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Clintons push a Hillary/Obama ticket
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hillary and Bill Clinton are again teaming up on Barack Obama -- this time saying the first-term U.S. lawmaker, whom they have derided as inexperienced, would be a strong running mate on a Democratic presidential ticket headed by the former first lady.
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In talking up a joint ticket, the Clintons may be seeking the upper hand, attempting to put her in consideration for the top of the ticket when she so far has failed to win the votes necessary to assure that she would face Republican presidential candidate John McCain in the November election.
The maneuver may also be aimed at countering an image in voters' minds of Obama as presidential material and at helping restore an aura of inevitability as the party's nominee that Clinton had early in the campaign but lost.
"The Clintons are in a difficult position," said Dennis Goldford, a political science professor at Drake University in Iowa, who has tracked the presidential race.
"If she wins the Democratic presidential nomination, she would need Obama's supporters. But she needs to be careful. If this talk of him on the ticket is seen as a cynical maneuver, it could backfire and hurt her," Goldford said.
Former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, an Obama backer, mocked the idea.
"It may be the first time in history that the person who is running number two would offer the person running number one the number two position," Daschle told "Meet the Press."
Obama leads Clinton, a fellow Democratic senator, in a bruising race for their party's presidential nomination, but neither is likely to reach the 2,025 delegates needed to become the nominee in the remaining state-by-state contests.
As Democratic leaders worry about the damage that could be done if neither has a clear lead by the August nominating convention, the party is also trying to decide what to do about election results from Michigan and Florida that do not count because of a dispute over when they were held.
The Clintons have charged that Obama, a charismatic lawmaker from Illinois, lacks the experience to handle an international crisis as president.
But since Clinton, a two-term senator from New York, won primary elections in Ohio and Texas, she and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have touted Obama as a possible running mate.
When asked about the possibility last week, Obama said he was focused on winning the nomination. "I think it is very premature to start talking about a joint ticket," Obama said.
His campaign said on Sunday it was not commenting on Clinton's calls for a joint ticket beyond what the Illinois senator had already said.
'UNSTOPPABLE FORCE'?
Sen. John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat who has endorsed Obama, derided the suggestion. "The first threshold question about a vice president is, are you prepared to be president?" Kerry told CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday.
"So on the one end, they are saying he's not prepared to be president. On the other hand, they're saying maybe he ought to be vice president," Kerry said.
Campaigning on Saturday, in Mississippi, the former president was quoted as saying his wife and Obama would be a dynamic duo, "an almost unstoppable force."
The candidate implied last week she and Obama may end up on the same ticket, with her on top.
Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell, a Democratic who has sought to rally support for Clinton in his state's April 22 primary, backed the idea of Clinton and Obama teaming up. "It would be a great ticket," Rendell told NBC's "Meet the Press."
(Additional reporting by Caren Bohan in Chicago and Bill Trott in Washington, editing by Cynthia Osterman and Lori Santos)
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Clintons promote dream team, but with Hillary No.1
By David Nason in New York
March 10, 2008 12:00am
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Obama wins Wyoming, the least populous state
But Clinton camp wants to appear on top
US presidential election: Follow it with us
BARACK Obama had little time to bask in his win in the Wyoming Democratic caucuses yesterday.
Almost as soon as the victory was announced - allowing him to in part bounce back from a horror week in which he lost the Ohio and Texas primaries to Hillary Clinton - his celebration was overshadowed by Team Clinton's continued emphasis on the possibility of Senator Obama becoming her running mate in the November election.
The "dream ticket" strategy is aimed at persuading Democrats unable to decide between the two history-making candidates that by voting for Senator Clinton they can also get Senator Obama.
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It's also being put up as a compromise plan for the so-called Democrat "super delegates" whose votes will decide who gets the presidential nomination if the primary process is unable to throw up a nominee prior to the party's national conference in Denver in August.
With just 12 pledged delegates up for grabs, Wyoming was more a skirmish than a battle. But after Senator Clinton's campaign-saving victories last week, Senator Obama needed a strong win to put his presidential bid back on course.
Wyoming's Democrats answered the call, giving Senator Obama 61 per cent of the vote to Senator Clinton's 38 per cent. Senator Obama will get at least seven of the 18 delegates on offer and Senator Clinton at least four.
Six delegates will go to Denver unpledged. Senator Obama has now won 13 caucuses to Senator Clinton's three. He has made himself the favoured Democrat in the old West with the Wyoming victory following previous wins in the western states of Idaho, Utah and Colorado.
But as the Wyoming results were coming through, former president Bill Clinton told a rally in Mississippi that his wife was "very open" to having Senator Obama as her running mate in November's election. He said a Clinton-Obama ticket would be "almost unstoppable".
Mr Clinton's remarks followed the two occasions last week when Senator Clinton raised the dream-ticket option. At a town hall rally in Mississippi, on Friday, Senator Clinton said: "I've had people say, 'Well, I wish I could vote for both of you'. Well, that might be possible some day. But first I need your vote on Tuesday."
In response, Senator Obama said: "You won't see me as a vice-presidential candidate. I am running for president."
He cited his campaign's higher popular vote, higher delegate count and greater number of states and said he was focused on "winning this nomination and changing the country".
Senator Obama was last week forced to accept the resignation of his key foreign policy adviser, Samantha Powers, who told a Scottish newspaper Senator Clinton was a "monster" who was "stooping to anything".
The Irish academic also suggested Senator Obama might not be able to fulfil his planned Iraq withdrawal strategy.
The next major primary takes place in Pennsylvania in late April.
NAFTA leak reveals U.S.-Canada divide
In Ottawa this week, the politics of hope runs smack into the politics of cynicism
Mar 08, 2008 04:30 AM
OTTAWA–Several weeks ago, as the U.S. presidential race was growing more fascinating by the day, ChaptersIndigo warned its Canadian online customers that Barack Obama's book, The Audacity of Hope, was on back order – delivery would be delayed by weeks.
It was one small indication of the fascination in this country with the Illinois senator blazing through the race for the Democratic nomination. There are tributes and Canadian fan groups on Facebook, too, and one earnest little YouTube ballad called "Canada Loves Obama."
After this week, however, it's not clear that Obama would say he returns the sentiment – at least not as far as it extends to Canada's Conservative government.
Either accidentally or deliberately – and that's at the nub of the controversy – Prime Minister Stephen Harper's administration stands accused this week of leaking information that hurt Obama, specifically in Ohio, where free trade is a burning issue. In brief, word emerged from this country that Obama was saying one thing about NAFTA on the campaign trail and another behind the scenes to Canadian consular officials.
Hillary Clinton won Ohio handily on Tuesday and her advisers candidly admitted in the aftermath that Obama had been wounded by the so-called Canada controversy.
This is all interesting in itself, but then there was the bombshell revelation Wednesday night that the origin of all this Obama trouble was Harper's own chief of staff, Ian Brodie, who was talking off the cuff to journalists during a federal budget lockup in Canada. An internal investigation is still under way in Ottawa about the leak, but there now seems little question that the very highest office in Canada played a part in this whole episode.
Perhaps, when Obama wants to write the sequel to his much sought-after book, he might want to call this chapter "Audacity versus Hope." It isn't often you see Canada in the news at all in the U.S., let alone cast as a sleeper agent in a bid to rattle the Democrats.
There are many ways to analyze NAFTAgate, or Canada-bama, or whatever one wants to call it.
But perhaps the most fascinating aspect is through the lens of political culture – and how this whole episode has highlighted the cultural differences between Obama's campaign and Harper's Ottawa. Where is Canada's Obama? Nowhere in sight on the current federal scene, and certainly not in the current power regime.
On one side is Obama's oratorical inspiration; his appeal to citizen empowerment – "Yes We Can." On the other side of the political-culture divide, and the 49th parallel, is the strict, all-discipline-all-the-time regime of politics, Harper-style – call it "No You Can't." Some might cast this distinction as naïveté versus realism. Others might say it's hope versus cynicism – big ambitions versus small, low-expectations government.
And then there's the issue of whether Harper is just another Republican foe for Obama and Democrats in general. A recent Canadian Press-Harris Decima poll showed that 49 per cent of Canadians would cast their ballots for the Democrats if they had a vote in the U.S. election – and only 12 per cent for Republicans – which only makes it more paradoxical that our government would be seen to be playing for the other side.
Yesterday, yet another Canadian Press-Harris Decima survey showed if Obama led either Canadian party, he would double its public support. It's probably not a surprise that some of Obama's biggest fans in Canada are opponents of Harper. Liberal MP Navdeep Bains, the party's critic on Canada-U.S. relations, says that by his estimate, Liberals are pretty evenly divided in support for Clinton and Obama, with much of the younger generation of Liberals more attracted to Obama's message. Bains himself won't say where he stands – unlike Deputy leader Michael Ignatieff, for instance, who's been unabashed and open in his admiration for the Obama campaign. Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion, talking to the Star's editorial board yesterday, said he's impressed by how many people are following the race closely, but he remained tactful about who he favours.
"I will learn from each of them – how to communicate as Mr. Obama and have as strong views as Madame Clinton," Dion said.
For several years now, Harper has been repeatedly painted as a Republican-style leader, welded to the politics of George W. Bush and the tactics of his chief strategist, Karl Rove. Republican consultants such as Fred Luntz have been brought in to trade strategies with Harperites such as Tom Flanagan, the former Conservative campaign chief. The Liberals went to the trouble last year to put all the Harper-Bush similarities into one multi-media package, which they presented at a press conference to reporters – complete with telephoto-lens shots of Republican posters on the walls of offices in the PMO enclave.
So any foe of Bush's is seen to be a foe of Harper's, too – that includes Obama, and Clinton.
New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton has been hammering away at the Canada-Obama issue all this week and appeared on CNN Thursday night. He says Canadians are offended by the slight to Obama because they're caught up in the slipstream of the demand for change in the U.S. – change from Bush's approach to politics, and by extension, Harper's too.
Canadians, says Layton, "have been concerned about the Bush administration for years...And now they see the prospect that those policies could change with a change in the White House whether it's with the first woman president, whether it's with the first black president...Canadians are intimately concerned. They're excited. They're following this."
That's why, says Layton, they're now embarrassed for their government to be seen as meddling. "To have our government step in, in a fashion that jeopardizes the success of either of these two candidates, is something that has a lot of Canadians deeply concerned and rightly so."
Bob Rae, the Liberals' foreign affairs critic, says only those who are romanticizing politics want to pitch this battle as one of Obama's hope versus Harper's audacity or cynicism.
"This is about a Republican farm team in Canada doing what it can for McCain and Republicans," Rae says. "They think the same character assassination they're using on Dion can work on Obama...Don't romanticize this. It's about politics. The Harperites are trying to kill another liberal. Period."
Of course, this raises questions about the Liberals' and New Democrats' neutrality toward the U.S. presidency, as well. When all is said and done, this week highlighted once again that there's a political-culture divide between current events in the U.S. and Canada. Though few Canadians have a say in all this talk of hope and change, they seem to feel they have a stake in it. And now, thanks to events from the government, they are also players.
That's audacity, indeed, but Canadians may still be asking: Where's the hope?
Hillary has done a great job so far!
sail
2008 Straw Poll results Barack Obama, 33%; Hillary Clinton, 24%
by vamonticello, Sat Jun 16, 2007 at 04:00:21 PM EST
DEMOCRATS RELEASE THE RESULTS
OF `STRAW POLL' ON THE CANDIDATES
The Redding Democratic Town Committee conducted a "straw poll" on June 10 at the Georgetown Day festival. The poll, which was nonscientific and permitted registered Democrats, Republicans and independents from Redding and surrounding towns to participate, asked which of the potential Democratic candidates voters would like to see head the national Democratic ticket as the party's nominee. The results are as follows: Barack Obama, 33%; Hillary Clinton, 24%; Al Gore (write in), 13%; John Edwards, 10%; Bill Richardson, 6%; Chris Dodd, 5%; Joe Biden, 4%; and Dennis Kucinich, 4%. (Note: Percentages do not total 100% due to rounding.)
If only Democratic voters are counted, the party's registrants indicated the following results: Hillary Clinton, 28%; Barack Obama, 27%; Al Gore (write in), 15%; John Edwards, 12%; Dennis Kucinich, 6%; Bill Richardson, 5%; Joe Biden, 4%; and Chris Dodd, 4%. (Note: Percentages do not total 100% due to rounding.)
Fifty percent of participating independent and Republican voters favored Barack Obama as the nominee of the Democratic Party.
here's the link http://www.acorn-online.com/news/publish /redding/19336.shtml
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Re: (none / 0)
nice straw polls..The thing i'll take from those numbers is, independents and republicans likes Obama..50% of independents and republicans voting for Obama is a lot..
It might not make the leftist blogs happy, but for Obama to beat hillary, he will have to court those folks that arent partisan democrats.
by JaeHood on Sat Jun 16, 2007 at 04:07:19 PM EST
Re: (3.00 / 1)
or he will have to convince enough partison dems not to cut off thier nose to spite thier face with Hillary.
Obama! because 51% isn't enough!
by nevadadem on Sat Jun 16, 2007 at 04:08:44 PM EST
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Re: (none / 0)
Many states don't allow independants or republicans (be they moderate or otherwise) to vote in a democratic primary. Some states do allow cross-over voting, but people don't generally do so in large numbers. NH indys do tend to vote in whichever primary is showing all the action and currently they are saying they intend to vote in the democratic primary, but that could change. People also aren't likely to re-register enmass in order to vote in a democratic primary.
Obama would need indys and moderate republicans for a big win in the general, but they aren't going to do him much good in the primary. He's going to have to convince democrats in order to become the democratic nominee
Hey Sail ever watch this
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6470450895164255089
Maybe you want to rethink your position????????
Hillary Clinton has been telling America that she is the most qualified candidate for president based on her 'record,' which she says includes her eight years in the White House as First Lady - or 'co-president' - and her seven years in the Senate. Here is a reminder of what that record includes: - As First Lady, Hillary assumed authority over Health Care Reform, a process that cost the taxpayers over $13 million. She told both Bill Bradley and Patrick Moynihan, key votes needed to pass her legislation, that she would 'demonize' anyone who opposed it. But it was opposed; she couldn't even get it to a vote in a Congress controlled by her own party. (And in the next election, her party lost control of both the House and Senate.) - Hillary assumed authority over selecting a female Attorney General. Her first two recommendations, Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood, were forced to withdraw their names from consideration. She then chose Janet Reno. Janet Reno has since been described by Bill himself as 'my worst mistake.' - Hillary recommended Lani Guanier for head of the Civil Rights Commission. When Guanier's radical views became known, her name had to be withdrawn. - Hillary recommended her former law partners, Web Hubbell, Vince Foster, and William Kennedy for positions in the Justice Department, White House staff, and the Treasury, respectively. Hubbell was later imprisoned, Foster committed suicide, and Kennedy was forced to resign. - Hillary also recommended a close friend of the Clintons, Craig Livingstone, for the position of director of White House security. When Livingstone was investigated for the improper access of up to 900 FBI files of Clinton enemies (“Filegate”) and the widespread use of drugs by White House staff, both Hillary and her husband denied knowing him. FBI agent Dennis Sculimbrene confirmed in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in 1996, both the drug use and Hillary's involvement in hiring Livingstone. After that, the FBI closed its White House Liaison Office, after serving seven presidents for over thirty years. - In order to open “slots” in the White House for her friends the Thomasons (to whom millions of dollars in travel contracts could be awarded), Hillary had the entire staff of the White House Travel Office fired; they were reported to the FBI for 'gross mismanagement' and their reputations ruined. After a thirty-month investigation, only one, Billy Dale, was charged with a crime - mixing personal money with White House funds when he cashed checks. The jury acquitted him in less than two hours. - Another of Hil lary's assumed duties was directing the 'bimbo eruption squad' and scandal defense: ---- She urged her husband not to settle the Paula Jones lawsuit. ---- She refused to release the Whitewater documents, which led to the appointment of Ken Starr as Special Prosecutor. After $80 million dollars of taxpayer money was spent, Starr's investigation led to Monica Lewinsky, which led to Bill lying about and later admitting his affairs. ---- Then they had to settle with Paula Jones after all. ---- And Bill lost his law license for lying to the grand jury ---- And Bill was impeached by the House. ---- And Hillary almost got herself indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice (she avoided it mostly because she repeated, 'I do not recall,' 'I have no recollection,' and 'I don't know' 56 times under oath). - Hillary wrote 'It Takes a Village,' demonstrating her Socialist viewpoint. - Hill ary decided to seek election to the Senate in a state she had never lived in. Her husband pardoned FALN terrorists in order to get Latino support and the New Square Hassidim to get Jewish support. Hillary also had Bill pardon her brother's clients, for a small fee, to get financial support. - Then Hillary left the White House, but later had to return $200,000 in White House furniture, china, and artwork she had stolen. - In the campaign for the Senate, Hillary played the 'woman card' by portraying her opponent (Lazio) as a bully picking on her. - Hillary's husband further protected her by asking the National Archives to withhold from the public until 2012 many records of their time in the White House, including much of Hillary's correspondence and her calendars. (There are ongoing lawsuits to force the release of those records.) - As the junior Senator from New York, Hillary has passed no major legislation. She has deferred to the senior Senator (Schumer) to tend to the needs of New Yorkers, even on the hot issue of medical problems of workers involved in the cleanup of Ground Zero after 9/11. - Hillary's one notable vote; supporting the plan to invade Iraq, she has since disavowed. Quite a resume’. Sounds more like an organized crime family’s rap sheet.
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