Obama Catches Clinton on Superdelegates, Passes Her in Openess
And where is that list of Clinton Library donations, and those tax returns? No wonder super delegates and down to earth delegates are moving toward Obama.
TPMEC: Obama Catching Up To Hillary On Super-Delegates:
By Eric Kleefeld - March 14, 2008, 9:06AM
A review of the super-delegate math by Bloomberg News shows just how quickly Barack Obama has caught up to Hillary Clinton. Among members of Congress and governors, Hillary only leads by a 103-96 margin, meaning that her lead of just under 40 supers comes almost entirely from Democratic National Committee members.
Meanwhile, Obama has done a better job than Hillary at picking up those supporters in the last few months. Since Iowa, he has gained 53 endorsements from the elected super-delegates, compared to only 12 for Hillary. And even after Hillary's comeback on March 4, Obama has gained nine total super-delegates to Hillary's one.
NYTimes: Obama Lists His Earmarks, Asking Clinton for Hers:
By CHRISTOPHER DREW and JO BECKER
Senator Barack Obama on Thursday released a list of $740 million in earmarked spending requests that he had made over the last three years, and his campaign challenged Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to do the same.
The list included $1 million for a hospital where Mr. Obama’s wife works, money for several projects linked to campaign donors and support for more than 200 towns, civic institutions and universities in Illinois.
But as the Senate debated a bill to restrict the controversial method of paying for home-state projects — a measure defeated Thursday evening — Mr. Obama’s presidential campaign also said that only about $220 million worth of his requests had been approved by Congress. And among those that had been killed were his request in 2006 for $1 million for an expansion of the University of Chicago Medical Center, where Mr. Obama’s wife, Michelle, is a vice president.
Mr. Obama’s aides and officials at the hospital said Mr. Obama’s wife had had nothing to do with the request. Campaign officials said he had voluntarily released the list of his earmark requests to underscore his promise to bring greater openness and transparency to government, an issue on which he has tried to put Mrs. Clinton on the defensive.
The release comes as both Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton, his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, have joined the presumptive Republican nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona, in supporting a proposal to ban spending earmarked for home-state projects for one year.
So far, Mrs. Clinton, a senator from New York, has resisted Mr. Obama’s call to release her earmark requests, and the skirmishing over the issue set off more tension between the campaigns.
TPMEC: Obama Catching Up To Hillary On Super-Delegates:
By Eric Kleefeld - March 14, 2008, 9:06AM
A review of the super-delegate math by Bloomberg News shows just how quickly Barack Obama has caught up to Hillary Clinton. Among members of Congress and governors, Hillary only leads by a 103-96 margin, meaning that her lead of just under 40 supers comes almost entirely from Democratic National Committee members.
Meanwhile, Obama has done a better job than Hillary at picking up those supporters in the last few months. Since Iowa, he has gained 53 endorsements from the elected super-delegates, compared to only 12 for Hillary. And even after Hillary's comeback on March 4, Obama has gained nine total super-delegates to Hillary's one.
NYTimes: Obama Lists His Earmarks, Asking Clinton for Hers:
By CHRISTOPHER DREW and JO BECKER
Senator Barack Obama on Thursday released a list of $740 million in earmarked spending requests that he had made over the last three years, and his campaign challenged Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to do the same.
The list included $1 million for a hospital where Mr. Obama’s wife works, money for several projects linked to campaign donors and support for more than 200 towns, civic institutions and universities in Illinois.
But as the Senate debated a bill to restrict the controversial method of paying for home-state projects — a measure defeated Thursday evening — Mr. Obama’s presidential campaign also said that only about $220 million worth of his requests had been approved by Congress. And among those that had been killed were his request in 2006 for $1 million for an expansion of the University of Chicago Medical Center, where Mr. Obama’s wife, Michelle, is a vice president.
Mr. Obama’s aides and officials at the hospital said Mr. Obama’s wife had had nothing to do with the request. Campaign officials said he had voluntarily released the list of his earmark requests to underscore his promise to bring greater openness and transparency to government, an issue on which he has tried to put Mrs. Clinton on the defensive.
The release comes as both Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton, his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, have joined the presumptive Republican nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona, in supporting a proposal to ban spending earmarked for home-state projects for one year.
So far, Mrs. Clinton, a senator from New York, has resisted Mr. Obama’s call to release her earmark requests, and the skirmishing over the issue set off more tension between the campaigns.
posted by Faithful Progressive at 9:23 AM
1 Comments:
Former Sen. Bob Graham is staying neutral in the Democratic presidential race. But when it comes to defining the qualities that make a good commander-in-chief, he's espousing talking points that sound eerily similar to Barack Obama's.
"I don't believe there is a school you can go to, to train to be commander-in-chief," Graham said in an interview with the Huffington Post. "I think the qualities you are looking would include, judgment, the willingness to surround yourself with strong people, listening to a diversity of ideas and then forming a conclusion. I think curiosity is important.
"If there had been a little more curiosity in the fall 2002 -- if the questions had been asked -- [it] would have raised a lot of suspicions," he said, referencing the Iraq war authorization vote. "I think you have to look to see whether those qualities exist. And if they do, you have reason to believe that the person who has those qualities would become an effective commander-in-chief."
Graham, who headed the Senate Intelligence Committee in the run up to Iraq, famously declared his war opposition after reading the National Intelligence Estimate, a document he thought did not make the case (and one that Sen. Hillary Clinton has acknowledged not reading). That aside, Graham noted that "experience" in and of itself was not a prerequisite for becoming leader of America's armed forces.
"If you look at recent presidents, certainly George W. Bush didn't have any commander-in-chief experience, neither had Bill Clinton," he said. "George H. W. Bush had served in the military. Reagan didn't serve in the military. Carter was an Annapolis graduate. He was probably as close to what you would consider prepared to be commander-in-chief of the recent presidents."
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