“OBAMA SUPPORTERS” DAILY NEWS Thursday May 29 2008

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Thursday May 29 2008


Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama talks to students and invited guests
during a town hall-style meeting in Thornton, Colo., Wednesday, May 28, 2008.
(AP Photo/Jack Dempsey)

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POOR HOWARD Dean. The head of the Democratic National Committee has to figure out what to do with Florida and Michigan, which broke party rules by holding their presidential primaries early. Senator Hillary Clinton, who won the two flawed contests, wants them to be treated like any other primaries. Doing so would be a slight to voters in states that followed the rules - and unfair to Senator Barack Obama, whose name wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan.

Strictly speaking, the cleanest option is to stick to the rules laid down in advance and strip the rogue primary states of all their delegates. But excluding two key swing states is turning out to be untenable politically. So when the party's rules committee meets Saturday, the least-bad option would be to follow the Republicans' lead by docking the two states half, not all, of their delegates. Then the party should spot Obama the delegates owed to "uncommitted" voters in Michigan - votes that almost surely would have gone to Obama or to John Edwards, who has now endorsed Obama.

This compromise would be fair to Clinton, who wouldn't have fared as well in a contested Michigan primary. And it wouldn't affect the nomination battle, which Obama has all but won. (This page has endorsed his bid for the Democratic nomination.)

The Democrats' rules prohibited most states from holding early presidential primaries. But the rules may have encouraged Florida and Michigan to brazen it out; the penalty - stripping jackrabbit states of all their delegates - was so severe that lawmakers in Tallahassee and Lansing doubted the Democrats would ever enforce it.

...more at the link

MSNBC VIDEO with Chuck Todd

The Clinton campaign is fighting to remain relevant against the wind. The Democratic National Committee’s staff analysis telegraphing that Clinton won’t get the sweetheart deal she’s demanding for delegates based on two “beauty contest” straw polls in Michigan and Florida has now provoked an entirely predictable wave of brinksmanship from Camp Clinton… a Romneyesque leak that she’s told her donors she’s in it until the convention… the trotting out of surrogate Wes Clark to claim the same… and there will be more, much more of that kind of posturing, between now and Saturday’s Rules Committee meeting in Washington.

But as Chuck Todd - giving a newly-Maddowed Keith Olbermann his suddenly-needed Chicken Little vaccine shots tonight in the video above - makes clear: there’s no story left after Tuesdays final primaries. There will be no oxygen left for Senator Clinton to command anything but a small sideshow of the national drama. A book by a former White House press secretary is already bigger news. The nation is yawning.

So maybe Clinton doesn’t concede on Tuesday night. Maybe she proclaims “on to the convention!” But The Field asserts that Chuck Todd is right… by the 15th of June (a date he sets) the consequences of turning brinksmanship in to a hostage crisis will provoke the S.W.A.T. team to rush in and that… will… be… that.

For those of us inoculated already, it’s fun to watch.

The AP reports the DNC lawyers have come to a conclusion...

...John Aravosis says that it is time to stop playing games, the Poliblog claims her route to the nomination became more improbable, Jazz Shaw at the Moderate Voice says things are “not looking good” for the Clinton camp, and the Political Machine claims this is a “Clinton Setback.”

And each and every one of them is wrong, because this is precisely the kind of ruling the Clinton camp wants. Seating only half the delegations per DNC rules will provide those in the fantasy land that is the Clinton camp the opportunity to file appeals, turn this into a credential fight, and allow them to fight bitterly all the way to the convention. Rather than ending this, this will assure us we will get more Florida 2000/Zimbabwe/Civil Rights gibberish from team Clinton over the next few months, as the Clinton team prepares to wrestle away the nomination somehow, anyway they can, at the convention. Or hope that “something happens” in between now and then and the supers will abandon Obama.

The only thing that will stop this is if the supers immediately swarm to Obama after the last vote on June 3rd, but I have seen nothing to indicate that will happen- they have indulged Hillary’s bullshit to date, why stop now? And even if they do rush over and put Obama over whatever new number the Clintons dream up, they still will not concede. They will continue campaigning, continue to make statements and raise money and tour the country and take potshots at Obama and suck oxygen out of the room and make her supporters more antagonistic towards Obama until he is officially the nominee at the convention. They don’t care what the outcome is, this is about Hillary becoming President in 2008, and if that fails, in 2012.

And you are fooling yourself if you think anything else will happen, regardless of the result at the Rules Committee on May 31st. This is who the Clintons are, and it would be nice if some of you figured that out sooner rather than too late. Apparently only Rachel Maddow and I have figured this out.

..more at the link

McCain apparently thinks he's laid his gnarled, liver-spotted old paws on a winning issue since Obama turned down his invitation to take a stroll in Baghdad:

"To say that we've failed in Iraq and that we're not succeeding does not comport with the facts on the ground," McCain said. "So we've got to show him the facts on the ground."

Appropriately enough, on April Fool's Day of 2007, McCain did take a stroll in a Baghdad market to illustrate that all is just ducky there and to prove that "Americans are not getting the full picture" about Iraq. Only he neglected to mention that he was accompanied on his promenade by 100 soldiers, 3 Blackhawks and 2 Apache Gunships.

I hope he sticks with this "everything is great in Iraq" strategy all the way through November. I can really see that one paying off.

Posted by Betty Cracker at 5/28/2008

...The newspaper for Capitol Hill, The Hill, reports that they obtained an internal e-mail from the Obama campaign regarding the protest at the RBC meeting:

Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) campaign is urging its supporters not to demonstrate at Saturday’s highly anticipated Democratic National Committee (DNC) meeting on how to handle the delegates of Florida and Michigan.

In an internal campaign e-mail obtained by The Hill, the Obama campaign states, “We look forward to the meeting proceeding smoothly — and we’re asking our supporters not to show up to demonstrate, passionately as they feel about this campaign.”

...

But the Obama campaign wants to avoid heated intraparty confrontations that would attract national headlines and be replayed on the cable news networks. Saturday’s potential public relations nightmare comes as the Obama campaign is taking steps to unify the party as the Democratic primary process appears to be winding down.

Let's not make this a public relations nightmare for the Obama campaign, so please circulate this diary on your Obama groups, Facebook, Friendster, MySpace, and your e-mail circles within the DC/MD/VA area. The more the word gets out there, that way Obama supporters will know it's not in the best interest of the campaign to protest the Clinton supporters at the RBC meeting.

It's what the Clinton campaign wants...

...more at the link

(05-28) 20:17 PDT San Francisco -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she will step in if necessary to make sure the presidential nomination fight between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama does not reach the Democratic national convention - though she believes it could be resolved as early as next week.

Pelosi predicted Wednesday that a presidential nominee will emerge in the week after the final Democratic primaries on June 3, but she said "I will step in" if there is no resolution by late June regarding the seating of delegates from Florida and Michigan, the two states that defied party rules by holding early primaries.

"Because we cannot take this fight to the convention," she said. "It must be over before then."

...She said the party committee will come up with a formula that is "fair and accepted by both campaigns," perhaps allowing the states 50 percent of their delegates. But "if the resolution is not appropriate, then it remains for the (Democratic National Convention) credentials committee to resolve it," she said. Then, "it will have to happen by the end of June" or she will intervene, she said.

...Pelosi said she has not been in contact with the Clinton or Obama campaigns on the matter, because "I think it is all going in the right direction" and will be resolved "in an orderly fashion" as early as next week.

...more at the link

Barack Obama has consistently dominated the media narrative compared with GOP candidate John McCain and coverage of Obama's wife, Michelle, mirrors this trend, garnering nearly three times the amount of attention as McCain's wife, Cindy. Still, coverage of both wives is dwarfed by the amount of media attention accorded another campaign spouse: Bill Clinton....

WASHINGTON, D.C.- As recent misstatements and verbal stumblings have shown, Barack Obama is, as his detractors so gleefully suggest, a very dumb man, but is he dumb enough to be President? That's what voters will have to decide. At this point, the biggest concern about Obama is the fact that he opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning, a disappointing display of smarts. Meanwhile, his two rivals were willing to go along with the Bush administration's doomed escapade- not just a war, mind you, but a celebration of naivete and idiot strength. His stubbornly correct position on the war has many Democrats worried that Obama just doesn't possess the natural dumbness to lead one of the most powerful nations on earth.

"Certainly, we're faced with a very steep hill to climb and some very big shoes to fill," said Obama strategist David Axelrod. "People judge what it is to be 'Presidential' based on the current President, so clearly Barack has some catching up to do."

FULL STORY

BELMONT, N.C. -- A Belmont, N.C., man sold a sweet potato on eBay Wednesday that he says resembles Democratic U.S. presidential contender Barack Obama.

The curious spud sold for $8.49 after only three bids.

Seller Wade Jones, whose eBay handle is howardrobardhughes, described the item as a "Sweet Potato that looks like future Prez Barack Obama."

He said in the item's description that he spotted the Illinois senator's face on the starch while talking politics in the grocery store.

"I was wearing my Obama 'Yes We Can' bracelet … when someone stopped me in front of the sweet potato bin, and asked me where I got my bracelet ... I then looked down, and saw 'The Barack Obama Sweet Potato' staring right back at me," the seller wrote

To: Roy Bragg
From: W.H. JONES

SUBJECT: strange news tip: Sweet potato that looks like BARACK OBAMA on eBay now

I thought you'd like to know.. I have a Sweet potato that looks like BARACK OBAMA on eBay now. Feel free to call me ...it's my potato..I'm Wade Jones.

here's video link ..the link

eBay auction #: 220236586935

here's the eBay link:

the eBay link

Faces in produce are hit or miss. Frankly, I can't see the Obama face, but maybe you can. Generally, however, you can't beat gargantuan veggies or oddly shaped fruit for laughs ...