Barack Obama in 2008 official thread

[MuckFich06]

Obama wins Guam... by 7 votes!

BREAKING NEWS 8:50 a.m. - Obama wins Guam caucus | guampdn.com | Pacific Daily News

[sandgk]

Originally Posted by MuckFich06

Obama wins Guam... by 7 votes!

BREAKING NEWS 8:50 a.m. - Obama wins Guam caucus | guampdn.com | Pacific Daily News

If the result were to have been reversed the Clinton camp would have been spinning the heck out of it.

So we can be thankful that Clinton has nothing to brag on in Guam.

[MuckFich06]

Originally Posted by sandgk

If the result were to have been reversed the Clinton camp would have been spinning the heck out of it.

So we can be thankful that Clinton has nothing to brag on in Guam.

She only did so well by offering another obvious pander:
Political Punch

Guam's four Democratic delegates (not to mention its five superdelegates) are up for grabs in Saturday's primary, and Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., has told residents of that Pacific territory that as president she will work to give them the right to vote for president.

I've read elsewhere that Bill used the same B.S. lines:

"Self-proclaimed 'Democrat for a day' Janet Aguon, who voted for Pilar Lujan as party chairwoman, said her pick was Obama. 'I can't see myself supporting Hillary,' she said. 'My reason is that she was out here in 1995 -- President Clinton in '98 -- and they both made promises that they didn't act on. She dares to make those same promises and comes back to us asking us for support. I think that's unconscionable.'"

[MuckFich06]

Excellent article:
Wright's theology not "new or radical" | Salon

To discuss black theology, its history and its influence today, I spoke with Jonathan L. Walton, an ordained minister, expert on African-American religion and assistant professor of religious studies at the University of California at Riverside. Walton argues that black theology is not as radical as it has been made out to be and that Martin Luther King Jr. was actually more controversial than Wright. He also says that Wright -- the most visible adherent of black liberation theology in America -- will end up as a footnote in the history books alongside Gennifer Flowers, Willie Horton and Donna Rice.

[MuckFich06]

Another excellent article:
Wright's past, Obama's future -- chicagotribune.com

I think Obama got it right in his Philadelphia speech on race when he tried to explain his former pastor's words without condoning them. "The profound mistake of Rev. Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society," Obama said. "It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress had been made; as if this country?a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black, Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old?is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past."

But, as Obama went on to say, we know that America can change?and it has changed. As our elders prophesied to my generation of African-Americans back in the 1960s, opportunities have opened up. It's up to us to prepare ourselves to step inside, rather than stand outside the door complaining about it.

Instead of joining with Obama's call for reconciliation, as Wright has done on other occasions, Wright flamboyantly issued a taunt at the National Press Club. With his finger raised defiantly toward the firing squad of news cameras, he recalled saying to Obama last year, "If you get elected, November the 5th, I'm coming after you, because you'll be representing a government whose policies grind under people."

Oh, really? After all that, I don't imagine that a President Obama would be eager to return Wright's phone calls. Wright may have single-handedly done enough damage to make sure Obama never gets to the Oval Office.

If so, Wright probably will blame the white man for the defeat, but the rest of us will know who helped.

I've defended Wright quite a bit. This article clearly outlines why it was imperative that Obama make the break when he did. Any sooner, he likely would have received strong backlash from the African-American community. It shows that when given the choice on a national stage, Rev. Wright chose the old rhetoric of division over the hopeful rhetoric of reconciliation. If you listen to the full sermons with even his most controversial statements, he always ended with reconciliation and hope. As a good friend of mine once said, it is not a black sermon if you don't go to the cross (in the African-American church the cross is the sign of hope). Rev. Wright put himself on the cross rather than going to it as a source of hope for the future. I think it is clear now which part of Rev. Wright's message that Barack Obama embraced.

[sandgk]

Clarence Page seems to harbor fears that Obama's candidacy has been deeply undone by Wright. Perhaps Page could take some comfort from this recent news.

Washington Post

A Louisiana Democrat captured a House seat held by Republicans for the previous 33 years, defeating a former GOP state legislator yesterday in a special election that Republicans tried to turn into a referendum on Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).
With all precincts reporting, State Rep. Donald J. Cazayoux Jr. had 49 percent of the vote to Woody Jenkins's 46 percent, overcoming a barrage of ads from GOP committees that tried to paint Cazayoux as an ally of Obama, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, and of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)
Democrats said the result in the Baton Rouge-based district showed that an anti-Obama campaign has its limits and that they are poised for very large gains this fall.