Obama/Biden 08

[nacho]

The official announcement is tomorrow, but he's been running his campaign for a month.  Since both his people and the media are referring to all activities as "campaigning" for 2008, we'll go ahead and out him.  Otherwise I'm going to go insane.

From the Dayton Daily News:

Obama plans early campaign stop in Cincy
Presidential candidate will appear at a fundraiser Feb. 26 at the Westin.

By William Hershey

Staff Writer

Friday, February 09, 2007

COLUMBUS — Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, set to formally announce his candidacy for president on Saturday, will be in Cincinnati on Feb. 26 for a fundraiser geared to supporters from the Cincinnati and Dayton areas.

State Sen. Eric Kearney, D-Cincinnati, and his wife, Jan-Michele, a classmate of Obama's at Harvard Law School, are organizing the 8 a.m. breakfast event at the downtown Westin hotel. State Sen. Tom Roberts, D-Trotwood, is on the host committee.

"He has the intellectual capacity to handle the job. He also has the message that addresses the need for the country to move ahead economically, yet not leave our poor citizens behind," Kearney said of Obama, a longtime friend.

Tickets are going for $100, $500, $1,000 and $2,300, the federal contribution limit, said Kearney.

Kearney said that he and his wife had to "work hard" to make Cincinnati one of the first 10 stops of Obama's campaign.

Obama is among a crowd of Democrats in the race that includes U.S. Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York, Joseph Biden of Delaware and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut; former U.S. Sen. and 2004 vice presidential nominee John Edwards of North Carolina; New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson; U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Cleveland; and former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack.

[nacho]

Oh, yeah, here's the official announcement...which didn't make the front page of any paper, by the way.  Talk about dead in the water.  This is the first candidate who got caught with his pants down by this insane early announcement routine.

So that spells the end of our anointed son.  Hillary's won the first round for the dems.

Megan Crepeau and Rebecca Huval
The Daily Northwestern

The chant started quietly - a few persistent voices on one side of the crowd - and spread quickly until the thousands of spectators shouted as one.

"O-ba-ma. O-ba-ma. O-ba-ma! O-BA-MA!"

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., finally said what the 15,000 to 17,000 people in the crowd had come to hear: "In the shadow of the Old State Capitol, where Lincoln once called on a divided house to stand together, where common hopes and common dreams still live, I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for president of the United States."

Weinberg and Music freshman Hugh Roland pumped his ungloved fist in the air, his cheeks bright pink with excitement and cold.

Roland and 25 other Northwestern College Democrats traveled to Springfield with more than 100 members of the Democratic Party of Evanston to hear Obama's announcement Saturday morning that he is officially joining the 2008 presidential race. State Sen. Jeff Schoenberg organized the trip and chartered three buses.

The participants crowded into Schoenberg's office before 5 a.m., awkwardly passing around Obama T-shirts, water bottles and boxes of doughnuts above peoples' heads and around their winter layers. Bleary-eyed, they let out bursts of excitement as they waited to start the three-and-a-half-hour trip to Springfield.

Retirees sat next to college students on the buses, where riders dozed off to sleep as they passed by downtown Chicago. But when the sun rose and the buses neared the capital, the Democrats started talking about whether Obama might receive the nomination and speculating about what he might say in his speech.

When they arrived at the Old State Capitol Building, they passed down roads lined with anti-abortion protesters flashing posters of aborted fetuses, vendors hawking buttons and stickers and police surveying the crowd. The Evanston contingent elbowed its way through the early arrivals, who already had staked out the best views.

After the introduction by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., was met with the muffled applause of gloved hands in the zero degree wind chill, the audience greeted Obama with a roar.

"We all made this journey for a reason," Obama said. "It's humbling, but in my heart I know you didn't come here just for me" - "Yeah we did!" Roland said - "you came here because you believe in what this country can be."

Without going into detailed plans, Obama said he supports universal health care, getting U.S. troops out of Iraq, fighting global warming, improving pay for teachers and strengthening unions and the middle class.

Obama is the most recent candidate to join a growing list of presidential hopefuls. His competitors for the Democratic nomination include Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, former North Carolina senator John Edwards, Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack and Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska.

In a January Gallup poll, 18 percent of Democrats and Democrat-inclined independents favored Obama as the party's candidate, while 29 percent chose Clinton.

Obama served in the Illinois state Senate for eight years and is serving his first term in the U.S. Senate. At recent College Republicans meetings, students called him an "empty suit," said Weinberg sophomore Linnea Perelli-Minetti, a publicity chairwoman for the NU College Republicans.

"You have to wonder, he really hasn't had a lot of experience," she said.

Obama openly addressed his relative inexperience in the beginning of his speech.

"I know I haven't spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington," he said. "But I've been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change."

To effect change, citizens must unite despite differences, he said as the anti-abortion protesters chanted in the background. Drawing on influences such as John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln's "House Divided" speech, Obama stressed that his campaign was not about himself.

"This campaign can't only be about me," he said. "It must be about us. It must be about what we can do together. This campaign must be the occasion, the vehicle, of your hopes, and your dreams."

With his speech still fresh in their minds, the Evanston travelers ate pizza and salad at the Governor's Mansion. They shook hands with Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was booed when mentioned during Durbin's introduction of Obama.

On the way to Springfield, snores softly filled in the buses. But from the moment the crowd left the speech to the second the buses pulled back into Evanston at dusk, political chatter buzzed in the air.

"It seems it will only be historic if he wins," Evanston lawyer Tom Anger said. "Otherwise it will just be another freezing cold day in southeastern Illinois."

http://www.barackobama.com/

[nacho]

Full Text of Senator Barack Obama's Announcement for President
Springfield, IL | February 10, 2007

Let me begin by saying thanks to all you who've traveled, from far and wide, to brave the cold today.

We all made this journey for a reason. It's humbling, but in my heart I know you didn't come here just for me, you came here because you believe in what this country can be. In the face of war, you believe there can be peace. In the face of despair, you believe there can be hope. In the face of a politics that's shut you out, that's told you to settle, that's divided us for too long, you believe we can be one people, reaching for what's possible, building that more perfect union.

That's the journey we're on today. But let me tell you how I came to be here. As most of you know, I am not a native of this great state. I moved to Illinois over two decades ago. I was a young man then, just a year out of college; I knew no one in Chicago, was without money or family connections. But a group of churches had offered me a job as a community organizer for $13,000 a year. And I accepted the job, sight unseen, motivated then by a single, simple, powerful idea - that I might play a small part in building a better America.

My work took me to some of Chicago's poorest neighborhoods. I joined with pastors and lay-people to deal with communities that had been ravaged by plant closings. I saw that the problems people faced weren't simply local in nature - that the decision to close a steel mill was made by distant executives; that the lack of textbooks and computers in schools could be traced to the skewed priorities of politicians a thousand miles away; and that when a child turns to violence, there's a hole in his heart no government could ever fill.

It was in these neighborhoods that I received the best education I ever had, and where I learned the true meaning of my Christian faith.

After three years of this work, I went to law school, because I wanted to understand how the law should work for those in need. I became a civil rights lawyer, and taught constitutional law, and after a time, I came to understand that our cherished rights of liberty and equality depend on the active participation of an awakened electorate. It was with these ideas in mind that I arrived in this capital city as a state Senator.

It was here, in Springfield, where I saw all that is America converge - farmers and teachers, businessmen and laborers, all of them with a story to tell, all of them seeking a seat at the table, all of them clamoring to be heard. I made lasting friendships here - friends that I see in the audience today.

It was here we learned to disagree without being disagreeable - that it's possible to compromise so long as you know those principles that can never be compromised; and that so long as we're willing to listen to each other, we can assume the best in people instead of the worst.

That's why we were able to reform a death penalty system that was broken. That's why we were able to give health insurance to children in need. That's why we made the tax system more fair and just for working families, and that's why we passed ethics reforms that the cynics said could never, ever be passed.

It was here, in Springfield, where North, South, East and West come together that I was reminded of the essential decency of the American people - where I came to believe that through this decency, we can build a more hopeful America.

And that is why, in the shadow of the Old State Capitol, where Lincoln once called on a divided house to stand together, where common hopes and common dreams still, I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for President of the United States.

I recognize there is a certain presumptuousness - a certain audacity - to this announcement. I know I haven't spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I've been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.

The genius of our founders is that they designed a system of government that can be changed. And we should take heart, because we've changed this country before. In the face of tyranny, a band of patriots brought an Empire to its knees. In the face of secession, we unified a nation and set the captives free. In the face of Depression, we put people back to work and lifted millions out of poverty. We welcomed immigrants to our shores, we opened railroads to the west, we landed a man on the moon, and we heard a King's call to let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Each and every time, a new generation has risen up and done what's needed to be done. Today we are called once more - and it is time for our generation to answer that call.

For that is our unyielding faith - that in the face of impossible odds, people who love their country can change it.

That's what Abraham Lincoln understood. He had his doubts. He had his defeats. He had his setbacks. But through his will and his words, he moved a nation and helped free a people. It is because of the millions who rallied to his cause that we are no longer divided, North and South, slave and free. It is because men and women of every race, from every walk of life, continued to march for freedom long after Lincoln was laid to rest, that today we have the chance to face the challenges of this millennium together, as one people - as Americans.

All of us know what those challenges are today - a war with no end, a dependence on oil that threatens our future, schools where too many children aren't learning, and families struggling paycheck to paycheck despite working as hard as they can. We know the challenges. We've heard them. We've talked about them for years.

What's stopped us from meeting these challenges is not the absence of sound policies and sensible plans. What's stopped us is the failure of leadership, the smallness of our politics - the ease with which we're distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions, our preference for scoring cheap political points instead of rolling up our sleeves and building a working consensus to tackle big problems.

For the last six years we've been told that our mounting debts don't matter, we've been told that the anxiety Americans feel about rising health care costs and stagnant wages are an illusion, we've been told that climate change is a hoax, and that tough talk and an ill-conceived war can replace diplomacy, and strategy, and foresight. And when all else fails, when Katrina happens, or the death toll in Iraq mounts, we've been told that our crises are somebody else's fault. We're distracted from our real failures, and told to blame the other party, or gay people, or immigrants.

And as people have looked away in disillusionment and frustration, we know what's filled the void. The cynics, and the lobbyists, and the special interests who've turned our government into a game only they can afford to play. They write the checks and you get stuck with the bills, they get the access while you get to write a letter, they think they own this government, but we're here today to take it back. The time for that politics is over. It's time to turn the page.

We've made some progress already. I was proud to help lead the fight in Congress that led to the most sweeping ethics reform since Watergate.

But Washington has a long way to go. And it won't be easy. That's why we'll have to set priorities. We'll have to make hard choices. And although government will play a crucial role in bringing about the changes we need, more money and programs alone will not get us where we need to go. Each of us, in our own lives, will have to accept responsibility - for instilling an ethic of achievement in our children, for adapting to a more competitive economy, for strengthening our communities, and sharing some measure of sacrifice. So let us begin. Let us begin this hard work together. Let us transform this nation.

Let us be the generation that reshapes our economy to compete in the digital age. Let's set high standards for our schools and give them the resources they need to succeed. Let's recruit a new army of teachers, and give them better pay and more support in exchange for more accountability. Let's make college more affordable, and let's invest in scientific research, and let's lay down broadband lines through the heart of inner cities and rural towns all across America.

And as our economy changes, let's be the generation that ensures our nation's workers are sharing in our prosperity. Let's protect the hard-earned benefits their companies have promised. Let's make it possible for hardworking Americans to save for retirement. And let's allow our unions and their organizers to lift up this country's middle-class again.

Let's be the generation that ends poverty in America. Every single person willing to work should be able to get job training that leads to a job, and earn a living wage that can pay the bills, and afford child care so their kids have a safe place to go when they work. Let's do this.

Let's be the generation that finally tackles our health care crisis. We can control costs by focusing on prevention, by providing better treatment to the chronically ill, and using technology to cut the bureaucracy. Let's be the generation that says right here, right now, that we will have universal health care in America by the end of the next president's first term.

Let's be the generation that finally frees America from the tyranny of oil. We can harness homegrown, alternative fuels like ethanol and spur the production of more fuel-efficient cars. We can set up a system for capping greenhouse gases. We can turn this crisis of global warming into a moment of opportunity for innovation, and job creation, and an incentive for businesses that will serve as a model for the world. Let's be the generation that makes future generations proud of what we did here.

Most of all, let's be the generation that never forgets what happened on that September day and confront the terrorists with everything we've got. Politics doesn't have to divide us on this anymore - we can work together to keep our country safe. I've worked with Republican Senator Dick Lugar to pass a law that will secure and destroy some of the world's deadliest, unguarded weapons. We can work together to track terrorists down with a stronger military, we can tighten the net around their finances, and we can improve our intelligence capabilities. But let us also understand that ultimate victory against our enemies will come only by rebuilding our alliances and exporting those ideals that bring hope and opportunity to millions around the globe.

But all of this cannot come to pass until we bring an end to this war in Iraq. Most of you know I opposed this war from the start. I thought it was a tragic mistake. Today we grieve for the families who have lost loved ones, the hearts that have been broken, and the young lives that could have been. America, it's time to start bringing our troops home. It's time to admit that no amount of American lives can resolve the political disagreement that lies at the heart of someone else's civil war. That's why I have a plan that will bring our combat troops home by March of 2008. Letting the Iraqis know that we will not be there forever is our last, best hope to pressure the Sunni and Shia to come to the table and find peace.

Finally, there is one other thing that is not too late to get right about this war - and that is the homecoming of the men and women - our veterans - who have sacrificed the most. Let us honor their valor by providing the care they need and rebuilding the military they love. Let us be the generation that begins this work.

I know there are those who don't believe we can do all these things. I understand the skepticism. After all, every four years, candidates from both parties make similar promises, and I expect this year will be no different. All of us running for president will travel around the country offering ten-point plans and making grand speeches; all of us will trumpet those qualities we believe make us uniquely qualified to lead the country. But too many times, after the election is over, and the confetti is swept away, all those promises fade from memory, and the lobbyists and the special interests move in, and people turn away, disappointed as before, left to struggle on their own.

That is why this campaign can't only be about me. It must be about us - it must be about what we can do together. This campaign must be the occasion, the vehicle, of your hopes, and your dreams. It will take your time, your energy, and your advice - to push us forward when we're doing right, and to let us know when we're not. This campaign has to be about reclaiming the meaning of citizenship, restoring our sense of common purpose, and realizing that few obstacles can withstand the power of millions of voices calling for change.

By ourselves, this change will not happen. Divided, we are bound to fail.

But the life of a tall, gangly, self-made Springfield lawyer tells us that a different future is possible.

He tells us that there is power in words.

He tells us that there is power in conviction.

That beneath all the differences of race and region, faith and station, we are one people.

He tells us that there is power in hope.

As Lincoln organized the forces arrayed against slavery, he was heard to say: "Of strange, discordant, and even hostile elements, we gathered from the four winds, and formed and fought to battle through."

That is our purpose here today.

That's why I'm in this race.

Not just to hold an office, but to gather with you to transform a nation.

I want to win that next battle - for justice and opportunity.

I want to win that next battle - for better schools, and better jobs, and health care for all.

I want us to take up the unfinished business of perfecting our union, and building a better America.

And if you will join me in this improbable quest, if you feel destiny calling, and see as I see, a future of endless possibility stretching before us; if you sense, as I sense, that the time is now to shake off our slumber, and slough off our fear, and make good on the debt we owe past and future generations, then I'm ready to take up the cause, and march with you, and work with you. Together, starting today, let us finish the work that needs to be done, and usher in a new birth of freedom on this Earth.

[fajwat]

That's why I'm in this race.

OMFG he played the race card!!!!!  It's on, now.

 

[nacho]

So who's going to start a blog on Obama's site?

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/group/ObamaHQ/

[Cassander]

wait, who's this guy again? some crackpot?

[nacho]

The latest anti-Obama attempt.  This taken from the Chicago Tribune.

Obama bought speculative stocks favored by donors

By Mike McIntire and Christopher Drew
New York Times News Service
Published March 7, 2007


Less than two months after ascending to the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama bought more than $50,000 worth of stock in two speculative companies whose major investors included some of his biggest political donors.

One of the companies was a biotech concern that was starting to develop a drug to treat avian flu. In March 2005, two weeks after buying about $5,000 of its shares, Obama took the lead in a legislative push for more federal spending to battle the disease.

The most recent financial disclosure form for Obama (D-Ill.) also shows that he bought more than $50,000 in stock in a satellite communications business whose principal backers include four friends and donors who had raised more than $150,000 for his political committees.

A spokesman for Obama, who is seeking his party's presidential nomination in 2008, said Tuesday that the senator did not know that he had invested in either company until fall 2005, when he learned of it and decided to sell the stocks. He sold them at a net loss of $13,000.

The spokesman, Bill Burton, said Obama's broker bought the stocks without consulting the senator, under the terms of a blind trust that was being set up for the senator at that time but was not finalized until several months after the investments were made.

"He went about this process to avoid an actual or apparent conflict of interest and he had no knowledge of the stocks he owned," Burton said. "And when he realized that he didn't have the level of blindness that he expected, he moved to terminate the trust."

Obama has made ethics a signature issue. There is no evidence that any of his actions ended up benefiting either company during the roughly eight months that he owned the stocks.

Even so, the stock purchases raise questions about how he could unwittingly come to invest in two relatively obscure companies, whose backers happened to include generous contributors to his political committees.

Among those donors was Jared Abbruzzese, a New York businessman now at the center of an FBI inquiry into public corruption in Albany, N.Y. Abbruzzese had also contributed to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group that had sought to undermine Sen. John Kerry's Democratic presidential campaign in 2004.

Senate ethics rules do not prohibit lawmakers from owning stocks. The rules say only that lawmakers should not take legislative actions whose primary purpose is to benefit themselves.

Obama's sale of his shares in the two companies ended what appears to have been a brief foray into highly speculative investing that stood out amid an otherwise conservative portfolio of mutual funds and cash accounts, a review of his Senate disclosure statements shows. He earned $2,000 on the biotech company AVI BioPharma and lost $15,000 on the satellite communications concern Skyterra according to Burton of the Obama campaign.

Burton said the trust was different from qualified blind trusts that other senators commonly used because it was intended to allow him greater flexibility to address any allegations of conflicts that might arise from its assets. He said Obama had decided to sell the stocks after receiving a communication that made him concerned about how the trust was set up.

The disclosure forms show that the Obamas put $50,000 to $100,000 into an account at UBS, which his aides say was recommended to him by a wealthy friend, George Haywood. Public security filings show Haywood was also a major investor in both Skyterra and AVI BioPharma.

Haywood and his wife, Cheryl, have contributed close to $50,000 to Obama's campaigns and to his political action committee, the Hopefund. Haywood declined to comment.

[RottingCorpse]

I'm already sick of hearing about the 2008 election.

[nacho]

I'm sick of pretty much everything.

[fajwat]

inspired subtitle change, there. 

i'm going to quote the Clintons here: "Imagine if we had made money on the deal."

[nacho]

Dem cullards is fightin' each other, pa!

Sharpton tears into Obama
'Why shouldn't the black community ask questions?'

March 13, 2007
Activist Al Sharpton lit into presidential candidate Barack Obama on Monday, suggesting Obama shouldn't take blacks' support for granted.
"Why shouldn't the black community ask questions? Are we now being told, 'You all just shut up?'" Sharpton told a TV reporter from a New York CBS station.

"I'm not going to be cajoled or intimidated by any candidate," said Sharpton, a New Yorker who ran for president in 2004.

Sharpton went on to criticize Obama on other issues, including his relationship with Sen. Joe Lieberman, who's controversial within the Democratic Party.

"Senator Obama and I agree that the war is wrong, but then I want to know why he went to Connecticut and helped Lieberman, the biggest supporter of the war," Sharpton told TV.

Obama's camp wouldn't answer the charges. The TV report said that Sharpton was responding to a published story claiming he was undermining Obama.

The New York Post wrote that Sharpton, who has vied with Jesse Jackson to lead black Americans, is "terrified of being overshadowed by someone of Obama's class and character."

"It's driving Al crazy that Obama is as impressive and popular as he is, and he's not happy about it," a black Democratic activist was quoted as saying.

A source reportedly close to Sharpton also said the New Yorker had wanted to run for president again in 2008, and Obama's White House bid foiled him, according to the Post.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/elections/294494,CST-NWS-obama13.article

[Reginald McGraw]

Sure Al...support a conservative in one election, then your empty threats will have some meat.

[RottingCorpse]

I love Sharpton. He's interesting and makes some good points if you get around the ridiculous ones. You never know what's going to come out of his mouth.

[Nubbins]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h3G-lMZxjo

let the character assassination begin!

[nacho]

Blah blah Obama Blah blah Obama.

Obama tells Letterman he's not in race for VP

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama on Tuesday dismissed the notion he might consider accepting the No. 2 spot on the 2008 ballot -- with Hillary Rodham Clinton at the top.

"You don't run for second. I don't believe in that," the Illinois senator said on "Late Night with David Letterman."

"That would be a powerful ticket," Letterman prodded.

"Which order are we talking?" Obama replied, drawing laughter and applause from the studio audience.

"Let's say you're the presidential candidate and Hillary is the vice presidential candidate. Now if she were sitting here, it would be different from that," Letterman joked.

Obama, a fresh face on the national stage who has served just two years in the Senate, said last week he had raised $25 million this year, almost matching Clinton and solidifying his bid for the Democratic nomination to seek the presidency in November 2008.

Obama fell only $1 million short of the higher-profile New York senator, despite the huge fund-raising network she developed through her Senate campaigns and the White House races of her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

Asked by Letterman whether there were private discussions of the situation going the other way, with Clinton in the No. 2 spot, Obama said the contenders were all in the race to win the party nomination but were on the same team.

"Really, what we're doing is we're trying out for quarterback," Obama said.

Letterman persisted, asking whether the senator might reconsider if it came to a point where the campaigns of the two front-runners were ripping their party apart.

Obama replied: "I think it is possible that in that kind of situation, we might have to have a brokered convention and, Dave, we might turn to you."

Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.