Mysterious: They’re unusually creative and well produced for a supposed amateur. More mysterious: The user account at Daily Motion is called BloombergWhiteHouse.org, but that URL redirects to DM and there appears to be no other identifying info online. Still more mysterious: They’re three months old but have been largely ignored online despite their viral potential. Even more mysterious: We were tipped to them this afternoon via a mass e-mail from someone at Iced Media. Hmmm.

Is this tool really going to run against the war and sandbag Hillary Clinton for us? Maybe I was wrong about the atheism thing after all.

Gender Bender
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Source: Hot Air

The Journal’s Jackie Calmes is covering a campaign tactic that can only be described as disgusting. And Clintonian. But I repeat myself.

Five months after all Democratic candidates agreed Florida and Michigan wouldn’t get delegates to the August presidential convention, Hillary Clinton now says they should — a reversal that would benefit her now that she has won both states, unchallenged, following Tuesday’s Florida primary.

But that, some Democrats fear, could ignite a racially charged fight rivaling conventions of the 1960s, should her contest against Barack Obama remain close to the end.

[If the tactic as used] to defeat Illinois Sen. Obama, who is trying to become the first black president, "the most loyal constituency in the Democratic Party" — African-Americans — "will feel that they’ve been shut out of the party," he added. "And that will have huge repercussions — not just at the presidential level, but in every race where African-American support can determine the outcome."

In September, the Democratic presidential candidates signed a pledge refusing to campaign in the states… Among the major Democratic candidates, only Sen. Clinton agreed to keep her name on Michigan’s ballot. Supporters of Sen. Obama and former Sen. Edwards urged their voters to choose "uncommitted," in a bid to hold down her margin. The result was about 55% for Sen. Clinton and 40% uncommitted.

…Already the racial overtones are worrying party officials. The Clinton and Obama campaigns have traded charges of "voter suppression" in Nevada, South Carolina and Florida. Last week, before Saturday’s South Carolina primary, Obama supporter Dick Harpootlian, a former state Democratic Party chairman, said he would be a poll watcher on primary day and "call the sheriff" if he saw Clinton supporters intimidating voters…

If nothing else, the story reminds me of a parable.

A young boy was trudging along a mountain path, trying to reach her grandmother’s house. It was bitter cold, and the wind cut like a knife. When he was within sight of his destination, he heard a rustle at his feet.

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A new Gallup poll shows Hillary Clinton has lost most of her once-dominant national lead over Barack Obama, just as the race turns towards a clarifying Super Tuesday primary date. She has tumbled six points in nine days, while Obama has gained eight in the same period. With John Edwards exiting the race, Obama has momentum and seems poised to pick up more steam (via Memeorandum):

Barack Obama has now cut the gap with Hillary Clinton to 6 percentage points among Democrats nationally in the Gallup Poll Daily tracking three-day average, and interviewing conducted Tuesday night shows the gap between the two candidates is within a few points. Obama’s position has been strengthening on a day-by-day basis. As recently as Jan. 18-20, Clinton led Obama by 20 points. Today’s Gallup Poll Daily tracking is based on interviews conducted Jan. 27-29, all after Obama’s overwhelming victory in South Carolina on Saturday. Two out of the three nights interviewing were conducted after the high-visibility endorsement of Obama by Sen. Edward Kennedy and his niece Caroline Kennedy.

Clinton’s lead in the three-day average is now 42% to Obama’s 36%. John Edwards, who dropped out of the race Wednesday after Gallup conducted these interviews, ended his quest for the presidency with 12% support. Wednesday night’s interviewing will reflect the distribution of the vote choice of former Edwards’ supporters as well as the impact, if any, of Hillary Clinton’s popular vote win in Florida on Tuesday.

National polls have come back to the forefront as over 20 states get ready to go to the polls or caucuses on Tuesday. The two face each other for the first time in a head-to-head debate which promises to be a watershed event in their contest. Hillary has to find ways to blunt his momentum and to recover that sense of inevitability, or she could face a very difficult Super Tuesday. If she does not gain an overwhelming majority of delegates, she may find even more Democrats willing to abandon her for Obama, just as Ted Kennedy has already done.

We expected a nail-biter from the GOP. We may get one from the Democrats as well. Can a call to Al Gore be far behind?

Source: Captain’s Quarters

Oh, that’s the stuff.

COURTING VOTERS in Iowa and New Hampshire, last August Sen. Hillary Clinton signed a pledge not to “campaign or participate” in the Michigan or Florida Democratic primaries. She participated in both primaries and is campaigning in Florida. Which proves, again, that Hillary Clinton is a liar…

Clinton coldly and knowingly lied to New Hampshire and Iowa. Her promise was not a vague statement. It was a signed pledge with a clear and unequivocal meaning.

She signed it thinking that keeping the other candidates out of Michigan and Florida was to her advantage, but knowing she would break it if that proved beneficial later on. It did, and she did.

New Hampshire voters, you were played for suckers.

And so they were! Although no story of Clintonian malfeasance is complete without the inevitable semantic parsing, so here you go: Team Glacier informs us that no, the events she held over the weekend don’t constitute “campaigning” because they were (a) fundraisers and (b) closed to the public. Even though they were also (c) duly covered by the local press, which is where most of the vote potential is anyway.

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The man of hope has beaten the man from Hope (and possibly his wife).

The endorsement of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign by three Kennedys from different generations was a political trifecta for the young upstart from Illinois. He is not to be confused with Sen. Hillary Clinton who is from Illinois, Arkansas, New York, or wherever you want her to be.

The contrast of sincerity (Obama) with insincerity (Hillary and Bill Clinton) could not be starker. Critics can say that “Camelot” was a myth created after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, but it is a powerful myth and to see Ted, Caroline and Patrick Kennedy standing on the same stage together at American University endorsing Obama brought the myth back for those of us old enough to have lived through it. It also inspired younger people who want to believe that politics can still have purpose.

There is nothing wrong with myth so long as it does not obliterate reality. We like our fairytales. The film “Enchanted” is doing well at the box office. But the Kennedy endorsement is more than myth. It represents a potential divorce between the Democratic establishment and the Clintons.

Recall the early 1990s. Democrats were desperate for a presidential candidate who could take back the White House after 12 years of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. They rejected the establishment and chose a little known governor from a small state who Republicans would have difficulty sliming as a card-carrying member of the ACLU.
Clinton was part of the new Democratic Leadership Council, which bills itself on its Web page as “an idea center, catalyst, and national voice for a reform movement that is reshaping American politics by moving it beyond the old left-right debate.”

It was a shotgun wedding between the old Left and new moderates within the party, some of whom hid their liberalism behind moderate rhetoric for political gain. Now the old Left wants the party back and the endorsement by the Kennedys is the opening salvo.

The trouble with using people is that when someone better comes along, you get dropped like a bad habit, or like a woman who believes Bill Clinton will call her in the morning. Liberal Democrats don’t need the Clintons anymore. They think the Republican field is weak and the time to re-take their party and the government is now.

There can be no question that Obama is the most exciting political orator for Democrats since JFK. Notice in Caroline Kennedy’s endorsement how she skipped over Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter and even Bill Clinton (not to mention, which she also didn’t, Ronald Reagan) as inspirational leaders. What a slap in the face that was to the Clintons. Caroline Kennedy, though a liberal, has class, but the Clintons know little about such things, as they troll for power and personal advancement, obliterating all who get in their way. They define the politics of personal destruction.

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Hillary Clinton was making her pitch in Massachusetts on Monday, while Ted Kennedy was in Washington, endorsing Barack Obama - and offering an unmistakable counterargument to the Clintons.

Appearing at Springfield College, Clinton thanked Richard Neal, Jim McGovern, and Stephen Lynch, the three Massachusetts congressmen who had joined her on the campaign trail. She made no mention of the big prize that got away. But Kennedy’s decision to back Obama was a significant setback for Hillary, one she is said to have felt personally.

"This was like a kick in the stomach for two reasons," says one knowledgeable source. "First, because of all she felt they had done for him when they were in the White House, and then because they felt close to him personally."

Politically, Kennedy’s endorsement counts both concretely and conceptually.

The long-serving senator is popular with key Clinton-inclined constituencies where Obama needs to make headway: organized labor, the elderly, Hispanics, and less affluent voters. Further, with Kennedy adding his voice to those of Governor Deval Patrick and Senator John Kerry, Massachusetts should become competitive ground for Obama. That said, from the buzz around the State House yesterday, Kennedy’s endorsement has also clearly angered many women who are supporting Clinton.

Conceptually, Kennedy’s nod is important for this reason. The Clintons have asserted that Hillary’s Washington experience makes her a safe bet and said or insinuated that Obama’s lesser time there renders him a gamble. But with his endorsement, Kennedy - the very personification of productive Washington seniority - has declared that years of experience in the capital aren’t the be-all and end-all in a president.

Although Kennedy had privately registered his displeasure at the way Bill Clinton has campaigned, the Kennedy camp insists those tactics weren’t what triggered his endorsement.

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New York Senator Hillary Clinton bid more aggressively for a win in the meaningless-but-maybe-meaningful Florida Democratic primary. She dispatched campaigner-in-chief Bill Clinton to the state for weeks of just-below-the-radar campaigning. On Sunday, she flew to Florida, violating the pledge all the major Democratic contenders has made to avoid campaigning in the state that scheduled its primary earlier than was allowed by the Democratic National Convention. She promised to do everything in her power — which could be considerable if she is the presumed nominee — to overturn a DNC bar on the seating of Florida delegates at this summer’s Democratic National Convention.

She even appeared in Florida on primary night to claim her victory.

It was all part of a strategy to reclaim the limelight that she lost to Illinois Senator Barack Obama when he swept last Saturday’s South Carolina primary.

But for all her trouble, Clinton could barely secure half the vote in Florida.

With almost all the votes counted, Clinton was at 50 percent. Obama was winning 33 percent. Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards was at 14 percent. And Dennis Kucinich, who is out of the race, pulled 1 percent.

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During last Thursday night’s Republican debate, presidential candidate Mitt Romney said something that angered me a bit…

"And one more thing. What — what an audacious and arrogant thing for the Democrats to say, as Hillary Clinton did, that they are responsible for the progress that the surge has seen, by virtue of their trying to pull out so quickly.

"Look, the success over there is due to the — the blood and the courage of our servicemen and women, and to General Petraeus and to President Bush, not to General Hillary Clinton."

To think that Hillary Clinton would, on behalf of Senator Harry Reid and the anti-war movement, attempt to take credit for the "so-called surge" success because of opposition to the war, would be brazen at best, and opportunism at worst.

So I employed my perilous routine of skimming and found, within the January 21 Congressional Black Caucus Democrat debate, the following quote from Mrs. Clinton…

"I believe what you’re seeing happen is twofold. Of course the surge, the so-called surge, was able to pacify certain parts of Iraq. If we put enough of our men and women and equipment in, we’re going to be able to have some tactical military success. But the whole purpose of the surge was to force the Iraqi government to move quickly towards the kind of resolution that only it can bring about.

"I think what is motivating the Iraqi government is the debate in the political campaign here. They know they will no longer have a blank check from George Bush, that I will withdraw troops from Iraq. And I believe that will put even more pressure on the Iraqis to finally make the decisions that they have to make."

I may be an insignificant veteran here, but I thought the purpose of the "so-called surge" was to eradicate al Qaeda from Iraq, stop the violence by them targeting our military and Iraqi civilians, and thus create a climate for all the different factions to come together and form a stable government.

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Democratic Sen. Barack Obama said Wednesday a Hillary Rodham Clinton presidency would be a step back to the past, turning her husband’s image of a bridge to the future against her. The former first lady decried the tenor of his comments in an interview with The Associated Press.

"I know it is tempting — after another presidency by a man named George Bush — to simply turn back the clock, and to build a bridge back to the 20th century," the Illinois senator said in Denver.

"… It’s not enough to say you’ll be ready from Day One — you have to be right from Day One," he added in unmistakable criticisms of Clinton, who often claims she’s better prepared to govern, and her husband, who pledged during his own presidency to build a bridge to the 21st century.

Within hours, Hillary Clinton pushed back in an interview with the AP — and got in her own dig.

"That certainly sounds audacious, but not hopeful," said Clinton, in a play on the title of Obama’s book, "The Audacity of Hope." "It’s not hopeful and it’s not what we should be talking about in this campaign," said Clinton, suggesting Obama was abandoning the core of his campaign.

"I would certainly, through you, hope we could get back to talking about the issues, drawing the contrasts that are based in fact that have a connection to the American people," Clinton said.

In his speech, Obama depicted Clinton as a calculating, poll-tested divisive figure who will only inspire greater partisan divisions as she sides with Republicans on issues such as trade, the role of lobbyists in politics and national security. At the same time, he elevated McCain, fresh off victory in Florida’s crucial primary, as the likely Republican nominee.

In the AP interview, Clinton vowed to take the high road and warned that voters in the mega-primaries next week expect that.

"I’m going to continue to talk to people about what we need to do in our country to try to lift people up, to keep focused on the future to be very specific about what I want to do as president because I want to be held accountable," said Clinton.

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In the most recent Democratic presidential debate in South Carolina, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama threw off their gloves and attacked each other for their suspicious and scandalous ties.  And you know what?  They were both right!

Here’s a story this week that makes my point with respect to Hillary:

According to the Wall Street Journal:  “Former President Clinton stands to reap around $20 million — and will sever a politically sensitive partnership tie to Dubai — by ending his high-profile business relationship with the investment firm of billionaire friend Ron Burkle.  Mr. Clinton is negotiating to end his relationship with Mr. Burkle’s Yucaipa Cos. as part of a broader effort to protect the presidential campaign of his wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, from potential conflicts of interest.”

It’s a little late to worry about conflicts of interest, don’t you think? 

Hillary has served in the Senate during Bill Clinton’s tenure with Yucaipa, which began in 2002, all the while in a position to vote on issues that could impact Burkle’s (and, through Bill, Hillary’s) empire.  Bill Clinton voiced no concern about a potential conflict of interest when he was handed a large stake in Yucaipa with no risk and very little work required.  Now he can just collect the checks.

Moreover, this $20 million payoff does nothing to eliminate the conflict of interest.  In fact, it makes it worse.  Presumably, since Hillary Clinton shares a bank account with former President Clinton, they can use the money to fund her candidacy for president, if she so chooses.  Overall, Burkle has contributed large amounts of cash to the Clintons’ campaigns, their legal defense fund, and to the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas.  The question is, and has always been, what will Ron Burkle get in return for his generosity to the Clintons?  Especially if Hillary wins the presidency.

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