February 29, 2008
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John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, has twice been forced to rebuke members of his own party after the attacks. They followed the appearance of a photograph of Mr Obama dressed in traditional Somali dress, including a turban, on the Drudge Report website on Monday. The picture was taken during a visit to Africa by Mr Obama in 2006.
Matt Drudge, the website’s owner, said that the photograph was leaked by the Hillary Clinton campaign. The former First Lady said in a debate on Tuesday night that as far as she knew it did not come from her campaign.
Mr Obama is a Christian who has never worshipped at a mosque. He was raised by a secular mother and has been a member of the United Church of Christ in Chicago for 20 years. His Kenyan father, who left the family when he was 2, was Muslim.
Yet the rumours of his Islamism have been circulating for more than a year, beginning with an anonymous and untraceable e-mail. The internet gossip reached such levels that Mr Obama began debunking it in his stump speeches. His website has a section entitled “Barack is not and never has been a Muslim”. He told Jewish leaders in Ohio this week: “If anyone is still puzzled about the facts, I have never been a Muslim.” Mr McCain’s aides are concerned that such attacks will backfire. At a McCain rally in Ohio, Bill Cunningham, a conservative radio talkshow host, referred three times to Barack Hussein Obama. Mr McCain denounced the remarks.
On Wednesday the Tennessee Republican Party website published the photo of Mr Obama in Somali dress, called him Barack Hussein Obama, and accused him of being an antiSemite. Mr McCain denounced the website. He said: “If I am the nominee of the party, I will obviously assure everyone within my party that this has got to be a respectful debate.”
Meanwhile, Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York, said that he would not launch a presidential bid as an independent.
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March 4, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Five reasons Clinton could come back
By: Jim VandeHei and John F. Harris
Mar 4, 2008 01:58 PM EST
Clinton finally catches a break from the press.
For weeks, the widespread expectation among most campaign journalists is that the race for the Democratic nomination will for all practical purposes come to an end Tuesday night with a victory for Barack Obama.
Given the predictive record of reporters so far this election cycle, that is by itself a good reason to believe that Hillary Rodham Clinton is headed later this evening for a game-changing comeback in Ohio and Texas.
If it happens, we can think of five reasons why.
Several have as much to do with the idiosyncrasies of news media psychology—and the way this influences political storylines—as it does with any tactical brilliance by Clinton’s campaigns.
After all, Clinton’s operatives have been complaining for months about Obama’s unreadiness to be commander in chief, and a double-standard in coverage. Only in recent days have these protests started to get much traction.
Please delete this story if actual voters render it obsolete a few hours from now. But until the results come in, take some time to contemplate the hidden reasons for the Clinton Comeback.
1. The SNL Factor. Just when you thought no one watched Saturday Night Live anymore, the show has made a star cameo on this year’s trail. The Not Ready for Prime Time Players were much more effective in exposing the fawning coverage of Obama. Never underestimate the power of shame in journalism. SNL’s mockery went straight to reporters’ insecurities. Being accused of falling “in the tank” for a candidate is the journalistic equivalent of a nerdish high-school freshman getting a wedgie from the jocks.
It is no coincidence that the last few days have seen reporters acting tough with stories about Obama’s relationship with a Chicago influence-peddler, his sincerity in opposing NAFTA and his stiff-arming of questions from the press.
2. Wolfson Barks. Howard Wolfson is Clinton’s hired thug…also known as campaign communications director. He holds a conference call every day to tell reporters they are worthless and weak (not to mention fat, lazy and stupid—no way to go through life) because of their soft Obama coverage. Again, reporters’ self-justifiying mechanism kicks in when someone says they are being too tough. But their self-loathing mechanism kicks in when someone says they are being too mean. Read Dana Milbank’s account of yesterday’s Obama press conference to see if Wolfson’s hectoring is working.
The answer: damn straight.
3. Burying Bill. The Clinton campaign badly miscalculated how much reporters would jump on any reason to return to one of their all-time favorite subjects—the adventures and misadventures of Bill Clinton. There was simply no way that the 42nd president could play a prominent role in Hillary’s campaign and not have reporters cover it as if he were the star and she were supporting actress. But where has Bill Clinton been lately? It is as if he was sent to Afghanistan on a secret mission with Prince Harry.
4. Sister Sledge: Reporters roll their eyes when Clinton or surrogates start suggesting she is the victim of sexist assumptions in political and media cultures. But the press this year may be underestimating how much those complaints ring true to many women. It could be that we are on the brink of another New Hampshire—where anecdotal evidence suggested that many women were self-consciously voting against a pundit-class storyline that said the race was over and the smooth-talking man had won out over the hard-working woman.
5. Timing. Politics is all about the moment, defining it, capturing it, profiting from it. The Rezko trial was a godsend. It started on Monday, which prompted The New York Times and scores of columnists to write about it over the weekend. The perfect hook for Clinton forces to raise questions about his judgment – only days after airing the infamous 3 a.m. scare ad that also questions his judgment. Coincidence? They don’t happen in politics.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/8820.html
March 11, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Can Hillary Clinton still win?
By Molly Levinson
US political analyst
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
After a slew of primary and caucus victories for Barack Obama - who has been out-organising Hillary Clinton’s machine, and getting months of media adulation - he has been suddenly stopped short of coronation.
Hillary Clinton can still win the nomination - but it will be tough
Mrs Clinton won in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island, and once again, the race is on.
Even more importantly, it seems for the first time in a long time that her message of experience and getting things done may outweigh his call for change.
Yet despite Mrs Clinton’s burst of momentum, and Obama’s success, it is impossible for either one to secure the 2,025 delegates that would give them the Democratic nomination with pledged delegates alone.
Both need the support of many of the 796 super-delegates - the elected officials and party dignitaries who have special voting rights in the nominating process - to get the nomination.
So, despite months of glee over big turnouts and voter enthusiasm, the hand-wringing has begun anew in the Democratic Party over how to get to a nominee.
Obama’s upper hand
There are two mathematical realities that matter to both campaigns.
First, winning delegates does not necessarily mean winning the popular vote. Mrs Clinton’s victories in a pile of big states including New York, New Jersey, California, Texas, Ohio and Massachusetts have kept her within striking distance of taking the popular vote from Obama
Second, no matter how well Mrs Clinton does in the remaining state contests, come June - at the end of the primary and caucus season - Mr Obama will have more pledged delegates than she will
Mr Obama also has a clear upper hand with super-delegates so long as he has the majority of pledged delegates and the majority of the popular vote.
DEMOCRATIC DELEGATE RACE
BARACK OBAMA: 1,578
Delegates won on 8 March: 7
States won: 25
HILLARY CLINTON: 1,468
Delegates won on 8 March: 5
States won: 16
Delegates needed to secure nomination: 2,025. Total number of super-delegates: 796. Undecided super-delegates: 344.
Source: AP at 1000 GMT 10 March
Q&A: Delegates
Q&A: What next?
Harrison Hickman, a prominent Democratic pollster and advisor to John Edwards, has a theory for the reason behind the reluctance among super-delegates to veer away from the candidate with the pledged delegate lead. He calls it “Gore Guilt”.
He says that Democratic voters felt so bruised by the 2000 election - in which former Vice-President Al Gore went all the way to the Supreme Court to fight for lost Florida votes that could have made him president - that they are reluctant to allow the nomination to be decided by a cabal of elected officials and party dignitaries voting in accordance with their own personal beliefs.
Yet it is precisely this argument that Mrs Clinton will have in her corner if she can win the popular vote.
POPULAR VOTE
BARACK OBAMA: 13.6m
HILLARY CLINTON: 13.3m
Source: Real Clear Politics (includes Florida, but not Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Nevada or Washington)
If Mr Obama is forced to argue that he has more delegates while Mrs Clinton has more votes, his position is dramatically weakened, especially given the history of the very party that was forced to put up with the Bush administration for eight years, despite Mr Gore winning more votes in 2000.
Recent polling confirms this. A 6 March Rasmussen poll shows that 57% of Americans think the candidate with the most votes should win the Democratic nomination. Only 26% of Americans think the candidate with the most delegates ought to win.
No room for error
Along those lines, Mrs Clinton’s path to the nomination depends on accomplishing three things.
First, Mrs Clinton must win the popular vote so that she can present her majority as a reason for super-delegates to get behind her
Second, Mrs Clinton must also lessen the gap between her number of pledged delegates and Mr Obama’s. Mr Obama already has one more caucus victory this week: Wyoming, which he won by a large margin on Saturday. He is also favoured in the upcoming contests in Mississippi and North Carolina. Mrs Clinton must win decisively in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana and Puerto Rico. Florida and Michigan, two states which have been disqualified from the process for breaking with party rules, also hang in the balance
Finally, Mrs Clinton must prove resoundingly that she is the more electable of the two candidates in a general election and would be a better president. She must combat Mr Obama’s claim to the mantle of change and at the same time emphasise her credentials to prove that she is best able to beat John McCain
Super-delegates do not have to vote until the end of August, at the Democratic Convention in Denver.
Six months is plenty of time to build an unbeatable argument for super-delegate support - but there is little room for error and almost no room for losses.
Molly Levinson is a political analyst and former CBS News Political Director
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7287595.stm