I never watch the Network News anymore, but sometimes I like to see what other people are seeing. Here’s a roundup of tonight’s national news coverage.
ABC: Led with growing certainty of Obama’s nomination. Said Obama erased Clinton’s last real advantage– the superdelegate lead. Clips from Emanuel, Panetta saying race appears over. Kennedy quote saying Clinton should not be VP. Mention that Obama has signaled he may be willing to help settle Clinton’s debt. Stephanopoulos said pressure on Clinton will grow.
CBS: After report on cyclone tragedy, brief political report recapped day’s events. Jeff Greenfield noted growing superdelegate flow to Obama, said no candidate has ever been nominated with so few large-state victories.
NBC: Led with new Myanmar devastation images, turned to Obama’s superdelgate pickups. Said Obama “ignored” Clinton on the stump Friday, mentioned Emanuel on Obama being “presumptive” nominee, Kennedy rejecting possibility of Clinton veep. Showed Clinton fighting on, asked if she’s playing the “race card” with USA Today comments. Reported Obama didn’t rule out helping pay her debt.
That’s a pretty brutal series of stories.
I read somewhere that Obama is now preparing a series of attack ads to define his only opponent – McCain. They should start running nationally once they are all together.
He’s not even competing against Hillary anymore.
Clinton damaged him so much, and can afford to pay her own debts out of her pocket change.
She should refuse to accept help, and in a noble gesture, refuse to take the money from Democrats who just want to help us win the White House in November..!
She should tell Bill to get off his ass and make a few more speeches in Colombia for the corporatists who kidnap and torture union organizers.
If Obama wants to toy with her on the debt business, fine with me. But he has to know his supporters, many with a lot less than $109 million, will feel betrayed if their modest contributions help bail Hillary out of her debt position that she herself created.
Hillary may be dead, but there’s still plenty of time before the convention for something to happen.
And of course you can’t count out the Village Idiots who will DEMAND Obama make Hillary her Veep, and point out repeatedly in their infinite wisdom that Obama can’t win without her on the ticket.
Which is complete bullshit, but watch the columns this weekend. I’m predicting more Dream Ticket nonsense from Broder, the Hillbloggers, Tweety, Timmeh, etc.
Hold on to your lunch.
There are too many strong Democratic female Governors he could chose that do not have Hillary’s baggage. Kathleen Sebelius or Janet Napolitano either one would be a great running mate.
Clinton brings nothing to the the ticket except for fanatical Clinton supporters who would be hoping for Obama’s demise.
Obama will and should ignore it. Ditto with the “bail out” shit.
How demeaning it would be for Hillary to have Obama pay her debt. I’m all for it.
I’m not for it. Let he keep spending Bill’s money.
come’on reverse psychology works every once-in-a-while
How about a compromise? Obama validates her parking at the Denver convention center.
I absolutely do not like the idea of Obama offering to pay off some/all? of HRC’s campaign debt. She created the debt and she can afford to pay it off. But the worst aspect of this idea is that it looks like Obama is buying her off. Totally unacceptable.
I’m pretty sure that campaign finance law prohibits Obama from paying off Hillary’s debt out of the money that he has raised thus far. But he could hold special events and do other things to help her out– the cash just can’t come from his campaign chest.
But there is a lot of sentiment among his supporters against him doing anything to help out the Clintons. It would be sorta like the Bear Stearns bailout, where the big guys get rescued, while little guys in trouble have to fend for themselves….
The pushback from Camp McSame has begun. I saw a crawler at lunch today on MSNBC saying that Grampa Jack was upset about Obama’s “lost his bearings” comment, saying it was an oblique way of referring to his age, and some surrogate saying that if McCain’s age is a legitimate target, so is Reverend Wright.
Well, maybe Captain Short Term Memory Loss wasn’t paying attention, but Reverend Wright has been brought up before, and it’s a non-starter. And the minute John McCain can separate himself from his age, can renounce and repudiate it, can say that his age speaks for itself and not for him, then his campaign can equiate his age with Reverend Wright.
Otherwise they’re just woofin’.
I got the email about how evil Obama was for saying “lost his bearings”. I had to laugh because that’s just as nutso as those people who accused him of being sexist when he said “periodically”. Dumbasses.
I sent an email to the campaign:
A few sentences got deleted. The first sentence in the last paragraph should read:
Ha, that’s most excellent. Not like you were going to pay much attention to what he had to say anyway, I’ll bet.
Honestly, there are real issues facing this country, everything from race to oil to Iraq, and instead of talking about those we get death by thesaurus?
What I find curious is that in Clintonland, “periodically” is a vile misogynist oath (even though at sixty Clinton can’t be menstruating) and yet they feel free to throw around misogynist language and then attribute it to others. I was accused of being the type who would “bitch slap” someone for asking for a cup of black coffee (I’m not sure I understood what the poster meant) because I said that I was an old, white working-class male and I had no problem voting for Obama.
I know the concept of the oppressed using derogatory terms as an act of rebellion against the oppressors and as a term of self-definition and rebellious pride, but there seems to be an inflation in the Clinton camp. Anything that can possibly be construed as negative to women, which would include terms never before used as gender-specific insults, are off-limits to non-Hillary supporters, but can be directed at anyone else.
I guess that we will witness a repetition with McCain now.
The Clinton Camp is identical to the Bush (Dubya) camp in this way: they only communicate for the purpose of moving the polls. Any correltaion between their words and objective reality are incidental, conveniently supporting the point that they’re trying to implant into the national consciousness. As for me, whenever I encounter some form of communication from the Clinton or Bush worlds I immediately run it through the Charlie Brown filter, such that their words appear to me as nothing more than the blather that came from off-screen adults in the Charlie Brown cartoons.
Pay no attention to those people – when they lie they speak their native language…
Wait a minute ….one donates to Obama and he decides to use what one has donated for him to bail out Clinton who has more assets than the 100 million she and Bill declared. Sorry, that doesn’t add up to Obama getting more donations from people who just don’t have much to throw around.
I don’t have a huge problem with Obama paying some of Clinton’s vendors who’ve been stiffed. I would never pay off Penn and his ilk. That can come out of Her Majesty’s pockets.