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First Read is an analysis of the day's political news, from the NBC News political unit. First Read is updated throughout the day, so check back often.

Chuck Todd, NBC Political Director

Mark Murray, NBC Deputy Political Director

Domenico Montanaro, NBC News Political Reporter



Stretching Obama's coattails

Posted: Thursday, June 19, 2008 2:42 PM by Domenico Montanaro

From NBC's Domenico Montanaro
Obama has cut a radio ad for centrist Rep. John Barrow, Talking Points Memo reports. Barrow's Georgia seat has been one of the most hotly contested in the country.

TPM writes, "Barrow is loathed by the Netroots, and not without cause: During his 2006 reelection campaign he ran an ad saying that 'we can't cut and run' from Iraq. And he was one of the House Dems who sent a letter to Nancy Pelosi demanding that they be permitted to vote for the recent Senate bill giving amnesty to the telecoms. ... the Netroots are backing a primary challenger to Barrow, State Senator Regina Thomas, and Obama's ad is a blow to their efforts." (TPM also posts audio of the ad.)

It's an example of the tenuous balance Obama has to strike as he tries to expand alliances. As he tries to appeal to those swing voters -- centrists and independents -- he runs the risk of alienating the liberal base in the process. What's also interesting about running the ad for Barrow is that some Democrats in swing districts have tried to actually distance themselves from Obama, including Reps. Dan Boren and Tim Mahoney (who took over for page Instant Message flirter Mark Foley).

Rep. Jim Marshall, also in a perennially contested seat in Georgia, said he may not attend the Democratic National Convention, since he wouldn't be needed to decide the nominee. He has not publicly endorsed Obama.

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Comments

Obama's coattails?!? Those are some pretty short coattails, somewhere up around his neck.
Rep. Boren is becoming another Lieberman in my opinion.  He can expect to be ignored by a lot of his constituents in the future.  His position that Rep. Kucinich's move to impeach Bush was just a political season stunt.  I see it as historically necessary.  Bush and Cheney should both have been impeached.  Boren will never get a vote from me.
So how will Obama try to expand his allience with me?
Get OVER IT
We can't be that pure
If a centrist Democrat can win in Georgia, so be it

Let's NOT fight among ourselves
We NEED to pick up House and Senate seats
Senate expecially to become 'filibuster proof'

It's a good sign that a centrist wants Obama's support in the South

Obama/Edwards '08
Why not the BEST ?
Obama is a lot of things, but one thing he ain't is a centrist. Barack must be depending on the love affair that the left wing loons of this country have with him that will cause them to ignore him cozying up to the sane people in the middle. This move is actually the height of satire seeing the pacifist Obama disagrees with about 98% of what Barrow stands for.
Hopefully, he will endore Obama!  This may influence other southerners to vote BARACK in November!!

** 20% JULY BLOW-OUT SALE on Barack Obama products $8.99 & Up ( up to 80% Off). Use this coupon at this Obama Store.
http://www.MyObamaStore.com
Coupon - Obama20Now (20% OFF)

THIS is the OUTRAGE !!!

'...allow a federal district court to decide whether to provide retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies being sued for their role in the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program...'

WHAT IS WRONG with the Democrats ???


From DailyKOS:

'...FISA Fight: Capitulation Reached
by mcjoan
Thu Jun 19, 2008 at 08:55:06 AM PDT

Hoyer has a done deal, according to CQ.com

A final deal has been reached on a rewrite of electronic surveillance rules and will be announced Thursday, two congressional aides said.

The aides said the House is likely to take up the legislation Friday....

As of Wednesday, sources said the new bill would allow a federal district court to decide whether to provide retroactive legal immunity to telecommunications companies being sued for their role in the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program....One source said the federal district court deciding on retroactive immunity would review whether there was "substantial evidence" the companies had received assurances from the government that the administration’s program was legal.
That means, of course, de facto amnesty for the telcos. The federal district court would not be deciding on the legality of the program, they would be limited to determining if the White House showed the telcos a piece of paper saying that the warrantless program was legal enough--which we already know. They're going to try to justify it with that "substantial evidence" business, as if defining that piece of paper as "substantial" somehow makes the fact that they are directing the court to make its decision, regardless of the law, not a travesty.


Call Barack Obama and urge him to make a public statement reiterating his opposition to telco amnesty. His opposition could kill this deal: Phone  (202) 224-2854, Fax (202) 228-4260


Call Steny Hoyer and tell him this is a bad deal: Phone (202) 225-4131, Fax (202) 225-4300


Call Nancy Pelosi and urge her to pull the bill from the House schedule:  Phone (202) 225-4965, Fax (202) 225-8259


Call your representative and tell them to vote no on the FISA rewrite tomorrow...'


Is this STUPID or WHAT ??


Check again FR, this has to be someones idea of a joke. Obama playing up to someone that supports victory in the war against terrorists? Obama has done nothing to support that effort, and now he supports someone that does? Absurd move at best. Obama has shown a real disrespect for his supporters and his roots with this ad.
Hey McBearstearns: McMayday needs another bailout - this time it's his campaign that's going down.

An excellent nickname for the decrepit ancient panderer!  I wish I'd thought of it.

I'm really enjoying the parallels between "War Lover" McCain's unlucky and incompetent combat record and his unlucky and incompetent record of running for president.  Him getting whacked by friendly fire in the 2000 primary is just like his getting flamed in a jet on the Forrestal by a friendly missile accident.  His first run now in the general election is like his first real combat flight in that he got shot down over Hanoi and now he's getting shot down over Washington.  In early November McMayday will be crying Mayday as his campaign comes crashing down.

I find it poetic justice that over 400 Wall Street terrorists are being investigated and arrested for their part in the subprime mortgage crisis.  I say send all those Wall Street terrorists to Gitmo without any habeus corpus.  Let them rot in jail until they die!

Go Obama 08/12!
MSNBC you know what we loved about Tim Russet is the following

He was down to earth

He throughly RESEARCHED the subject and had a keen insight into politics and politicians

He always did his homework

Tim's agenda was to bring out the FACTS

His was not a GOTCHA journalism.

Tim did not try to filter or slant information to promote some political ideological agenda

Whatever Tim's opinions were that was not what he was about

TIm was there to SERVE the PUBLIC by bringing out the facts, a world where SPIN is the usual name of the game

Tim cared not only about the issues of the Day but about us, the audience

Tim was never about attacking people but rather getting to the heart of what the interviewee believed based on what THEY said

Tim's was an HONEST ATTEMPT at clarafication, which is so often lost in these days of SOUND BITES

SO, MSNBC, please follow in Tim's foot-steps and stop printing STUFF, just the facts, just the facts

Get to the truth before you print this stuff
Barrow is much closer politically to McCain then he is to Obama. Many of these centrist Democrats are scared to death of Obama being in the White House. They know they'll have to either break from liberal Obama, or more then likely lose their seats to the Republicans in the 2010 election.
he is a democrat and we must maintain our seats as well as take some away from the republicans in order to have a working majority. dems must stick together. those from the south like rep. boren, mahoney and marshall, are dixiecrats.
Obama knows what he is doing and the type of coalition needed to take back the White House.
Only a foolish Democrat would run from Barack Obama in the general election.  I guess they haven't seen that Obama has helped 3 Democrats win in republican districts.

Don't underestimate us liberals as far as Barack running towards the center for the general election.  We are smart enough to know that it's the smart play for Barack and we're not so dogged about our liberal leanings that we'll be mad at him for appealing to moderates, unlike the conservative lunatic fringe.

Go Obama 08/12!
This move by Obama is laughable. True sign of deperation. Obama has talked about moving towards the middle, but that's all it is, just talk. Every single vote he has ever taken as a state and US senator has been as an ounce of brains, and I know this excludes most liberals, knows this is just more smoke and mirrors from Barack.
Centrist Democrats see the writing on the wall. If Obama wins in Novemeber, many of them may just switch parties. No way they can keep their seats as Democrats if they are led around by Obama.
The netroots movement is literally taking over the Democratic party little by little, and Obama should be very careful not to step on their toes. It is a fine line to walk when you have to cater to all sides of the movement.

http://www.politivine.com
Obama will have coattails all right. For Republicans!
Senator Obama sure is busy.  His campaign is like a well-oiled machine--just humming along!  Yes, sir, he has my vote!
Possibly the most confusing story of the day.

umm....what??
As if Obama couldn't become a bigger joke, now we have this. Halloween isn't until October Barack. You can dress up as a centrist then.
Why is there no coverage of the atrocities the Bush administration has carried out against the detainees?

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/41514.html
Just in case people are wondering what a centrist rep is - it's a conservative democrat...whatever that means.

Any way - if you haven't yet go to the TMP site and listen to the ad.  You will see it is not has harmful as this article makes it seem.

So, I am not sure what this article is suppose to do ? Barack Obama is a smart man unlike John McCain so any decision will be questioned by ANYONE that continues to look for flaws or some sort of "catch ya" statement.

I am so glad we are much smarter this time around than the years of 2000 and 2004.  

Some day all the players of the Media will be the same.

Thank you and GOD BLESS AMERICA


Obama's liberal base isn't going anywhere. We drank the kool-aide a long time ago. Barack could read Ronald Reagan speeches, and we'd still vote for him.

Obama 08/12
I support Obama, no matter what!
First Read: Where's the headline about Obama's discussion with the Iraqi minister?  How could it be that the "great communicator" could have been so misunderstood by the minister?  Whose the liar--the Iraqi minister or Obama?  
This refers to the earlier thread on Public Financing:

Clara in Missouri said:
I think the $3 check box for Presidential elections should be abolished and a more important use of the check box would be to standardize federal elections in all 50-states.  This idea that one states' lack of preparedness or attention to detail can derail the 'will of the people' for days, weeks or months is an ongoing concern.  Public Financing is occurring, by virtue of the fact that individual's make contributions.  Maybe a better litmus would be to segregate individual contributions to presidential campaigns versus corporate or lobbyist contributions.  I don't have the answers; but it is an understatement to say the existing system is broken.  A "Clean House" approach should happen on a lot of these public policy topics.  A harsh review needs to ask the fundamental question, "Who does this policy serve?"  If time and again the answer is 'the candidate' or 'congress' we should revamp it.

*******************
Clara, it bore repeating.  I couldn't agree more.

Obama supports middle-of-the-roaders? Uhh, sure. Just went back and checked Obamas voting record. No sign of any of the middle-of-the-road votes.
The dems who run from obama will be coming from some of the poorest and least educated congressional districts in the country..in other wordsm bush country
Internal polling must be showing a real break from Obama as America learns more and more about his politics. You can dress Obama up as a moderate, but there is just no way any one will ever buy it. Americans are just not that stupid.
Not sure I agree with this move, but I still support Barack Obama and trust he knows what he's doing ... and that this won't turn off some of his supporters.

And who cares that Jim Marshall won't attend the convention, anyway???!!!

OBAMA '08 & '12
"Then I ghost wrote a book, and made millions of dollars for doing essentially no work, just like ever other American does.
BHO - Chicago (Sent Thursday, June 19, 2008 1:02 PM)"

Where can *I* get one of those jobs?!?  :-)

Got this from HuffPo this morning - it's about office speak but I can hear candidates saying these too.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7457287.stm
Looks like Obama is about 90% of the news again today. That's the same thing Clinton (Bill) used to do. Make the news each and every day, and it doesn't matter if it's good or bad news. Nice to see that some things don't change, even from the candidate of Change.
Some of you regulars may notice that I have been posting direct responses to posts from some of our right wing regulars like Jerry, kenn, nobama and others. They post a claim that Obama is a terrorist or his wife is a radical or he has no experience and other fear mongering and nonsense.
I have posted there comments and asked direct questions for them to clarify there remarks with any type of factual evidence to back it up.
I have had no responses at all.
I just wanted to point out how ignorance and cowardice go hand in hand. It must be awful to be so completely brainwashed that you will repeat right wing sound bytes over and over again and not even know where your information came from and what facts there are to back it up.
I did alot of research before deciding that I would throw my support behind Obama. I combed through his state and U.S. senate voting record. I researched his service record as a community organizer, his education and I read his books.
I have also looked into McCain's backround extensively. I find it sad that I can't have an honest debate over policy differences with 99% of McCain's supporters because they have no idea what those policy differences actually are. All they know is the same old tired lies and rumors. They can only speak in threatening terms and try to scare and bully others into seeing things there way. The sad part is that they don't actually know what there way is.
It makes me wonder...
If there was more of am emphasis on teaching civics in American classrooms, would there even be a republican party?
So lets see if we have this straight. Obama, a liberal is supporting Barrow, a centrist, who is being run against by a liberal group Netroots who more then likely support Obama, who is a liberal. So Obama disagrees with Netroots, who supports him, but not the incumbent, Barrow, who Obama supports.

Isn't liberal politics fun? This is why conservatives don't need to worry about Obama as president. The Democrats will spend most of their time fighting with each other.
If I'm Obama... I remember Jim Marshall.  Dude doesn't have the spine to back the Dem nominee at this juncture... paint him as a McCain cronie.
EDITOR ALERT!

Of note, Obama is not {{adverising}} in the NBC lean states Minnesota, Washington, Oregon, New Jersey, or Maine.

FORGET SOMETHING?  Like a "T" perhaps?
Can you please give me some backgound on the 14+ Republicans who are not backing McCain aside from Colin Powell and Chuck Hagel and Former Sec of Defense.  Has Cheny or Condi Rice?

Just curious since you seem to be so up on who is not backing Obama.  I'm sure you haved the other details.
There is no way that most candidates can pull everyone along.  There are few examples of when this happened like Reagan.  

Obama must be able to show that he can reach across the isle and not be a polizing figure.  Clinton is a major polizing figure; most people either love her or hate her.  A similar situation will happen with Obama.  Not everyone will like how he makes his policy decisions.  


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