Politico's Ben Smith : Ted Sorenson Endorses Barack Obama, Conjures JFK, Jabs Hillary Clinton

[flpoljunkie]

Ted Sorensen, the speechwriter and special counsel to President John F. Kennedy endorsed Senator Barack Obama tonight and compared Obama’s campaign to Kennedy’s run almost half a century earlier.

“The campaigns are comparable,” Sorenson said in an interview after his speech, which was delivered to a closed $1,000-a-head fundraiser at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, and which left guests buzzing over what several said was an implied comparison to Kennedy. “They say he’s too young, he’s too inexperienced, his demographic is wrong to get elected. They’ve decided in Washington that he doesn’t have a chance. But the campaign isn’t going on in Washington. The campaign is going on in the grassroots.”

Sorenson also sharply rebuked legislators who voted to authorize the Iraq war, a group that includes Senator Hillary Clinton and former Senator John Edwards.

“Members of either party who authorized this disaster should be accountable,” Sorenson said. (Obama) didn’t have to vote for it, and moderate his position, and come up with an alternate strategy . He didn’t have to come up with non-binding resolutions and so forth.”

Sorenson suggested a campaign slogan: “Obama: Right from the start.”

more...

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0307/Sorenson_Endorses_Obama_Conjures_Kennedy_Jabs_Clinton.html

[ray of light]

1. Anyone who has to use the IWR vote as a campaign message

won't get my vote on that issue alone.

It really doesn't speak to me very much that someone who had no power to vote yes or no would malign those who had that weight on their own back. It demeans the very nature of decisions that public servants must make for what they believe is the common good in our country. And it diminishes the evidence we now have that Bush and Cheney cooked up the evidence, cherry picked it, and only allowed a few key Republican Senators access to any specifics.

Right or wrong-- the way the war was run and the fact that Bush DID NOT go back to Congress when he PROMISED that this was not a vote for war is the real problems.

So if Obama or anyone wants my vote, they better be taking action NOW if they serve and they better be working for things I want NOW, like healthcare, war to end, jobs, environmental protections, investigating AND retrieiving our money from those war profiteers, etc.


(edited to add: Also, to me running on the IWR vote is equivalent to the people in the 04 election who voted for Bush because he stood up at the World Trade Towers and shouted, "I can hear you!"

[elizm]

2. I posted this last night...

The anti-Obama people here already took their hits at it. :)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3154200

[Captain Hilts]

3. I'm not anti-Obama at all.

I just don't give a rat's ass what Sorensen thinks.

[flpoljunkie]

4. Sorry, I missed your post.