democratic process, really and will be changing my party affiliation, so are many of my family members, we are sick of the Democratic process.
MSNBC, G. E. stop treating Americans like we live in Communist China!
Comment by WE KNOW — April 8, 2008 @ 8:24 am
How ironic and funny! A bunch of politicians and want a be's calling Hillary a liar. SNL here is your joke for next Saturday, a bunch of politicians in Washington calling anybody a liar. You kill me, your hilarious!
Stop all of the Marxism and Communism and stop it Media, stop treating us like we live in a communist country.
Comment by WE KNOW — April 8, 2008 @ 9:16 am
igor, you are like a soldier mowing down the enemy. i love it!
Comment by j — April 8, 2008 @ 1:07 pm
Thanks j!
Comment by Igor R. — April 8, 2008 @ 2:05 pm
j and Igoe are playing with thier GI Joe's again
Comment by Lester — April 9, 2008 @ 12:55 pm