In the latest Rasmussen poll, just 22% of Democrats feel Clinton should drop out. That may seem like a high number...that is until you look at the number of Democrats who want Obama to drop out: 22%. That's right---it's a tie. So, before everyone goes on another crusade, signing petitions and the such telling Clinton to get out, maybe I should do the same for Obama. After all, Democrats want him to drop out just as much as they do Clinton. But you know what? I'm not going to do that and no one should. Let's let the Democratic voters decide. There are still 10 contests left and the issue with Florida and Michigan to be resolved.
A second interesting tidbit comes to us from Gallup and it is the number of Democrats who wouldn't vote for the other candidate should theirs not get the nomination. Remember when Obama claimed he would get Clinton supporters, but she couldn't get his. Not so says the voters. An astounding 28% of Clinton supporters say they would not support Obama. Even more disturbing, they say that instead of just staying home, which is damaging enough, they would vote for McCain. To compare, just 19% (still a lot, I know) would not support Clinton.
The point of this post: let's throw conventional wisdom out the window. The media and Obama supporters want to push Clinton out the race and silence the voters in the upcoming states as well as Florida and Michigan. They want the clouds to open up, angels to sing, and a voice from above to anoint Obama the nominee. The voters think differently, however. So let me ask everyone out there: who should decide our next President----the voters, or Obama supporters and the media? I would hope the answer is clear. If not, we have a bigger problem then just a prolonged nominating campaign; we have the destruction of democracy itself.
4 comments :
Very interesting numbers. It supports the common sense point of view. Let the people decide. Enough said.
The Clinton Campaign Embraces the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy to Launch Attacks on Obama
March 27, 2008
It's hard to feel so betrayed.
After ferociously defending the Clintons in the '90s against the vast right wing conspiracy, we have seen them embrace the dangerous anti-democracy conspirators in order to attack Barack Obama. Time and time again, since 2000 Senator Hillary Clinton has sought out and used the very people who we defended her against -- and the evidence is damning.
One of the first overtures Senator Clinton made was to Rupert Murdoch, owner and creator of FOX News. Murdoch threw a fundraiser for her early on in her Senate foray and Clinton pursued a rapprochment with him with vigor.
In the 2008 campaign, the Clinton embrace of the right wing conspiracy who we fought a pitched battle with in the '90s has been relentless -- and all with one goal in mind, to find common cause with them to attack Barack Obama. This is beyond shameful; it is a Shakespearean betrayal, something out of Othello or MacBeth.
BuzzFlash was the first Internet site, as far as we know, to point out the significance of where Senator Clinton tried to tamp down her Bosnia "sniper fire attack" lie (spoken on at least four occasions) with a one-week belated personal blast at Rev. Jeremiah Joyce and Obama. What is most revealing is not the diversionary strategy, but that she did this at an editorial meeting at the Pittsburgh Star-Review. The Star-Review is owned by the infamous Richard Mellon Scaife, who was the largest financial backer of the infamous "Arkansas Project" that was the privately funded precursor to the Ken Starr impeachment efforts against Bill Clinton.
Subsequent photographs appear to show that Richard Mellon Scaife was seated next to Senator Clinton during the Tuesday editorial board session in which Clinton attempted to divert attention from her Bosnia whopper. It wasn't the first Clinton family rapprochment with Scaife. Bill Clinton had lunch with him a few months back, clearly as a way of attempting to woo him for Hillary's race in Pennsylvania and raise money for his library foundation (another "unvetted" list of contributors that is a a potential minefield of conflicts of interest).
A lot of us shed a lot of sweat taking on Scaife as he poured money into the "Arkansas Project" in the early '90s, most notably coming up with "Troopergate" and Paula Jones. The Scaife-backed initiative was led by a long-time right wing rag known as the "American Spectator." Ted Olson was a key figure on the board who provided "oversight" (eventually there was a falling out over alleged financial improprieties on the part of the Spectator staff), while David Brock, before his political conversion, wrote hit jobs on the Clintons for the Spectator. It cannot be diminished as to the important impact that Scaife's financing and the "American Spectator" had on keeping trumped up allegations against the Clintons simmering until Jesse Helms was able to get Starr placed into the Independent Counsel's position.
You'd think that the Clintons would honor those who defended them by continuing to reject the tactics that nearly brought them down, and against which we all railed. But the noted and deeply respected journalist James Fallows penned a disgusted article the other day condemning the Hillary Clinton campaign for distributing an "American Spectator" hit job on Obama to the media to try and dirty up the Senator from Illinois. That's right, the Hillary Clinton for President Campaign in two days used the financier and trash paper of the right wing conspiracy that pursued them in the '90s against Hillary's Democratic primary opponent -- and used them not against the right wing or McCain, but against a fellow Democrat.
Fallows denounces the malodorous stench of hypocrisy. The Clintons seemingly want us to defend them against the vast right wing conspiracy, while they use their former foes to dirty up Barack Obama: "But if, as I assume is true based on Marc Ambinder's report, the Hillary Clinton campaign is circulating a hit job from the American Spectator, this is simply disgusting. (Marc has just confirmed to me that indeed the article came in an on-the-record email from Phil Singer, the Clinton campaign spokesman.)" This is what Fallows concluded.
That the Clinton family would dignify the "American Spectator," of all publications, is astonishing to anyone who was alive in the 1990s. That Hillary Clinton would team up with Richard Mellon Scaife and his vanity newspaper in Pittsburgh to besmirch Obama in order to put out the growing damage generated by the exposure of her Bosnia "fairy tale" is unforgivable.
But there is more insidious use of the "right wing conspiracy" to enhance Hillary Clinton's candidacy. Most BuzzFlash readers are aware that Clinton has received thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of Republican votes, in Texas and Ohio as a result of a Rush Limbaugh "chaos" strategy to have her nominated because she would be easier for the Republicans to beat -- and she would turn out GOP voters in the Novembe election to cast ballots "down ticket" for Republicans running for Congress, the Senate, State, City and County positions. Well, the day of the primary voting in Texas who should appear on the Rush Limbaugh Show (albeit with a guest host) but Bill Clinton.
And let us not forget about how BuzzFlash documented the liaison relationship that the Hillary Clinton campaign had develeoped with the infamous Drudge Report (you know Matt, who leaked, among other Ken Starr tidbits, the semen-stained blue dress story during the impeachment period). And it was to Drudge that someone from the Clinton Campaign's staff or consultants leaked the photo image of Barack Obama in traditional African garb.
It's hard for many of the current supporters of the Hillary Clinton campaign who bonded strongly, as we did, in the '90s to realize how they have sold us out by using the right wing conspiracy megaphone to smear fellow Democrats. Many Clinton advocates still are of the mindset that the Clintons are being relentlessly pursued by the Scaifes of the world.
Yes, the die-hard, rabid Hillary haters are out there in the media, but instead of raising the campaign to a level where we could define a new "frame" for battling with them, the Clinton campaign has joined forces with many of those key people that they ask us to defend them from.
That is a betrayal of the basest kind.
We, for one, will not defend those who mobilize the vast right wing conspiracy when it suits their personal goals.
We are progressives. We are Democrats. We believe in decency and integrity.
You won't find us bailing ourselves out by teaming up against "the black man" with Richard Mellon Scaife, or the "American Spectator," or Rush Limbaugh.
But the Clinton campaign will, and then ask us to defend them from the very same people.
Maybe a sucker is born every minute, but we're not going to be one of them.
BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG
Hillary needs to keep her race baiting campaign alive. It'll kill any chance she has of EVER being president. ......v
No apparent ‘Wright effect’ in new NBC/WSJ poll
By: Steve Benen @ 5:30 AM - PDT
The conventional wisdom held that the recent controversy surrounding Jeremiah Wright would help drag one Democratic presidential hopeful down, at least a little while helping push the other up. As it turns out, according to a new poll from NBC News/Wall Street Journal, that’s exactly what happened — though the candidate that was supposed to go down went up.
The racially charged debate over Barack Obama’s relationship with his longtime pastor hasn’t much changed his close contest against Hillary Clinton, or hurt him against Republican nominee-in-waiting John McCain, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.
Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who conducts the Journal/NBC polls with Republican pollster Bill McInturff, called the latest poll a “myth-buster” that showed the pastor controversy is “not the beginning of the end for the Obama campaign.”
But both Democrats, and especially New York’s Sen. Clinton, are showing wounds from their prolonged and increasingly bitter nomination contest, which could weaken the ultimate nominee for the general-election showdown against Sen. McCain of Arizona. Even among women, who are the base of Sen. Clinton’s support, she now is viewed negatively by more voters than positively for the first time in a Journal/NBC poll.
Indeed, the poll results aren’t encouraging for the Clinton camp. While she had a four-point lead over Obama among Dems two weeks ago, she and Obama are now tied at 45%. In hypothetical general-election match-ups, Obama now leads McCain by two (44% to 42%), while McCain leads Clinton by two (46% to 44%). The Wright controversy was supposed to drive white Dems to Clinton in larger numbers, but her margin actually shrank in recent weeks, from 12 points to eight.
But it’s the personal impressions of Clinton that should be of the greatest concern. It appears, based on the data, that the tone of the nominating fight is taking its toll.
^
You can't fling sh*t without getting some on yourself!! :-)
^2 points:
1) What race bating? What about Jeremiah Wright is race bating. His mouth spews forth hate as readily as Barack Obama spews forth the word change. It's hate speech, not race, that offends me and millions of America.
2) I love how everyone says that Hillary is doomed because of her low approval rating. Okay, fair enough, but answer me this: What does it say about Obama that Hillary has such a low approval rating and he still can't do better then tie her? It's pretty pathetic if you ask me.
And a third point, I ran into a woman today, a "Reagan-Democrat" if you will. She supported Democrats in just about every election her entire life. She made it clear, however, that in no way will she vote for Obama after this Wright thing. I'm telling you, it's damaging.
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