Barack Obama (election coverage only-official)

[MuckFich06]

Political Radar: Obama Now Takes The Lead in Superdelegates Too

ABC News' Karen Travers Reports: For the first time this campaign season, Barack Obama has surpassed Hillary Clinton's support among superdelegates, according to the ABC News delegate estimate.

Sen. Obama, D-Ill., picked up two superdelegates this morning giving him a new metric to tout in addition to his current commanding leads in pledged delegates, popular votes, states won, and money raised.

Rep. Donald Payne, D-N.J., switched his endorsement from Clinton to Obama and Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., endorsed Obama. DeFazio was previously uncommitted.

With these endorsements, Obama has the support of 267 superdelegates and Clinton has 265 superdelegates.

Every news organization's superdelegate count is a little different because it is an imperfect science. Since October 2007, the Political Unit has continuously reached out to the nearly 800 superdelegates to determine their candidate preference. We also reach out regularly to the Obama and Clinton campaigns for their superdelegate lists and work to confirm any that they include on their lists.

[MuckFich06]

Klein on Obama - TIME

In his victory speech after the smashing North Carolina results came in, Obama went directly after both McCain and the media. "[McCain's] plan to win in November appears to come from the very same playbook that his side has used time after time in election after election," Obama said. "Yes, we know what's coming. I'm not naive. We've already seen it, the same names and labels they always pin on everyone who doesn't agree with all their ideas, the same efforts to distract us from the issues that affect our lives, by pouncing on every gaffe and association and fake controversy, in the hopes that the media will play along."

That may have been unfair to McCain, since the Senator from Arizona won the Republican nomination in much the same way Obama has triumphed -- as an outsider, an occasional reformer, a pariah to blowhards like Limbaugh. But it's also true that McCain has a choice to make: in the past month, he has wobbled between the high and low roads, at one point calling Obama the Hamas candidate for President after a member of that group "endorsed" the Senator from Illinois. If McCain wants to maintain his reputation as a politician more honorable than most, he's going to have to stop the sleaze. And if Obama wants to maintain his reputation for honor, he'll have representatives from his campaign sit down with McCain's people to work out a sane, equitable campaign-financing mechanism for the general election -- and a robust series of debates. Mark McKinnon, a McCain adviser who has said he would rather recuse himself than help his candidate against Obama, has suggested that the two candidates campaign together, staging Lincoln-Douglas-style debates across the country -- a proposal similar to the offer that Kennedy reportedly wanted to make if he ran against Barry Goldwater in 1964.

In the end, Obama's challenge to the media is as significant as his challenge to McCain. All the evidence -- and especially the selection of these two apparent nominees -- suggests the public not only is taking this election very seriously but is also extremely concerned about the state of the nation and tired of politics as usual. I suspect the public is also tired of media as usual, tired of journalists who put showmanship over substance ... as I found myself doing in the days before the May 6 primaries. Obama was talking about the Republicans, but he could easily have been talking about the press when he said, "The question, then, is not what kind of campaign they will run; it's what kind of campaign we will run. It's what we will do to make this year different. You see, I didn't get into this race thinking that I could avoid this kind of politics, but I am running for President because this is the time to end it."

Politics will always be propelled by grease, hot air and showmanship, but in the astonishing prosperity of the late 20th century, we allowed our public life to drift toward too much show biz, too little substance. Yes, the low-information signals -- the bowling and tamale-eating -- are crucial; politicians have to show that they are in touch with the lives of average folks. But a balance needs to be struck between carnival populism and the higher demands of democracy, and as a nation, we haven't been very good lately with the serious part of the program. As a result, there is a festering sense -- I've seen it everywhere I've traveled this year -- that the country is in "the ditch," as Clinton said. A general-election campaign between John McCain and Barack Obama doesn't need any hype. It won't be boring. The question is whether we, politicians and press alike, will grant this election -- and electorate -- the respect that it deserves.

[shetuck]

RCP: Michelle Vetoes Hillary

I soooooo hope this is true...

Michelle Vetoes Hillary

By Robert Novak

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Close-in supporters of Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign are convinced he never will offer the vice presidential nomination to Sen. Hillary Clinton for one overriding reason: Michelle Obama.

The Democratic front-runner's wife did not comment on other rival candidates for the party's nomination, but she has been sniping at Clinton since last summer. According to Obama sources, those public utterances do not reveal the extent of her hostility.

A footnote: Support is growing in Democratic ranks for Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland as vice president. He would bring to the ticket maturity (66 years old), experience (six terms in Congress) and moderation (rated "A" by the National Rifle Association). He is very popular in Ohio, a state Republicans must carry to elect a president.

['BusNative]

Originally Posted by shetuck

RCP: Michelle Vetoes Hillary

I soooooo hope this is true...

Great, great idea on Strickland.

Great, great idea to not offer HRC. It would only be funnier if Obama snubs HRC, but offers Bill some sort of cabinet-level position

['BusNative]

A good, very long, piece on Obama from the NYT today:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/us...11chicago.html

May 11, 2008
The Long Run
Pragmatic Politics, Forged on the South Side

By JO BECKER and CHRISTOPHER DREW

In August 1999, Barack Obama strolled amid the floats and bands making their way down Martin Luther King Drive on Chicago?s South Side. Billed as the largest African-American parade in the country, the summer rite was a draw over the years to boxing heroes like Muhammad Ali and jazz greats like Duke Ellington. It was also a must-stop for the city?s top politicians.

Back then, Mr. Obama, a state senator who was contemplating a run for Congress, was so little-known in the community?s black neighborhoods that it was hard to find more than a few dozen people to walk with him, recalled Al Kindle, one of his advisers at the time. Mr. Obama was trounced a year later in the Congressional race ? branded as an aloof outsider more at home in the halls of Harvard than in the rough wards of Chicago politics.

But by 2006, Mr. Obama had remade his political fortunes. He was a freshman United States senator on the cusp of deciding to take on the formidable Hillary Rodham Clinton and embark on a long-shot White House run. When the parade wound its way through the South Side that summer, Mr. Obama was its grand marshal.

And one more from the Week in Review - maybe some upside to the long, brutal primary:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/we...f=weekinreview

May 11, 2008
Lessons Learned
The Upside of Being Knocked Around

By MARK LEIBOVICH

WASHINGTON ? So, now that it might finally be over (or maybe close to it, possibly, perhaps), does Senator Barack Obama come out a bloody mess, or a battle-tested warrior?

In recent weeks, a wiseguy consensus seems to have settled on the former: the idea that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has so weakened Mr. Obama in the race for the Democratic nomination ? so diminished him, distracted him, exhausted him ? that he could be a grievously damaged nominee.

The wiseguys invoke the Republican race of 1976 and Democratic contest of 1980 as examples of what happens when candidates ? Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, respectively ? get battered in primaries, emerging damaged in the summer and losers in the fall. They mention surveys showing almost 50 percent of Clinton supporters in Indiana telling exit pollsters that they would sooner vote for Senator John McCain or stay home than vote for Mr. Obama. They suggest that by staying in the race, Mrs. Clinton is playing a spoiler?s role.

But there is a competing view that says that Mrs. Clinton, rather than being a spoiler, has in fact been an unwitting mentor to Mr. Obama, a teaching adversary who made him better. Could competing against Mrs. Clinton have improved Mr. Obama as a candidate in the same way that competing against Larry Bird and Magic Johnson in the 1980s made Isiah Thomas and Michael Jordan champions in the 1990s?

[MaxBuck]

Could competing against Mrs. Clinton have improved Mr. Obama as a candidate in the same way that competing against Larry Bird and Magic Johnson in the 1980s made Isiah Thomas and