More oh-eight (D): The super fight
Posted: Monday, February 11, 2008 9:03 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
Democrats
On superdelegates, the New York Daily News writes, “Think of them as the Democrats' House of Lords, or maybe just the modern-day sachems of Tammany Hall. They include every Democratic governor and member of Congress, assorted union chiefs, political operatives and even former President Bill Clinton (though not Michelle Obama).”
The candidates are wooing them hard.
Every delegate counts… “With Clinton running neck and neck with Sen. Barack Obama in delegates, the race could be affected by whether party officials allow any delegates to be seated from Florida and Michigan.”
OBAMA: Why hasn't more been made of Colin Powell's apparent openness to support Obama, even over his good friend John McCain? Of course, does Obama want the support of someone from the Bush Administration who pushed the Iraq war during the primaries? This may be an endorsement he hopes he gets AFTER he's the nominee. "Even as Bush said he'd help McCain if he won the Republican nomination, the president's former secretary of State, Gen. Colin L. Powell, said in a separate interview that he was open to voting for a Democrat for president. Powell, a Republican, praised Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. ‘I think he's been an exciting person on the political stage,’ Powell said on CNN's ‘Late Edition.’ ‘He has energized a lot of people in America; he has energized a lot of people around the world.’”
“Powell backed Obama's proposal to open talks with Iran -- a key difference with Obama's opponent, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton -- saying it was important to engage with leaders of states in conflict with U.S. policies. ‘You have to talk to folks that you may not necessarily like, and you can't put down impossible preconditions for conversations,’ said Powell in a clear reference to Clinton, who has said she would not open discussions with antagonists without ground rules."
Paul Krugman really, really, really doesn’t like Barack Obama -- or his supporters.
Bloomberg News takes a closer look at Obama's mother Ann Dunham.
The New York Times’ Roger Cohen looks at the problems Obama's facing in the Jewish community. "The attacks, mainly anonymous e-mails, have woven together various threads -- his middle name ‘Hussein;’ schooling in Muslim Indonesia; his Chicago pastor’s embrace of the anti-Semitic leader of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan; and his calls for dialogue with Iran -- to portray Obama as the Muslim Manchurian candidate. Leading American Jewish organizations have denounced these ‘hateful e-mails.’ Obama has condemned Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism and made clear he disagrees with his pastor, the Rev. Jerermiah A. Wright Jr., whose magazine honored Farrakhan last year. But he’s not broken with Wright, the man who ushered him to his Christian faith.”
“Some doubts clearly persist among U.S. Jews, who account for just 2 percent of the population but a higher percentage of voters, and one with wide influence. On a recent four-day trip to Florida, David Harris, the executive director of the nonpartisan American Jewish Committee, encountered the following questions: Did Obama really attend a madrassa? What are his relations with Wright? Why does he have former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski (viewed as cool toward Israel) on his foreign policy team?"
The New York Times’ Bill Kristol foresees some Obama momentum and then adds his guess as to how Obama seals the deal: "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."
