Barack Obama seizes his chance

[Adelante]

It was the moment that Barack Obama became the front-runner in the race for the White House. As he waited at a private terminal in Washington airport to board his charter plane to Des Moines for Thursday's Democratic debate, an aide to Hillary Clinton approached him. The former First Lady would "like to have a word".

The two senators work in the same building - the Capitol - and had been criss-crossing the early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire on the same bleak roads. They sometimes stayed at the same hotels - though, by design, never at the same time.

But apart from the briefest of pleasantries, the rival candidates for the presidency had not spoken for almost a year. Back in January, on the day Mr Obama's presidential ambitions became clear, Mrs Clinton had ignored his outstretched hand.

Mrs Clinton, about to turn 60, had based her campaign on the idea that she would make history as the first woman president. But this upstart, nearly 15 years her junior, could trump that: as the son of a white woman from Kansas and a former goatherd from Kenya, he would be the first black president. Her contempt for this impertinence was never far from the surface.

Although taken aback by the overture, Mr Obama hesitated only briefly before assenting. On the tarmac, where their planes had been parked alongside each other, they talked for 10 minutes.

Full article:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/15/wobama115.xml

[Skip Intro]

1. "Mrs Clinton had ignored his outstretched hand" - when was that, I must've blinked

talk about a puff piece

[ClarkUSA]

3. Google it... it was news that I remember very clearly and showed what a graceless woman Hillary is

Talk about a puff candidate whose greatest resume point is riding on her husband's coattails.

[Skip Intro]

8. When did Obama hold his hand out to Hillary, which she ignored? Do you remember it cleary or not?

Why should I google it? Just tell me from your very clear recollection.

Please.

[ClarkUSA]

9. It was on the floor of the Senate during a vote right after he declared his candidacy.

She cut him dead - as they say in England - by completely ignoring his greeting and bypassing his outstretched hand which he had held out to her. It was
a striking piece of rudeness as rarely is seen between fellow Senate Democrats and was remarked upon by those who saw it. It takes a vindictive woman
to do that to a man whose only "crime" was to announce his candidacy for the presidency.

[Skip Intro]

10. must be on youtube, I'll go look

[ClarkUSA]

11. I don't know if it was caught on "Senate C-SPAN" but it did make the news

That's where I read about online and heard about it on cable TV -- both CNN and MSNBC.

[Skip Intro]

14. can find nothing of it on google - you sure it happened the way you say?

[Cha]

13. I did not know this.

Talk about no class. Where's all those pics of her and bush yuckin' it up?

[Skip Intro]

15. wouldn't you like to see verification before you accept it as fact?

[ClarkUSA]

16. Are you saying the Telegraph reporter and I and others I have linked to below are lying?

I'm sure I'm not the only one who remembers... you can also check the archives here and at Daily Kos because there were threads on it.

Maureen Dowd, who has disparagingly mocked Obama as "Obambi" almost all year had this to say about the incident both I and the
Telegraph reporter recall very well:

The debate dominatrix knows how to rattle Obambi.

Mistress Hillary started disciplining her fellow senator last winter, after he began exploring a presidential bid. When he winked at her, took her elbow
and tried to say hello on the Senate floor, she did not melt, as many women do. She brushed him off, a move meant to remind him that he was an
upstart who should not get in the way of her turn in the Oval Office.

He was so shook up, he called a friend to say: You would not believe what just happened with Hillary.

She has continued to flick the whip in debates. She usually ignores Obama and John Edwards backstage, preferring to chat with the so-called
second-tier candidates. And she often looks so unapproachable while they’re setting up on stage that Obama seems hesitant to be the first to
say hi.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/opinion/18dowd.html

[Skip Intro]

22. She "brushed him off" when he tried to say hello on the Senate floor.

Really, I would like to know exactly what happened. "Brushed him off" - how, exactly. Did she run the other way? Tell him to kiss her ass? Fly away on a broom? What exactly happened? I don't know aobut it, can't find a link to a description of it, and a vague term like "brushed him off" really could mean whatever one wanted it to mean.

Could you describe the scene to me? Did you see it? Could you tell me specifically what happened?

[Skip Intro]

23. Why is it when I ask for specifics from some Obama supporters, it ends the conversation?

Seriously, I've got, "ignored his outstretched hand" and "brushed him off" as descriptions of what happened. Well those are interpretations of what happened. Usually, there are some cold hard facts at the center of such interpretations. I'm not just going to take someone's vague spin on something as fact - I want to know what happened so that I can make my mind up for myself. You claim to remembere it very clearly. What do you remember? The actual "incident" or someone's extremely unclear account of it? If you actually know what happned, I'm asking for a third time, please tell me/point me to a link that has a factual account.


Please. thank you

[Skip Intro]

24. hello???

[ClarkUSA]

17. It happened. Despite Hillaryworlder amnesia, I'm not the only one who remembers the incident.

It was the first time I ever had a BAD feeling about Hillary and sorry to say, not the last.

No class is right. Obama, on the other hand, is the epitome of grace under pressure. I'll always remember his kindness to Biden when at
the Des Moines Register debate when Biden was asked about his questionable "clean" and "articulate" remarks about Obama. He didn't
have to do that, especially when Biden has mocked Obama in the past. Hillary has a "take no prisoners" approach to campaigning that
resembles Bush to the max.

Sorry, been there, done that. It's time to turn the page on poison pill politics.

[Cha]

18. I know..it's getting so

old that I resent that only their arrogance could make them think we wouldn't be sick to death of their strangulation.

[ClarkUSA]

21. The Clintons/Clintonians are determined to resurrect a faded and mythical past via politics as usual

They are such legends in their own minds that they've forgotten about what the process should be about and what it felt like to be swift boated with
right wing lies and smears -- either that, or they don't care. I don't know which is worse but I do know that I am sick of them and their toadies here
and in their much ballyhooed "machine" (which seems to have more than one screw loose these days).

[Cha]

12. Talk about puffingly

dismissing.

[Flabbergasted]

2. great article. nt

[Bullet1987]

4. I wouldn't call Obama a frontrunner just yet...

[Adelante]

7. No, I wouldn't either

I think the article's meaning is frontrunner spirit.

[elizm]

5. Beautiful. :) nt

[loveangelc]

19. it reminds me of beyonce's song in dreamgirls :')

http://youtube.com/watch?v=P1n1BWLsyHg :P

[ClarkUSA]

6. Best part outlines the recent sorry history of Hillaryworld's swift boating attacks on Obama

A press release had comically accused Obama of overweening ambition because he had written an essay entitled "I want to be President" at
the age of five. Two Iowa volunteers had separately forwarded emails stating that Mr Obama was a radical Muslim who was part of an Islamist
plot to destroy the US. Mr Obama had established his campaign as one of "hope"; Mrs Clinton's was fast becoming the campaign of cynicism.

Then came something that could not be brushed under the carpet. Mr Shaheen, a national co-chairman of Mrs Clinton's campaign, told a reporter
that Mr Obama would be easy meat for Republicans, who would raise the issue of drugs and ask, "Did you sell them to anyone?" Mr Obama's use
of drugs as a youth was old news, but the suggestion he had been a dealer took people's breath away. The smear smacked of orchestration or, at
best, a nod and a wink from above.

It was also counter-productive. In 1992, Bill Clinton had wriggled out of allegations that he had smoked pot with the defence that he "didn't inhale".
When Mr Obama was asked this year if he inhaled, he responded that "that was the point" - reinforcing the feeling that he was about authenticity
rather than artifice.

Hillary Clinton had already abandoned her plan to remain above the fray. Two weeks before the debate, she said she would "much rather be attacking
Republicans", but had decided to strike back against Mr Obama and Mr Edwards. "Now the fun part starts," she said. This played into Mr Obama's hands.
Since February, he had been preaching the need for a "new kind of politics", drawing a line under two decades of bitter partisanship - decades in which
the Clintons have played starring roles.

Judge for yourselves whether Hillary has gained or lost voters with these attacks. Here's a video testimony from a former Hillary Iowa precinct captain
who's quit the campaign in disgust over Hillary's ridiculous negative campaign tactics against Obama:

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXPnMflGkvI&eurl=http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post_group/ObamaHQ/CBmX

[BringBigDogBack]

20. Thanks for the article!

[Imagevision]

25. Obama has both Clintons upset and frustrated, to say the least