A More Perfect Union

We all have known Barack Obama is one of the greatest orators of our time and has given several speeches  of historical significance.  The speech he gave today might top the list.

Remarks of Senator Barack Obama
“A More Perfect Union”
Constitution Center
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

March 18, 2008

On Clinton’s Tax Returns, a “Frankly Disturbing” Lack of Transparency, and Surrogate-ancholy

Some questions that every democrat in St. Louis (or voter) should be asking about the Clintons, summarized in a nice article by Arianna Huffington.

The Clinton Civil War

There is a very interesting and thoughtful article today on Daily Kos regarding the “strike” by Clinton bloggers from Daily Kos and the current power at all costs strategy of the Clinton campaign despite the fact she can only win if the super delegates overturn the popular vote.  This is made even more acute with the recent delegate shifts to Obama in Iowa.

A few of my favorite paragraphs below…

Iowa Gives Obama Boost, Again!

As reported in the Huffington Post today,it looks like an additional seven delegates in Iowa originally supporting John Edwards are now supporting Obama.  The remaining seven delegates remained uncommitted meaning the delegate lead for Obama could continue to grow.

My predictions for Obama’s delegate lead will have to be revised again to 160 after the last planned primary in June – not including FL, MI and Supers.

The Clinton Memo… as annotated by the Obama communications department

Below is surprisingly witty response from the Obama campaign to recent spin from the Clinton camp.

Obama Gains Delegates in California! +8

A few weeks back I wrote a blog after crunching delegate numbers and predicted after the remaining dozen or so primaries are completed that the Obama delegate lead will remain about the same – around 140.

 

The Wall Street Journal ran a very interesting story this week about shifting delegate counts as results are certified.  In most cases there is little to no change but something interesting happened in California.  Final results expected out this week show that Obama won 167 delegates (not the 163 originally reported) and Clinton won 203 delegates (not the 207 originally reported).  Increasing Obama’s overall delegate lead by an additional 8 delegates.

 

The correction in California delegates basically wiped out Clinton’s delegate margin in Ohio.

 

Yet to be reported are expected updates in New York once the vote fraud investigation and counting is complete.  As reported in the New York Times, the “irregularities” could shift delegates into the Obama column.

 

So I am not revising my estimate for Obama to factor in the unusual counting errors and will project that when the last primary is done (Puerto Rick June 10th) Obama will increase his delegate count by 10 to a total of 152 – not including Michigan, Florida or the Supers.

The Clinton Campaign’s Awkward Electoral College Argument

For those who decided to sleep through the time change, here is what Hillary Clinton Campaign surrogate Ed Rendell said this morning on Meet the Press:

Nobel Peace Prize Winner: Hillary Clinton’s ’silly” Irish Peace Claims

Hillary Clinton had no direct role in bringing peace to Northern Ireland and is a “wee bit silly” for exaggerating the part she played, according to Lord Trimble of Lisnagarvey, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and former First Minister of the province.

“I don’t know there was much she did apart from accompanying Bill [Clinton] going around,” he said. Her recent statements about being deeply involved were merely “the sort of thing people put in their canvassing leaflets” during elections. “She visited when things were happening, saw what was going on, she can certainly say it was part of her experience. I don’t want to rain on the thing for her but being a cheerleader for something is slightly different from being a principal player.”

Mrs Clinton has made Northern Ireland key to her claims of having extensive foreign policy experience, which helped her defeat Barack Obama in Ohio and Texas on Tuesday after she presented herself as being ready to tackle foreign policy crises at 3am.

“I helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland,” she told CNN on Wednesday. But negotiators from the parties that helped broker the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 told The Daily Telegraph that her role was peripheral and that she played no part in the gruelling political talks over the years.

Read entire article

CNN, “Scant Evidence” of Clinton Experience

With a debate raging over which presidential candidate has the most experience and best judgment on world affairs, the Chicago Tribune examines Sen. Hillary Clinton’s record:

Obama Raises $55m in February

According to a report from AP, Senator Barack Obama raised a record $55 million in February for his presidential campaign, besting Senator Clinton by $20 million.

 What is more staggering is the number of contributors to the Obama campaign now tops 1,000,000 – another record for the political history books.