Hillary Clinton
Liar, Liar Pants On Fire - Obama’s Self-Immolation
Just 30% of the nation’s Likely Voters believe Barack Obama denounced his former Pastor, Jeremiah Wright, because he was outraged. Most—58%–say he denounced the Pastor for political convenience according to a Rasmussen Poll released Friday. Only 33% of voters believe that Obama was surprised by the views Wright expressed at Monday’s press conference. Fifty-two percent (52%) say he was not surprised.
Fifty-six percent (56%) say it’s at least somewhat likely that Obama “shares some of Pastor Wright’s controversial views about the United States.” Just 7% of the nation’s voters agree with Wright’s views of the United States. African-American voters, by a 64% to 12% margin, disagree with Wright. Seventy-four percent (74%) of Republicans believe it’s somewhat or very likely that Obama shares some of Wright’s views. That assessment is shared by 48% of Democrats and 49% of those not affiliated with either major party.
In Indiana Clinton attracts 46% of the Democrat votes while Obama earns 41%. With just a week to go before Election Day, 13% remain undecided. Clintonleads by nineteen percentage points among White voters. Obama leads 90% to 4% among African-Americans.
In North Carolina Barack Obama leads Hillary Clinton 49% to 40%. Earlier this week, Obama led by fourteen, 51% to 37%. A month ago, Obama led by twenty-three percentage points. Clintonleads by twenty-three points among White voters while Obama leads 74% to 10% among African-Americans. Clintonleads among senior citizens, the candidates split those in the 50-64 age range, and Obama leads among younger voters.
McCain’s 12th Amendment Mêlée - Maybe, Maybe not.
Imagine the disruption if McCain is elected, and sworn in as President and then he is declared ineligible because of the 12th Amendment, and Hillary Clinton finagled her way to the Democrat nomination, and demands to be seated – what a fracas.
Wednesday night the Senate unanimously declared John McCain a natural-born citizen, eligible to be president of the United States. But, the resolution has no legal standing and is only opinion. At least three pending cases are challenging McCain’s right to be sworn in as president. McCain was born to U. S. parents in a U. S. military hospital, on a U. S. base while serving in the U. S. Navy assigned to the then U. S. Panama Canal Zone.
Article II of the Constitution states that “no person except a natural born citizen . . . shall be eligible to the office of president.” The problem is that the Founding Fathers never defined exactly what they meant by “natural born citizen,” and the matter has never been fully tested in court. The same question bubbled up in 2000 but when he failed to get the GOP nomination it fizzled and disappeared.
According to an article in the May 2nd Washington Post, “Curiously enough, there is no record of McCain’s birth in the Panama Canal Zone Health Department’s bound birth registers, which are publicly available at the National Archives in College Park. A search of the “Child Born Abroad” records of the U.S. consular service for August 1936 included many U.S. citizens born in the Canal Zone but did not turn up any mention of John McCain.” There is a copy of a birth certificate citing his birth in the Coco Solo “family hospital.” Coco Solo was where his Dad’s submarine was based.
McCain’s case hasn’t been the only one. Hoover’s Vice President Charles Curtis was born in the territory of Kansas in 1860, a year before it became a state. The 12th Amendment requires that vice presidents possess the same qualifications as presidents. Barry Goldwater, who was born in the territory of Arizona in 1909, three years before it became a state was nominated but didn’t win. Mitt Romney’s father, George Romney, ran for President in 1968, even though he was born in Mexico. Since neither Goldwater nor Romney won the presidency, the “natural born” clause was never tested.
A 1986 Supreme Court ruling states that the United States “exercised sovereignty” over the 10-mile-wide area between 1904 and 1979, when it was handed back to the Panamanians and most think that settles the issue. But, not everybody agrees.
Life Without Rev. “Wrong” And With O’Reilly
“…just terrible, absolutely dreadful,” a prominent supporter of Barack Obama said Monday morning after listening to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s screed at the National Press Club. Obama is hemorrhaging so badly that he is metaphorically simply bleeding to death politically. NPR reporter-Fox commentator Juan Williams, himself black, told Robert Novak Wright’s demagoguery is “ridiculous. I never have heard that in church.” The damage has been severe with Obama’s unfavorable ratings jumping up and his polling numbers falling.
Rev. Wright’s rants, as Obama now calls his pontifications, are simply wrong. Joe Conason says, “So long as a religious or political leader sounds sufficiently “militant” and seems to outrage white people, he (or she) must be not only accepted and excused but celebrated. That is why Minister Louis Farrakhan — the Nation of Islam leader who shares responsibility for the conspiracy to murder Malcolm X and whose theology of hovering spaceships and evil big-headed scientists is highly eccentric, to be polite — enjoys fulsome admiration from the likes of Wright. That is why the Rev. Al Sharpton — who was paid and financed by Republican dirty tricksters in 2004 — still somehow wields influence in the media and politics. And that is why Wright himself can insinuate that the government purposely invented AIDS, and claim that the brains of white and black children function differently (a notion that would rightly be dismissed as racist idiocy coming from a white academic or preacher).”
In contrast to Obama tawdry performance Hillary Clinton was on Fox News’ O’Reilly Factor looking the reasonable, measured, thoughtful candidate with good judgment.
The question writ large is, “Can Obama escape his toxic mentor or more specifically be excused for what has turned into a history of a dishonesty about ongoing relationships with the likes of Rev. Wrong?” So far the answer is an emphatic “No.”
Hillary Thumps Barack To Stay In Presidential Race
Last minute deciders gave Hillary Clinton a big 55-45% win in Tuesday’s Pennsylvania Primary than looked possible a week ago. But it still leaves her short of enough delegates to overtake Barack Obama. It does raise and will be argued that Obama can not defeat McCain because of his weakness in key states. He must win in Indiana – where Clinton is gaining momentum and North Carolina with its big black voter populations and where is has a significant lead.
The biggest arguments for Hillary may be e
Obama raised $40 million in March compared to Clinton’s $20 million and although he outspent her two to one in Pennsylvania he could not overtake her. Obama brags about having 1.3 million contributors shelling out an average of $94 on their credit cards at a projected 22.5% annual interest rate. Nevertheless Obama has $40 in the bank and Hillary $9 million but with $10 million in unpaid debts.
ZOGBY POLL SHOWS +10% FOR CLINTON IN KEYSTONE PRIMARY
As dawn broke over Pennsylvania Clinton’s lead over Obama had opened to 51% to 41%. Clinton having gained three points over the past 24 hours as Obama lost one point, pushing her beyond the poll’s margin of error to create a statistically significant lead for the first time in the Pennsylvania daily tracking poll.
Obama has poured millions into ads in Pennsylvania hoping for a knock out blow that does not appear to be occuring.
Meanwhile, 6% remained undecided and another 3% said they preferred someone else in the two-day tracking poll.
Safer With McCain Than Clinton Or Obama
An April 22 Ipsos poll finds (52%) feel the world would be a safer place with John McCain as President versus Clinton (45%) and Obama (44%).
Americans in the South (59%) and the Midwest (57%) are more likely than those in the West (44%) or the Northeast (43%) to think that John McCain would make the world safer as president. Men (57%) are more likely than women (47%) to feel the same way.
On the other hand, Americans living in the West (55%) are more likely than those living in the Northeast (47%), the Midwest (43%), or the South (40%) to think that Hilary Clinton would make the world safer. Regarding Barack Obama, Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 (50%) are more likely than those between the ages of 35 and 54 (46%) and those over the age of 54 (36%) to think that he would make the world a safer place. As well, Western Americans (52%) are more likely than Northeastern (44%), Midwestern (43%), and Southern (40%) Americans to feel the same way.
MoveOn.org Lip Quivering Mad.
MoveOn.org immediately mounted a protest petition campaign against George Stephanopolis, Charlie Gibson and ABC News after last Wednesday’s debate in Pennsylvania saying (they/it) “spent the first 50 minutes obsessed with distractions that only political insiders care about—verbal gaffes, polling numbers, the stale Rev. Wright story, and the old-news Bosnia story. And, channeling Karl Rove, they directed a video question to Barack Obama asking if he loves the American flag or not.” Because, according to the radical left website “”Debate moderators abuse the public trust every time they ask trivial questions about gaffes and ‘gotchas’ that only political insiders care about. Enough with the distractions—ABC and other networks must focus on issues that affect people’s daily lives.”
Other leftist blogs and websites joined in with similar complaints. Conversely most in other in moderate, conservative and if you prefer “normal” communities did not see the debate that way; are not complaining, and in fact a majority called the 21stdebate the most productive to date. Nationwide Americans the things that MoveOn.org is complaining about do matter to them.
A post debate Rasmussen poll released Friday had the race in the Keystone State at 47-44% Clinton over Obama. Last Monday, Clinton was leading Obama 50% to 41%. Six percent (6%) of Obama voters say there’s a good chance they could change their mind before voting. Only 2% of Clinton supporters say the same.
No Change in Pennsylvania Over Barack’s ‘Bitter’ Comment
A Quinnipiac (KWIN uh-pe-ack) University poll taken after Barack Obama’s ‘bitter’ comment shows it so far has not made any significant difference in Pennsylvania with Clinton continuing to hold a 50 – 44% lead. The Pennsylvania Primary is next Tuesday, April 22nd.
White Democrat voters back Clinton 57 – 37%; Blacks back Obama 88-8%, and voters under 45 go with Obama 55 - 39, while older voters back Clinton 55 - 40 percent.
F-22s; Olympics and Presidential Politics
It’s all about brinkmanship. The U. S. holds few trumps. China is leaning way forward - it even proposed a U. S.-China Pacific partitioning, and Taiwan is watching it arm to the teeth. The communist state Is be set on tripling its ground based nuclear weapons force by 2009. The US Navy does not yet have a full answer to the latest Chinese missiles that could be used against its most powerful Pacific weapon the carrier task force. China is aggressively at work in cyberspace to the tune that’s prompted the U. S. Air Force to add cyberspace to its triad.
One U. S. trump is its F-22 fighter-bomber. The F-22 is considered the most advanced aircraft in the American arsenal and is a key element of the Pentagon’s “hedge” strategy against China. The stealth fighter bomber is believed to have unmatched capabilities to penetrate Chinese air defenses and thus is viewed by Beijing as a major threat. The U. S. has not yet sold the F-22 to Australia or Japan (both of whom wants it) because that would inflame China.
So, the F-22 and even a Presidential appearance at the Beijing Olympics this summer are entwined in a complex, strategic showdown as well as a much more pedestrian place in U. S. Presidential politics.
Presidential Polling
State-by-State poll released by Rasmussen Saturday shows 240 electors in the Republican column including: 168 safe; 21 likely and 51 leaning. Democrats total 268 including: 157 safe; 33 likely, and 70 leaning. Toss-ups total 38. Thirteen states with 159 Electoral Votes are either a pure Toss-Up or just slightly leaning to one party or the other. These are likely to be the early battleground states of Election 2008: Florida (27), Pennsylvania (21), Ohio (20), Michigan (17), Virginia (13), Missouri (11), Minnesota (10), Wisconsin (10), Colorado (9), Iowa (7), Nevada (5), New Mexico (5), and New Hampshire (4).
Safely Democrat states include: California (55), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), District of Columbia (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (21), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (12), New York (31), Rhode Island (4), and Vermont (3). Safely Republican include: Alabama (9), Alaska (3), Arizona (10), Georgia (15), Idaho (4), Indiana (11), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (9), Mississippi (6), Montana (3), Nebraska (5), North Dakota (3), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (8), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Texas (34), Utah (5), West Virginia (5) and Wyoming (3).
Although not empirical but more emotional Rasmussen Markets data shows that the Democratic candidate is currently given a 59.2 % chance of winning the White House in November. Its daily Presidential Tracking Poll on Saturday shows John McCain with a very slight advantage over Barack Obama, 47% to 43%. In a match-up with Hillary Clinton, the results are the same–McCain 47% Clinton 43%.
Hillary Losing Champion Liar Title
Pinocchiobama – in 1996, Barack Obama’s campaign answered a questionnaire saying he favored bans on manufacturing and selling of guns,
opposed parental notification of abortions for minors, and opposed the death penalty. When asked about that, Obama threw his campaign staff under the bus, claiming the staff had sent in the questionnaire. He issued a blanket denial that he had ever held those positions. Except that is not true. As Human Events RedState noted, a review of the actual document shows “that [Obama] reviewed the answers closely revising some of the answers in his own handwriting.” Obama claims to be the only one willing to re-engage the Taliban. He faults the Bush Administration for depleting the number of military personnel in Afghanistan and claims we need to increase the number of ground forces to 92,000 troops, something Obama says the Bush administration is opposed to. Funny how Secretary of Defense Robert Gates offered the exact same policy prescription and number of troops back in 2007. Obama said, “John McCain got upset today apparently because I had repeated exactly what he said, which is that we might be there [Iraq] for 100 years if he had his way.” Only, that is another lie. As RedState documented, the Washington Post’s FactCheck, the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s nonpartisan FactCheck.org, and the Columbia Journalism Review all report Obama’s words were grossly misleading. The Annenberg Public Policy Center called Obama’s statement a “serious distortion to the point of rank falsehood.” In Pennsylvania, Obama is running a television ad saying, “I’m Barack Obama. I don’t take money from oil companies or Washingtonlobbyists, and I won’t let them block change anymore.” No federal candidate can accept money from a corporation – no one. But, Obama has cashed $213,000.00 from oil company employees.
McCain Decisiveness Jangles Iran
Dick Morris says the recent results of a USA/Today poll found Obama winning the traditional Democratic (and female and I would say “youth”) virtues of understanding problems and caring about people. McCain won the usual Republican (and male and I would say mature) virtues of strong leadership and efficient management. Not surprisingly Morris says “in an age of terrorism, weakness is a capital crime. McCain needs to base his campaign on establishing Obama’s weakness and his own strong leadership by comparison.”
Obama won: • Cares about the needs of people like you, 66% to 54% • Shares your values, 51% to 46% • Understands the problems Americans face in their daily lives, 67% to 55%
McCain won: • Is a strong, decisive leader, 56% to 69% • Is honest and trustworthy, 63% to 67% • Can manage the government efficiently, 48% to 60%
Neither won: • Has a clear plan for solving the country’s problems, 41% to 42% • Has a clear vision for the country’s future, 67% to 65% • Would work well with both parties in Washington to get things done, 62% to 61% • Is someone you would be proud to have as president, 57% to 55%.
This comports almost exactly with my thesis that with McCain in the White House the international advantage tilts toward the U. S. because of his decisiveness. Conversely, America’s enemies have become convinced that they can flim-flam Obama and by the time he awakens it will be too late for the U. S. Iranis particularly confident an Obama presidency means it will be a nuclear power.
You can expect an intensification of attacks in Iraq and Afghanistanas the November election approaches, and a media frenzy over that in an effort to hurt McCain and help Obama, or on the outside chance she can still “steal” the Democrat nomination, Hillary Clinton.
More Than A Little Hypocrisy To Go Around
Mainstream media has made much of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s tax returns since they vacated the White House showing they contributed 10% of their combined $109 million to “charity” while Barack Obama only contributed one penny per dollar, and much of that to Rev. Wright’s church.
It turns out the Clinton’s charity was mostly to themselves giving $10,256,741 was donated to CFF, the Clinton Family Foundation. Bill, Hillary and Chelsea are each an officer or director and CFF paid quarter million annual salaries to other friends. CFF then contributed $2.5 million to other charities including the Clinton Birthplace project. In other words they gave money to themselves to give money to themselves.
Now that still makes the Clinton’s nearly twice a “generous” than Obama but both need a new spin meister for their whirling dervish hypocrisy.
Federal Election Commission reports show Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign with a $2.5 million debt for the month to her campaign manager Mark Penn’s firm. . . . Penn, Schoen & Berland is owned by Burson-Marsteller Worldwide, Penn’s international public relations and lobbying company. Burson-Marsteller, in turn, is owned by the British-based advertising giant WPP Group. Here’s the rub — is this “debt” is a loan from the corporations (much less a foreign corporation) which is illegal since corporate contributions are unlawful.
Gore Not Messiah
On Friday Rasmussen polling found that Democrats would vote 42% for Obama; 26% Clinton and 23% Gore if he was a candidate. 41% say Obama is best against McCain; 26% say Clinton and 23% say Gore. Among White Male Democrat voters, Obama leads Gore 40% to 33% while Clinton trails with just 18% support. Among White Women, it’s Clinton 37%, Obama 30%, and Gore 25%. Among African-American voters, it’s Obama at 70%, Clinton with 14%, and Gore barely registering at 5%. The survey also found that 41% believe that Obama would be the strongest general election candidate against John McCain. Twenty-six percent (26%) say that Gore would be the strongest candidate while 23% named Clinton. 36% said Clinton would be the weakest general election candidate. Twenty-nine percent (29%) named Gore as the weakest and just 19% said that description applies to Obama.
Also on Friday Hillary Clinton has a near hissy fit about calls for her to quit the race for the Democrat nomination saying she isn’t going anywhere. Also on Friday Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Deam he wants decision made on the party nominee by July 1st – the last Democrat Primary is June 3rd.
In the November election McCain leads Barack Obama 49% to 42% and Hillary Clinton 49% to 41%.
SUPER DELEGATES SET TO DECIDE — MCCAIN LEADS BOTH
It is clear now that the Democrat nominee will be selected by the super-delegates prior to the Denver convention late in August. They will be guided in no small part by polls to determine which candidate is more electable, says Robert Novak. Rejecting Obama risks alienating the vital African-American vote. Accepting him is increasingly seen among Democrats as a risk.
A Rasmussen poll released Wednesday says 22% of Democrats want Hillary to drop out and 22% want Obama to drop out. Right now that would Hillary because John McCain continues to lead both potential Democrats. McCain leads Barack Obama 51% to 41% (+10%) and Hillary Clinton 50% to 43% (+7%)
McCain is the beneficiary of this Democrat Party internecine warfare. McCain won’t pick a running mate any time soon. But a front-runner in the VP derby may be a hitherto invisible Rob Portman — former Ohio congressman, former U.S. trade representative and former OMB director. He appears to have fewer negatives than any other possibility and can help delivery the quintessential “decider” state of Ohio. McCain’s fund raising remains tepid but the Republican National Committee is floating in money.
A State-by-State count shows the Electoral College gap between Democrats and Republicans has closed to a dead heat. Heretofore Democrats have consistently been leading. Fully 12 states are toss-ups now including: Florida (27), Pennsylvania (21), Ohio (20), Michigan, (17), Virginia (13), Missouri (11), Minnesota (10), Colorado (9), Iowa (7), Nevada (5), New Mexico (5), and New Hampshire (4).