"media love"? I only speak for myself, but here's some trashing of a candidate that I will not get over.
December 10, 2007
Third Clinton Volunteer Knew Of Smear E-MailA third volunteer for Hillary Clinton's campaign was aware of a propaganda e-mail alleging that Barack Obama is a Muslim who plans on "destroying the U.S. from the inside out. "Let us all remain alert concerning Obama's expected presidential Candidacy," the email reads. "Please forward to everyone you know. The Muslims have said they Plan on destroying the U.S. from the inside out, what better way to start than at The highest level."
Two Clinton volunteers, Linda Olson and Judy Rose, have already been asked to resign from the campaign for their roles in forwarding the e-mail. The AP reported yesterday that Olson, a volunteer coordinator in Iowa County, sent a version of the e-mail to 11 people, including Ben Young, a regional field director for Chris Dodd's campaign. Young passed it on to the AP.http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2007/12/third_clinton_v.html
Kerrey Apologizes to Obama Over Remark
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=4031436
Kerrey's mention of Obama's middle name and his Muslim roots raised eyebrows because they are also used as part of a smear campaign on the Internet that falsely suggests Obama is a Muslim who wants to bring jihad to the United States.
Obama is a Christian.
The Clinton campaign has already fired two volunteer county coordinators in Iowa for forwarding hoax e-mails with the debunked claim. Last week, a national Clinton campaign co-chairman resigned for raising questions about whether Obama's teenage drug use could be used against him, so Kerrey's comments raised questions about whether the Clinton campaign might be using another high-profile surrogate to smear Obama.
Clinton Co-Chair Resigns Over Obama Drug RemarkBy JAKE TAPPER
Dec. 13, 2007
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3992371&page=1Bill Shaheen, the Clinton campaign's New Hampshire co-chair, stepped down Thursday one day after publicly raising the issue of the youthful drug use of her chief opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois
Shaheen, the husband of a former New Hampshire governor and an influential Democrat, was a constant presence by Clinton's side whenever she campaigned in the Granite State, where recent polls have her and Obama in a dead heat for first in that first-in-the-nation primary state.
Hours after the Wednesday release of a CNN/WMUR poll showing Obama in a statistical tie with Clinton for the first time among New Hampshire Democratic voters, Shaheen told The Washington Post that should Obama get the nomination, "one of the things Republicans are certainly going to jump on is his drug use."Shaheen said Obama having been so open -- as opposed to then-Gov. George W. Bush, who refused to detail his past drug use during his 2000 presidential campaign -- will "open the door to further queries on the matter.
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On Sunday, a second Clinton staffer -- Linda Olson, an Iowa County volunteer coordinator, who followed Jones County coordinator Judy Rose -- was asked to resign after reporters discovered she had forwarded an e-mail repeating the scurrilous allegation that Obama, a member of the United Curch of Christ, is a Muslim plant.
Bill Clinton Asks for a Second ChanceBy Liz Halloran
Posted February 11, 2008
The morning after his wife, Hillary, was routed in three state contests by Sen. Barack Obama in their dead-heat battle for the Democratic nomination, former President Bill Clinton made his case for her before a packed Sunday service at one of the largest black churches in Washington, D.C.
But first he offered an
apology of sorts for racially tinged comments he made about Obama and his candidacy that have triggered a backlash in the black community and among many other Democrats.
Clinton invoked his "worship of a God of second chances" in pronouncing himself glad to be at the Temple of Praise, which claims nearly 15,000 members. His invocation of second chances echoed comments he made early last week at black churches in California, where he campaigned for his wife before that state's
Super Tuesday primary, which she won.http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/campaign-2008/2008/02/11/bill-clinton-asks-for-a-second-chance.html
Source: Newsday
Posted on Sunday, December 16, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Barack Obama Accepts Apology From Hillary Clinton
Washington D.C. 12/15/2007 09:17 AM GMT (FINDITT)
Hillary Clinton went straight to Barack Obama with an apology following a staffer's remarks about any skeletons that may be lurking in Obama's closet, pointing out that she had accepted the staffer's resignation over the disparaging remarks. Obama accepted her at her word, according to his campaign staff, and is moving on without letting it interrupt his campaign plans.
Obama is currently leading the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, the two early primary states often considered key to the process, according to numbers at usaelectionpolls.com, but on a national level Clinton still holds a huge lead. The most recently posted poll results show Obama with 31 percent of the
probable voters in New Hampshire backing him with 29 percent showing support for Clinton.
http://www.transworldnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=30629&cat=5Clinton Camp Pushes O-Bomber Links: Ignores
Her Own Radical Ties
By: Justin Rood
ABC News - The Hillary Clinton campaign pushed to reporters today stories about Barack Obama and his ties to former members of a radical domestic terrorist group -- but did not note that as president, Clinton's husband pardoned more than a dozen convicted violent radicals, including a member of the same group
mentioned in the Obama stories."Wonder what the Republicans will do with this issue," mused Clinton spokesman Phil Singer in one e-mail to the media, containing a New York Sun article reporting a $200 contribution from William Ayers, a founding member of the 1970s group Weather Underground, to Obama in 2001.
In a separate e-mail, Singer forwarded an article from the Politico newspaper reporting on a 1995 event at a private home that brought Obama together with Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, another member of the radical group. http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4330128&page=1Bill Clinton To Apologize At LA Black Churches
Once again, Bill Clinton is ready to repent.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/02/bill-clinton-to-apologize_n_84573.htmlOn Sunday the former president is scheduled to visit black churches in South Central Los Angeles, where he's expected to offer a mea culpa to those who "dearly loved him" when he was their president, Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.) says. Watson, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus who has endorsed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), tells us she'll usher the former president to more than half a dozen churches in
her district where she says he needs to "renew his relationship" with congregants who were turned off by his racially tinged comments in the days leading up to and following the South Carolina primary. (Such as when Clinton compared Sen. Barack Obama's landslide victory to Jesse Jackson's wins in 1984 and 1988.)
http://graphics.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/20080112_nevada_lawsuit.pdfhttp://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/a-feisty-bill-clinton-defends-nevada-lawsuit/
CLINTON ALLIES SUPPRESS THE VOTE IN NEVADA...On Meet the Press on Sunday, Hillary Clinton said her campaign had nothing to do with a lawsuit--written about by Nation Editor Katrina vanden Heuvel--that threatens to prevent thousands of workers from voting in the Nevada caucus on Saturday.
Back in March, the Nevada Democratic Party agreed to set up caucus locations on the Vegas strip for low-income shift workers, many of them members of the state's influential Culinary Union, who commute long distances to work and wouldn't be able to get home in time to caucus. It was an uncontroversial idea until the Culinary Union endorsed Barack Obama and the Nevada State Education Association, whose top officials support Clinton, sued to shut down the caucus sites.The Clinton camp played dumb until yesterday, when President Clinton came out in favor of the lawsuit.
Clinton's comments drew a heated response from D. Taylor, the head of Nevada's Culinary Union, on MSNBC's Hardball. "He is in support of disenfranchising thousands upon thousands of workers, not even just our members," Taylor said of Clinton. "The teachers union is just being used here. We understand that This is the Clinton campaign. They tried to disenfranchise students in Iowa. Now they're trying to
disenfranchise people here in Nevada, who are union members and people of color and women."
Rank-and-file members of Nevada's teachers union also come out against the lawsuit filed by their leadership. "We never thought our union and Senator Clinton would put politics ahead of what's right for our students, but that's exactly what they're doing," the letter stated. "As teachers, and proudmDemocrats, we hope they will drop this undemocratic lawsuit and help all Nevadans caucus, no matter which candidate they support."
The lawsuit's opponents make a persuasive point. Creating obstacles to voting is what the GOP does to Democrats, not what Democrats should be doing to other Democrats. COMPTON, Calif. (AP) —
Hillary Rodham Clinton and her campaign tried to mend ties to black voters Thursday when a key supporter apologized to her chief rival, Barack Obama, for comments that hinted at Obama's drug use as a teenager. The candidate herself, meanwhile, praised the Rev. Martin Luther King and promised to assist with the rebirth of this troubled, largely black city.
Bob Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television, apologized for comments he made at a Clinton campaign rally in South Carolina on Sunday that hinted at Obama's use of drugs as a teenager.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-01-17-johnson-apology_N.htm?csp=34
Clinton Surrogate Compares Obama Ad to Nazi March http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20080201/cm_thenation/45278988_1Fri Feb 1, 2:23 PM ET
The Nation -- On a media conference call organized by the Hillary Clinton campaign today, Clinton surrogate Len Nichols compared an Obama health care ad to Nazis.
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Accusing political opponents of Nazism is an outrageous smear. Raising the specter of a Nazi march in response to a health care mailer that evokes the insurance industry is so absurd, it would be hard to take the attack seriously, were it not launched from a high profile national campaign conference call in this crucial stretch of the presidential race.
And political observers know, of course, that the Clinton Campaign regularly arranges opportunities for surrogates to launch these kind of smears, which are later followed up with apologies. (See: Bob Johnson, Bill Shaheen, Bob Kerrey, and Francine Torge, to name the most recent offenders.) For his part, Nichols did not immediately return a call requesting further comment.
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Len Nichols, Director of New America's Health Policy Program, stated, "For nearly 17 years I have worked tirelessly to reform our nation's struggling health system. Today my passion overwhelmed me. I chose an analogy that was wholly inappropriate.
I am deeply sorry for any offense that my unfortunate comments may have caused. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk1k0nUWEQg
Hillary Supporter Cuomo: Obama Tried To "Shuck And Jive" With Media
The Hillary campaign might have their own surrogate with foot-in-mouth syndrome who they'll have to deal with. During an appearance yesterday on talk radio -- at almost the same time as Obama co-chair Jesse Jackson Jr. questioned Hillary's tears -- New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo used some words about Barack Obama that have a very troublesome racial history.
"It's not a TV crazed race. Frankly you can't buy your way into it," Cuomo said, according to Albany Times Union reporter Rick Karlin. "You can't shuck and jive at a press conference," he added. "All those moves you can make with the press don't work when you're in someone's living room."
The phrase "shuck and jive" refers to mischievous blacks behaving innocently in the presence of an authority figure, so as to lie and get out of trouble.
Did Hillary "Play The Gender Card"?
By Greg Sargent -
November 2, 2007, 3:51PM
So what really happened here, anyway?
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2007/11/did_hillary_play_the_gender_card.phpAfter the debate, Hillary's campaign sent out an email describing her as "one tough woman" and deriding the nature of the "piling on" that had ensued. And the next day, AFSCME president Gerald McEntee endorsed Hillary with remarks that almost certainly had plenty of input from the Hillary campaign: "Six guys against Hillary. I’d call that a fair fight. This is one strong woman.:
So just after the debate the campaign didn't argue that she was being attacked because she's a woman. But the campaign clearly did try to strongly emphasize the gender picture here.
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Hillary pollster Mark Penn subsequently said in a conference call that the image of six men beating up on Hillary would play well with female voters. And anonymous Clinton advisers told the Associated Press that "there is a clear and long-planned strategy to fend off attacks by accusing her male rivals of
gathering against her." Though one should approach anonymous stuff with caution, this doesn't seem especially difficult to believe.
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Bottom line: As best as we can determine, Hillary never explicitly made the accusation that the men were piling up on her because she's a woman.
But you'd have to be very credulous indeed not to believe that the campaign is explicitly trying to emphasize, for various political reasons, the fact that she's a woman getting hammered by a bunch of men. I don't know if that constitutes "playing the gender card" or not -- the exact meaning of the term is unclear, at least to me -- but that's obviously what's going on.
Sunday, November 4, 2007CLINTON PLANNED TO USE GENDER CARD ALL ALONG
RON FOURNIER, AP - Clinton's advisers, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss internal matters, said there is a clear and long-planned strategy to fend off attacks by accusing her male rivals of gathering against her.
The idea is to change the subject while making Clinton a sympathetic figure, especially among female voters who often feel outnumbered and bullied on the job. As one adviser put it, Clinton is not the first presidential candidate to play the "woe-is-me card" but she's the first major female presidential candidate to do it.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071101/ap_po/on_deadline_c...