WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama effectively clinched the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday, based on an Associated Press tally of convention delegates, becoming the first black candidate ever to lead his party into a fall campaign for the White House.
Campaigning on an insistent call for change, Obama outlasted former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in a historic race that sparked record turnout in primary after primary, yet exposed deep racial divisions within the party.
The AP tally was based on public commitments from delegates as well as more than a dozen private commitments. It also included a minimum number of delegates Obama was guaranteed even if he lost the final two primaries in South Dakota and Montana later in the day.
The 46-year-old first term senator will face Sen. John McCain of Arizona in the fall campaign to become the 44th president.
Clinton was ready to concede that her rival had amassed the delegates needed to triumph, according to officials in her campaign. These officials said the New York senator did not intend to suspend or end her candidacy in a speech Tuesday night in New York. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they had not been authorized to divulge her plans.
Obama's triumph was fashioned on prodigious fundraising, meticulous organizing and his theme of change aimed at an electorate opposed to the Iraq war and worried about the economy _ all harnessed to his own innate gifts as a campaigner.
Clinton campaigned for months as the candidate of experience, a former first lady and second-term senator ready, she said, to take over on Day One.
But after a year on the trail, Obama won the kickoff Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3, and the 46-year-old, first-term Illinois senator became something of an overnight political phenomenon.
''We came together as Democrats, as Republicans and independents, to stand up and say we are one nation, we are one people and our time for change has come,'' he said that night in Des Moines.
A video produced by Will I. Am and built around Obama's ''Yes, we can'' rallying cry quickly went viral. It drew its one millionth hit within a few days of being posted.
Posted 06/ 3/2008 Clinton:Will Do 'Whatever it Takes' to Elect a Democrat
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) said she was willing to do "whatever it takes" to elect a Democrat in the fall in response to a question from Rep. Nydia Velasquez about the vice presidency during a recently completed conference call with the New York congressional delegation.
Velasquez, a prominent Clinton supporter and Latina, voiced concern that without Clinton on the national ticket, Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) might not be able to win the Hispanic vote in the numbers required to claim the presidency, according to someone on the call.
Clinton did not directly address the idea of serving as Obama's second in command, but did make clear that she would do whatever was required of her to help elect a Democrat to the White House in November.
It is the second time in the last few days that Clinton failed to bat down speculation that she may be interested in serving as vice president. In a phone interview with the Post's Anne Kornblut over the weekend, Clinton dodged when asked whether her husband --former President Bill Clinton -- was working behind the scenes to get her on the national ticket.
"I do not believe that is happening," she said. "It's not -- you know, I'm not aware of it."
Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, it's important to remember that refusing to rule out the possibility of serving as vice president is not at all the same as saying you are actively interested in the job.
Our sense is that Clinton wants to preserve as many options as possible at this point, but has not thought seriously about what the future holds for her politically just yet. Clinton said as much on the call, noting that she is focused entirely on the primaries in South Dakota and Montana today.
For Clinton, figuring out her next move will be the work of the next few days. Aides to the senator insist there has been no talk of what's next for her as she has focused exclusively on a day-to-day sort of campaign over the last few months.
Clinton is clearly aware that she holds considerable power -- still -- within the Democratic party, having won more than 17 million votes as well as strong majorities among key groups like Latinos and working-class voters in the Rust Belt.
Regardless of whether she winds up on the Democratic ticket, Clinton is almost certain to be an active presence on the campaign trail for Obama as well as other Democratic candidates for House, Senate and governor. Such a level of activity is likely to help rehabilitate her image within the party among those who have felt alienated from her during this protracted primary campaign. It will also build up considerable good will for her among elected officials for whatever opportunities she pursues in the future.
Obama seals nomination Candidate’s moment a juncture in U.S. history BY ADAM GELLER The Associated Press
The principle that all men are created equal has never been more than a remote eventuality in the quest for the presidency. But with the Democratic nomination finally in Barack Obama’s grasp, that ideal is no longer relegated to someday. Someday is now. It is a history-making moment — though Obama is not necessarily the candidate many might have expected to make that history. He is the son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas. He’s too young to remember the civil rights struggle, let alone to have been a soldier in the fight. “He was impossible to anticipate,” says Shola Lynch, director of a documentary about the 1972 campaign waged by Rep. Shirley Chisholm, the New Yorker who was the first black woman to vie for the presidency. In a country whose self-identity has been warped by racial prejudice since the beginning, this moment has taken an eternity to arrive. Or, viewed over the spectrum of a long, painful history, relatively little time at all. After all, it has been just 45 years since Martin Luther King declared his dream for a colorblind America, just over 30 years since Mississippi disbanded the sovereignty commission that fought to maintain segregation and deny blacks their rights. Other notable black candidates have run for the highest office. Some waged serious campaigns that, at least when it came to the prospect of winning the nomination, were never taken seriously. “I grew up and matured in the height of the civil rights movement and there was no thought then of a black man being president of the United States. We had barely begun to vote then,” says Ronald Walters, who served as deputy director of the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s run for the presidency in 1984. “It was hard for us, even in the Jackson campaign, to get our arms around this, the fact that there would be a black president of the United States — even though we were running,” says Walters, now a professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland. But even as they marvel at Obama’s rise, Walters and others say it will take time to appraise what it says about the nation’s political and cultural state of mind. Can he be elected? How long will it take before other viable black candidates — not to mention women — compete for the presidency? Obama’s likely nomination is a milestone, but it is not at all clear where that marker is posted. His ascendance could prove to be a fairly isolated event, the creation of extraordinary coincidences or something more. “The nation has come a long way” when a major party demonstrates its support for a presidential nominee who is not a white male, says Thomas J. Davis, author of the book “Race Relations in America” and a professor of history at Arizona State University. But “what does it tell us aside from that fact, which we can see right before our eyes?” Some may see Obama’s success as marking a revolution in the politics of race. In fact, it’s the latest incremental step — albeit the most noticeable one — in a gradual evolution. By the early 1960s, pressure was building. Activists clashed with police in Selma, Ala., in a historymaking demand for the right to vote. Congress passed the National Voting Rights Act to eliminate the literacy tests many Southern States used to keep black voters from the polls. That led to much greater black voter participation and the first significant entry of black candidates and office holders. Change came, but slowly. In 1965, Massachusetts voters chose Edward Brooke for a Senate seat, but it wasn’t until 1993 that another black candidate was elected to the chamber. In 1972, Chisholm, a New York congresswoman, became the fi rst black woman to pursue the presidency, waging a campaign to end the Vietnam War and give voice to the silent in the nation’s policymaking. Jesse Jackson followed in 1984 and 1988, paving the way for the candidacies of Alan Keyes, Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley Braun. Still, it wasn’t until 1989 that Virginia made L. Douglas Wilder the nation’s first black elected governor. A majority of Americans said the country was ready for a black president, but that was far from making it reality. “The fact is that there were no African-Americans who were in a position to run for president at that time so what people would say was really pretty irrelevant,” said David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank focused on issues important to black Americans. Voters did not really begin to contemplate the idea of a black president as anything beyond an abstract until the 1990s when Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff during the Gulf War, gained wide admiration. Now, the irony of Obama’s achievement is that much of what it represents is not about the color of his skin. Obama, at 46 too young to remember the civil rights era, has run a race that, at least when possible, has been deliberately not about race. He steered clear of a campaign like Jesse Jackson’s, which shaped itself as a fight for the rights of minorities and the poor. Instead, he promised an era of change, an idea that found broad support among different groups of voters. He excluded many of the civil rights leaders and others — from Jackson to Al Sharpton — who would have defined him as a black candidate. He spoke about himself not primarily as a black man but as a man whose story was uniquely American. “Was it about race? No, it was about electability,” Walters said. “The racial aspect of his agenda is missing, the racial politics are missing. So really all you have left is the symbol of the person.” The result is a prospective nominee whose candidacy is weighted with the possibility of cultural significance, but maybe not in the way that might have been imagined. It is less a testament to rising black political fortunes than to the power of a fast-changing social dynamic. In the ranks of black politics, the baton is being passed from leaders rooted in the fight for civil rights and social activism to a new group of young, educated and energized politicians with their own point of view. CHRIS CARLSON/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Sen. Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, arrive for a rally in St. Paul, Minn., on Tuesday.
Hillary must be waiting for the big 'ask out on a date' for the VP spot......now if only one of them were gay.....although if I were married to President Billy maybe I would be.......
if Hillary holds her own the 'girls' will be proud of her......and then she will be elected in 4years......
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Obama Was Selected, Not Elected by Ann Coulter (more by this author) Posted 06/04/2008 ET Updated 06/04/2008 ET
Words mean nothing to liberals. They say whatever will help advance their cause at the moment, switch talking points in a heartbeat, and then act indignant if anyone uses the exact same argument they were using five minutes ago.
When Gore won the popular vote in the 2000 election by half a percentage point, but lost the Electoral College -- or, for short, "the constitutionally prescribed method for choosing presidents" -- anyone who denied the sacred importance of the popular vote was either an idiot or a dangerous partisan.
But now Hillary has won the popular vote in a Democratic primary, while Obambi has won under the rules. In a spectacular turnabout, media commentators are heaping sarcasm on our plucky Hillary for imagining the "popular vote" has any relevance whatsoever.
It's the exact same situation as in 2000, with Hillary in the position of Gore and Obama in the position of Bush. The only difference is: Hillary has a much stronger argument than Gore ever did (and Hillary's more of a man than Gore ever was).
Unbeknownst to liberals, who seem to imagine the Constitution is a treatise on gay marriage, our Constitution sets forth rules for the election of a president. Under the Constitution that has led to the greatest individual liberty, prosperity and security ever known to mankind, Americans have no constitutional right to vote for president, at all. (Don't fret Democrats: According to five liberals on the Supreme Court, you do have a right to sodomy and abortion!)
Americans certainly have no right to demand that their vote prevail over the electors' vote.
The Constitution states that electors from each state are to choose the president, and it is up to state legislatures to determine how those electors are selected. It is only by happenstance that most states use a popular vote to choose their electors.
When you vote for president this fall, you will not be voting for Barack Obama or John McCain; you will be voting for an elector who pledges to cast his vote for Obama or McCain. (For those new Obama voters who may be reading, it's like voting for Paula, Randy or Simon to represent you, instead of texting your vote directly.)
Any state could abolish general elections for president tomorrow and have the legislature pick the electors. States could also abolish their winner-take-all method of choosing presidential electors -- as Nebraska and Maine have already done, allowing their electors to be allocated in proportion to the popular vote. And of course there's always the option of voting electors off the island one by one.
If presidential elections were popular vote contests, Bush might have spent more than five minutes campaigning in big liberal states like California and New York. But under a winner-take-all regime, close doesn't count. If a Republican doesn't have a chance to actually win a state, he may as well lose in a landslide. Using the same logic, Gore didn't spend a lot of time campaigning in Texas (and Walter Mondale campaigned exclusively in Minnesota).
Consequently, under both the law and common sense, the famed "popular vote" is utterly irrelevant to presidential elections. It would be like the winner of "Miss Congeniality" claiming that title also made her "Miss America." Obviously, Bush might well have won the popular vote, but he would have used a completely different campaign strategy.
By contrast, there are no constitutional rules to follow with party primaries. Primaries are specifically designed by the parties to choose their strongest candidate for the general election.
Hillary's argument that she won the popular vote is manifestly relevant to that determination. Our brave Hillary has every right to take her delegates to the Democratic National Convention and put her case to a vote. She is much closer to B. Hussein Obama than the sainted Teddy Kennedy was to Carter in 1980 when Teddy staged an obviously hopeless rules challenge at the convention. (I mean rules about choosing the candidate, not rules about crushed ice at after-parties.)
And yet every time Hillary breathes a word about her victory in the popular vote, TV hosts respond with sneering contempt at her gaucherie for even mentioning it. (Of course, if popularity mattered, networks like MSNBC wouldn't exist. That's a station that depends entirely on "superviewers.")
After nearly eight years of having to listen to liberals crow that Bush was "selected, not elected," this is a shocking about-face. Apparently unaware of the new party line that the popular vote amounts to nothing more than warm spit, just last week HBO ran its movie "Recount," about the 2000 Florida election, the premise of which is that sneaky Republicans stole the presidency from popular vote champion Al Gore. (Despite massive publicity, the movie bombed, with only about 1 million viewers, so now HBO is demanding a "recount.")
So where is Kevin Spacey from HBO's "Recount," to defend Hillary, shouting: "WHO WON THIS PRIMARY?"
In the Democrats' "1984" world, the popular vote is an unconcept, doubleplusungood verging on crimethink. We have always been at war with Eastasia.
Unless Obama takes Hillary as his VP, he won't have a shot at the presidency. (he/she won't get my vote anyway). But he will never make it without her followers. The majority spoke. And it is clear that the majority would rather have a woman presidential candidate than a black man that listened to anti-American hate speech for 20 years. Right or wrong, that's what it came down to.
Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil, The Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.
How come we haven't heard about anything like what's stated in the video from any of our liberal media or are they going to suppress the truth until it's too late. Anyone with those beliefs shouldn't even be able to run for a political office.
How come we haven't heard about anything like what's stated in the video from any of our liberal media or are they going to suppress the truth until it's too late. Anyone with those beliefs shouldn't even be able to run for a political office.
War and Obama by Bill O'Reilly (more by this author) Posted 06/07/2008 ET
Cutting through all the fog, there are two primary reasons behind Barack Obama's stunning victory over the Clinton machine: authenticity and the war in Iraq.
As amply demonstrated, there is simply no comparison between Obama and Hillary Clinton as far as public speaking is concerned. He is eloquent and natural, talking directly to the folks. She is more stilted and rehearsed, talking at the listener. Sen. Clinton comes across as the typical politician, while Sen. Obama seems like a genuine human being.
He also outflanked her on the Iraq war. In the beginning of the campaign, Obama bolted from the starting gate flashing his anti-war cred. From the jump, he had been against the action. And now he was the guy who would pull the USA out of the Iraq swamp.
Clinton was immediately put on the defensive, as she initially supported the use of force to remove Saddam Hussein. Also, her entire outlook on confronting Islamic fascism was far too bullish for far-left America. So the Net roots, as they call themselves, flocked to Obama and provided him with vast amounts of money via the Internet. By the time Hillary rallied Democratic moderates, it was too late.
Now Obama has achieved the nomination, but his winning primary strategy on Iraq could come back to haunt him in the general election, when the far left becomes rather insignificant. Already John McCain is painting Obama as a terror appeaser who would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq.
And McCain has some heavy ammunition to back up his attack. In May, American casualties were the lowest since the Iraq war began in 2003. In addition, Iraqi oil production is now at its highest level since Saddam fell. Even the liberal Reuters news agency calls the current situation in Iraq a "dramatic turnabout."
Of course, you won't hear much about that in the American press, as the liberal media have much invested in a U.S. defeat in Iraq. But there is no question that the war there can now be won. It's not a lock, but it's certainly a possibility.
McCain must make the case that a victory in Iraq, which means the country stabilizes and becomes an ally against Islamic terror and Iran, means a much more secure United States. For the past few weeks, McCain has been spotlighting Iran's villainy; pointing out its support of terror groups like Hezbollah and its outright killing of our forces in Iraq.
Quietly, McCain is setting Obama up for a hard right to the jaw. If the U.S. pulls out of Iraq too quickly, the pressure on Iran immediately lightens and the potential for aggression by the bitterly anti-Jewish and anti-American Mullahs rises dramatically. Does Obama understand that? Does it matter to him? McCain will confront his young challenger with those questions.
Obama's advisers know the Iraq scenario is changing fast. They also understand that the media will ignore the good news for as long as it can. But word will get out and, after years of frustration, Americans could be staring at a success story after all. Not good news for Obama.
Hillary Clinton didn’t lose the nomination to Barack Obama, she was beaten by a team of political strategists led by the brilliant David Axelrod, who understood better than anyone else the arcane rule changes the Democratic Party made to kick-start outsider campaigns after Jesse Jackson’s campaign faltered. However, these rule changes don’t carry over to the final election, where votes are counted differently. I hope Sen. Clinton will campaign strongly for Democratic nominee Obama because as a nation we can’t afford four more years of Republican rule. But I’m not sure she should be marginalized as vice president. There are other positions where she’ll be more effective, including becoming the “Grande Dame of the Senate.” I’m proud of Hillary Clinton, and I wish her well no matter what she decides to do in the future. MELINDA PERRIN Scotia
How Obama Won -- and May Win by Patrick J. Buchanan Posted: 06/10/2008
"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. ... I mean, that's a storybook, man."
Thus did Joe Biden famously describe his rival for the nomination, Barack Obama, to the The New York Observer, a year ago.
Biden, however, thought Obama might not be able to win the fall election, as he is "a one-term, a guy who has served for four years in the Senate. ... I don't recall hearing a word from Barack about a plan or a tactic."
Biden was forced to apologize, but was dead on in discerning Barack's strengths as a candidate in the primaries, which might prove weaknesses in the fall.
A new face in the game, Barack opened with three aces. He opposed the Iraq war, the defining issue in a party that had come to detest the war. He was an African-American. Thus, as the hopes of millions rose that he could be the first black president, there were surges of black voters whom he begin to sweep 90-10.
Lastly, Barack is a natural, a Mickey Mantle, a superb political athlete like JFK, who has looks, charm, youth and a speaking style that can move crowds to cheers or laughter.
Barack was thus able to unite the McGovern wing -- young, idealistic, liberal, anti-war -- with the Jesse Jackson quadrant of the party, black folks, and defeat Hillary's coalition of working-class Catholics, women, seniors and Hispanics.
As of today, by the traditional metrics of national politics, Democrats should roll up a victory this fall like FDR's first in 1932.
Bush's disapproval is near 70 percent, and 80 percent of the country believes the nation is on the wrong course. Unemployment is rising. Surging gas and food prices compete for the top story not only on business pages but front pages, with home foreclosures and the housing slump. Family incomes of Middle Americans have ceased to rise, as millions of their best jobs have been outsourced overseas.
Yet, national polls show McCain-Obama a close race, and the electoral map points to critical problems for Barack.
He seeks, for example, to target Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico. But in all three the Hispanic vote may be decisive. And Barack was beaten by Hillary two to one among Hispanics, and between these two largest of America's minorities, rivalry and tension are real and rising.
Barack must hold Michigan and Pennsylvania and pick up Ohio or Virginia. Yet, his weakness among Southern and working-class whites and women is remarkable. By two to one they rejected him.
After his string of primary and caucus victories in February, Barack proceeded to lose Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, then West Virginia by 41, Kentucky by 35, Puerto Rico two to one and South Dakota by 10. That last one Barack was supposed to win.
The longer the campaign went on, the more reluctant Democrats seemed to be to embrace his nomination.
What is Barack's problem?
Middle America knows little about him, and much of what they know they do not like. When West Virginians were asked what they knew about Barack, a plurality said the Rev. Wright was his pastor. In Pennsylvania, a goodly slice of Democrats knew Barack had said they were "bitter" about being left behind and were clinging to their bigotries, Bibles and guns.
By June, resistance to Barack's nomination in the party that he now leads was extraordinary, stemming from a belief that he is too naive to be commander in chief in wartime and too far left, and does not like or understand Middle America or its values.
"He is not one of us."
And if Barack cannot erase this hardening perception in the American mind, he will not be president.
Democrats may talk of making the economy the issue this fall, but Republicans are going to make Barack the issue. Story line: We cannot entrust our beloved America, in a time of war, to this radical and exotic figure who has so many crazy and extremist associates.
Barack's problem is thus Reagan's problem.
As the country wished to be rid of Jimmy Carter in 1980, so the nation today wishes to be rid of Bush and his Republicans. But America is apprehensive over a roll of the dice, in Bill Clinton's metaphor.
How did Reagan ease the anxiety? In the debate with Carter, he came off as conservative, yes, but also traditional, mainstream, witty and the more likable man. The real Reagan came through.
With his persona, Barack may be able to do the same -- in the debates. The problem is that he had two dozen debates with Hillary and, by the end of the primary season, five months after it began, he was still losing ground.
The May 27 letter, “Look beyond Wright’s words to black history,” by Mary Jane Valachovic and the June 3 letter, “Despite bravery, blacks still treated second class,“ by Irving Rosenberg went far to bring peace to my heart and faith in my fellow white brothers and sisters. These two letters made me realize that all whites don’t consider themselves as “tribe members,” and some are even trying the moccasins of their darker compatriots in order to understand their anger and feel their suffering. Mr. Obama’s choice by a substantial number of white Americans, as their leading Democrat, was a delightful surprise; the icing on the cake. I don’t belong to parties, I don’t know Mr. Obama. I have no idea where his candidacy is going to lead, but one thing is for sure: I’m proud to be an American, and the possibility of Mr. Obama being president is the “shot heard around the world.” I have many foreign friends, here and abroad, and they are now looking at America with a renewed sense of wonderment and respect. The world is starting to love America again. As for myself, I can’t look any more at a passing white and wonder about what’s going on in his or her soul. I have stopped feeling sorry for my children and grandchildren for having them grow up in a land where they are still referred to as “darkies.” I will stop gnawing my gums when the white press refers to Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton as leaders of black America. Mr. Obama’s success means the success of all Americans, be they hispanics, Asian, white, Jewish, Muslim, black, male, female etc. The gates aren’t locked any more. Young America can dream of being anything in our great land and their names don’t have to be Bush, Kennedy, Roosevelt, Rockefeller, etc. All that’s needed are intelligence, hard work, ambition, luck and believers. Mr. Obama’s success shouldn’t be viewed as a black American success — it belongs to all Americans. It’s a wonderful event, even if it turns out to be just a symbolic one. ROGER MALEBRANCHE Broadalbin
Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have themselves stated they are for 'black America'......they labeled themselves and put all other Americans with dark skin in their wagon......shame on them for adding to the fire......
One should never never align themselves with a people/party/money for an endless amount of time just for 'the namesake' but, should be able to put the info in, process it and then make a decision......
there was always fresh shew bread on the alter......otherwise it gets stale----just like our grandiose ideas.......
the only thing that never changes are absolute truths---and we dont make them, they just exist........
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Obama's selection of Jason Furman as economic advisor is criticized Labor union officials and some liberal activists say Furman is too enamored of globalization and too easy on Wal-Mart. By Tom Hamburger Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 10, 2008
WASHINGTON — Labor union officials and some liberal activists were seething Tuesday over Barack Obama's choice of centrist economist Jason Furman as the top economic advisor for the campaign. The critics say Furman, who was appointed to the post Monday, has overstated the potential benefits of globalization, Social Security private accounts and the low prices offered by Wal-Mart -- considered a corporate pariah by the labor movement.
Officials from several labor organizations phoned the Obama campaign to complain about the appointment and circulated e-mail messages containing quotes from some of Furman's work. Campaign officials responded that some of the quotes were inaccurate or out of context. They expressed confidence in Furman's abilities and said that Obama would be listening to an array of advisors.
The dispute is a fresh reminder that sharp divisions on economic policy remain in the Democratic Party, even though the bruising fight for its presidential nomination has ended. Those divisions are likely to present a recurring problem for Obama, especially as he tries to ward off GOP accusations that he is too liberal.
And Obama is not the first Democratic presidential candidate to confront the problem. Sen. John F. Kerry faced it in 2004. Going farther back, liberal activists resented former President Clinton's support for free trade, deficit reduction and other centrist policies.
Furman, 37, is linked closely to Robert Rubin, a Wall Street insider and Clinton economics aide who eventually became Treasury secretary. Rubin's views on global trade and deficit reduction riled liberal economists and labor activists, though his presence gave the Clinton administration valuable credibility in the business and financial communities.
"We are very much taken aback that Furman has been put at the head of this team," said Marco Trbovich, a senior aide to United Steelworkers President Leo W. Gerard, whose support is considered crucial to Obama's success in heavily unionized areas of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota and other battleground states.
Trbovich worked with Furman during Kerry's presidential campaign, in which Furman was also an economic advisor.
"He is a very bright fellow, but he is an unalloyed cheerleader for the trade policies that have been very destructive to manufacturing jobs in this country," Trbovich said. "There are very serious concerns" about his appointment.
Perhaps the most enraging part of the record, according to Trbovich and others, were comments attributed to Furman on Wal-Mart.
In a paper presented in Washington, he suggested that there were some economic benefits from the company's low prices and other policies at a time when major labor unions had launched an anti-Wal-Mart campaign.
Furman worked most recently as a budget expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington heading the Hamilton Project, an economic policy research group. It was founded by Rubin, who now chairs the executive committee of Citigroup Inc.
Lori Wallach, a lawyer and leading opponent of free-trade policies, said the appointment was jarring from a policy and a political perspective.
"Furman seems like a liability, given his anti-worker writings and statements about Wal-Mart, fair trade and other middle-class issues," said Wallach, director of Public Citizen's global trade watch division.
An e-mail circulated among activists, scholars and senior labor officials Tuesday included quotes that Furman had offered in academic papers and media interviews in recent years.
"I hope the lesson that Democratic candidates take from this is not to bash trade and call for protectionism, but instead to call for a robust safety net," Furman told an NPR interviewer last year.
He was also quoted in a transcript from a CNBC interview in 2006 as suggesting openness to changes in Social Security that might include private accounts and benefit cuts.
The approach he described sounded similar in some ways to that proposed at the time by President Bush. The Bush private accounts idea was anathema to labor activists, who successfully challenged the president's initiative.
In naming Furman as economic policy director, Obama also announced that other economists, including some from the left, would informally become part of the Obama economics team.
One economist from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, Jared Bernstein, offered praise for Furman, saying he understood why some critics were unhappy, though he thought their fears were misplaced.
"I understand the concerns, given positions he has taken" on some issues, Bernstein said. "But I am 110% certain that it will be Barack Obama -- not Jason Furman or Robert Rubin -- who will be setting the policies for the Obama administration."
Although Furman has directed think-tank work on some controversial topics, Bernstein said he would be an effective campaign staff member. "If you look at his body of work, it's quite clear that the ultimate goal is very much the same as Obama's," he said.
June 12, 2008 Union Critical of Obama’s Top Economics Aide By LOUIS UCHITELLE
Acting quickly after securing his party’s presidential nomination, Barack Obama picked a well-known representative of Bill Clinton’s economic policies as his economic policy director and signaled this week that the major players from the Clinton economics team were now in his camp — starting with Robert E. Rubin.
Senator Obama, Democrat of Illinois, hired Jason Furman, a Harvard-trained economist closely associated with Mr. Rubin, a Wall Street insider who served as President Clinton’s Treasury secretary. Labor union leaders criticized the move, and said that “Rubinomics” focused too much on corporate America and not enough on workers.
“For years we’ve expressed strong concerns about corporate influence on the Democratic Party,” John J. Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, said Wednesday in a statement implicitly critical of the symbolism of the appointment, no matter Mr. Furman’s economic skills.
The Obama camp has cast Mr. Furman, 37, as an experienced operator in Democratic election campaigns, whose task is to tap the expertise of economists representing a broad spectrum of views. “My own views, such as they are, are irrelevant,” Mr. Furman said.
The Democratic Party often struggles to balance the conflicting demands of corporations and labor, and Mr. Furman’s appointment rang some alarm bells that Mr. Obama might be tilting toward the corporate side — a tilt that Mr. Rubin says does not exist. He argued in an interview on Wednesday that his views were essentially in line with Mr. Obama’s already stated policies.
“I totally support Obama,” Mr. Rubin said, acknowledging his long allegiance to Hillary Rodham Clinton. “I was not going to leave Hillary until she pulled out,” he said, adding: “I think Barack Obama is very well equipped to provide the presidential leadership that the country very badly needs in a rapidly changing world.”
Mr. Furman, who served as an adviser in John Kerry’s 2004 campaign for president, came to his new post suddenly on Monday, moving hastily to Chicago, where Mr. Obama has his headquarters. Until Friday, he was director of the Hamilton Project, a policy research operation founded by Mr. Rubin, who is now chairman of the executive committee at Citigroup. Mr. Rubin provides financing for the project, along with other wealthy Democrats.
Of particular concern to labor is the Hamilton approach to trade. While labor wants restrictions that would preserve jobs, the Rubin camp wants free trade that might cost jobs but would be offset by a broader safety net channeling more income support and job training to the job losers. Mr. Obama talks of “fair” trade agreements that include labor and environmental standards, a position that falls short of what Mr. Sweeney has in mind.
In his statement criticizing Mr. Furman’s appointment, Mr. Sweeney said, “The fact that our country’s economic policies have become so dominated by the Wall Street agenda — and that it is causing working families real pain — is a top issue we will be raising with Senator Obama.”
The Rubin camp and the group loosely led by union leaders also differ on which should take precedence: balancing the budget or public investment. The Rubin camp gives preference to budget balancing, but Mr. Rubin says the choice is no longer as stark as it was when Bill Clinton came to office in 1993. Then, the deficit represented a much bigger percentage of the nation’s economic activity and deficit reduction was a necessary priority in his view.
“We need today a multiyear path to a sound fiscal position, but in that context you need to make room for critical public investment,” Mr. Rubin said, arguing in effect that public spending could be increased in the current circumstances before the budget was brought into balance.
Mr. Obama, without regard for which should come first, calls for a balanced budget and, speaking in Raleigh, N.C., on Monday, he called for the creation of “millions of new jobs by rebuilding our schools, roads, bridges and other critical infrastructure.”
Months ago, Mr. Rubin had said that while he favored Mrs. Clinton as the better candidate, he could easily support Mr. Obama, if he won in the long primary process. He said, for example, that a passage on the impact of globalization in Mr. Obama’s book “The Audacity of Hope” came out of a conversation the two men had. “Without question, the pressure on wages and incomes have become greater and we need to focus on those issues,” Mr. Rubin said, citing himself as a source for that point.
Mr. Furman, who served for a while as a special economic adviser in the Clinton administration, has taken some controversial positions. He argued in 2005, for example, that Wal-Mart, despite its conflicts with organized labor over pay and health insurance, was a good business model.
More recently, he argued that while the typical worker suffers from inadequate income, that worker’s living standards, broadly measured, are higher today than those of their counterparts 30 years ago — an argument in dispute among economists.
Dismissing such concerns, the Obama camp and Mr. Rubin say that there are few people with Mr. Furman’s skill and experience in running economic policy in a fast-moving election campaign. “He is very well respected by professional economists, and he also knows how to navigate in the world of policy and politics,” Mr. Rubin said. “This is not the time to run a training school” for economic policy directors.
Until now, Austan Goolsbee, an economist at the University of Chicago, had been Mr. Obama’s chief economic adviser. He remains an unpaid adviser. He said he was not a candidate for Mr. Furman’s full-time job because of his university duties.
Mr. Obama’s campaign aides, among them Bill Burton, the press secretary, emphasize that Mr. Furman has already consulted a range of experts, from Mr. Rubin and Lawrence H. Summers, the Harvard economist who succeeded Mr. Rubin as Treasury secretary.
Others consulted include Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel laureate in economics who is critical of Rubinomics; Jared Bernstein, senior economist at the labor-oriented Economic Policy Institute; and James Galbraith, a University of Texas economist whose Keynesian approach and preference for public spending is to the left of Rubinomics.
“Of course, I’m part of it,” Mr. Galbraith said. “Jason is a guy I know, a professional I respect. If he wants my views, I’m quite happy to be giving them to him. The task before us is to develop practical steps for the problems before us now.”
Mr. Furman emphatically agreed. “I am not here to tell Senator Obama what to think about Wal-Mart,” he said, “but to help him implement his ideas, and they are ideas I share, like universal health insurance, progressive taxation and not privatizing Social Security.”
Obama declines public financing for his campaign BY JIM KUHNHENN The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Barack Obama’s 1.5 million donors were a financial spigot that was just too rich to shut down. The Democratic presidential candidate on Thursday became the first presidential candidate from a major party to bypass public funds for the general election since the Watergate era. In so doing, he abandoned his once-stated desire to compete within a system designed to reduce the influence of money in politics. His Republican rival, John McCain, said he would accept the public money for the fall campaign — $85 million available from early September until Election Day — and declared that Obama had broken his word. Obama, who has shattered fundraising records, is likely to raise far more than the taxpayer-financed presidential fund can supply. Obama promptly showed off his financial muscle Thursday with his first commercial of the general election campaign. The ad, a 60-second biographical spot, will begin airing today in 18 states, including historically Republican strongholds. The Illinois senator has called for public financing of campaigns in the past, but while his new decision opens him to charges of hypocrisy, his campaign advisers understand that issues of campaign finance do not rank high in most voters’ minds. By releasing his first ad of the general election, Obama also diluted the impact of the money story with a strong visual that was likely to dominate the day’s television coverage of the campaign. Obama will draw attention to his finances again today, when his campaign files its May fundraising report with the Federal Election Commission. His decision represents a significant milestone in the financing of presidential campaigns. President Bush was the fi rst candidate to reject public financing of primaries when he ran in 2000. But no candidate has ignored the general election funds since the law setting up the presidential finance system was approved in 1976. “It’s not an easy decision, and especially because I support a robust system of public financing of elections,” Obama told supporters in a video message Thursday. “But the public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken, and we face opponents who’ve become masters at gaming this broken system.” Obama, said McCain, “said he would stick to his word. He didn’t.” “This election is about a lot of things. It’s also about trust,” McCain said. “It’s about keeping your word.” Last year, Obama filled out a questionnaire where he vowed to “aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election.” But since clinching the Democratic nomination earlier this month, Obama has not broached the subject with McCain. The only discussion occurred about two weeks ago between Obama’s and McCain’s lawyers, Obama lawyer Robert Bauer said he discussed the public financing issue for 45 minutes on June 6 with McCain counsel Trevor Potter. In interviews and e-mails, both Bauer and Potter agree that Bauer raised concerns about McCain having a head start because he had secured the nomination in early March and Obama did not until June 3.
Succumbing to an avalanche of criticism, Sen. Barack Obama's campaign has apparently decided to back away from its trial balloon of a new presidential seal.
Newsmax’s lead story Monday morning reported on Obama’s new version of the presidential seal, but a campaign spokesman now says it won’t be used again.
“That was a one-time thing for a one-time event,” Robert Gibbs asserted to CNN about the rather intricately designed seal that made its debut last Friday.
The new seal was unveiled on Obama's podium when he spoke to a group of Democratic governors.
The Obama seal did include the American bald eagle clutching arrows and an olive branch, but the resemblance ended there.
The Latin phrase "E Pluribus Unum," which translates to "Out of many, one," was replaced with "Vero Possumus," which translates to "Truly, we are able" — a rough translation of the Obama campaign slogan "Yes we can."
As Newsmax reported, the deletion of "E Pluribus Unum," long considered the de-facto motto of the United States, is not accidental for multiculturalists, who have long denigrated the concept that immigrants must strip away their old culture in favor of the "oneness" of American civilization.
In the 1990s, such activists promoted the alternative concept of the nation's ethnic "mosaic," rather than a single, overarching metaphor to describe American society. For example, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan has pointedly criticized the "E Pluribus Unum" motto as not reflecting the nation's diversity.
And CNN reported that Obama was not simply facing critics from the right, but also from some left-wing supporters who did not like his new and improved seal.
“Many wondered whether a seal — with Latin phrasing no less — was the best idea for a candidate fighting for the working-class vote and trying to fend off allegations of elitism,” CNN reported.
In a one-two punch, Focus on the Family’s Dr. James Dobson ripped into Barack Obama, saying that Obama terrifies him, while on Tuesday night’s "Hannity & Colmes" show, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee warned that the Illinois senator’s views on such issues as partial birth abortion takes away the equality of unborn children, and that Obama makes him uncomfortable.
Dobson appeared on Sean Hannity’s radio show Tuesday.
During the show, Hannity commented that he found Obama to be dishonest overall, noting that “I think he was dishonest to the American people” when speaking of his former pastor and spiritual adviser the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Obama said that Wright had never expressed his vitriol to Obama stating "this is not the man I knew" though he had sat in a pew and listened to him for 20 years.
Said Hannity, “I think he’s fundamentally dishonest and has been on a variety of issues, the most recent is his flipping and flopping on public financing, etc. I think he’s got some character issues as relates to honesty.”
Dobson then unleashed this broadside against Obama: “What terrifies me is the thought that he might be our president . . . might be in the Oval Office . . . might be the leader of the free world . . . might be the commander in chief — because as I said a minute ago, the man is dangerous, especially in regard to this issue of morality. I can’t tell you how strongly I feel about this.
“He’s saying that my morality has to conform to his because we all have to agree or else it’s not democratic. Do you remember the position that he’s taken on the Born Alive Protection Act that was passed in Congress in 2002? It kept medical people who were unsuccessful in killing an unborn baby — they took their best shot at [the baby] and [the baby] managed to limp into the world — and so Congress said if he comes out alive you can’t murder him.
“That came to the fore of the state of Illinois legislature, and the only person to oppose it was Barack Obama and he was chairman of the committee, and got up and spoke in opposition to it. [He said] ‘We’re saying that a person is entitled to the kinds of protections provided to a child — a 9-month old child delivered to term — it would essentially bar abortions because the Equal Protection clause [that he was opposed to] does not allow somebody to kill a child.’
“This is what this man believes; [that it’s acceptable] to kill children that you don’t want or need . . .”
Dobson asked, “Am I required in a democracy to conform my efforts in the political arena to his bloody notion of what’s right in regard to tiny babies?”
During Tuesday night’s "Hannity & Colmes" show on Fox Cable, after Alan Colmes asked if “the rest of us” are required to conform to Dr. Dobson’s view about tiny babies, Huckabee said, “ It’s about the collective view of Americans who believe that all people are created equal, and that every human life has intrinsic value and worth. And when Barack Obama believes that we can have partial birth abortion, then we’ve taken away the equality of that unborn child and we’ve said that he’s expendable — that he’s not as valuable as he would be if he were born five minutes later.
“That defies something beyond anybody’s politics. That goes to the heart of what we are as a civilization . . . we have elevated and celebrated life. That’s why we don’t leave our soldiers on the battlefield when they are wounded. We say to leave no man behind, because we don’t view their worth and value as their soldiering, we view it as their personhood.
“And when you rob a human life of its personhood, as you do with the kind of abortion policies that Barack Obama supports, that’s a serious issue, I think, for many of us who don’t see this as a religious issue but see it as something even deeper.”
Responding to Hannity’s complaint that Obama lacks core values guiding him, Huckabee said, “it is a concern; and I think it’s a legitimate one, when you have a person who says I want to change the politics of Washington but then becomes one that’s even being criticized by the leftist media because he’s decided he is going to bypass all the very public financing that he so embraced until he could get more money into his coffers by not doing it.
“That’s exactly the kind of thing that just makes people say, There he is — another politician.”
Asked if he agreed with Dobson’s statement that the idea of Barack Obama as president terrorizes him, Huckabee said: “There are many things about Barack Obama that make me very uncomfortable. There are potholes and there are sinkholes and what Barack Obama has done is to drive his campaign into a sinkhole by saying some things regarding religion that I think will make people who are religious very uncomfortable.
“Am I concerned? Yes. We don’t need to make up things about Barack Obama, because I think that the record is going to be the best weapon to defeat him.
"We need to ask what is it that he believes. What he believes is that the Sermon on the Mount is outdated.”
Huckabee added, “I always found it interesting that liberals want it both ways — they don’t want to bring religion into the public square unless they bring it and get to reinterpret it.”
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