SUPER-DELEGATES: WE ARE NOT BOUND BY DELEGATE COUNT

The Associated Press]

*****BREAKING NEWS******

April 21, 2008

The majority of 100 undecided super-delegates surveyed by the Associated Press do not feel bound by which Democratic candidate holds the majority of pledged delegates, the Associated Press is reporting.

Rather, the super-delegates reported that the most important factor in their decision will be who can win the November general election.

"I think it's really important that we keep our eye on the prize, and the prize is the win in November," said Gail Rasmussen, an undecided super-delegate from Oregon.

Obama has been arguing for months that the super-delegates would be overturning the will of the voters if they don't nominate the candidate who has won the most pledged delegates. He has a 164-delegate lead in that category. Clinton, meanwhile, has argued that super-delegates should exercise independent judgment.

It would appear that Clinton is winning that argument.

Of course, the former first lady still has to pull off a commanding win in Pennsylvania in order to give her argument convincing force.

THE MORNING AFTER: DEBATE CAUSES HILLARY SURGE IN NATIONAL GALLUP TRACKING POLL

[Gallup Daily]

Gallup Poll Daily tracking shows a tightening of the national Democratic race, with Barack Obama now holding just a 3-percentage point advantage over Hillary Clinton, 47% to 44%.

According to Gallup, the results are based on interviewing conducted April 15-17, with Thursday night's interviewing the first conducted following the April 16 debate in Philadelphia. The initial indications are that Obama may have been hurt by the debate, which was noted for its negative tone and focus on the candidates' recent "gaffes" and Obama's associations with the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers (a former member of the radical Weather Underground group).

In Thursday night's interviewing, Clinton received a greater share of national Democratic support than Obama, the first time she has done so in an individual night's interviewing since April 3, reports Gallup:

“That stronger showing for Clinton helped to snap Obama's streak of statistically significant leads in the three-day rolling averages Gallup reports each day. Until today, he had led Clinton by a statistically significant margin in each of the prior 11 Gallup releases.”

The full impact of the debate -- and the ensuing media coverage of it -- will be apparent in the coming days, and it will soon be clear if the debate has produced a shift back to a more competitive race, or if Clinton may have received just a temporary boost in support, Gallup notes.

The first real indication of which candidate was helped or hurt in the debate will be the Pennsylvania primary election next Tuesday, so stay tuned!

Its going to be a barn burner from hear-on-out.

YARD SIGN IN SOUTHERN PENNSYLVANIA: “NOT BITTER”; OTHERS THINK HIM “THE ANTICHRIST”

“The Devil will see you now, Mr. Obama”

[The Australian]

According to Geoff Elliott, who is poking around the Keystone State for the Australian press, Cindy Sowers, 48, is so mad at Barack Obama that she decided to make a sign.

Elliot writes:

“She took out a white board and with black tape spelled out NOT BITTER. Then she stuck the sign in her front yard.”

Southern Pennsylvania is almost all white and a place of guns, God and hard economic times. “Obama will be lucky to win more than a handful of votes here,” Elliot writes.

This is the political market that Obama so offended when his private comments to a wealthy fundraising gathering in San Francisco were splashed across cable TV last week.

"We are a bunch of rednecks?" Sowers asks on the porch of her house. "I think there are a lot of people who are angry about that."

Sowers, retired from the military, where she held an administrative position, is an avowed Hillary Clinton supporter. “And she's certainly no redneck, Elliot writes noting that Sowers's son, who dates a young woman of mixed race, is supporting Obama.

To Sowers, Obama cannot be trusted because of his long-term association with a "wacko" preacher: his pastor in south Chicago, Jeremiah Wright, who is known for occasionally incendiary sermons that Obama's critics say are anti-American.

THE ANTICHRIST

Elliot further discovered in his trek through southern Pennsylvania that “while Sowers's anger at Obama's comments is understandable, other attitudes in these parts are far more disturbing.”

"He was a jerk for saying that," comments Sowers's neighbor Kym Dayley, standing outside her home by her pick-up truck, chatting to her 14-year-old son, Jeffrey, and a friend, Kim Reed, 41.

"The way he comes across TV, I think he is really cocky," she adds. But the conversation soon turns to the fears among poorer whites that Obama was alluding to in his comments, the kind of fears that are likely to be played on even more in a general election. "I'm not picking on where he is from, but it just doesn't seem right to me."

Why, Elliot asks with increasing alarm. Dayley has no qualms about explaining:

"I just know from a lot of reading and things that have come to pass that I think he is the Antichrist." In Dayley's view, the US is being duped by a charismatic messenger of Satan.

Wow!

We knew as soon as we read the first reports of Obama’s San Francisco remarks about Pennsylvanians “cling[ing] to guns…religion…” out of “bitterness” and “frustration” that some rural Pennsylvanians were sure to be mightily offended, but “the Antichrist”?

Things my be worse for Obama in the Keystone State than even we previously predicted...stay tuned!

OBAMA GIVES HILLARY CLINTON THE FINGER WHILE DISCUSSING “GOTCHA” POLITICS

[FoxNews.com]

Fox News notes today the furor created by Barack Obama when he chose to scratch his face with his middle finger—coupled with a “mischievous smile"--while deriding rival Hillary Clinton at a town hall meeting Thursday.

The Obama campaign dismissed the incident as an innocent face scratch, but as Fox notes, many bloggers are unconvinced.

“This is one of those political moments that really needs few words,” wrote the Los Angeles Times in a blog. “He’ll no doubt deny it later, but that mischievous smile seems to confirm plenty. And the crowd sure sees something.”

According to Fox:

“Obama started his address in Raleigh, N.C., by complaining that the debate on ABC “set a new record because it took us 45 minutes before we even started talking about a single issue that matters to the American people.”

“Then he lumped Clinton in with the ABC moderators, who he said were playing gotcha games.”

““And I’d say Senator Clinton looked in her element,” he said. He paused. Then he raised his right hand and scratched his cheek with his middle finger. He smiled slightly, and the crowd cheered.”

Concurring with the Los Angeles Times Blog’s “finger” interpretation of the gesture and smile are RedState.com [“Talk about no class: Barack Obama gives Hillary the middle finger.”], and the Chicago Tribune’s The Swamp [“Obama fingers a 'gotcha' debate”].

We have posted the video clip from You Tube (above) so you can judge for yourself.

SOMEONE PLEASE TELL HOWARD FINEMAN: PRESS ARE NOT “UMPIRES” IN THIS PRIMARY RACE

The VERY self-serious Howard Fineman takes offense

We flipped on MSNBC last night and caught Howard Fineman whining to Keith Olbermann (the guy with the “Worst Person in the World” shtick) about running into Hillary Clinton spokesperson Howard Wolfson “in the spin room”.

According to Fineman, Wolfson referred to MSNBC as the “Obama channel”.

A very self-serious and defensive Howard Fineman then said:

“We are not the Obama Channel, we are reporters doing our job. If you don’t like how things are going, don’t blame the umpire—which is what people usually do when things aren’t going well.”

Someone needs to tell Howard Fineman that the role of the press is to report the primary race to the American public, and not to act as referees by making calls on the legality or legitimacy of plays by the candidates, or to otherwise attempt to affect the process.

We find Mr. Finemen’s statement—which exaggerates his own (and other reporter's) importance to the political process in general and this election in particular--to be emblematic of the very bias he indignantly denies. A little too loudly we might add.

Mr. Fineman, your job is to be a well informed spectator to this primary race so you can tell the American people, in factually neutral manner, what is going on and NOT to shape it, make line calls, or declare one candidate or the other out-of-bounds.

Granted, reporters are people too, and most are privately thrilled as the prospect of Barack Obama being the nominee. But as processionals, their job-one is to know the limits of what their role is and not cross the line.

Unfortunately, Howard Fineman’s comment—uttered to the prime example of MSNBC anti-Hillary Clinton bias, Keith Olbermann—is emblematic of the overblown sense of self importance to the process that some cable news “reporters” have taken on this election season. And MSNBC is the worst offender.

The universal perception that MSNBC is pandering to its younger, edgier demographic and is biased against Clinton and for Obama is referenced in Mark Lebovich’s April 13, 2008 article for the New York Times magazine, The Aria of Chris Matthews.

Which is perhaps why Mr. Fineman is so overly defensive on this subject.

Do we really need to point out to Mr. Fineman AGAIN (as did Mr. Mr. Lebovich) that when you have MSNBC anchors and personalities such as Chris Matthews gushing over political candidates on-the-air like a schoolboy with a silly crush (“this thrill going up my leg”), or comparing the candidate's words to “the New Testament” or accusing the other candidate of having “an arrogant sense of entitlement” it creates the WELL JUSTIFIED perception of bias on the part of MSNBC?

Keith Olbermann—who has 1 million nightly viewers and is viewed by MSNBC as the key that will unlock the door to all of those younger, edgier, left leaning viewers that the cable network is trying to woo—makes absolutely no attempt to disguise his utter contempt for Hillary Clinton—whom Olbermann slices and dices at 8:00 pm nightly with his cutting and cynical wit.

MSNBC's reputation for anti-Hillary, pro-Obama bias is well deserved.

Mr. Fineman, you are not an umpire. Please leave the field Mr. Fineman. Mr. Fineman!Security…….

FACT CHECK: OBAMA FALSE DEBATE CLAIM OF CLINTON TERRORIST “PARDON”

Obama friend William Ayers in his booking photo. Ayers never did time for his admitted terrorist activities because his case was dismissed after FBI wiretaps were ruled illegal.

UPDATE/FACT CHECK: Obama’s Pennsylvania debate statement that President Clinton “pardoned” two members of the Weather Underground (the same 60’s terrorist organization that Obama supporter, fellow board member, and Obama "friend” William Ayers was a leader of) was, at a minimum, misleading.

Obama was apparently referring to the fact that in November of 1994, President Clinton granted CLEMENCY to two "radical airheads", Susan Rosenberg and Linda Sue Evans. These women were naïve children of privilege who (unlike Ayers) were not directly involved in bombings or killings, but were support players in the Underground: drivers of getaway cars, haulers of weapons, securers of safehouses.

For this role, they each served 10 years in federal prison before their life sentences were REDUCED by President Clinton. In contrast, Obama protégé William Ayers was a leader in the Weather Underground movement who never served a day in jail, and told the New York Times on September 11, 2001(!!!) that he never regretted personally bombing government buildings and wished he had done more:

''I don't regret setting bombs,'' Bill Ayers said on 9/11. ''I feel we didn't do enough.'' Would he do it again? "I would not discount the possibility," Ayers told the Times.

ZOGBY AGAIN SHOWS IT’S UNRELIABILITY WITH LAUGHABLE PA POLL

Zogby International published a new presidential tracking poll conducted in Pennsylvania that it hopes will make a splash. We infer this because Zoby’s press release actually uses an exclamation point, as if to say “stop the presses”.

And it is startling news. In the face of two polls, including a recent SurveyUSA poll, showing Clinton leading in the Keystone State by double digits—Zogby’s new poll shows Clinton and Obama (and we quote):

“Deadlocked in Pennsylvania!”

Another reason to doubt the accuracy of this poll: 48 hours before the California primary on super-Tuesday Zogby had Obama winning by 10 points. But Obama lost to Clinton in California by 10 points—a 20 point spread. (Read, California Results Expose Bad Polling.)

On the other hand, SurveyUSA—who as of yesterday has Clinton leading Obama in Pennsylvania by 14 points—was one of the few pollsters to call the California primary election exactly right.

And then there is the fact that the Zogby poll was commissioned by NewsMax—a thinly disguised, anti-Clinton, Republican front tabloid.

Nevertheless, we leave you to draw your own conclusions.

Especially in view of Obama’s poor debate performance in Pennsylvania last night, we stand by our prediction of a double digit blow-out by Clinton in the Keystone State.