Barack Obama Endorsed For President By Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton actually gave one of his fire-and-brimstone speeches like the one he gave for Hillary Clinton at the California State Democratic Convention.  This means he feels it, and he's serious when he says he's behind Barack.

The Anti-Surprise

All day, we had been hearing rumors that Barack Obama would make an appearance at the convention tonight. So when he strolled out onto the stage, I can't say I was really surprised. Please, thrilled, excited, yes. Surprised? No.

The excitement and energy of Obama's appearance was exactly what this convention night needed, though. While Bill Clinton and John Kerry made very good speeches tonight and the overall energy in the hall was good, the Biden speech was a bit of a low point. Yes, he was strong on the issues, but he sort of lost the crowd when he went into foreign policy territory, only regaining them when he started doing what VPs are supposed to do: hit at the other candidate. The end of his speech did not create the sort of raucous convention hall environment that we certainly saw last night. Having Obama arrive, however, put the mildly energetic crowd into a frenzy and left everyone nigh foaming at the mouth for tomorrow night. Invesco should be a roaring good time.

DNC Convention - Third Day In Denver; At Specialty Media Center

As I write this, I'm sitting at something called The Specialty Media Center, sponsored and ran by Microsoft. It's a simple affair, with tables chairs and a computer setup in the back. There are two couch stations with plasma screen televisions tuned to CNN. It's a great place to upload videos or -- as I'm doing -- install this blog report.

Right now, it's 12:25. I'm about to upload a video featuring Cornell West and Tavis Smiley -- in fact, I'll do that now -- then will go to a hotel to get a lost credit card and then Walgreens and then Pepsi Center. I'm also worry about one of our group who's basically flown off-course dramatically and hurtfully.

It's the drama you didn't expect and don't want.

But that aside, this convention is a blast. It's the combination of the Super Bowl and The Olympics at once. Over the past three days, two of them active, I've met more movers and shakers than I can shake a stick at: Ed Gordon, Cornell West, Steve Doocy, Rep Jesse Jackson, Jr., Steve Westy, Jamal Anserson, Protesters, and the list goes on.

Last night you may have see the Michelle Obama speech, and the wonderful exchange between she and her daughters, and Barack. The convention's buzzing about that.

Today, it's Hillary's turn.

Rep. Jim Clyburn On The Clinton Legacy & Black America

At the Yahoo! Politico morning breakfast, I could think of no better person to talk to about the matter of the Clinton Legacy and Black America, than Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina. Clyburn said that the speeches by both Clintons and Senator Obama would define their legacies.

News happens all over Denver during the DNC

While waiting for a cab to get to the action from one of the media hotels this morning, I met Wallace Williams, a long time Democratic Organizer who has campaigned with former President Bill Clinton in Mississippi, among his other extensive achievements.

Wallace cites President Clinton's speech as one of the key points of the entire convention. President Clinton has a nearly unmatched ability to connect with certain constituencies that are considered key to assembling a winning coalition of voters in November. He's looking for the former president to "hit it out of the park" during his time on the podium. Clinton and Obama have often been compared in terms of presence, charisma, and the talent that allows them to correct with a crowd in a way that makes many people in a crowd each feel that they are the personal target of the speech.

Williams sees Biden as an excellent choice for the Vice President. Asked if perhaps the choice of a candidate thought to be stronger in areas that Obama might lack experience, he dismissed the notion that it represents any sort of problem. Biden is a formidable campaigner with a great track record, his skill set and experience blend will with Obama's own and srenghten the ticket in the synergistic way that the voters have a right to expect from a modern presidential ticket.

digg it

History favors McCain: Saddleback retrospective

McCain did talking points at the Saddleback forum, and he's been a known name since before becoming a household word during the Keating 5 scandal. Talking points worked for the Bush-Cheney campaign, so perhaps McCain did "win" the contest at Saddleback, as some pundits are espousing. And McCain has decades of name recognition going for him, clearly.

Obama relied on candid answers during his Saddleback appearance, which may impress people more now that we've seen the result of 8 years with a talking point president that put the economy in a tailspin (not just for today but for whoever ends up paying for Bush's war,) but obviously many find it easier to be comfortable with the talking points style of politics.

When Bush ran against Kerry, the talking point approach was reinforced by unabashed attack politics, albeit largely handled by surrogates. It worked. The term "swiftboated" as a way to describe the effect of the lies on Kerry's outcome on election day is as recognizable in the lexicon as the overuse of a "-gate" suffix for something that brings down a major figure.

So the question becomes:

Will those who prefer talking point prepared and vetted by a politician's handlers turn out to vote in larger numbers in November, or will those who prefer a President they can believe, and trust?

People knew, back when Bill Clinton ran, that they couldn't actually trust what he said, based on "didn't inhale." They understood it to be a socially acceptable answer, but not the unvarnished truth. In fact, we expect our leaders to conceal certain things from us in the name of national security, so it was curiously reassuring. That "didn't inhale" response may have been the pivotal point in electing a man with only state-level experience to the Oval Office. Then, late in his term, President Clinton began quibbling over what terms such as "sexual relations" and "is" meant... and we got George W. Bush as the country reacted to Clinton's disingenuous, political responses when the subject was personal.

So, will celebrity, attack politics and talking points win? Despite my own preferences, and hopes, it will take a lot of people showing up on election day and expressing their true desire for a candid, honest form of politics to make that happen - and like it or not, history favors McCain. Still, I'll advocate on behalf of the outsider, Obama, and vote for him in November.

I don't blame all Republicans for the state of the economy and the debt we're facing. I might've been suckered by the doctored intelligence reports, myself, when it came time to vote on various Iraq issues, and I surely believed Colin Powell, who soldiered on dutifully for his Commander In Chief in front of the United Nations and the world. We goofed, frankly -- yet this remains the one place I want to live and raise my family.

I just think under the leadership we've had since 2000 that we've gone down bad paths, and I'm ready for a pragmatic, candid, visionary leader to take the U.S.A. in a new direction.

That, my friends, is the audacity of hope.

digg this post!

Clinton Should Not Be In Nomination: Ignore P.U.M.A

Hillary Clinton Should Not Be In Nomination: Ignore P.U.M.A

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's name should not be put in nomination for the Democratic Presidential Nominee at the DNC Convention for several reasons. But before I state them, let me explain that I have supported the idea of an Obama / Clinton ticket for some time. But these reasons have caused me to be less enthusiastic about that, and to reject the idea of her name in the nomination process.

1) Senator Clinton lost the primary. For reasons that have been explored in depth, Senator Clinton lost the primary delegate race to Senator Barack Obama, and Senator Obama gained more popular votes than Senator Clinton.

2) I did not like the way Senator Clinton conducted herself after the end of the primary. At first, she was working for party unity, but did not rein in some of her supporters and did not have her husband former President Clinton fall in line and support Senator Obama 100 percent.

It's as if they were really cool as long as they though they had a chance for Hillary to be Vice President, but fell off the wagon when it seemed that was not going to be the case.




3) Senator Clinton did not rein in her former campaign spokesperson Howard Wolfson, who incorrectly stated that she would have won the Iowa Primary if Senator John Edwards had revealed his affair with Rielle Hunter then, instead of last week. But the fact is that after Edwards dropped about 80 percent of his delegates went to Obama and his staff was pressuring him to back Obama, which he did.

There's an idea that the number of anti-Obama Hillary people out there is equal in number to the pro-Obama Hillary people. That's really not true at all. We not only saw that was the case during the votes at the DNC Rules Committee meeting, but in a deep look at organizations like "Party Unity My Ass" or "P.U.M.A".

First, P.U.M.A's founder Darragh Murphy (pictured) has been a supporter of Senator John McCain, giving him $500. It's clear that when she has the money, she will back a Republican candidate. Her claim of posting a lawn sign for Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick aside, because it's a lawn sign and not cash, Murphy only contributed $250 more for a Democratic Candidate, Hillary Clinton, than for McCain.




The other person who's aligned with the P.U.M.A people is Will Brewer, who has a tendency of aligning himself with questionable people who are also in P.U.M.A.

For ezample there's Andy Martin and Webster Tarpley. Martin is the person who started the "Obama is Muslim" smear campaign. Tarpley is not a Democrat at all, but a Lyndon LaRouche supporter.

And Martin said to be an alledged Antisemite according to David Weigel .

(A charge Martin says is false and defaming in the same blog account.)

Brewer is also aligned with Harriet Christian, who showed her racism for the World to see in the now famous video clip included in my video commentary.

P.U.M.A is painted to be larger than it is. It only has a $50,000 budget as Murphy has reported on Hardball, not several million, and there's no evidence to claim over 2 million supporters. A P.U.M.A conference held on August 8th, 9th, and 10th, showed that only about 40 people came (count the number of name tags on the table then consider the size of the table an the people standing who have name-tags), even though they planned to draw over 250 people. When they did not meet that mark, the conference was booted from the original Marriot hotel and had to be moved to the Country Inn near Dulles Airport. (P.U.M.A. conference photo below from Rumproast)



Why -- as small as they are -- do we hear from groups like P.U.M.A? Because the mainstream media: the newspapers and the big three tv news networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC), and CNN, Fox, and MSNBC, have a vested interest in making the political race look like it's not a "done deal" and thus get you to watch more often.

So, they give people from P.U.M.A a platform, but the reality is that they're a divisive group that's not even part of the Democratic Party and has no business at the DNC Convention. They are to be ignored so we can get on with the business of growing the Democratic Party to victory in November.