k / o

It's 8:30 and the temperature outside the convention hall is starting to heat up (metaphor alert, it's actually chilly) in anticipation of the final morning of the convention. San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris will speak for Senator Barack Obama. President Bill Clinton will speak on behalf of his wife, Senator Hillary Clinton. There's also the final chapter in the Leno/Migden endorsement saga which, I am assuming, was pushed to the convention at large with the gathering of some 600 petition signatures by Leno supporters last night. The graphics in the main hall are branded with the theme of Democrats "Making History" and featuring somewhat blurred photographs of Democratic icons like Cesar Chavez, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Harvey Milk, Robert F. Kennedy, Shirley Chisholm and Thomas Jefferson interspersed with photographs of Senators Clinton and Obama. This can create some interesting juxtapositions of speakers and background graphics. Yeste...

Calitics is doing an admirable job of 'on the fly' coverage of the California Democratic Party Convention in San Jose. I'm trying to add comments there as I can. I will add some reflections here and at Calitics as the convention progresses.

-via dday at Calitics , "a shock to the conscience":

Link here .

Link to Robert F Kennedy speech .

It strikes me that people don't know Jeremiah Wright. And a person you don't know, we all know, is so much easier to mistrust. Someone you haven't heard speak for longer than 10 second clips run back to back is so much easier to vililfy and hate. Here's Jeremiah Wright from before he was so much in the news:

From a Seattle TV station comes this news : Thursday night, the Knowles family of Bonney Lake, Wash., watched the John Stewart Show and saw the ad for the first time. "I looked and saw a girl that looked like my sister and we rewound it and sure enough it was my sister," said Brady Knowles. The first girl in the ad is young Casey Knowles. It's stock footage from 8 years ago when she worked as a TV extra - footage owned now by Getty Images and used by the Clinton campaign. But they couldn't have picked a more unwilling star. "It's really sort of ironic that my image would be used to advocate for Hillary when I myself do not," said Casey. She may only be 17, but Casey has some very strong political opinions. She turns 18 - legal voting age - in April, in plenty of time before the general election. "It's perfect timing because I have a candidate that I really identify with," she...

Terry McAuliffe is Senator Clinton's campaign chair and former head of the DNC. I'm not a fan of Maher. I'm also not a fan of returning McAuliffe anywhere near control of the Democratic Party.

I understand that it's important for journalist/bloggers to convey that the information they are privy to is truly "inside," hence we'll sometimes get instances where a blogger will characterize, generally, what " people they are talking to" are saying . However, I think Marc Ambinder stepped over the line today, and inserted himself into the Democratic nomination race in a way that crossed a basic line of journalistic ethics...moving himself from honest reportage and into the territory of innuendo. Let's start with taking a look at what Marc Ambinder said : I speak daily with aides, senior and junior, from both Clinton and Obama campaigns, and I can say, without revealing confidences, that the level of personal antipathy they express, the level of complete distrust, is extreme and in many ways alarming. One public example: when Obama's chief counsel, Bob Bauer, crashed a conference call held by Clinton advisers on Tuesday night. The stress created...

I think Barack Obama has a much stronger chance of beating John McCain in the general election. I think Hillary is flawed in many ways, and particularly if you look at her husband's unwillingness to release the names of the people who contributed to his presidential library. And the reason that is important -- you know, are there favors attached to $500,000 or $1 million contributions? And what do I mean by favors? I mean, pardons that are granted; investigations that are squelched; contracts that are awarded; regulations that are delayed. - Bill Bradley, March 6th, 2008

Gail Collins waxes enthusiastic about the state of the Democratic primary race in today's New York Times: It’s all up to Pennsylvania! Yes folks, over the next seven weeks — the amount of time it takes a normal country to conduct an entire national election — we will be obsessing about the critical upcoming Pennsylvania primary. Harrisburg! Altoona! The Poconos! Did you know that in the Poconos, some hotels have bathtubs shaped like hearts or Champagne glasses? We actually plan on bringing that up a lot. Fast forward to Pennsylvania! Or...check that. Not so fast. Wishing it so does not make it so. Like her candidate, Senator Hillary Clinton, Gail Collins has left Wyoming's March 8th caucus awarding 18 delegates and Mississippi's March 11th primary awarding 33 delegates off the lede. Neglecting some states has been the Achilles heel of the Clinton campaign. For Collins to perpetuate this wishful thinking version of the Democratic nomination process is typical. Collins does...

"If one candidate’s trying to scare you and the other one’s trying to get you to think, if one candidate’s appealing to your fears and the other one’s appealing to your hopes, you better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope." - Bill Clinton, 2004

From ABC's Political Radar , Bill Clinton discusses the Texas Primaries on the trail: Clinton has become extremely detailed in his plea for voter turnout. "If you vote early or you vote on March the 4th in the popular election, 65 percent of the delegates will be selected to the national convention. But 35 percent of the delegates for the national convention will be selected Tuesday night, March 4, at 8000 Percent Convention all across this state," Clinton told the crowd in Killeen this morning, adding, "The doors open at 7 and they close at 7:15. It would be tragic if Hillary were to win this election in the daytime and somebody were to come in at night and take it away. " Meanwhile, in what must be an unrelated development ...

New Clinton campaign ad runs over objections from the Richards family : And, this, from The Dallas Observer blog (h/t Burnt Orange Report): Before that, I'd been talking to the woman you see at right . Earlier, she'd been holding a Hillary sign. Been waving it around, very proud and happy to support Bill's missus. Then another Clinton campaign worker walked up to and said, "Excuse me, would you mind holding this sign instead?" She then handed the woman the handmade sign that reads, "This one's for Ann!" "Ann?" said the woman. "Ann Richards," said the dark-haired Clintonista, shielded by dark, large sunglasses. "Oh, sure," said the woman, smiling but not totally into it. "This way," said the campaign worker, "the cameras are behind you, and they'll be able to see the sign when the president speaks." She then walked off, only to reappear later in the role of cheerleader while the crowd waited and w...

I've read the commentary out there I can't fathom how people are missing what I see as the major point: Clinton was not Presidential. She was inconsistent in her persona. She was clearly flustered at seeing those clips played of her three different personas, and she should be. I don't think that works in Ohio. One thing about folks in the central part of the country, in my view as a midwesterner, is that midwesterners value civility and are circumspect, if not dubious, about attacks. However, that doesn't mean attacks aren't fair game, you just need to be consistent in substance and tone. That is, if Clinton is going to be upset about something, or make fun of something, then she sure better have a good reason for doing so, because you don't want to make a big deal about something in public one day and then not make a big deal about it the next day. If you are a politician and make an attack in the midwest, your supporters are expected to sign on to that attack...

I think comments making the point about Clinton having a path to the nomination through a combination of Super Delegates and a MI/FL play make a fundamentally erroneous assumption. They discount what's already happened. A 64% Obama win in Virginia sweeping almost all demographics. A 58% Obama win in Wisconsin sweeping almost every last demographic. Decisive Obama wins in crucial "Clinton friendly states" like Maine and Washington. Clinton won't win the Super Delegates without winning the Pledged Delegates for the same reason Clinton won't add MI/FL without winning the pledged delegates (which determine who controls the credentials committee): enormous political pressure is coming to bear and will come to bear inside the party that the Pledged Delegate count and the process so far be respected. It may fit "prognosticator fantasies" to leap from some version of a TX/OH "outcome" to Clinton securing Super Delegates and MI/FL to take the nomination...

This is a BBC article about United States Senator Barack Obama serving our country and representing our nation in Africa. As part of that trip, Senator Obama and his wife, Michelle, took a public HIV test to raise awareness of HIV testing in Africa. It was an effort to save lives. Mr Obama walked through rubbish and sewage as he toured Kibera, the slum home to at least 600,000 people, many without jobs or legal title to the land they inhabit. He told thousands of cheering admirers that he would tell Americans about their troubles and lobby for more help. "Everybody in Kenya needs the same opportunities to go to school, to start businesses, to have enough to eat, to have decent clothes," he said over a loudspeaker. Mr Obama visited micro-finance institutions - which pool members' resources to provide small business loans - a women's self-help group, and Carolina for Kibera, a project run by the University of North Carolina to raise awareness about HIV and Aids. On Sat...