This is my four year old daughter, Abigael, after hearing one too many mentions of the election.9,535,791 views.
"Have the audacity to hope for that child of yours. Have the audacity to hope for that home of yours. Have the audacity to hope for that church of yours. Whatever it is you've been praying for, keep on praying, and you may find, like my grandmother sings, 'There's a bright side somewhere; there is a bright side somewhere. Don't you rest until you find it, for there is a bright side somewhere.'"via [ L.C. ]
Watts' Hope portrays a blindfolded woman with a broken lyre. Watts was expressing the sentiments of such popular aphorisms as 'Never despair' or 'Where there is life there is hope', though his painting seems to be suggesting the opposite. The Victorian public understood his message, however, and the painting became enormously popular, especially after it was reproduced as an engraving.
"SEN. CLINTON: Well, can I just point out that in the last several debates, I seem to get the first question all the time. And I don't mind. I -- you know, I'll be happy to field them, but I do find it curious, and if anybody saw 'Saturday Night Live,' you know, maybe we should ask Barack if he's comfortable and needs another pillow. (Laughter, boos.) I just find it kind of curious that I keep getting the first question on all of these issues. But I'm happy to answer it."
Ten key votes by Barack ObamaWould be nice if the widget was embedable here..
Ten key votes by Hillary Clinton
I’ll avoid a false precision in the numbers that follow. There are minor differences among news organizations in projecting delegate allocations in states that have already voted, and in counting preferences among the 796 elected officials and party leaders — the “superdelegates” — who vote according to their choice, not voters’ instruction.He goes on to talk about judgement:
Obama leads Clinton by roughly 70 delegates among about 2,000 chosen so far in primaries and caucuses. (There are still about 1,200 delegates outstanding.) Among the superdelegates, Clinton is ahead by about 100 superdelegates among the 300 who have declared a preference (though any of them can change their mind, so a count of them now is in large measure premature).
"Many of these superdelegates are elected officials. They tend to care about winning in November. The polls suggest Obama matches up better with John McCain. And the polls are merely echoing the judgment of almost every Democratic elected official from a competitive district or a swing state with whom I’ve spoken. They would virtually all prefer Obama at the top of the ticket.
All of this will move the superdelegates to Obama — perhaps as early as just after March 4, or perhaps not until April 22, or perhaps not even until the last match-up on June 7. But the superdelegates will want to avoid a situation in which they could be in the position of seeming to override the popular vote, or of resolving a bitter battle over whether and how to count votes from Florida and Michigan, at the convention.
And there are, as a final resort, two super-superdelegates (so to speak) who would have the clout to help Democrats achieve closure: Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi.
If they stepped forward at the right time, they would earn the gratitude of their party. And they might also enjoy contemplating a derivative effect of their good deed — the fall of the house of Clinton."
"With all the sniping from the Clinton camp about whether Barack Obama has enough experience to make a strong president, consider another presidential candidate who was far more of a novice. He had the gall to run for president even though he had served a single undistinguished term in the House of Representatives, before being hounded back to his district.
That was Abraham Lincoln."
OBAMA, Barack, a Senator from Illinois; born in Honolulu, Hawaii, August 4, 1961; obtained early education in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Hawaii; continued education at Occidental College, Los Angeles, Calif., and Columbia University, New York City; studied law at Harvard University, where he became the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review, and received J.D. in 1992; lecturer on constitutional law, University of Chicago; member, Illinois State senate 1997-2004; elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in 2004 for term beginning January 3, 2005.
CLINTON, Hillary Rodham, (wife of President William Jefferson Clinton), a Senator from New York; born on October 26, 1947, in Chicago, Illinois; attended public school in Park Ridge, Illinois; graduated Wellesley College, BA 1969; graduated Yale Law School, JD 1973; attorney; counsel, impeachment inquiry staff, House Judiciary Committee 1974; First Lady of Arkansas 1979-1981, 1983-1993; First Lady of the United States 1993-2001; elected to the United States Senate for term commencing January 3, 2001; reelected in 2006 for the term ending January 3, 2013.
An Obama presidency would present, as a distinctly American face, a man of African descent, born in the nation's youngest state, with a childhood spent partly in Asia, among Muslims. No public relations campaign could do more than Obama's mere presence in the White House to defuse anti-American passion around the world, nor could any political experience surpass Obama's life story in preparing a president to understand the American character. His candidacy offers Democrats the best hope of leading America into the future, and gives Californians the opportunity to cast their most exciting and consequential ballot in a generation.
In the language of metaphor, Clinton is an essay, solid and reasoned; Obama is a poem, lyric and filled with possibility. Clinton would be a valuable and competent executive, but Obama matches her in substance and adds something that the nation has been missing far too long -- a sense of aspiration.
"What a fantastic way to recover from Bush, who so completely represented the greed and arrogance and uglyness of America, to reinvent ourselves in the image of our best, in the image of hope."Follow the link to read Dave's whole post.
"Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and imagine that together we can do great things. In those rare moments, when such a person comes along, we need to put aside our plans and reach for what we know is possible.This is a big endorsement.
We have that kind of opportunity with Senator Obama. It isn’t that the other candidates are not experienced or knowledgeable. But this year, that may not be enough. We need a change in the leadership of this country — just as we did in 1960.
Most of us would prefer to base our voting decision on policy differences. However, the candidates’ goals are similar. They have all laid out detailed plans on everything from strengthening our middle class to investing in early childhood education. So qualities of leadership, character and judgment play a larger role than usual."
"We are up against the conventional thinking that says your ability to lead as President comes from longevity in Washington or proximity to the White House. But we know that real leadership is about candor, and judgment, and the ability to rally Americans from all walks of life around a common purpose – a higher purpose.Hillary Clinton made a big mistake by bringing in Bill Clinton to go negative. That's bad decision making and bad for politics. I agree with Obama on this.
We are up against decades of bitter partisanship that cause politicians to demonize their opponents instead of coming together to make college affordable or energy cleaner; it’s the kind of partisanship where you’re not even allowed to say that a Republican had an idea – even if it’s one you never agreed with. That kind of politics is bad for our party, it’s bad for our country, and this is our chance to end it once and for all.
We are up against the idea that it’s acceptable to say anything and do anything to win an election. We know that this is exactly what’s wrong with our politics; this is why people don’t believe what their leaders say anymore; this is why they tune out. And this election is our chance to give the American people a reason to believe again."
It’s about whether we settle for the same divisions and distractions and drama that passes for politics today, or whether we reach for a politics of common sense, and innovation – a shared sacrifice and shared prosperity.Same thing Deval Patrick proved when he ran a positive campaign for Governor of Massachusetts.
"Of course, he opposed the Iraq war in 2002 when Clinton voted in favour, but he said in 2004 he wasn't sure how he would have voted had he been in the Senate."No mention of Obama's response.
Former President Bill Clinton said on Friday Barack Obama's bid to be president was no "fairy tale" and said his use of that phrase earlier in the week referred specifically to Obama's claims about his stance on the Iraq war.The NY Times tries harder, Clintons Move to Tamp Down Criticism From Blacks About Recent Comments:
Mr. Clinton, in his radio interview, disputed any notion that he had been impugning Mr. Obama personally.It's hard to get the whole story.
He said he was addressing a specific issue that, he believed, had not been given sufficient scrutiny: Mr. Obama’s position on Iraq and a statement by Mr. Obama in 2004 that he could not say how he would have voted on the war had he been in the Senate, though he did not believe the case for war had been made.
Mr. Clinton said the 2004 view was at odds with Mr. Obama’s position that he, unlike Mrs. Clinton, has always been against the war. “I said that story is a fairy tale,” Mr. Clinton said. “Now that doesn’t have anything to do with my respect for him as a person or his campaign. I have gone out of my way not to express any personal disrespect for him and his campaign.”
Mr. Obama’s campaign said Mr. Clinton was engaging in revisionist history about his record on the war.
