Senators have done far worse in the past, but Roland Burris, the junior senator from Illinois, should resign over his revelation that he was approached by the brother of disgraced former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and told to get appointed to the Senate, he would need to donate $10,000 to Blagojevich’s reelection campaign. Burris testified under oath to an Illinois House committee that no conversations of the sort ever took place. However, in a February 4, 2009 affidavit, almost a full month after Burris took his seat in the Senate, Burris changed his tune and said that impropriety occurred.
While Burris said that he never acted improperly, when he was appointed by Blagojevich and fighting to be seated in the Senate, he spent a great deal of time denying that any conversation of the kind he detailed in his affidavit ever happened. He told any and everybody he could that his appointment was not tainted and that he was not asked for money in exchange for the seat. While lying to the media is one thing, it is quite another to quite possibly commit the crime of perjury. In his testimony before the Illinois House committee he continued to say what he had been saying to the press about his appointment.
Now not only does Burris face criminal investigation for perjury, Senate Republicans and the Republican Party will push for there to be an ethics investigation. Additionally, Republicans are salivating at the chance of picking up Burris’ seat in the 2010 midterm elections as Burris has very low approval numbers and there is a very well-funded GOP candidate waiting to mount a serious challenge.
Roland Burris entered the Senate under a cloud and taint, while insisting he did not. He entered after stating that he was never asked to give money for his appointment to the Senate. Burris entered after telling an Illinois House committee under oath that no conversations like the one he described in his affidavit ever took place. What is his excuse? He explains that he just remembered the conversation. To talk about having not done something so often and then to conveniently remember after being seated in the Senate doesn’t pass the smell test.
It is evident that Roland Burris repeatedly lied about his appointment to the Senate by Rod Blagojevich. Now, Roland Burris is facing criminal investigation because his desire to be a member of the Senate allowed him to quite possibly perjure himself. The people of Illinois deserve to not be consistently served by those of questionable morals and ethics. The people of Illinois deserve to not be served by another official under criminal investigation. For those reasons and many others, Roland Burris should resign from the United States Senate.
Tomorrow, Barack Obama will take the oath of office and become the 44th president of the United States, ushering in a new era in American politics. Precisely what that new era will look like is not yet known, but it certainly is an immediate change in stated policy and the country will be moving in a vastly different direction when it comes to numerious issues.
When he was running for the presidency, President-elect Obama used the word “hope” ad nauseum to describe what he would bring to the country as its president. Now that he is hours away from holding the power to do more in a day than most can do in their lifetime, Obama can certainly offer it.
So what is hope? Hope is fixing an economy in ruins. Hope is restoring our standing throughout the world. Hope is getting politicians to stop attacking one another for political gain and having them work together for the national good instead.
Since starting The Centrist Voice, I have tried to avoid talking about myself and my own experiences so as not to upset my friends and former colleagues on both sides of the aisle (not to mention to protect my anonymity), but tonight, with sixteen hours before President-elect Obama can remove the “-elect” from his official title, I feel compelled to share what hope is to me.
In October, when the economy became so bad that there was no denying that a crisis was occuring, I had dinner with my father. For the first time in my life I saw fear in my father’s eyes. It was the fear that he would not be able to pay his bills and that his work, which had already been severely affected, would be decimated by econimic conditions. Try as he might, he could not hide that fear from me and it was the toughest moment I had as his child. I have watched the prices of food, energy and living continue to rise. Friends have lost their jobs, had their credit card interest rates explode despite their good credit and lose a good portion of their retirement savings.
Hope to me is fixing the economy. It is creating jobs, both white and blue collar, that pay a good living wage. It is making our public schools better than our private schools. It is sending more troops to Afghanistan to deal with the reemergence of al Qaeda and the Taliban. It is finding new and affordable alternative energy technologies. Hope is more than just these, but I am comforted to know that hope will come tomorrow at noon when Barack Obama says the following words:
I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God.
The response by President-elect Obama and his aides to the Blagojevich scandal has been ineffective and actually prolonged the questions surrounding the involvement of himself and his staff in the entire scandal. On the day news of Blagojevich’s arrest broke, the Obama team was silent and President-elect Obama made a brief statement during a photo-op where he said he was shocked by the charges. It took an entire twenty-four hours, or two news cycles, before Obama’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, issued a statement saying that President-elect Obama believes that Blagojevich should resign.
In the initial forty-eight hours of the story, Obama was largely spared the harsh questions that are beginning to surface now, as the story the rumor that Rahm Emanuel had tipped of investigators about Blagojevich’s actions and the news that Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. was indeed “senate candidate 5″ dominated the coverage. Then on Thursday, Obama inadequately tried to end his role in the story by saying that he had had no contact with Blagojevich and that any contact his aides had would be disclosed. The problem with this strategy for President-elect Obama was that he and his aides did not have the information released within twelve hours. Had this been done and assuming that there had been no improper contact between Obama aides and Blagojevich, the Obama team could move on, but they have not and are paying the price for it.
Now, it has come out that Rahm Emanuel is one of the people who was heard on the FBI wiretaps. While the evidence presented by the criminal complaint filed by the US attorney has shown no wrongdoing on the part of Obama or any of his aides (it distinctly points out that when Blagojevich asked what he would get in return for appointing a person that Obama wants to be in his senate seat, the Obama representatives responded by telling him he would have Obama’s “appreciation”), the fact that his chief of staff is involved and that there is no explanation of that involvement, makes this an even bigger story than it should be.
If President-elect Obama wants to see the questions surrounding his and his staff’s involvement in Blagojevich’s illegal activities disappear, he must disclose all the conversations held, even if they were summaries of them. If the Obama communications staff wants to try and end this, it would be wise of them to say “adviser X contacted Blagojevich and said that they had three people they would be very pleased to see appointed to take Obama’s seat in the Senate. At no point did they offer anything more than the appreciation of President-elect Obama for appointing a qualified person who shares the vision that President-elect Obama campaigned on when he ran for the Senate to finish the rest of his term.”
The Obama people need to stop this story so that they can move on to bigger issues, such as the economy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Somewhat lost in the economic crisis and the transition goings on of President-elect Obama, is another major piece of news and some have even said crisis: the war over the future of the Republican Party. After two back to back elections where the Republican Party has suffered major defeats in the House and Senate, as well as John McCain’s thumping in the electoral college, 365 electoral votes for Obama and 173 electoral votes for McCain, where states that had not gone blue in over thirty years (Virginia, North Carolina and Indiana). Democrats gained at least twenty seats in the House of Representatives and at least seven in the Senate (there are still some races that have yet to be decided).
The one thing the Republican Party agrees on is the fact that its message is no longer resonating with Americans. However, nobody can agree on what to do about fixing the problem. Some are arguing that the problem is that Republican’s are not being conservative enough and that it should veer further to the right, especially on social issues, while others believe that it is too conservative and has strayed from its roots as the party of small government and low taxes.
At the beginning of 2009, the Republican National Committee will have to select its new chairman and there are several names being mentioned for the position. There is Katon Dawson, Michael Steele, Saul Anuzis, Mike Duncan (who currently is the RNC chair) and Al Cardenas. Whomever becomes the party’s chair will inheiret a party that is on the brink of civil war and will be tasked with rebuilding the entire party’s operation.
At this moment, former Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele appears to be in the top two for the position. However, picking him as chairman of the Republican National Committee could be a grave mistake. To the general public, the move would be viewed as reactionary to Barack Obama’s being elected president, as Steele is African-American. It would look to be pandering of the highest form and send the message of, “look we have high-ranking African-Americans in our party too!” (not to mention the fact that the RNC attempted this in 2006 when they made Florida Senator Mel Martinez the chairman of the RNC in an effort to win over Hispanic voters). After Obama delivered his memorable keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, the GOP selected Steele to do the same and touted him as “the Republican Obama.” His address to the Republican National Convention didn’t bomb, but it was neither good nor memorable. In 2006, Steele was soundly defeated for an open Senate seat in Maryland and he then retreated to form a PAC in the hopes that he would somehow be able to move forward with his political career. Since 2006, that career has remained in neutral, while other Republicans have moved past him (Bobby Jindal, Tim Pawlenty, Charlie Crist, Mark Sanford and Sarah Palin).
Since 2006, Steele has accomplished little for Republicans and the Republican Party. He has attended fundraisers on their behalf, but he has not helped run a political organization or do the work required to win elections (he has not been asked to). He has never run an organization as large as the Republican Party and has no experience in the type of work that goes into making it a successful operation. To put it gently: the Republican Party needs a crisis manager and Michael Steele is not that. He is telegenic and very good at working a cocktail party, but that is about the extent of it.
Michael Steele
Should Michael Steele become the chairman of the Republican Party, he will have two things going for him though: an economic crisis that becomes the sole responsibility of the Democratic Party on January 20, 2009 at noon eastern time and the Clintons. If the economy continues to go south (which all signs show that it will) throughout the first half of next year, the approval rating of the Obama administration and Congress will sink. With Clinton, there is no force greater than Hillary and Bill Clinton returning to power (assuming Senator Clinton is confirmed as secretary of state) that can help scare the Republican Party into organizing itself away from civil war and launching an all out offensive on the Clintons.
The economy and the Clintons might give Steele a helping hand, but cand he lead the Republican Party out of its dark days? As one of our GOP sources put it, “Probably not. There is a sizeable group of us in the Republican Party that would come into work every single day unhappy and we already have no confidence in Michael Steele.”
The election is over and now Senate Democrats are dealing with Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT), a former Democrat who caucuses with the Senate Democrats, and his active campaigning for John McCain’s presidential bid. Many Democrats are angered at Lieberman for “crossing the line” when he spoke at the Republican National Convention and attacked now President-elect Barack Obama while he was running for president.
Many Democrats are calling for Senator Lieberman to be stripped of his chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs and some are going so far as to call for Lieberman to be kicked out of the Democratic Caucus altogether. Lieberman’s vocal support of McCain is cited as the “last straw” in what over the past two years has become a series of moves he has made that have upset Democrats. Lieberman has supported President Bush on the Iraq War, while the rest of the Senate Democrats and a few Senate Republicans urged a change in strategy, or even a massive troop withdrawal.
Now that the election is over, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has met with Senator Lieberman and discussed his future within the Democratic Caucus. Reid reportedly offered Lieberman a deal to save face. In that deal, Lieberman would step down as chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs and in return he would become chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee and continue to caucus with the Senate Democrats. Lieberman’s reported response was that the offer was “insufficient” and that Reid should give him more.
While Lieberman’s response to Reid’s offer is shocking considering all that has transpired, he actually does have the upperhand in this situation as were he to caucus with the Senate Republicans, the Senate Democrats would have a much tougher time in passing legislation being just one seat further away from the sixty seat filibuster-proof majority.
Like it or not, Lieberman is needed by the Senate Democrats. His opinions on the Iraq War do not line up with the position of Senate Democrats, but neither does Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) when it comes to abortion. The Democratic Party talks about how it is the “big tent” party, but to throw Lieberman out for his position on Iraq is ludicrous. However, it does reserve the right to punish him for his support of McCain.
So what punishment is fitting for Lieberman that would also be satisfactory to him? Harry Reid offered him a rather good deal of chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee and remaining with the Senate Democratic Caucus, but the offer never addressed the issue of Lieberman’s seniority within Senate Democratic Caucus. He could theoretically lose a great deal of it and as a result would lose out on the ability to deliver as much for Connecticut. If Reid offered the same deal, but added that Lieberman would keep his seniority within the caucus and then after two years of good behavior he would have the chance to become chairman of an important committee, it would be smart of Lieberman to take it.
To remove Lieberman from the Senate Democratic Caucus would be a dumb move, as it would hurt the caucus as well. Yes, Lieberman promised that he would not attack President-elect Obama while he campaigned for John McCain and he broke that promise, but now is the time to move forward and deal with the serious problems facing the country. Lieberman’s actions were not honorable, but he can still help the Democratic Party get its domestic agenda pushed through the Senate.
One of the most enduring photographs of the Great Depression
Let’s face facts: the bailout is not good for the country, but the country needs it because without it, the alternative could very well be the complete collapse of the worldwide financial system. Right now, we have not read the exact text or details of the bailout legislation, but from what we have heard, we are more comfortable with it than the first draft of the legislation.
Tonight, all sides involved in the negotiations over the bailout seem to have reached an agreement over a bill and the language of the bill is now drafted. The House of Representatives is expected to vote on the bailout package on Monday and the Senate is supposed to follow suit on Wednesday.
However, the Politico is reporting that both Senator Obama and Senator McCain might not even be in Washington to cast their vote. This is quite troubling, especially since Senator McCain made such a big deal about returning to Washington last week on his “white horse” to work on the bailout legislation, fly to the debate in Mississippi on Friday and return to Washington immediately after to “continue” working on the bailout legislation (evidence seems to suggest that the only thing that McCain did was help kill the first agreement reached on Thursday). At the same time, Senator Obama has stated that he has the judgment required to make the tough choices that a president has to make.
The majority of the country does not like this bill and probably will not smile kindly on those who vote in favor of it, but it is important that senators and representatives not cave to the popular will of the people, but do what is right for the people. John McCain, Barack Obama and Joe Biden should all return to Washington to cast their votes in favor of the bailout legislation. It is the right thing to do for the country.
So I am reading Andrew Sullivan earlier and I discover a nifty post talking about the smear campaign about Sarah Palin that is running around the blogosphere. It seems that there are some bizarre circumstances surrounding Palin’s most recent pregnancy. It seems that she did not really show at all (more power to her) and that when her water broke while she was in Texas, she hopped on a roughly 8-10 hour commercial flight back to Alaska (with a layover in Seattle), and gave birth there?
So questioning whether or not she is the mother of her own child is definitely the point where we all cross the line in what is acceptable. However, if this were your neighbor and not your presumptive GOP VP nominee, people would gossip left and right.
Sarah Palin is clearly pregnant
Thankfully, this picture will hopefully bust the rumor.
The selection of Sarah Palin caught many by surprise and when I heard about it, I must admit that my initial reaction was pleasant surprise. Perhaps it was due to our having ranked Palin as a legitimate running mate for Senator McCain back in May and been privately mentioning her as a possibility to friends after being plied with a few too many alcoholic beverages. Ok, enough with the tooting of our own horn.
As news of Sarah Palin’s selection began to sink in, our regular sources had two different reactions: the Republican sources said, “What a great pick!” and our Democratic sources said, “What a great pick!” However, their reactions were based on two different beliefs. Democrats on the whole believe Palin to be a weak pick. Republicans believe her to be a solid pick that holds a decent amount of risk. Read the rest of this entry »
The admission by John Edwards that he had an affair with Rielle Hunter in 2006 when he was gearing up for his 2008 presidential campaign, surprised many, including Edwards’ former top aides. However, when one thinks about it, they are not terribly shocked.
Campaigns for any significant office require that staffers and candidates work 24/7 in close proximity. The environment becomes quite incestuous, as staffers end up choosing to “come aboard” (start a relationship with a coworker). When one “comes aboard” it is not normally for love, but for lust and relieving stress. Outside relationships are difficult if not nearly impossible to maintain when working for a campaign, so “coming aboard” is an attractive option to many unmarried staffers (and even some married staffers). Why take your limited free time to engage in a real relationship with somebody from the outside world when one can have all of the physical comforts of one at their office where they spend the majority of their waking hours?
It is less frequent that a candidate ends up “coming aboard,” but it does happen as proven by John Edwards (however in this instance the relationship appears to have begun before Ms. Hunter was hired by Edwards’ PAC) and others (there were numerous persistent rumors about Katherine Harris’ enjoying the company of others during her time in Congress). While defending Edwards by this logic is valid, his actions do not warrant defense. Edwards did not Rielle Hunter after she had begun working for his PAC, but instead they met outside a hotel bar in New York. Hunter, who had zero experience in film, was hired by Edwards to film and produce webisodes that were designed to show the lesser known side of John Edwards. What Edwards and Hunter did not count on was that Hunter would help to expose a facet of John Edwards that the public had not seen and Edwards did not want them to see: John Edwards the adulterer.
The incident of John Edwards and Rielle Hunter is one that we cannot defend, nor is it one that we could attack in good conscience. The campaign trail is a breeding ground for relationships that are entirely based on sex and relieving the stress of the day (which this blogger has been fortunate enough to not become entangled in during their time on the campaign trail as they tend to get messy). As one former colleague said recently, “The ability to ‘come aboard’ makes life on the trail so much easier. You shoot your partner an email saying to meet you at some private spot in the campaign headquarters, you enjoy one another’s company for a few minutes and then return to work.”
So what does this make John Edwards? Victim? Philanderer? Hypocrite? Honestly, it is difficult for us to say what it makes him, as we have been a part of campaigns where coworkers are “coming aboard” left and right. No matter what it makes John Edwards, the incident does not come as a shock.
The past ten days of the campaign have been some of the least desirable with Senator McCain and Senator Obama engaging in political tactics that distract from what a presidential campaign should be: about the issues.
While the exact moment the campaign went negative is hard to pinpoint, as it most likely was a comment that one campaign found to be a hidden jab, the marker of when the public saw the ugly side of national campaigns was John McCain’s ad “Troops” that ignored the facts and accused Barack Obama of ignoring wounded troops in favor of working out in the gym.
A few days later, the McCain campaign released the ad “Celeb” and followed up with the web video “The One.” The ads provoked ire on the left and were meant to mock Obama’s mass appeal and portray him as nothing more than a stuffed shirt. Additionally, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis accused Barack Obama of playing the race card. When asked about their appropriateness of the ads and charging Obama with playing the race card, McCain responded by chastising Obama for bringing race into the campaign. He then said that the ads were “parodies” and ways for his staff to “blow off steam.” As Bob Herbert of the New York Times noted in his editorial “Running While Black” this past weekend, that in 2006, the RNC ran an ad that was racially tinged against Harold Ford and called it a “parody” as well. Herbert also noted that many of the operatives responsible for the 2006 ad attacking Harold Ford, are now in the upper echelon of McCain’s campaign.
When asked about his Iraq position, Senator McCain has said throughout his campaign that he would rather “lose a campaign than lose a war.” We admired him for this stance, as did the voters who chose him to be the Republican presidential nominee. However, it seems that Senator McCain, who himself lost in the 2000 Republican primaries (and was so hurt by them he almost left the Republican Party) due to being smeared by the tactics his own campaign now employ, is willing to lose his reputation to become president.
Senator Obama is also hurting his reputation by changing positions on issues, the latest being oil drilling. However, he and his campaign have attempted to stay above the fray of negativity, but seem to have been dragged down into it in recent days.
The media is also to blame for these attacks. When one candidate releases an attack ad, the major news outlets report on the attack ad nauseum. The attack ads are played so frequently on the cable news networks that the campaign releasing it does not need to buy air time for it. The pundits try to dissect every word and image, while not focusing on more pressing issues.
In the 1992 presidential election, James Carville repeated the phrase “it’s the economy stupid!” to remind the Clinton campaign staff, media and country that the election was about an issue: the economy. There were serious economic problems facing the country then and the candidates focused more on the issues than they did on the attacks. Now we all need to remind Barack Obama and John McCain that the country faces serious problems that are worse than the challenges we faced in 1992. Today we face a housing crisis, a recession, a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and an energy crisis. Yet, the candidates do not seem to be addressing them. They are too caught up in the politics of personal attacks as opposed to the politics of moving the country forward.
We as voters deserve to be told by the candidates where they stand on the issues and what their presidency will look like. We don’t want to hear attacks or lines about how great their plans are, we want to hear solutions. Somebody needs to take Senator McCain and Senator Obama aside and tell them “it’s the issues stupid!”
On Monday, speculation over Barack Obama’s running mate reached a fever pitch when he and his top three campaign aides, David Plouffe, David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs, met with Eric Holder and Caroline Kennedy, who are in charge of Obama’s VP vetting process. The meeting, which lasted three hours, was a signal to many that Obama’s search for a running mate had entered its final phase and that a pick was imminent (although when the announcement would be made is another matter). Then, around 8:00pm that night, The Washington Post and The Politico each published articles quoting unnamed sources close to Governor Tim Kaine (D-VA), stating that Kaine was “very, very high” on Obama’s short list. Soon, all media outlets began running with the story and the top three contenders were reported to be Kaine, Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) and Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN). Read the rest of this entry »
Last week, former Senator Phil Gramm said that the US was a “nation of whiners” when it came to the economy and that comment caused a media sensation. When it comes to Barack Obama’s taking moderate positions, the far left have been screaming and now feel, as one Obama backer put it, “betrayed by such a blatant disregard to those who gave him the nomination.” Lately, Senator Obama has said that he would be open to altering his Iraq policy based upon what the reports he received from the commanders on the ground, disagreed with a Supreme Court ruling that established that the death penalty cannot be used as punishment for the rape of a child, stated that late-term abortions should not be allowed because of mental distress, and voted for the FISA bill that provided retroactive immunity to the telecom giants that allowed the government to eavesdrop on citizens. The left has every right to be upset that Senator Obama has taken these positions, but their own knee-jerk reactions blind them from asking themselves the simple question of why? Read the rest of this entry »
Earlier this week, Senator Barack Obama decided to back out of his commitment to accept public financing for his campaign, which would have given him $84 million in taxpayer money, but severely restricted further fundraising. Many believe that he could raise more than $300 million (a sum that is far greater than the amount of money Senator McCain will be able to raise and use) between now and the general election. Many have called Senator Obama’s change of heart on accepting public funds a “flip-flop” or hypocritical, as they all ask the question of how can Obama bring change if he will engage in the “same old politics?”
It must be recognized that there are decisions that are not the most pleasant ones, but are necessary. In decisions like this, the ends justify the means. Were Senator Obama to win the presidency, his not using taxpayer money to help in that win does not factor in his ability to govern and try to implement change.
Senator Obama’s campaign is primarily funded by small donations in the amount of $25, $50 and $100, not by select group of bundlers who raise several million dollars a piece. There are bundlers raising money for the Obama campaign, but the money they raise pales in comparison to the amount raised by the grassroots, small money donors. Additionally, Senator Obama has not accepted donations from lobyists or PACs and still maintains this policy.
Barack Obama’s decision to opt out of public financing for his presidential campaign was one that was a simple one. It is easy to see the benefit of having a campaign war chest that is $300 million as opposed to $84 million. It was a smart decision to make, as Obama’s general election strategy depends upon the ability to make large media buys all across the country, including severely red states.
Some pundits have criticized Senator Obama for his decision, claiming that he is not committed to reform. This is not so. Because Barack Obama raised the vast majority of his campaign money from over 1.5 million donors with the majority being small donors, his decision to not use taxpayer funds for his campaign is the epitome of public financing.
Florida and Michigan had every right to move their primaries up to before February 5. The leaders of their state Republican and Democratic parties felt that it was important to challenge the monopoly that Iowa and New Hampshire have on early primaries and caucuses. In truth, many states wish they could move their primaries up to just after, during and even before Iowa and New Hampshire, but the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee are terrified of angering Iowa and New Hampshire.
These two states believe they not only hold a sacred right be the first in the nation, but that other states cannot hold primaries and caucuses until well after the conclusion of their own. It is even written in New Hampshire’s constitution that the state must be the first in the nation to hold a presidential primary! Iowa and New Hampshire do not and should not be permitted to have as Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) called it, “perpetual privilege.” Read the rest of this entry »
Senator Clinton has a sniper problem. Whenever she speaks about them, may they be imagined Bosnian ones or the real Sirhan Sirhan, she gets herself into trouble. So when The Centrist Voice first heard how RFK’s assassination was part of Senator Clinton’s logic for staying in the race, we immediately read the entire transcript of her comments to the editorial board of the South Dakota Argus-Leader. Quickly, we concluded that the comment, while not smart to say, was made to point out that other nominating contests had gone into June. So we gave her the benefit of the doubt.
Yet, when it was dug up that Senator Clinton had made the same comments to Time Magazine in March, The Centrist Voice was forced to reexamine the situation. Ms. Nikki and I read and reread Senator Clinton’s non-apology apology and saw that things did not add up. Senator Clinton said:
The Kennedys have been much on my mind the last days because of Senator Kennedy…
This begs the question of whether or not the Kennedys were on Senator Clinton’s mind when she said the following to Time Magazine in March:
I think people have short memories. Primary contests used to last a lot longer. We all remember the great tragedy of Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June in L.A.
The Kennedys weren’t in the news when she said that to Time Magazine. So now there are at least two instances where she has stated this. This throws the rationale behind the non-apology apology out the window.
Senator Robert F. Kennedy did not enter the 1968 presidential race until mid-March and was tragically killed in early June, the night of the California primary. He had been in the race for just under three months and only thirteen primary contests had taken place. In June of 1992, Bill Clinton had already captured the nomination, but only hit the magic number then, nothing more.
So why didn’t Senator Clinton mention past candidates that were in their party’s nominating contest in June? Ted Kennedy was still in the 1980 race. Gary Hart was still around in June 1984. Ronald Reagan was still fighting to take the GOP nomination from President Ford in 1976. She could have referenced all of these instances but chose the more emotional and painful historical example.
Using the Kennedy assassination as an example might not be intended to say “Barack Obama could be killed.” But, it could be a bad attempt to say that sometimes candidates are out of the race before their full potential is realized. Reminding us of the tragedy of Robert Kennedy’s assassination was calculated to make us think of what could have been combined with Clinton’s belief that Americans will associate it with her and voters will encourage her to keep on running. However, The New York Daily News has said that this incident has shown Americans, “an X-ray of a very dark soul.”
Senator Clinton makes the argument that she is the strongest candidate to defeat John McCain in the general election. Yet her campaign, which is comprised of some of the best Democratic political talent in the country, has been outmaneuvered by Senator Obama and his campaign staff, who were once considered to be not as good as the Clinton staff (now it seems the two staffs have traded reputations). Senator Clinton has had gaffe after gaffe that have hurt her chances with the voters. Were she to be the nominee, what other gaffes would she make?
Raising an incident that is still painful for the country forty years after it happened is inexcusable, no matter what the justification for saying it. Sadly, this was not an accidental slip of the tongue. It was something that Senator Clinton had said before and further proves why she is unfit to be the Democratic nominee, let alone hold the senate seat that Senator Robert F. Kennedy once held.
Billionaire and current New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been the most-watched politician not running for president. For almost a year, his every move was scrutinized and there was only one question that was asked: will he run for president? Bloomberg answered that question in a New York Times editorial in February and that answer was no. Read the rest of this entry »
After the March 4 primaries, the Clinton campaign laid out the case as to why Senator Clinton would be the better choice for the Democratic nominee for President. The argument was that despite having lost the majority of the states, the states she had won hold more total electoral votes than the states Senator Obama has won. While this is true, it has no bearing on the nominating process.
If this were a general election, then Senator Clinton would be ahead by an electoral vote count of 219 without Florida and Michigan (263 with), while Senator Obama would have 202. However, this is not a general election. Electoral vote totals are not counted or considered in the nominating process; only delegates matter. Read the rest of this entry »
Last Sunday, Governor Bill Richardson said that Senator Clinton should consider dropping out of the presidential race if things sooner rather than later. Then other democrats began to echo the phrase that the longer Senators Obama and Clinton battle for the presidential nomination, the more John McCain benefits. Then, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the seventh most senior member of the United States Senate, Patrick Leahy called on Senator Clinton to drop out of the race and recognize the reality that she cannot win the nomination. Is this part of an organized effort to push Senator Clinton out of the race? Read the rest of this entry »
Over the course of this unending race for the Democratic nomination for President, the tone has shifted from being civil to being outright nasty. The nastiness has not come in the form of direct attacks between Senator Clinton and Senator Obama, but they have come in the form of staffers and campaign surrogates throwing insults at one one another, while at the same time, certain campaigns engage in smear tactics.
There has been one candidate in particular who is particularly guilty of engaging in smear tactics and spreading false truths. Senator Clinton and her aides have engaged in tactics that are damaging to both Senator Obama and herself. It started in the late summer/early fall when an email was circulated anonymously that falsely accused Senator Obama of being a radical Muslim. When an aide to Senator Clinton was discovered to have forwarded this email, they were fired. There is no proof that this email originated from the Clinton campaign, but they certainly have not said it is untrue. In an interview with 60 Minutes, Senator Clinton provided an answer that left the door open for Obama being Muslim. Read the rest of this entry »
As The Centrist Voice reported last night, The Politico wrote a story about how the Clinton campaign does not believe that it will lead in pledged delegates and the popular vote. It concluded that Hillary Clinton has a very slim chance of winning the nomination and is not in as close a race as the media is reporting (although Mark Penn would beg to differ). If true, it begs the question of why Senator Clinton is still in the race? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by JAlan 
Posted by JAlan 
Posted by JAlan 
