Barack Obama is more appealling to me as a candidate. He's been active in the 'sphere for longer, and I'd like to believe he's more transparent and trustworthy. Maybe one of these days, we'll get to sitdown with him for a Meet.The.Bloggers* interview. I've sat in around 200 hours of conversations with politicans, and can tell when someone's shuckin' & jivin'...

I'm another blogger for Obama. His position on renewing our standing in the World would be enough; diplomacy is a lost art and I agree with George, I trust Obama when he says this is an important issue for him. I loved his answer on Cuba; more importantly, I loved how he was able to stay unruffled at the last debate and get to the heart of the question at hand and cut through unimportant parts of a question. He seems like the brighest most analytical statesman-like Presidential Candidate we have had in my adult lifetime.  I'm hoping the electorate comes out for Barack.

  I am proud of this election, because there is finally a real choice and strong candidates like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are giving us the hope that they "may," and I do say "may," because the corruption in our country is like a cancer--they may turn us around. 

It takes REAL courage to run and be dissected by the public, which is why I also applaud local candidates like Rosemary Palmer and Barbara Ferris, who also take a stand against the status quo.  It takes courage to speak out.  If enough people speak out on March 4th, we will have REAL change.

Democrat Hillary Clinton faced pressure Sunday to abandon her White House bid heading into pivotal contests in Ohio and Texas that are unlikely to dent Barack Obama's surging momentum.

Democratic grandees who are supporting Obama said that for the sake of party unity, Clinton should consider her options after Tuesday's primary battles as the Republicans rally behind their heir apparent, John McCain.

The pressure on the former first lady intensified as new polls suggested she was deadlocked with Obama in Texas and Ohio, far from the kind of blowout wins that she needs to overhaul his lead among Democratic delegates.

However, the former first lady has come out firing against her rival, issuing an ominous television spot that suggests Obama would be ill-prepared to protect US children in the event of a foreign-policy crisis.

"This is a wartime election," she told a rally Sunday in the Ohio town of Westerville.

"For some people, this election is about how you feel. It is about speeches. That is not what it is about for me," she said. "It is about solutions."

One party elder not yet endorsing either candidate, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, said "the bickering between these two very fine senators is going on too long" as they fought running battles over national security.

"D Day is Tuesday. We have to have a positive campaign after Tuesday," Richardson, who abandoned his own White House bid in January, said on CBS News.

"Whoever has the most delegates after Tuesday, a clear lead, should be in my judgment the nominee."

The latest count of nominating delegates by website RealClearPolitics shows Obama leading by 1,389 to Clinton's 1,279, with the freshman senator pulling into the lead after 11 nominating wins in a row.

A total of 2,025 delegates is needed for victory at the Democrats' August nominating convention in Denver.

Tuesday's votes look unlikely to change that picture much, given that Democratic primaries award delegates on a proportional basis.

A new poll by Ohio's Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper found Senator Clinton slightly ahead in the economically struggling state, by 47-43 percent.

Senator Obama led in Texas by 46-45 percent, according to polling by McClatchy Newspapers, MSNBC television and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

The results were within the four-point margin of error for both polls.

Senator Richard Durbin, who is backing his Illinois colleague Obama, denied that Clinton would face orchestrated pressure to bow out after Tuesday "because all of us respect her and her family."

"But I hope that there's an honest appraisal of her chances to win the nomination after Tuesday," he told Fox News Sunday.

"And having made that appraisal... I hope she'll understand that we need to bring our party together and prepare for a victory in November, which is the ultimate goal."

Clinton's communications advisor Howard Wolfson was adamant that the race would go on beyond Tuesday, with delegate-rich Pennsylvania the next big state to vote in April.

"What I'm saying is, we're going to have a great day on Tuesday. We're going to win this nomination. This nomination fight is going to go forward after Ohio and Texas," he said on ABC television.

More at: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080302180625.67chkk5n&show_article=1 

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Go Obama!!!

We don't want Monica's lying boyfriend back in the White House, even as First "Gentleman", 'cause he ain't one!!!! 

I support Obama because he seems to be the candidate who best understands technology and climate change --  two issues that I feel are inseparable and most important at this time. What I find most impressive about Obama is his ability inspire optimism in people who were previously pessimistic and uninterested in politics.  Everyone should get out and vote. 

I always exercise my right to vote (a right women in this country have had for less than 100 years) and I try to be as informed about the issues and candidates as possible -- as depressing and boring as it can be at times. I really don't trust any politicians, so I won't go so far as to say that I like Obama or that I think he will be a great president. Right now, I think we can only do better no matter who we elect. I think Obama has a lot in common with Senator Clinton and I would certainly fall into her camp if he was n't in the running. From watching the debates, Obama has much more charm and appeal. He is also a better public speaker. I think Obama will probably be most effective in impoving the negative perception much of the rest of the world now has about America -- something I would really like to see happen, having about 35 more years to live out as an American.

In Dick Feagler's column today he mentions he is for Obama... the PD as an enterprise also endorses Obama...  and the Plain Dealer online "Pulse Poll" results for today are...

Q. Do you think Hillary will win in Ohio and/or Texas?

Latest Poll Results:

Yes, both		24.4%
Yes, just one		33.2%
Time to bow out		42.4%

Disrupt IT

I finally found the time to watch Obama's much discussed speech last night. This is the link that was posted a few days ago here on REALNEO, http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/hisownwords  but alas I could not find the source this morning, so as to give proper credit to whoever was kind enough to post it.

All I can say is that this isn't some simple speech that was scribbled out on the back of a couple of bar napkins after a night of drinking.

This is a wonderful, thoughtful, soulbearing, heartfelt view into a life that I have never known, and never will. This speech provides more genuine information about the true person behind the candidate than I have ever seen in my life, and probably more than I will ever see again.

I was pleased with Obama's candor, impressed with his truthfulness and his understanding of his friends, family, and mentors. I was wowed that he would have the heart and guts to get up and give such a wonderful presentation is such a backbiting and muckraking environment as the current political arena!!!.

He sure is a marked contrast to Hillary. I don't think she is liable to be so honest and  forthright in any public presentation she will be giving, but it would be a wonderful thing if she were to rise to the challenge.

I thought this write up from the WSJ from this mornings edition was well written, and I agree with the majority of the writer's opinions, particularly the favorable ones.

...................................................................................................................

(From the Wall Street Journal)
March 21, 2008; Page W16

 By PEGGY NOONAN
I thought Barack Obama's speech was strong, thoughtful and important. Rather beautifully, it was a speech to think to, not clap to. It was clear that's what he wanted, and this is rare.
It seemed to me as honest a speech as one in his position could give within the limits imposed by politics. As such it was a contribution. We'll see if it was a success. The blowhard guild, proud member since 2000, praised it, and, in the biggest compliment, cable news shows came out of the speech not with jokes or jaded insiderism, but with thought. They started talking, pundits left and right, black and white, about what they'd experienced of race in America. It was kind of wonderful. I thought, Go, America, go, go.
You know what Mr. Obama said. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright was wrong. His sermons were "incendiary," and they "denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation." Mr. Obama admitted that if all he knew of Mr. Wright were what he saw on the "endless loop . . . of YouTube," he wouldn't like him either. But he's known him 20 years as a man who taught him Christian faith, helped the poor, served as a Marine, and leads a community helping the homeless, needy and sick. "As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me." He would not renounce their friendship.
Most significantly, Mr. Obama asserted that race in America has become a generational story. The original sin of slavery is a fact, but the progress we have lived through the past 50 years means each generation experiences race differently. Older blacks, like Mr. Wright, remember Jim Crow and were left misshapen by it. Some rose anyway, some did not; of the latter, a "legacy of defeat" went on to misshape another generation. The result: destructive anger that is at times "exploited by politicians" and that can keep African-Americans "from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition." But "a similar anger exists within segments of the white community." He speaks of working- and middle-class whites whose "experience is the immigrant experience," who started with nothing. "As far as they're concerned, no one handed them anything, they've built it from scratch." "So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town," when they hear of someone receiving preferences they never received, and "when they're told their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced," they feel anger too.
This is all, simply, true. And we are not used to political figures being frank, in this way, in public. For this Mr. Obama deserves deep credit. It is also true the particular whites Obama chose to paint -- ethnic, middle class -- are precisely the voters he needs to draw in Pennsylvania. It was strategically clever. But as one who witnessed busing in Boston first hand, and whose memories of those days can still bring tears, I was glad for his admission that busing was experienced as an injustice by the white working class. Next step: admitting it was an injustice, period.
* * *
The primary rhetorical virtue of the speech can be found in two words, endemic and Faulkner. Endemic is the kind of word political consultants don't let politicians use because 72% of Americans don't understand it. This lowest-common-denominator thinking, based on dizzy polling, has long degraded American discourse. When Obama said Mr. Wright wrongly encouraged "a view that sees white racism as endemic," everyone understood. Because they're not, actually, stupid. As for Faulkner -- well, this was an American politician quoting William Faulkner: "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." This is a thought, an interesting one, which means most current politicians would never share it.
The speech assumed the audience was intelligent. This was a compliment, and I suspect was received as a gift. It also assumed many in the audience were educated. I was grateful for this, as the educated are not much addressed in American politics.
Here I point out an aspect of the speech that may have a beneficial impact on current rhetoric. It is assumed now that a candidate must say a silly, boring line -- "And families in Michigan matter!" or "What I stand for is affordable quality health care!" -- and the audience will clap. The line and the applause make, together, the eight-second soundbite that will be used tonight on the news, and seen by the people. This has been standard politico-journalistic procedure for 20 years.
Mr. Obama subverted this in his speech. He didn't have applause lines. He didn't give you eight seconds of a line followed by clapping. He spoke in full and longish paragraphs that didn't summon applause. This left TV producers having to use longer-than-usual soundbites in order to capture his meaning. And so the cuts of the speech you heard on the news were more substantial and interesting than usual, which made the coverage of the speech better. People who didn't hear it but only saw parts on the news got a real sense of what he'd said.
If Hillary or John McCain said something interesting, they'd get more than an eight-second cut too. But it works only if you don't write an applause-line speech. It works only if you write a thinking speech.
They should try it.
* * *
Here's what didn't work. Near the end of the speech, Mr. Obama painted an America that didn't summon thoughts of Faulkner but of William Blake. The bankruptcies, the dark satanic mills, the job loss and corporate corruptions. There is of course some truth in his portrait, but why do appeals to the Democratic base have to be so unrelievedly, so unrealistically, bleak?
This connected in my mind to the persistent feeling one has -- the fear one has, actually -- that the Obamas, he and she, may not actually know all that much about America. They are bright, accomplished, decent, they know all about the yuppie experience, the buppie experience, Ivy League ways, networking. But they bring along with all this -- perhaps defensively, to keep their ideological views from being refuted by the evidence of their own lives, or so as not to be embarrassed about how nice fame, success, and power are -- habitual reversions to how tough it is to be in America, and to be black in America, and how everyone since the Reagan days has been dying of nothing to eat, and of exploding untreated diseases. America is always coming to them on crutches.
But most people didn't experience the past 25 years that way. Because it wasn't that way. Do the Obamas know it?
This is a lot of baggage to bring into the Executive Mansion.
Still, it was a good speech, and a serious one. I don't know if it will help him. We're in uncharted territory. We've never had a major-party presidential front-runner who is black, or rather black and white, who has given such an address. We don't know if more voters will be alienated by Mr. Wright than will be impressed by the speech about Mr. Wright. We don't know if voters will welcome a meditation on race. My sense: The speech will be labeled by history as the speech that saved a candidacy or the speech that helped do it in. I hope the former.

See all of today's editorials and op-eds, plus video commentary, on Opinion Journal.

From: http://online.wsj.com/services/article/SB120604775960652829-search.html?KEYWORDS=%22a+thinking+man%27s%22&COLLECTION=wsjie/6month