Wednesday, February 28, 2007

WaPo: Geffen Ordeal Shifts Black Support To Obama

From The Washington Post comes this article about the fallout from the Geffen skirmish.

The opening stages of the campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination have produced a noticeable shift in sentiment among African American voters, who little more than a month ago heavily supported Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton but now favor the candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama.

Clinton, of New York, continues to lead Obama and other rivals in the Democratic contest, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll. But her once-sizable margin over the freshman senator from Illinois was sliced in half during the past month largely because of Obama's growing support among black voters.


Most of you that read PYY already know what I think of polls, especially polls this early in the game. But politicians do care greatly and therefore, this has to be concerning for the New York senator.

One thing Hillary must understand is, overreaction can cost you points. In this case, I think the action caused by Geffen's remarks would not have caused as much of a problem, had the NY senator just played them down and reacted so histrionically.

One thing she does not want to do is alienate Democratic black voters in the pre-primary season. If the wounds are too deep and blacks perceive that there is a disconnect as a result of a bloody primary campaign between her and Obama, she may find many staying home in November. And from where I sit, Democrats need the black vote to have any viable chance.

As it stands now, she is still comfortably ahead. But hey, it's still a long way to go before the votes are cast. Those that advise Hillary would do well to not overreact to anything from other Dems, at this point in time. At least, that's how I would advise her.

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

If anyone was wondering whether they should take Obama seriously, or whether Obama was a real contender, there is no longer any doubt since Hillary showed everyone how seriously she takes him. I agree, LAS, the reaction by the Clinton camp only made Obama stronger.

Leslie Bates said...

I take a Democrat candidate seriously for the same reason that I pay attention to the any individual or group of menacing strangers when I make a pizza delivery in a bad neighborhood. It is the reasonable expectation that they may harm me.

Over the last three decades that I have observed the Democrats I have noticed that not only do they persistently take a wrong position on an issue, they will often do so as a simple mindless negation of the Republican position.

Violent Crime: Don't accept as a fact of reality that it is an act of will on the part of the criminal. Don't apprehend, prosecute, imprison, or where warranted execute the criminal. Instead attack innocent people, disarm them, and leave them helpless in the face of a growing population of violent criminals.

That's just one example. I could go on about insanity of their positions on National Defense, Energy Policy, Taxation, etc. But I really don't have time to do so. (Unlike some folks on the Left I have to go to work.)

The Democrats are not just a party that has to be opposed on individual issues. They are demonstrating that are following a mental methodology that consistently places them in opposition to reality. And reality is real, opposing it will hurt you.

Mary Ellen said...

There's a long way to go with this election. I don't think the polls will change that much by the time the Primary Elections come around. I think they will both be running neck and neck.

The point is, though, that the black vote will go Democrat in high numbers for the 2008 election no matter who our candidate is. I imagine the Republican party is working hard in trying to figure out how they can suppress the black vote during that election.

Hillary has decided that she won't let false information about her campaign be left unanswered. I think she has a few over-zealous workers in her camp that will need to be shut up.

The funny thing is, the Democrat party isn't all that upset over this row with the two candidates, but the Republicans can't stop talking about it. It's kind of funny how they are grasping at every straw they can get to try to make it look as if the Democratic party is in disarray. Desperate times for the Republicans.

I have no idea who I will vote for in the Primary (not sure if it will matter by the time Illinois votes), but I am watching Hillary and Obama very carefully. I still think there is a very good possibility at a Clinton/Obama or Obama/Clinton ticket in 2008. I think it will be an unbeatable ticket, if that is the case.

Mary Ellen said...

Violent Crime: Don't accept as a fact of reality that it is an act of will on the part of the criminal. Don't apprehend, prosecute, imprison, or where warranted execute the criminal. Instead attack innocent people, disarm them, and leave them helpless in the face of a growing population of violent criminals.

Ok...LMAO. Now, which administration saw fit to jail two border guards for shooting a guy that was smuggling drugs from Mexico? Oh...and while giving the smuggler immunity, he smuggled more drugs into the country without being prosecuted. Yeah...those Republicans, they don't have their collective heads up their asses, do they Leslie? :-D

Over the last three decades that I have observed the Democrats I have noticed that not only do they persistently take a wrong position on an issue, they will often do so as a simple mindless negation of the Republican position.

AGAIN..can't stop laughing! Oh my...Republicans on the right side, never takes the wrong position...can't stop laughing.

Let's see, we're hit by Bin Laden on 9/11 we go after Saddam. Bush says Bin Laden is our biggest threat...then he says he doesn't think about Bin Laden much. We start a war in Afghanistan, we pull troops before it is stable and put them in Iraq. We send troops without the proper equipment to war, then use them as photo ops when talking about the war. Then Bush cuts funding for the vets and gives the injured vets the worst conditions, and then...blame the troops for those bad hospital conditions.

Yeah....you guys don't have your heads up your asses, do ya Leslie?

My gosh, this was fun today, LA. Thanks. :-D

Mary Ellen said...

Here ya go, Leslie. This is how much your buddy Bush LOVES our troops. Read it and weep, baby.

Walter Reed patients told to keep quiet

By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Feb 27, 2007 22:09:20 EST

Soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s Medical Hold Unit say they have been told they will wake up at 6 a.m. every morning and have their rooms ready for inspection at 7 a.m., and that they must not speak to the media.

“Some soldiers believe this is a form of punishment for the trouble soldiers caused by talking to the media,” one Medical Hold Unit soldier said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

It is unusual for soldiers to have daily inspections after Basic Training.

Soldiers say their sergeant major gathered troops at 6 p.m. Monday to tell them they must follow their chain of command when asking for help with their medical evaluation paperwork, or when they spot mold, mice or other problems in their quarters.

They were also told they would be moving out of Building 18 to Building 14 within the next couple of weeks. Building 14 is a barracks that houses the administrative offices for the Medical Hold Unit and was renovated in 2006. It’s also located on the Walter Reed Campus, where reporters must be escorted by public affairs personnel. Building 18 is located just off campus and is easy to access.

The soldiers said they were also told their first sergeant has been relieved of duty, and that all of their platoon sergeants have been moved to other positions at Walter Reed. And 120 permanent-duty soldiers are expected to arrive by mid-March to take control of the Medical Hold Unit, the soldiers said.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Army public affairs did not respond to a request sent Sunday evening to verify the personnel changes.

The Pentagon also clamped down on media coverage of any and all Defense Department medical facilities, to include suspending planned projects by CNN and the Discovery Channel, saying in an e-mail to spokespeople: “It will be in most cases not appropriate to engage the media while this review takes place,” referring to an investigation of the problems at Walter Reed.


A great way to treat the guys who put their lives on the line for Bush's fiasco. I guess the guys that are missing limbs don't make such good photo-ops, eh?

LA Sunset said...

ME,

//The point is, though, that the black vote will go Democrat in high numbers for the 2008 election no matter who our candidate is.//

I think you will be surprised if there is a bloody primary campaign.

//I imagine the Republican party is working hard in trying to figure out how they can suppress the black vote during that election.//

Amazing. Not a credible shred of evidence to support this, just allegations. I wonder, did you hear about the local GOP's vehicles in Milwaukee that were supposed to be used to give the elderly rides to the polls, in 2004? Tires were slashed. How many Dems had theirs slashed?

//Hillary has decided that she won't let false information about her campaign be left unanswered. I think she has a few over-zealous workers in her camp that will need to be shut up.//

No doubt. The workers that called Geffen Obama's "campaign finance chairman" told a big whopper. All he did was hold a fundraiser. Something that Hillary has been doing for years now. That was a hit job, if I ever heard one.

Mary Ellen said...

I think you will be surprised if there is a bloody primary campaign.

No,I won't....the blacks have turned away from the Bush camp in droves. They are the people who have been hurt the most by his policies.

Hillary and Obama aren't going to come out of this primary election as enemies. They will each support the winner. I have no doubt about that. I know this is a disappointment for the Republicans who are hoping they will hurt the party, but it won't.

Oh...and actually their is evidence of the black vote being repressed. You just choose to ignore it. Google it...you'll find it.

Slashed tires? How about illegal phone slams in order to keep Democrats from making their get out the vote calls? I seem to remember a REPUBLICAN being arrested and found guilty of this. In our district, a bus that was supposed to take senior citizens to the polls in a highly Democrat section of town, had their bus vandalized and the engine was missing parts.

How about the stories of the blacks who went to vote and couldn't because their names were taken off the rolls? There are plenty of varifiable incidents of repression of the black vote. Remember the phone calls made to blacks that were threats of harm if they voted? Ot the calls they got that told them their voting area had been changed when indeed it had not? C'mon LA...face the truth.

LA Sunset said...

ME,

//Oh...and actually their is evidence of the black vote being repressed. You just choose to ignore it. Google it...you'll find it.//

Okay, I Googled it. This one was at the top of my search

Not exactly a credible source.

Look, I am not saying that dirty trick do not occur. They do. And both parties commit them. But some people do not recognize their own party's misdeeds, while accusing the other of them. Don't fall into that trap.

Mary Ellen said...

Here ya go,LA...black voters kept from the polls in 2000.

If Vice President Al Gore is wondering where his Florida votes went, rather than sift through a pile of chad, he might want to look at a "scrub list" of 173,000 names targeted to be knocked off the Florida voter registry by a division of the office of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. A close examination suggests thousands of voters may have lost their right to vote based on a flaw-ridden list that included purported "felons" provided by a private firm with tight Republican ties.

Early in the year, the company, ChoicePoint, gave Florida officials a list with the names of 8,000 ex-felons to "scrub" from their list of voters. But it turns out none on the list were guilty of felonies, only misdemeanors. The company acknowledged the error, and blamed it on the original source of the list -- the state of Texas.

Florida officials moved to put those falsely accused by Texas back on voter rolls before the election. Nevertheless, the large number of errors uncovered in individual counties suggests that thousands of eligible voters may have been turned away at the polls.

Florida is the only state that pays a private company that promises to "cleanse" voter rolls.The state signed in 1998 a $4 million contract with DBT Online, since merged into ChoicePoint, of Atlanta. The creation of the scrub list, called the central voter file, was mandated by a 1998 state voter fraud law, which followed a tumultuous year that saw Miami's mayor removed after voter fraud in the election, with dead people discovered to have cast ballots. The voter fraud law required all 67 counties to purge voter registries of duplicate registrations, deceased voters and felons, many of whom, but not all, are barred from voting in Florida.


There was also a lawsuit by the NAACP.

LA Sunset said...

ME,

//There was also a lawsuit by the NAACP.//

They didn't win, did they?

Did you forget about the Gore camp trying to suppress the overseas ballots mostly made up of military personnel?

Mary Ellen said...

LA

If I recall, there was a good settlement. NAACP got most of what they asked for. I can check on that if you like.

If I recall...the State Supreme Court in Florida wanted the re-count, but the Federal Supreme Court, who had no business making decisions for a state election, appointed Bush president. That says it all....corruption to the highest degree.

I did see an interview with the new governor of Florida who seemed to be sincere about working with Waxman in making sure there will be a paper trail with the voting machines in Florida before the 2008 elections. I'll believe it when I see it, but it does give me hope that there won't be such a mess there.

Military votes...well, I did read something about how those in the military in Iraq could not vote with a secret ballot. They had to give their ballots to their commanding officers. Many felt that if they voted Democrat, there would be reprisals. In fact, there were some that had said they were told to "re-think" their votes. Hmmm.....It's too bad they are fighting for freedom, when they didn't even have the right to vote freely themselves.

LA Sunset said...

ME,

//Military votes...well, I did read something about how those in the military in Iraq could not vote with a secret ballot. They had to give their ballots to their commanding officers. Many felt that if they voted Democrat, there would be reprisals. In fact, there were some that had said they were told to "re-think" their votes. Hmmm.....It's too bad they are fighting for freedom, when they didn't even have the right to vote freely themselves.//

Never heard of that allegation. The one I speak of is the 2000 election, during the recount.

Mary Ellen said...

It also doesn't look like the Pentagon is concerned about the war on terror since they are fixing their end to this war according to the election in 2008.

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/Pentagons_number_two_suggests_terror_war_0228.html

This administration only cares about elections and will use our military to achieve their goals. Now, what was that the Bush camp says about not having a date set to pull out of Iraq? It would embolden the enemy? Yet, if it will win the Republicans some votes....anything goes, especially their integrity.(OMG, what am I talking about? WHAT integrity?)

Mary Ellen said...

Ooops...forgot to TinyURL that link for my comment above. Here ya go...

http://tinyurl.com/26l8gj

Anonymous said...

As far as the "black vote", it's not like it used to be. I heard some commentators on CNN recently who seem pissed that Hillary feels she is "owed" the black vote. One guy says the Clintons owe the black community, not vice-versa.

Others resent the implication that they will vote with "their color."

Anyway, clearly, the black vote will go to the Democrats, but many blacks will vote Republican. And the Republicans don't need the black vote - look at 2004. It's kind of a non-issue, I guess.

M-E: thanks for bringing up the border guard case. LAS, you should do a post on that. Is there anybody in America - Republican or Democrat - who agrees with the justice dept. on that one? I think not.

Anonymous said...

Oh. And also about Obama, have you guys heard about the church he attends? Here's its website

http://www.tucc.org/about.htm

Can anyone tell me what the "black work ethic" is? I didn't know there were different work ethics by color. Same question for the "black value system." And what is "middleclassness" and what is wrong with it?

M-E, we need you to attend a service there and report back.

Mary Ellen said...

Greg

Yikes! 400 West 95th Street! I'd have to go through a rough neigborhood to get there. Let me check out the route, and I may just do that. Obama lives in Hyde Park..not too far from where my daughter used to live. But, in Hyde Park,if you go just a little bit too far south, you're dead meat.

I did go to an all black Evangelical Methodist Church once, it was wonderful! My son and I were the only whites there, save one guy in the chorus (just like on Forest Gump!)

Mary Ellen said...

Ok...have to run. Get back to ya'll later...Greg, I have some baseball stuff to talk to you about. Later.

Anonymous said...

Go Sox (white AND red)!

Leslie Bates said...

So President Bush is a mere human being and not a "Lord and God."

So what?

Even Diocletian, the fellow who first adopted the title of "Lord and God" knew that he couldn't run the whole show by himself. He had to delegate authority to subordinate officials.

And let's face it, subordinates screw up.

Christians (and Randroids like myself) do not need to deify their political leaders. So proving that President Bush is not an inerrant superior being is sort of like saying that water is wet.

So what?

(I would not be surprised that M.E. also believes in the Plastic Turkey of Baghdad.)

Mary Ellen said...

Leslie

You have to be one of the strangest people I have ever encountered on the internet. I don't mean that to be insulting...just can't figure out your lingo. I thought French was a pain in the ass to understand!

Plastic Turkey?

Randroid?

Not sure what Christianity has to do with this, either.

So...the reason Bush has screwed up every single thing he has ever done in his life is because he's only human? Give me a break!

Let's look at some of the people he "delegated" the work to...does "Heckuva job Brownie" mean anything to you? Who was that chick he wanted to nominate for the Supreme Court?

Let's look at his past...every company he ever worked for, he drove into the ground. Usually his daddy would pull him out of his messes, but this time, even big daddy can't help him. He didn't even have the balls to finish out his military duty. Just couldn't muster up the energy to go in for his physical (which probably would have shown he had drugs in his system) in order to continue flying.

The guy is a loser and he doesn't learn by his mistakes. Let's see...don't finish the job in Afghanistan, pull out some troops and attack Iraq...screw that up and move on to plans to attack Iran.

Bush isn't "just a human", he's a sub-human, and a corrupt one at that.

I'll give you this....I've never heard the excuse that "he's only human" for his failed presidency. That's a good one! Thanks for the never ending laughs, Leslie!

Leslie Bates said...

One simply cannot argue with a raving lunatic.

There's no point in debating a leftist on individual issues because their overall epistomological methodology for all effects and purposes reverses the relationship between reality and fantasy. This leads to their well documented habit of systematically reversing good and evil.

And while there are many grounds for complaint on the part of the Right (the refusal to prosecute the participants in the Waco Massacre), we could hardly call the Bush Administration a failure.

And it is no suprise that a leftist would openly label someone who opposed them as "sub-human."

Members of the Left, like many pre-literate barbarians before them, are essentially moral and material parasites. They must reject the society of consent and seek power over those who can perform the work that sustains their lives. This drives them to see other persons as either tools they can use to further their own goals, or as organic waste to be disposed of.

So when a leftist declares someone to be "sub-human", that is in practice a precursor to the murder of that person.

The mass graves that are constantly being dug up in nations where the Left has obtained unrestrained power serve as the unrefutable of this fact.

So when I see a leftist bumper sticker on a car, the first thought that comes to my mind is "murderer."

If I have a complaint about the Right it is that we have shown infinite GOD-LIKE patience with the behavior of the Left.

Leftists can publically assault those who won't submit to them. Destroy property. And even call for the mutilation ("Lobotomies for Republicans") of opponents, and the murder of elected officials who are carrying out their constitutionally mandated duties, and we will not lift one finger to hurt hair on the otherwise useless head of a leftist.

I once told an editor that I worked for that we need not retorically dehumanise our opponents, all we have to do is accurrately describe their ideology and behavior because they have by their own chioce dehumanised themselves.

I have to go to work now.

Mary Ellen said...

OK Leslie,

Let's look at your comment. You call ME a raving lunatic?!?

I referred Bush as sub-human. Not you, not those on the right. However, you saw fit to call anyone who disagrees with you a raving lunatic, immoral, murderer, and a pre-literate barbarian.

You also said,
Leftists can publically assault those who won't submit to them. Destroy property. And even call for the mutilation ("Lobotomies for Republicans") of opponents, and the murder of elected officials who are carrying out their constitutionally mandated duties, and we will not lift one finger to hurt hair on the otherwise useless head of a leftist.


Ummm....who is the one doing the "public assaulting", Leslie?

I don't mind debating government or policy. I will refer to those who follow Bush as "right wingers", but I don't call those who follow him the things you have called those who are liberal.

Really, Leslie, the comment that you made is so unlike the type of comments that are usually on this blog. I may disagree on many things that are said on this blog, but I don't try and dirty up LA's blog with such commentary as you just put forth. Maybe you should grow up a little bit and try using intelligent debate, instead of childish, low-level insults. It's difficult to take anything you say seriously when you don't show the social skills necessary in a serious debate.

Grow up, dear.