A New Day Post

Just in case anyone doesn’t understand why the Obama campaign’s courting of the Clintons, in the name of democratic unity, is such a delicate undertaking there is this.

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             In what is being widely acclaimed as a gracious and effective concession speech, Hillary Clinton suspended her campaign and endorsed Sen. Obama, on Saturday. In the most telling words of her speech Sen. Clinton said, “You will always find me on the frontlines of democracy”. The frontline for Hillary, has for sixteen months, been the fight for her own candidacy; now she is trying to explain to her supporters that the general election is the new frontline, and Obama the best hope for progress for the issues that she has fought for all these years.

            Hillary Clinton is a good senator and a historic candidate. There are those things that she holds sole responsibility for. It was she who recalled sniper fire in Bosnia; it was she who seemed to diminish the accomplishments Martin Luther King; it was she who trusted George W. Bush on Iraq. These things played a role, but much of what has been so widely criticized about her campaign, in deed much of what led to its downfall, was not of her doing. Her advisers, particularly Mark Penn, gave her terrible advice. Her husband at times lots his temper at any challenge on the extent of his administrations accomplishments or more often stole the show when the focus should have been on the Clinton who was running for the highest office. (President, not God)  

            Perhaps it is not the best thing for women’s equality that the first woman president also be the wife of the former Commander-n-Chief. Perhaps it is not wise to run as the inevitable incumbent nominee in a “change election” when the sitting president is the most unpopular in generations. Perhaps a big state strategy doesn’t make a lot of since when the democratic primary contest is won on delegates that are distributed proportionally. These are the flaws that have undone the campaign, but they are not Sen. Clinton’s alone, and they are not reflections of a bad candidate, or a bad legislator.   

            Saturday’s concession speech was that of a woman who knows that her political future is still promising. Describing the impact of her campaign on women around the nation she said that while she had not broken the highest of glass ceilings she had put eighteen million cracks in it, referring to her number of votes. As Barack Obama said in his victory speech this past Tuesday, when our nation finally secures healthcare for all of its citizens, Hillary Clinton’s name will be on that project.

            The coming opportunity to achieve universal healthcare along with so many other progressive initiatives has called Clinton to this moment. In pointing to the fact that democrats have only won three out of the last ten elections she urged her supporters to seize the moment and win back the White House for the Democratic Party. And in her concession speech she not only endorsed Obama but even implied that the whole Clinton family was standing with her. Back in January in South Carolina at a campaign event for his wife, Bill Clinton spoke with me about how he hoped he might get a chance to vote for Obama someday, now they both will get their chance.

Go to A New Day Post’s coverage of the General Election

This story is also up at the Global Report

           It was announced on Wednesday that Caroline Kennedy, Daughter of J.F.K., will be one of three people who are heading up the search for Obama’s VP. This reminded me that when G.W.B. was the republican “presumptive nominee’ back in 2000, he put former Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney in charge of finding a VP, he would of course eventually suggest himself.

            Despite the buzz, Hillary Clinton seems a very unlikely choice because of Bill Clinton if for no other reason. As big of a figure as Obama is, even he could find himself being overshadowed by the former president, whose political judgment seems to be past it’s prime, and who has shown himself this primary season to be impossible for even his wife to control.

            Look for someone with executive experience, so a governor is better than a legislator, since being governor is like being the president of your state. When you’re running against John McCain having someone with military experience could sure help. Also given Hillary Clinton’s historic campaign and the left over rifts in the “traditional democratic alliance”, maybe Obama should consider a Woman for VP. Also the Obama team has to think about swing states, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Colorado, someone from these states could tip the election his way. Along with all of that you have to think about the well healed notion of a balanced ticket, so if you are from Chicago (/Hawaii/Indonesia/Kenya/Kansas) then having a southerner would make a lot of since.  Now it might be true that no single person can satisfy all of those needs but you can be sure whoever is chosen will address some of these issues.

            Here are the names I would look at: Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, who was the Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan, Gen. Wesley Clark, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, or perhaps Clinton supporter Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh who is the former Indian Gov. Rounding out the conventional wisdoms short list are Former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn, former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, and Penn Gov. Ed Rendell who also supported Clinton.

            Then there are those  who are less likely but who are my personal dream picks: former Sen. minority leader South Dakota’s Tom Daschle, who served three years as an intelligence officer in the Air Force Strategic Air Command, or the Senator from Delaware Joe Biden. But maybe the most interesting option, the anti-war retiring republican Senator from Nebraska, Chuck Hagel who is a Vietnam War veteran.

According to numerous reports Hillary Clinton will end her campaign on Friday, almost four full days after her rival secured the nomination.

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 Tim Russert said Tuesday night on MSNBC that, “a very close adviser to Hillary Clinton” has told him that “she wants to the vice president”. This disclosure is practically a clear signal to Obama’s team. However before anyone should consider the so-called dream ticket coming true one huge factor must somehow be mitigated, that factor the former president. In what might be a sign that the Clinton campaign understands this and is taking steps to address it, Bill Clinton is going back to work for his foundation at his office in Harlem, according to Russert. Go to A New Day Post’s coverage of the General Election

Here’s the introduction to “The Comeback Id”

“Old friends and longtime aides are wringing their hands over Bill Clinton’s post–White House escapades, from the dubious (and secretive) business associations to the media blowups that have bruised his wife’s campaign, to the private-jetting around with a skirt-chasing, scandal-tinged posse. Some point to Clinton’s medical traumas; others blame sheer selfishness, and the absence of anyone who can say “no.” Exploring Clintonworld, the author asks if the former president will be consumed by his own worst self.”

Read the full article here

Read about my brief conversation with Clinton in the run up to the South Carolina primary

Go to A New Day Post’s coverage of the Democratic Primary race

I suppose that it is to be expected that in a race with the “it depends on what the meaning of the word is is” Clintons, we would get into having to define some of these terms that get thrown around.

Elite it seems can mean anything, and the wife of the former leader of the free world can use it against a man she who only weeks earlier she said was to inexperienced to be commander in chief. Now Stephen Colbert helps us out with what the definition of the word electability is.

Go to A New Day Post’s coverage of the Democratic Primary Race

            On April 6th, while speaking to a group in San Francisco, Obama made comment about the tendency of working class rural voters to distrust Washington to such a point that their political allegiances tend to be formed on the social issues, religious values, or the 2^nd amendment, rather than on economics. The result of this phenomenon is that struggling white families in the rust belt, or in the south, often vote against their own economic self-interest.  This is how people with no savings, who live pay check, end up siding with those who want to give tax cuts to the wealthiest people in our nation, even as homes are foreclosed on and children go with out health care.  

            The former first lady, who ran as the inevitable candidate all summer, is now calling the Obama an “out-of-touch elitist” over these comments, though her campaign is simultaneously arguing that her major attributes when compared to Obama are her experience in the White House and that she was a known quality among party insiders. What’s more she has been for sometime arguing that her candidacy remains viable because of the Hail Mary strategy of having super delegates (party bosses) overturn the will of the common people and install her as the nominee. This ‘Obama is an elitist’ argument is being circulated even as resent reports show that she and her husband have made over a hundred million dollars since leaving the White House less than 8 years ago. Now it is Obama who is out of touch with ordinary working people?

            Just as an example of the two candidate’s respective timelines; In 1979 Hillary Rodham-Clinton was the first lady of Arkansas while Barack Obama was a senior in high school in Hawaii. Then in 1986, while married to the next democratic president, Clinton was sitting on the board of Wal-Mart, one of the world largest and most notorious corporations, while Obama worked as a community organizer and prepared to go to law school. Later in 1991 Obama graduated from Harvard law school, meanwhile Hillary Clinton was the first lady of the United States of America. She lived at White House, flew on Air Force One, and apparently spent time lobbying for the NAFTA Agreement she now claims to have apposed. In 1996 Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate, and Hillary Clinton still lived at the White House, having congressman, lobbyist and political contributors over for lunch. Finally in 2005, though he was still paying off student loans, Obama is sworn in as a US Senator. He joined the former first lady Hillary Clinton, who has been a member of that chamber since 2000.

            This is not to say that Sen. Obama doesn’t have political experience or powerful connection, but as the wife of Bill Clinton, Hillary had an access to some of the most powerful people in the world, unparallel by any of the other candidates in either party’s primary. She was instrumental in her husbands restocking of the Democratic Party infrastructure with influential friends and loyal colleagues. And as evidenced by her successful senate campaigns, she commanded the attention of the party’s donors as well as political handlers. The agility needed to pivot mid-campaign and go from inevitable ‘incumbent’ to anti-elitist woman of the people, isn’t only beyond Hillary, its superhuman.

            Rank and File Democrats who have been hit hardest by the Bush years also blame the Clinton administration for leaving them behind. Even during Bill Clinton’s ‘miracle economy’ (according to noted anthropologist Stanley Eitzen) in 1999, 12 % of Americans lived in poverty. In 1997 the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a study that showed that one in five U.S. poor (7.4 million persons) were classified as working poor. For these Americans, Clintons hypocritical charge that Obama is an elitist might ring hollow, regardless of how they might feel about him.

Recently Clinton Campaign manger Mark Penn stepped down from his position on the campaign because of revelations that he had worked to bring about a trade deal with Columbia that Hillary has apposed. Now we learn that her husband, the former president has also has connection to the Columbia deal.

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           NBC deputy political director Mark Murray had the following to say about the new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll: “One of the survey’s more striking findings is the diminished standing of former President Bill Clinton, whom some have seen as campaigning too aggressively for his wife — and against Obama. More respondents in the poll view him in a negative light (45 percent) than in a positive one (42 percent). It’s a marked change from a year ago, when Clinton’s positive rating (48 percent) was higher than his negative score (35 percent). In particular, Clinton’s support among African Americans and Obama supporters has eroded.”

Read more from Mark Murray

Go to A New Day Post’s Bill Clinton Coverage

            It goes without saying that Congressman King’s “dancing in the street” comment was reprehensible, as are any attacks that play on the American people’s fear, or that appeal to racism or sexism or ethnocentrism. But i think it is important to remember how we got here. During this drawn out democratic primary race, the blueprint for how to tear down Barack Obama is being written, not by Karl Rove but by the Clintons. This is when you want to be able to say to a Nader voter, “See this is why you have to vote democrat,  only the republicans would stoop so low” but you can’t because it is a line of attack that the Clintons unleashed. 

Obama responds to King’s comments

           You might wonder why we hear so little about the Tony Rezco story. The stars would seem to have aligned for a good round of mud slinging, as the Clinton campaign continues at this late date to find any way to overcome Sen. Obama’s lead, and Rezco goes on trial. The connection between Obama and this shady character of Chicago politics has been well noted, but you won’t hear the Clintons mention him these days.

            This picture that first appeared on the Drudge Report is truly worth a thousand words, or more to the point, not worth the thousands of words it would take to explain away for the Clintons. So they have left the Rezco issue mostly on the shelf even as they empty that “kitchen sink”.

            A reader recently made me aware of something I thought I would pass along. Apparently ABC news reporting about my back and forth with Bill Clinton, in South Carolina, was sited to dispute Clinton’s charge that the media had dreamed up the controversy over the issue of race in the battle for the democratic nomination.

            In Charleston on January 23^rd just one day after I spoke with former president in Greenville, he had, (what has become in the age of viral video) the infamous “shame on you” moment . After being asked by CNN reporter Jessica Yellin, how race had come to be an issue in the lead up to the South Carolina primary, Clinton said, “You asked me about this…Not one single solitary soul asked me about any of this. And they never do… people don’t care about this. They never ask about it.” The part of his response that was seen by most viewers came next as he is leaving more questions about the issue are being asked and Clinton repeats “Shame on you” to the group of reporters. However a little of the shame has to be on the fellow who is clearly being dishonest.

            Following Clinton’s comments, Kate Snow, Sunlen Miller and Sarah Amos of ABC news used excerpts from my brief conversation with Clinton about race and his increasingly questionable tactics, to show that people do in fact ask him about that issue on the campaign trail. As has been noted, on the evening before Clinton’s comments to CNN’s Yellin, he was asked three questions about the issue of his attacks against Obama by voters, at just that one event.  This might not be breaking news, but it appears that Bill Clinton is willing to misrepresent the truth when it is politically convenient for him to do so.

Read the ABC news story mentioned above   

Go to anewdaypost’s story about my conversation with Bill Clinton

          Famously Bill Clinton claimed on 11/27/07 that he had been against the war in Iraq “from the beginning.” Which raises the question, how could he tell when he had become against the war from the start? Was he against it when Hillary voted for it as a US senator? Was he against it when he was president and he regularly bombed Iraq for a weapons program that FBI agent George Piro, recently said Saddam faked hoping to deter an Iranian invasion? And what were his thoughts when theWashington thinktank the Project for the New American Century ( including soon to be G.W. Bush administration officials: Rumsfeld, Armitage, Bolton, Wolfowitz, and Perle) sent him a letter in January 1998 asking him to invade Iraq? Was he against the Sanction imposed on Iraq all during the 1990’s that caused untold hardship, sorrow, and death to civilians all across  Iraq? Wasn’t it when his wife started running for president that he decided he had always been against the war in iraq from the start?

           The first word from the Hillary Clinton campaign, on the Obama landslide in South Carolina, came not from Hillary (the candidate) but from Bill. In his comments to David Wright of ABC news, the former president said, “”Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in ‘84 and ‘88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here.” This attempt, to equate the senator with a figure whose mainstream political significance has been notable diminished in the years since his own victories in the state’s primary, raises questions Bill Clinton’s judgment and self control.

          Until South Carolina, this year’s democratic primaries had produced anything but a clear front runner. This was not only because Obama and Clinton had each won, but also because in each case, the second place finisher was not badly beaten by the voters. Now that has changed, as Sen. Obama got significantly more votes on Saturday than the other candidates combined. Despite that fact, the Clinton campaign explains, Obama’s win in South Carolina as a product of African-Americans siding with him. After the Clintons cast the line, newspapers in some cases, took the bait. Papers like the Boston Globe, who on Sunday said black voter Rachael Holland “sided with Obama”.

“Siding” is an interesting word; as it makes you think of an elementary school playground more than a voting both and it implies that the African-Americans in South Carolina voted out of some instinctual allegiance. Nobody said white voters in New Hampshire sided with Clinton; they used words like choose or selected and Sen. Obama’s campaign didn’t belittle their decision.

Besides all this, the charge just doesn’t hold up. When you look at the size of the victory, (28 points) the largest of the primary season, it is clear that while Sen. Obama did very well among S.C.’s African Americans, his margin of victory was more about his ability to bring new voters into the process. Moreover Barack Obama’s win in Iowa and two point second place finish in New Hampshire, where he captured 33 and 36 percent of the white vote respectively, show that he is not Jesse Jackson, despite what the Clinton spin machine would have us believe. Like in Iowa, many of Obama’s votes in S.C. came from young people, new voters, Independents and Republicans. That is the broad coalition the next president will need, to enact the kinds of reform that our nation needs.

In this contest, we must be Americans first and partisans second. A candidate who can bring new people in and form a working compromise with those, who democrats have bickered with in the past, can deliver what a more divisive candidate never will, far reaching, meaningful change. That’s what Ronald Reagan did for the Republican Party when he inspired the phenomenon we call Reagan democrats. All these years later, those who seek his party’s nomination invoke his name daily. A public figure of that scale is what a President Obama could be, but in a different direction, and in the name of very different interests.

The last week of the S.C. campaign shed light on the aspect of the Clintons that people are most reluctant to relive, namely a willingness to play fast and lose with the truth when it is politically expedient. For the Clintons, it “depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is”. So we must ask, is the country ready to put up with more poll-tested, focus-grouped positions when what we really need is leadership and healing? Can we take more triangulation, or political battles of attrition, where so long as the Clintons stay in power they will feel that they have won, no matter the cost to the Nation?

As Carl Bernstein recently said to CNN’s Anderson Cooper, people within the Democratic Party are starting to wonder “how much this is about the Clintons and how much is it about the country”. Today our military is bogged down in Iraq’s Civil War,  our economy staggering, and working families are struggling to compete in the age of illegal immigration and outsourcing. What this time calls for is an inspirational president who can turn our collective eyes towards a new “morning in America” where we work together with goodhearted people of other political persuasions to confront our mounting challenges.

this story also appeared in the Columbia Free Times, see it here

Read the Washington Times piece here

The author who famously called Bill Clinton the “first black president” says she’s voting for Obama 

Read her letter to Sen. Obama here

It’s hard to know what expect next from a Former President who seems to be losing his cool in the throws of this year’s democratic primary season.  Reportedly congressman Emanuel and Sen. Kennedy have told former President Bill Clinton to turn his criticism of Barack Obama down a notch, and the global news agency AFP reports that Former Democratic Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle has said that Clinton’s actions are “not presidential”.  A few days ago CNN told us that leading African American lawmaker Jim Clyburn wants Bill Clinton “to Chill”, in reference to his attracts on Sen. Obama.

Let us not forget that When George W. Bush ran, his father stayed a respectable distance from the political campaign that his son was waging. As heated as that contest got, we never saw the former President Bush kneecapping John McCain, or Al Gore or John Kerry. But now we have Bill Clinton calling Obama’s position on the Iraq war a “fairytale” and criticizing him for acknowledging the transformative role that Ronald Reagan played in American politics. We have heard that nominating Obama would be “a role of the dice” and so on and so forth.

This past weekend Bill Clinton alleged that the Nevada Caucuses were being compromised by voter suppression. It goes without saying what a serious allegation that is, and as of yet it is unclear if it was mere political theater or if the Clinton campaign will follow up on the irregularities now that they have won that contest. When, in talking about those irregularities, the former President said that he hadn’t seen anything like this in the past thirty years of American politics, I wondered where he was in 2000. That year in Florida, especially in southern Florida, there were wide spread reports of voter suppression and violations of the voting rights act. The victims of this suppression were largely African Americans, and yet when they needed an advocate Mr. and Ms. Clinton were not there to speak for them. I know because I was there.

With all this as background, I relished my opportunity Tuesday afternoon in Greenville S.C. to ask President Clinton how he thought the negative tone of his attacks of Sen. Obama would affect his legacy in the south, most notably with the African American community that he has been so popular with. He said that he didn’t worry about his legacy and that he “is not standing in Obama’s way.” But what I thought was truly telling was that he went on to say that he admired Senator Obama and that he “hoped to be able to vote for him one day”. I think the former President’s admission that he hoped to get a chance to vote for Obama goes to undermine all the dirty tactics that the Clinton campaign has engaged in to this point. If you’re Bill Clinton, you can’t pretend to think Sen. Obama shares Ronald Reagan’s political philosophy one day and the very next say that you would like to vote for him. And I’m sorry, but if a former President takes the attack dog role in a political campaign it can’t help but diminish that President’s legacy.

this story also appeared in the Mountain Xpress, read it here   

Recently it was brought to my attention that my brief conversation with Bill Clinton quickly came up as evidence in the court of public opinion. Several South Carolina voters waited to ask Clinton about the tone of his attacks against Sen. Obama, but only hours later he told reporters that the subject never comes up.

ABC news sites my conversation with Bill Clinton after his “Shame on you” moment   

Just as the South Carolina primary race was heating up, President Clinton was nodding off. In a service on the Sunday before Martin Luther King Day, Clinton was less than riveted. Take a look, he might not be fired up, but he is certainly ready to go.