MSNBC NEWS – Friday, October 24, 2008 – Here we go again . . . another day, another hour, another minute, and another talking head comes on the air to ‘answer’ questions asked by a cable news host.
In this case, we’re watching ‘Race to the White House’ hosted by David Gregory on MSNBC.
By way of full disclosure, I am an avid MSNBC and CNN watcher, often flipping between both channels at a frantic rate, trying to catch as much of Wolf Blitzer, Jack Cafferty, Chris Matthews, and David Gregory as I can.
So let me ask you (again), are you as sick of listening to lying political hacks as I am?
If so, let’s take a listen to Senior Economic Advisor, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, ‘answering’ David Gregory’s questions.
Who is the real Douglas Holtz-Eakin?
Though he’s an incredibly bright guy (Senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Director of the Congressional Budget Office, Senior Staff Economist for President George H.W. Bush, etc.), he’s probably best known for having imputed the creation of the BlackBerry to John McCain.
Hmmm.
In any case, we need to know . . . Is Douglas Holtz-Eakin just another lying political hack?
Let’s see how he did in an interview with David Gregory this afternoon.
David Gregory: “I want to welcome Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Senior Economic Advisor to the McCain campaign who joins us this evening. Doug, it’s good to see you.”
Douglas Holtz-Eakin: “Good to see you, Dave.”
David Gregory: “L-let me follow on this point, this ad that the McCain campaign is running in the context of an international crisis. Let me ask you the question in terms of an economic crisis, you’ve seen the polls, I don’t have to remind you of those . . . the advantages of taxes and the economy goes (sic) to Barack Obama. That’s in our poll. So if it comes to a test, what to you point to, to show the voters, the undecided voters, that John McCain has passed and that Senator Obama has not?”
Douglas Holtz-Eakin: “I think there are three or four key points here. The first is that Barack Obama is firmly aligned with the Bush administration in not getting it that the key to this financial crisis is taking care of the housing market. Keeping people in their homes will help stabilize the real economy, help keep unemployment from going up, keep consumers spending. Stabilizing the housing market will take care of the banking sector and the idea that you just want to throw the cash at banks is really, uh, uh, uh, an incomplete and mistaken policy. I think the second major point is on the substance, Barack Obama is bad news for the economy. The kinds of things he wants to do, misplaced tax policies that hurt small businesses, trade policies that are protectionist, bad health policies are all going to hurt jobs and John McCain is not going to turn this recession into a depression like Barack Obama is.
“Third key point is, you know, Barack Obama’s got more money. He gave up the, uh, the pledge for public financing in the general election. He’s trying to buy this election by running misleading ads about all this and, and the question is, can he get away with it?”
AND THE ANSWER WAS . . . NO ANSWER. Holtz-Eakin failed to answer David Gregory’s question . . . which was, ‘What do you point to, to show the voters, the undecided voters, that John McCain has passed the test and Senator Obama has not?’ Holtz-Eakin threw out some unsubstantiated stuff about Barack Obama being ‘firmly aligned with the Bush Administration’. He lectures on the obvious benefits of stabilizing the housing market and he gives us a few more unsubstantiated claims, says Obama will turn the recession into a depression (again, without substantiation) and complains that Barack Obama has raised more money and is running misleading ads. Translation: Who put a gun to the McCain campaign’s head to force them to take public financing and the limitations thereof? And, is Holtz-Eakin calling the kettle black when he accuses the Obama campaign of running ‘misleading ads’?
David Gregory: “Let me ask you the question about tax policy and the debate that’s being framed here in the, in the, closing days. Explain to me why this pitch about Joe the plumber and about tax cuts is anything more than a play for non-college educated, working class voters in a state like Pennsylvania which is key on the electoral map for the McCain campaign.”
Douglas Holtz-Eakin: “People tried for months to get Barack Obama to reveal, A, the details about what he really plans to do and, B, what exactly was the philosophy that somehow underpinned it. Without success . . . I mean, you still cannot get the Obama campaign to tell you what is the definition of a small business that gets the differential tax treatment. They, they, refuse to actually come clean.
“Joe the plumber in Ohio got Barack Obama in a moment of losing his verbal eloquence to actually lay it out. What he believed. And the American people don’t like his agenda. Ah, that’s not, ah, ah, a judgment made by this campaign. It’s a judgment made by the American people. And all we’ve done is see it exposed.”
AND THE ANSWER WAS . . . NO ANSWER. Again, Holtz-Eakin failed to answer David Gregory’s question . . . which was, ‘Explain to me why this pitch about Joe the plumber and about tax cuts is anything more than a play for non-college educated, working class voters in a state like Pennsylvania which is key on the electoral map for the McCain campaign?’ Holtz-Eakin opened with a vague criticism about Obama’s alleged refusal to reveal something about ‘what he really plans to do’. He expresses a concern about the definition a small business, criticizes Obama’s loss of ‘verbal eloquence’, and closes with a blatant lie when he says the ‘American people don’t like his (Obama’s) agenda’.
David Gregory: (interrupting): “. . . Are you saying they don’t like his agenda on taxes? On general handling of the economy, Barack Obama gets the higher ratings. The polls show that . . . “
Douglas Holtz-Eakin: (Interrupting) “ . . . Barack Obama has gotten, B-Barack Obama has gotten the higher rating but this election is not over. If you look at the only poll, the only poll that called the 2004 election right, Investor’s Business Daily, this is a 2 point race. And we shall see whether Barack Obama, uh, by revealing exactly what he’s up to, which is, let’s spend a lot of money, let’s raise taxes to, to pay for and let’s not worry about economic growth, let’s not worry about prosperity that’s generated by ss . . . having a jobs, saving for college, saving for retirement, uh, we’ll see if that plays so well.”
AND THE ANSWER WAS . . . NO ANSWER. For the third time, Holtz-Eakin did not answer the question . . . which was, ‘Are you saying they don’t like his agenda on taxes? On general handling of the economy, Barack Obama gets the higher ratings.’ Holtz-Eakin tells us the obvious – the election is not over – and then dismisses every other poll in the nation by claiming that the only accurate poll is the ‘Investor’s Business Daily’ poll because it happened to call the 2004 election right (unsubstantiated). Holtz-Eakin then makes a few more unsubstantiated claims about a secret Obama agenda to spend a lot of money, raise taxes, not worry about economic growth, not worry about prosperity generated by having jobs, saving for college, or saving for retirement.
David Gregory: “Right . . . you know, I-I was asked by, uh, uh, a voter the other day, uh, w-who was not necessarily coming from, from the other side of the aisle, but who said, look, ‘cause I-I often will say in covering the, the Bush White House that I can remember well John McCain bucking President Bush and bucking the Republican party, uh, but the facts are also clear I remember covering John McCain when he did talk about voting with the Bush Administration ninety percent of the time. So, how do you reconcile that . . . in our polling that shows nearly six in ten voters think that McCain would be more Bush at a time when you’re saying that the Bush Administration doesn’t get it. You’re going for separation pretty late in the game.”
Douglas Holtz-Eakin: “Well, I mean, the reality is it’s not the number of votes, it’s, it’s what votes matter. Uh, a-at key moments, John McCain has in fact done the right things standing up to the Bush Administration. He’s done the right thing at times in standing up to the Republican party, uh, and he, he will continue to do that for the American people. That’s the key moment. The leadership moments. That’s what the ad was about today.
“Barack Obama has never displayed one moment of leadership . . . when he said that his party or his political backers, ‘no I won’t do that for you because there’s an important issue that the American people need for me to deliver on’. He’s never shown any, uh, uh, ability to do that and without that, he is truly untested and dangerous.”
AND THE ANSWER WAS . . . NO ANSWER. Once again, he failed to answer the question . . . which was, ‘You’re going for separation (from the Bush Administration) pretty late in the game (aren’t you)?’ Rather than answer the question, Holtz-Eakin talks about John McCain’s ‘maverick’ image and refers to an unknown ad. He then goes on to criticize Barack Obama for never having displayed even ‘one moment of leadership’ and he warns us that Obama is untested and, moreover, dangerous.
David Gregory: “Al right, we’re going to leave it there. Senior Advisor on the economy, uh, Doug Holtz-Eakin. Doug, uh, good to see you. Thank you for being here.”
Douglas Holtz-Eakin: “Thank you.”
Though David Gregory, an experienced, well-respected journalist asked a series of insightful questions, Holtz-Eakin didn’t answer even one of them.
If Holtz-Eakin was hired by John McCain to give folks like you and me reasons to vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin, he didn’t earn a dime’s worth of his pay today . . . unless bad-mouthing Barack Obama works for the McCain campaign.
But I’m curious . . . why on earth wouldn’t Douglas Holtz-Eakin take this opportunity to tell hundreds of thousands of MSNBC viewers why they should vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin?
Why would he waste your time, my time, David Gregory’s time and his time by leveling a bunch of unsubstantiated attacks on Barack Obama?
Could it be that Douglas Holtz-Eakin is just another lying political hack?
Good question . . . what do you think?
P.S. Doug . . . take a shave, willya?
Copyright © 2008 by LTD Associates West, Ltd. All rights reserved.
If you have questions, comments, or concerns, Email me at ltdassociates@msn.com (goes right to my desk) and since I personally answer every Email, I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Want to go to a Blog that listens to you and speaks for you as well?
GO TO http://bothsidesnowbiz.blogspot.com/ AND SPEAK UP . . .In his first Sunday morning interview since accepting the Democratic Party's nomination for Vice President, Sen. Joe Biden goes one-on-one with Tom Brokaw -- live from Wilmington, Delaware.
"Meet the Press" airs Sundays in most places across the U.S. from 9-10 a.m. ET on the NBC-TV network, and from 10:30-11:30 a.m. ET in New York and Washington.
The show re-airs at 6 p.m. ET Sundays and 2 a.m. ET Mondays on MSNBC on cable. To check the time in your area, visit this MSNBC Web site:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3080248/
For those of you who don't already know, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams will fill in as host of "Meet The Press" until a permanent host is announced.
Please tune in this Sunday, June 22, as Brian Williams interviews former Democratic presidential candidate, and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Joe Biden, and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham.
Topics will include the Iraq war, the U.S. economy and rising gas prices.
Tim, we will miss you. God bless.
The senators will square off on Iraq, the economy, rising gas prices and more.
"Meet The Press" airs on MSNBC at 10:30 am ET in New York City and Washington, DC, and at 9:00 am in many other cities.
For a time and station in your neighborhood, visit:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3080248/
For more information pls contact me at Erin_Medlicott@yahoo.com.
Jim Callahan
Orlando, FL
UPDATE: Also on CNN & FOX.
They also talked about the possibilty of Hillary actively trying to sabotage Obama's chances for the General, so that she can run again in 2012. Not only do they want Hillary out of the race, they want to scapegoat her for Obama's eventual defeat, setting up the Obama 2012 nomination. Tonight they called Hillary's 35 point win in Kentucky a draw against Obama's 16 point win (currently) in Oregon. When Obama won N.C. and Hillary barely won Indiana, that was an Obama "Blow Out".
How do other Hillary suporters feel about the press coverage of the Clinton campaign?
Here's the original clip from msnbc:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23412324#24655385
or read all the comments left on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1wSZBTAXRs
Obama wins NC by double digits (16%).
Jim Callahan
Orlando, FL
Donahue was among the first personalities on television to speak out against the war and he paid a price for it.
Back in 2003 Phil Donahue lost his MSNBC talk show. He got memo telling him that his bosses were concerned that he was turning his show into "a home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity."
Instead of "going gently into the dark night of retirement", Donahue collaborated with Ellen Spiro to create a documentary which premiered last month at the Toronto International Film Festival. It is a heart-wrenching story of an American Soldier who was wounded in Baghdad. The audience gave it a 10 minute standing ovation.
I look forward to seeing it. If you are interested, for dates and cities, go to
Clinton now holds a 263-239 superdelegate lead.
Obama leads by 133 overall: 1,729-1,596.
Obama leads by 157 in the pledged delegate count: 1,490-1,333
The Pennsylvania pledged count (updated 4/23, 6:15 pm): Clinton 82-73 (three delegates still to be allocated.)
There are 408 delegates up for grabs in the remaining nine contests.
And a new addition, some "fun" with POPULAR VOTE numbers...
Without MI/FL:
Obama: 14,447,566
Clinton: 13,965,192
With FL, but NOT MI:
Obama: 15,016,607
Clinton: 14,822,400
With MI/FL, including "uncommitted" for Obama:
Obama: 15,254,369
Clinton: 15,150,551
With MI/FL, giving Obama 0 in MI and Clinton 328,000-plus (the only metric which gives her a lead):
Clinton: 15,150,551
Obama: 15,016,607
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/04/23/939826.aspx
Jim Callahan
Orlando, FL
why this blowhole merits this kind of press is beyond me, but here it is:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/magazine/13matthews-t.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
Get involved with these protests! I wish I could be there, but I'll definately be watching MSNBC and the rest of the news outlets to see if they are covering this!
There's a lot of info here, so please take the time to read everything, protest details are toward the end, but the history quoted here is shocking!
Here's the link to where I found the information and the text. Please note that I did not write the diary entry below, but I'm glad I read it.
http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/4/9/13856/89666
THE WE'RE MAD AS HELL PROTEST AGAINST GE/MSNBC HEADS TO LA!!
JOIN US!!!!
There will be a protest this Friday morning at Rockefeller Center in New York against the anti Clinton bias and accepted sexism of much of the coverage and commentary that is aired by NBC and MSNBC.
This diary is meant to give a short history and background to how GE/NBC/MSNBC have worked against Democratic Party interests for over a decade and to announce that we will be presenting another protest/picket in Los Angeles and would like to recruit people to be involved.
Let's review the basic data about the big political stars of NBC News--Tim Russert (Meet the Press), Brian Williams (Nightly News) and Chris Matthews (cable ranting). They're much more like a fraternal order than like something you'd call a "press corps.
The three were hired or anointed under the regime of conservative mogul Jack Welch; as chairman of General Electric, Welch was in charge of NBC News, and was heavily involved in its operation. Welch recruited the three, and made them multimillionaires; he even let Russert and Matthews live with him amid the swells of Nantucket. And oh yes: The three have been kicking the sh*t out of Dem White House hopefuls from that day right up to this.
As you may have noticed over the years, many liberal leaders, writers and pundits refuse to discuss these striking facts about GE/NBC/MSNBC's role in destroying Al Gore and a decade of trashing both Clintons. Welch's role in this matter ought to be chastening. Democrats and voters around the Country ought to be told about these matters; it would help them form their ideas (and reservations and concerns) about the people who hand them their "news."
Your "press corps" is full of trivial people, and trivial people love trivia. They don't give a sh*t about how health care works. Hullo... they already have it! Instead, they like to tell stories about people's character. There's an older word for this trait. They're gossips.
Clinton has been trashed by Chris Matthews in astonishing ways. Russert and Williams are very bad--but Matthews is a true maniac. His gender disturbance has been on display for years. Few "liberal" have found the heart to complain--or even to notice what's happening. But then, our liberal leaders have long ignored Matthews' woman-trashing, going all the way back to the late 1990s. This is A-OK with our tribe. Absent the unusual person, our tribe doesn't even notice.
Hardball has long since entered full propaganda mode, trashing Clinton at every turn and begging its viewers to see the greatness of the alternate, Obama. Of course, this is precisely what he did in 1999, when he tried to keep Gore from the Dem nomination, before going on to trash him savagely all through the general campaign. You might be surprised to recall a fact: We've sat through this movie before.
But in his current crackpot displays, Matthews shows us what occurs when a middle-class democracy is run by a multimillionaire press corps.
Some say its dumb for tracking Chris Matthews and MSNBC so much, since he and it has a fairly small audience. But the viewing audience isn't the point; the point of Hardball is the access it gives us to the mind-set of a large chunk of the insider press corps. Chris may (or may not) affect many voters, but he does affect insider journalists; on his show, you get to see their various narratives as they take their shape. It's the closest you'll come to being invited to those fatuous cocktail parties--the parties where this cohort's group dynamic produces the hopeless, gong-show narratives that drive our electoral process. Over the past dozen years, Chris has been exceptionally harmful to Big Major Dems, in large part because of the way he influences the younger journos who rank below him in the insider pecking order.
In this journalistic cohort, narratives filter down from the top; people like Matthews and Russert assert them, and the lower orders agree to repeat them. Chris lies at the very heart of a large chunk of the insider press corps. If no voters ever watched his show, it would still be must-see bad TV.
In the modern world, mainstream journalistic careers go through NBC. They go through Hardball--and of course, Meet the Press. When you see the endless liberal silence about the work of Russert/Williams/Matthews, does it never occur to you that you ought to be furious with the conduct--the morals--of your "leaders?"
Brian Williams is the guy who spent two weeks in the fall of 1999 complaining, crying and belly-aching about Gore's troubling polo shirts and what they said about the VP's "insincerity". Williams also spent that summer and fall pandering to Bush, in ways which were comically awful. We also know he's the guy who staged that horrendous first Democratic debate this year; And then when we recall the way he worked with Russert in the two debate muggings of Candidate Clinton-- events unlike any other debates in American history. (No, this doesn't always happen. Nothing like it ever happened before.) Sorry, but when Howard Kurtz reports that Williams is Bush's favorite anchor, we're not especially surprised.
Have there ever been debates like these before? A debate where the moderators so plainly intended to spend the evening trashing the character of one of the candidates? Challenged for his treatment of Hillary in the debates, Russert expressed this Great Escape media dodge ... "You get it from the left and the right," he said, "and I think that kind of confirms you're doing a pretty good job." It's truly a measure of our times--that a journalist paid $ millions per year can respond to this in so empty a way, in a manner that shows so little attempt at anything like real reflection. But lets look at....Russert's prior conduct toward Clinton:
During Campaign 2000, Russert took a great deal of criticism for his inappropriate conduct in a debate--again toward Hillary Clinton!
What was said in September 2000 about Russerts hosting of her NY Senate debate?
In the Daily News, columnist Mark Sommer said that Russert had taken "an astonishingly cheap shot" against Clinton.
In the Washington Post, Richard Cohen said this of Russert's behavior: "Not since the old Saturday night fights has TV seen such a low blow."
In an unsigned editorial, the Columbia Journalism Review said this: "Russert pitched a question to Hillary Clinton that was breath-takingly out of bounds."
Indeed, Cohen went further with his complaints, writing this: "Hillary Clinton's chief problem, her own strategists will tell you, is her inability to tell New Yorkers why she is running. After her debate with Rick Lazio last week she should no longer have that predicament. She's running to get away from Tim Russert and all he represents." Yikes!
Sommer noted that Russert's sex-obsessed questions "certainly wasn't out of character" for the Buffalo blather king. "After all, during the media's coverage of the Lewinsky scandal ...'Meet the Press' continually wallowed in the sex scandal.
In a black mark for network news programming, Russert's show was the first to heap respectability upon notorious Internet smut sleuth Matt Drudge by having him on as a guest."
Over the course of the past fifteen years, your interests have been shipped down the river as the plutocrat press corps' major fixers have trashed a succession of Major Dems.
DIGBY'S TAKE: Democrats have to learn how to explain these matters to average voters. In our view, here's the simplest form of the story:
WHAT HAPPENS: Quite often, they hand you novels about the candidates in place of real journalism. Over the course of the past twenty years, these novels have strongly tended to disparage the character of Major Dems.
Gore is the obvious example. Today, he holds the Nobel Peace Prize. Eight years ago, they invented tales about him for two years-while hyping the now-discredited Bush. This is a simple, and important, story. Liberals have refused to tell it.
By the way: The mainstream press corps did this to Gore, now they are doing it to Hillary. Why do high profile liberals stay quiet and away from this tale? It's funny--odd---coincidental--when those same leaders often turn up as guests on MSNBC itself...
To their credit, conservatives fought back against the press corps, starting in the 1960s.
We are babies in this fight. Outside of Media Matters, the Daily Howler, Digby and a very few others, there are few brave enough to speak out in public for the outrage that many millions of Democrats around the Country feel about the hijacking of our Party's dialog once again by the bad actors of GE/NBC/MSNBC.
BUT, so far because of efforts by Democrats who just refuse to take it anymore...:
1) Chris Matthews was forced to apologize: In January, one of NBC's biggest political players was forced to apologize for insulting comments--about Hillary Clinton!
2) David Shuster was forced to apologize, then suspended: A few weeks later, one of NBC's political reporters was forced to apologize, then was suspended, for insulting comments--about Hillary Clinton! (Steph's note here, they are referring to the comment on Chelsea being "pimped out.")
But the patterns of bad behavior of GE/Universal/NBC/MSNBC News departments persist.
The protest that will be taking place this Friday morning outside of the windows of NBC's Today program will be taken to other cities and other NBC offices and affiliates.
We are looking for people to join us in these efforts.
Next we will be putting together a protest outside of NBC/Universal in Los Angeles. We would like to also present another picket and protest in Washington DC and one outside the HQ of MSNBC partner Microsoft in Seattle, Wa.
If you live in any of those three cities please write us at msnbcpushback@gmail.com.
If you live in a city that has a NBC affiliate and would like to take the protest there too, also be sure to write.
These are some materials that Murray over at the NYC protest sent to us.
1. MAIN PROMO HOMEPAGE for PROTEST
http://www.hillaryclintonforum.net/april11
2. PROMO IMAGE for PROTEST
http://www.hillaryclintonforum.net/images/april11.jpg
3. PROMO IMAGE HANDOUT for PROTEST
http://www.hillaryclintonforum.net/images/april11.pdf
4. PROMO DOCUMENT HANDOUT for PROTEST
http://www.hillaryclintonforum.net/april11handout.pdf
5. PROMO AD for PROTEST (VIDEO)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceym55Xlmzg
6. HATE SPEECH AGAINST HILLARY CLINTON (VIDEO)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcdnlNZg2iM
7. HILLARY CLINTON ONLINE NETWORK
http://www.hillaryclintonforum.net/prohillary
8. HILLARY CLINTON SUPPORTERS FORUM
http://www.hillaryclintonforum.net/discussion
who needs the media to be balanced? nah!! let's ignore some real stories and instead drag out clinton/lewinsky. god knows half the people on this site drag out the same old, tired, dead issues just for their alleged "shock" value. mediamatters has some clarification, for those interested in actual news:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200804020011?lid=200743&rid=6159476
Its somewhat confusing but as I have been trying to gather information on the Convention votes being counted over this past weekend in Texas from what the major press is reporting Senator Barack Obama won Texas Big.
Read the Houston cronicle Story below.
I will try and get complete delegate numbers in the next few days from the Texas Democratic Party.
As the smoke cleared from this weekend's regional Democratic conventions, Barack Obama emerged with a majority of the state's at-large presidential nominating delegates and possibly a majority of all Texas delegates.
... Obama's campaign claimed he came out of this weekend's conventions with a 38-29 at-large delegate lead, giving him a five-pledged-delegate lead over Clinton.
"We can confirm now that Barack Obama won Texas," said Obama spokesman Josh Earnest.
... The actual number of delegates awarded to Obama and Clinton will not be official until the state party convention meets June 5-7 in Austin. The results of Saturday's regional conventions were still being tallied Sunday, but Obama was winning about 58 percent of the delegates to the state convention.
About 100,000 people turned out for about 280 county and senatorial district conventions on Saturday. The final conventions were being held Sunday in Collin County.
While participants waited in long lines and spent hours helping to elect presidential nominating delegates, the chaos wasn't nearly as bad as the March 4 caucuses, which attracted about 1 million voters, Democratic Party spokesman Hector Nieto said.
"Overall, (the conventions) went pretty well," Nieto said. "It was democracy in action."
He should talk.When Senator Liberman was a Democrat in 2006 running in a Democratic Primary against Ned Lamont he ended up losing the Democratic nomination to Ned Lamont.
The before the general election happened he started the Joe Lieberman Party a Party of one.
He did not honor the outcome of his defeat back then and decided to run as he would say an Independent.
He lost the Democratic Primay for one of many reasons his stance on the Iraq War in which he supported the Bush Policy on and still does to this day.
Many in the Connecticut Democratic Party swa this as someone who was greedy and power hungry to take the Senate Seat back.
Joe Lieberman was always close with President Bush with the famous Kiss of approval that Bush gave him .
Now Senator Lieberman his at the side of Senator McCain .
Lieberman is a Republican regardless if he say's he is Independent.
Senator Liebermans attack on the Democratic Party is worthless.
He nolonger is a Democrat but wants the Democratic Party to act like the Republican Party and that will not happen at all.
What he does not like is that real people in the Grassroots of the Democratic Party have come back in to the process to be heard.
George McGovern in 1972 and the delegates then were at that time a new generation that wanted to change our Party for the better and have it become more progressive .
Many years later The Democratic Party lost that Idealism and became controlled by Corperate greed and lobbyists.
Now that the People are taking back the Party Lieberman says its a small group of the Democratic Party Left.
He should just become a Republican because nolonger is Senator Lieberman at all a Democratic.
Senator Liberman has sold his soul to the higest bidder and nolonger can represent the Democratic Party at all.
Go Away Senator Lieberman we do not need you around any more.
Democratic Presidential Nomination Gallup Tracking Obama 50, Clinton 43 Obama +7
As I have been saying as we go into each day and week the National Polls will show Senator Clinton going down .
Lets take a look at the latest Pew National Poll and what they are saying .
Released March 27, 2008
The videos of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's controversial sermons and Barack Obama's subsequent speech on race and politics have attracted more public attention than any events thus far in the 2008 presidential campaign. A majority of the public (51%) said they heard "a lot" about the videos, and an even larger percentage (54%) said they heard a lot about Obama's speech, according to the weekly News Interest Index.
Most voters aware of the sermons say they were personally offended by Wright's comments, and a sizable minority (35%) says that their opinion of Obama has grown less favorable because of Wright's statements.
However, the Wright controversy does not appear to have undermined support for Obama's candidacy. The latest nationwide survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted March 19-22 among 1,503 adults, finds that Obama maintains a 49%-to-39% advantage over Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, which is virtually unchanged from than the 49%-to-40% lead he held among Democrats in late February. Obama and Clinton continue to enjoy slight advantages over John McCain in general election matchups among all registered voters.
The new polling suggests that the Wright affair has not hurt Obama's standing, in part because his response to the controversy has been viewed positively by voters who favor him over Clinton. Obama's handling of the Wright controversy also won a favorable response from a substantial proportion of Clinton supporters and even from a third of Republican voters.
More than eight-in-ten supporters of Obama (84%) who have heard about the controversy over Wright's sermons say he has done an excellent or good job of dealing with the situation. Reactions from Clinton supporters, and Republicans, are on balance negative; however, 43% of Clinton voters and a third of Republican voters who have heard about the affair express positive opinions about Obama's handling of the situation.
The survey finds that, in general, Obama has a highly favorable image among Democratic voters, including white Democrats. But while Obama's personal image is more favorable than Clinton's, certain social beliefs and attitudes among older, white, working-class Democratic voters are associated with his lower levels of support among this group.
In particular, white Democrats who hold unfavorable views of Obama are much more likely than those who have favorable opinions of him to say that equal rights for minorities have been pushed too far; they also are more likely to disapprove of interracial dating, and are more concerned about the threat that immigrants may pose to American values. In addition, nearly a quarter of white Democrats (23%) who hold a negative view of Obama believe he is a Muslim.
Less educated and older white Democrats, who have not backed Obama in most primary elections, hold these values more commonly than do other Democrats.
These patterns suggest the potential for future reverberations from the Wright controversy if Obama wins the Democratic nomination. More conservative beliefs about equal rights and race are not only related to negative opinions of Obama among Democrats, suggesting the potential for defections among Democratic voters, but also are associated with negative views of him in the electorate at large.
An analysis of the survey finds that holding conservative positions on political and social values is associated with a greater likelihood of supporting McCain over Obama among Republicans, Democrats and independents, and all demographic groups. In contrast, however, this pattern is much less apparent in the Clinton-McCain matchup, excepting views about women in leadership roles.
One of the few negative trends for Obama following the Wright affair is that a larger number of conservative Republicans hold a very unfavorable opinion of him in the new poll than did so in February. The survey also finds that Obama no longer enjoys the favorable image rating advantage over McCain among independents that was apparent in previous polls.
White Democrats and the Candidates
Large majorities of white Democratic voters view Obama as honest, inspiring, patriotic, and down-to-earth. Obama's personal image surpasses Clinton's on almost every personal attribute tested in the survey, except patriotism.
In addition, roughly twice as many white Democrats say the word "phony" describes Clinton than say it describes Obama (30% vs. 16%). And the gap is even larger in perceptions of likability; 43% of white Democratic voters say the phrase "hard-to-like" describes Clinton, while just 13% say it describes Obama.
Gender makes a significant difference in personal perceptions of Hillary Clinton. Democratic women voters are much more likely than their male counterparts to view Clinton as honest and down-to-earth, and they more often report that Clinton makes them feel proud and hopeful. However, Democratic women voters are about as likely as Democratic men to say the descriptors hard-to-like and phony apply to Clinton.
Views of Obama More Tied to Voters' Emotions
White voters' views of Barack Obama are more influenced by how he makes them feel than by specific characteristics voters attribute to him. Saying that Obama makes them feel hopeful and proud are the strongest predictors of the ratings white Democrats give him. And of the personal traits tested, "inspiring" is more closely linked with views of the Illinois senator than any of the others.
On the other hand, views of Hillary Clinton among white Democratic voters are more influenced by perceptions that she is phony than by any other trait or emotion tested. But saying that Clinton makes them feel proud and hopeful also are significant predictors of how these voters rate her. Interestingly, while sizable minorities of white Democratic voters say Clinton is hard-to-like (43%), this opinion does not have a significant impact on her favorability ratings.
McCain Out of the Spotlight
Opinions about John McCain are mostly unchanged in the current survey. In part, this may be explained by his low level of public visibility.
In the current weekly News Interest Index survey, just 3% mentioned McCain, unprompted, as the candidate they had heard most about in the news. That compares with 71% who named Obama and 15% who named Clinton as the candidate they had heard most about.
More positive for McCain, however, is that a growing proportion of Republican voters say that the GOP will solidly unite behind the Arizona senator; 64% express that view currently, up from 58% in late February. Along with this expression of increased partisan unity, the survey finds that by a considerable margin (52%-37%), independent voters say that if McCain is elected, he will take the country in a different direction rather than continuing Bush's policies.
This comes at an opportune time for the GOP candidate. Bush's job approval rating has slipped to 28%, the lowest of his presidency. In addition, just 22% express satisfaction with the way things are going in the country. This, too, is about as negative an evaluation of the course of the nation as measured in nearly 20 years of Pew surveys.
Other important findings include:
The Wright controversy has not heightened the public's impression that Obama's race will undermine his chance in the general election if he is the nominee. Only 21% say Obama's race will hurt his chances, compared with 25% who held that view in January.
One-in-ten voters believe that Barack Obama is Muslim; 14% of Republicans, 10% of Democrats and 8% of independents think he is Muslim.
Fewer Democratic voters now think that a long primary contest is a good thing for the party. Just 44% think it is a good thing for the party that the nominating contest has not been settled. A month ago 57% expressed that view.
Most Democratic supporters of Clinton and Obama express favorable opinions of the other candidate. However, the campaign has taken a toll on positive views of both candidates among their rival's supporters. Still, majorities of Obama and Clinton supporters still believe the party will solidly unite behind the nominee even if their favored candidate does not prevail.
Nearly six-in-ten Democratic voters (57%) believe that Obama is most likely to win the party's nomination, while 28% expect Clinton to prevail. Last month, 70% said Obama was most likely to win, while 17% expected Clinton to win.
Pre-recorded campaign calls, or "robo-calls," have become the leading form of campaign communication in the 2008 primary season. Nationwide, 39% of voters say they have received a pre-recorded call about the campaign, up from 25% in November.
As again I have consistantly stated Senator Clinton will not do well and as we continue down the path of her trying to win the noination her negatives will continue to go up as the American decide enough of this lets talk about issues and beating Senator McCain.
Again I will continue to review whats happening in the Polls .
Its not looking good for Senator Clitnon.
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