No Runny Eggs

I wonder if Richardson  knows that Judas never got to spend the silver he received?

PORTLAND, Ore. "” "I talked to Senator Clinton last night," Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico said on Friday, describing the tense telephone call in which he informed Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton that, despite two months of personal entreaties by her and her husband, he would be endorsing Senator Barack Obama for president.

"Let me tell you: we’ve had better conversations," Mr. Richardson said.

But Mr. Richardson stopped returning Mr. Clinton’s calls days ago, Mr. Clinton’s aides said. And as of Friday, Mr. Richardson said, he had yet to pick up the phone to tell Mr. Clinton of his decision.

The reaction of some of Mr. Clinton’s allies suggests that might have been a wise decision. "An act of betrayal," said James Carville, an adviser to Mrs. Clinton and a friend of Mr. Clinton.

"Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic," Mr. Carville said, referring to Holy Week.

Note:   I am not endorsing not hoping for Pawlenty as VP.    There are many people I would  rather see in that slot.   This blog is part of “calling ’em like I see ’em.”    

Rasmussen Reports has a new Minnesota poll that shows John McCain dramatically closing the gap with his potential Democratic candidates.   McCain now leads Clinton by 1 and trails Obama by only 4, both within the margin of error.

Obviously, Obama’s issues with Jeremiah Wright’s statements have led to these increases.   I believe that with McCain this close in  a state  that has been tough to impossible for Republican candidates, Tim Pawlenty moves to the top of McCain’s VP pick list.  

While simply putting Pawlenty on the ticket could well put McCain over the top in Minnesota, leveraging him with some  other internal Minnesota  would dramatically increase the Republican vote here. (more…)

(H/T – JonJayRay)

Remember when Barack Hussein Obama said he could no more disown his (former) pastor than either the whole black community or his grandmama? He wasn’t nearly as conciliatory when it came to Trent Lott and his endorsement of Strom Thurmond’s 1948 Dixiecrat campaign at the latter’s 100th birthday party. It was nice of WorldNetDaily to pull that back from the memory hole.

Meet the new race pimp, same as the old race pimp.

I defer to James T. Harris. He too brings up his grandmother, but the takeaway is in the last two paragraphs:

When I asked my grandma about how she felt about the interracial marriage, she looked up at me with a perplexed expression; “What’s the matter with you?” she asked. I reminded her of what she had told me a few years back. Her response was: “James, people change. That was a long time ago." She was in her late 80’s.

Now that’s the audacity of hope.

Go, read.

Many church’s are known to be giving organizations.   In the case of Barack Obama’s church, they just keep giving support to the thought that Barack Obama is an opportunist who will say and do anything that will serve his personal purpose.

Reported at Worldnetdaily.com, Jeremiah Wright reprinted a Hamas terror manifesto as his “Pastor’s Page” in the church newsletter.  

How much more does Barack need to know about Wright’s views before he goes beyond simply denouncing them and separates himself from this person?  

On this Good Friday we are reminded  that the Gospels are ultimately a story of  forgiveness, hope and salvation.     This  does not appear to be the gosple  of Jeremiah Wright.   His gospel appears to  be a gospel of hate!

I read the transcript of Barack Obama’s speech on race.   As I was reading it, I was struck that this speech while intended to address race relations,  gave great incite as to how Obama would handle international relations, especially with countries like Iran.  

In his speech , Barack Obama said about Jeremiah Wright’s abominable comments:

Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country — a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America, a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Rev. Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems — two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

(more…)

Of the two major parties, the Democrats are the party of race.

Exit polls in 2004 showed that John Kerry won 88% of the African American vote.   In the same race, Zogby claimed that Kerry out drew Bush in Hispanic voters  by 65%/34%.

In the 2008 primaries there has barely been a Democratic contest that didn’t have stories talking about how Obama or Hillary were likely to win or lose a particular state due to the presence, absence or mix of race included in the state.
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Barack Obama has yet to explain why, when he knew about Jeremiah Wright’s hateful speech, he remained a part of Wright’s congregation for 20 years.   Maybe he just has a tin ear for hateful speech?   Maybe he has a heart larger than any of us and is able to forgive heinous comments that you and I would recoil at?

Apparently not.  

Take a look at this video of Barack commenting on the Imus’  remark about female basketball players.

In case you missed it or don’t want to watch the link, here are the relevant questions and Obama’s answer:

David Gregory – "¦Do you think (Imus) should be fired?

Barack Obama – I don’t think MSNBC should be carrying the kinds of hateful remarks that Imus uttered the other day.   He has a track record of making those kinds of remarks"¦

David Gregory"¦will you or would you be a guest on his show in the future?

Barack Obama – no I would not"¦.he was fine when I was on that show.   I don’t want to be an enabler or be encouraging in any way of the kind of programming that results in the unbelievably offensive statements that were made just a few days ago.

So….Obama believes appearing on another Imus show, a show that Barack says has a track record for hateful remarks would be enabling or encouraging that kind of behavior.

Wow!   1 appearance or 20 years, 1 appearance or 20 years, 1 appearance or 20 years, 1 appearance or 20 years.

Revisions/extensions (11:24 pm 3/18/2008, steveegg) – Attempted to fix the embedded video.

(H/T – Cuffy via doubleplusundead)

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I didn’t exactly hear a specific repudiation of the post-9/11 sermon from Rev. Wright…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9HUdF9OZa8[/youtube]

…by Barack Hussein Obama today.

Cross-posting from the TownHall version

That’s pretty much what Shoebox is saying in stating we are going to see a Clinton/Obama ticket on the Dem end. I’m not yet quite sold on that inevitability, either as a ticket or as the next occupants of the Oval Office and the Naval Observatory. At this point, all that ticket is guaranteed to do is prevent the collapse of the Democratic Party that the various campaigns to keep Clinton alive, from MKH’s efforts to Rush Limbaugh’s quite-successful Operation Chaos to my own Spring Hill campaign, was designed to bring about.

It definitely is (I am not ready to say “was”) a high-risk/high-reward effort. I can’t speak for anybody else, but my hope is that things would get so caustic, the Nightmare Ticket would not happen and a major core constituency would take November off. Unlike Shoebox, I believe things are that caustic, though like him, I doubt that we will see John Edwards or Bill Richardson on the ticket for much the same reason he believes that ticket is inevitable. Even at that, most of those on that short list have the same “racialism” problem, only that would be in the open.

If the Nightmare Ticket does happen, I am counting on so many panders to the left being made that it would be rather difficult for them to return to the center. Fortunately, Obama made that job a bit harder with today’s speech. I’ll also state that neither we nor the middle were Obama’s target audience. Ed Morrissey believes it was the superdelegates. I humbly disagree; they’re looking for electability in the general election, and on that front, this speech sure seems sorely lacking. Rather, I believe it was to reunite the various colors of the radical wing of the Dems behind him, the general election be damned.

That speech, and the reaction to it, also plays into something Shoebox put up yesterday on Obama losing Generation Y. Because The Hammer is a Gen Y’er, I’ll point in the general direction of her take on that speech. The $192,000,000 (or whatever is going to be spent on the general election) question is whether the Gen Y’ers and the middle are simply going to be turned off to Obama or turned off to politics entirely. If it simply is to Obama, the election will be John McCain’s for the taking regardless of his missteps with conservatives and regardless of whether the Dems heal themselves between now and November.

If, however, the trend of the middle to disappear from politics entirely continues, it will be a “base turnout” election. If there is the Nightmare Ticket or “Son of Nightmare” Ticket, the various portions of the Dem base will be united, the middle will be pretty much out of play, and it will be up to McCain to actually heal his rift with conservatives to come out on top. Unfortunately, for every step McCain takes to heal that rift, he takes one to reopen it.

I haven’t said it enough, but I would be remiss if I didn’t say I thank God I got him blogging. Very short story – he was a regular commenter over at Michelle Malkin’s place, and stumbled into a few of my debate liveblogs from my pingbacks to her liveblogs. Eventually, I recognized just how good he was and he eventually agreed to try blogging as a guest-blogger. I’ll say he took to it like a duck to water; he’s bailed me out of a couple of blogging funks I’ve been in, and he’s improved the discussion here a lot.

WARNING: What you are about to read could cause black helicopters to hover over your house.   Read with extreme caution!

To steal a style from Glenn Beck:

What you need to know:

Barack Obama’s implosion over Jeremiah Wright has guaranteed that the Democratic ticket will include both Barack and Hillary.
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Talking constantly about change, I wonder if this is the kind of change Barack Obama refers to:

Regarding his knowledge of Jerimiah Wright’s sermon content:

Huffington Post Blog  3/14/08

The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation.

In Barack’s “speech on race” 3/18/08

Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes.

Regarding funds he received from Rezko:

From the Chicago Sun-Times June, 2007

Obama has collected at least $168,308 from Rezko and his circle. Obama also has taken in an unknown amount of money from people who attended fund-raising events hosted by Rezko since the mid-1990s.

But seven months ago, Obama told the Sun-Times his “best estimate” was that Rezko raised “between $50,000 and $60,000” during Obama’s political career.

From the Politico  3/14/08

Obama’s acknowledgment that Rezko raised as much as $250,000 for earlier campaigns, initially made in an interview with The Chicago Tribune and confirmed later to Politico, came after a year-and-a-half-long trickle of admissions about Rezko’s fundraising role and more than a month after Obama’s aides contended that they had identified and jettisoned all Rezko-linked cash. It also came as Rezko’s trial on corruption charges, underway in Chicago, brought increased scrutiny of Obama’s ties to the real estate developer, fast-food magnate and political insider.

Democratic Presidential Candidate, Barack Obama, seems to have a problem getting his arms around the facts!

Even though I’m also on the Hot Air live thread, I may as well do one as well. I won’t guarantee the dignity lamp will remain lit; that depends on Barack Obama.

I’ve been strangely silent on the Barack Obama/Jeremiah Wright bomb; fortunately, Shoebox hasn’t been. All I really have to add is, if the fine conservatives in Texas and Ohio had not listened to Rush Limbaugh and joined what he calls Operation Chaos and what I call the NRE Spring Hill campaign, this would have continued to be buried by the media. It isn’t like Wright all of a sudden started going off the deep end a couple weeks ago.

The “consensus” thinking has been that as McCain moved into the general campaign, he would need to make overtures to We conservative folks.   The argument is that the pick of a VP may well show us that he is “listening” and “reaching out.”

All of that “thinking” held while there was concern that a general election would be a close, hard fought affair where McCain would need to not just get, but enthusiastically motivate conservatives in order to get enough turn out to win against a movment force like Obama.  

Then along comes Jeremiah Wright…..

I know a couple of days does not a trend make but….the polls have shifted hard, quickly.   There will certainly be the hard cores who believe the stuff that Wright is saying and will continue to support Obama.   However, I think there is a larger group, particularly those who consider themselves “moderates” that will find it impossible to support Obama with Wright in tow.  

If the polls continue to show McCain with a growing lead over either Democratic candidate he may not be concerned about getting the Conservative vote. I’m afraid that any hope (not the Obama kind) that conservatives had of McCain feeling motivated to “show us some love” and throw us a bone could go out the window along with Obama’s liklihood of being elected for anything more than just another lying, graft receiving Senator.

Update:    Wow!  I just discovered  a national article that cover this same concept.   Apparently  those black helicopters I keep hearing might be real after all!  

I wrote here  about the potential loss of an entire generation of Democratic voters.   I postulated at the time, that the  cause would be Hillary “stealing” the Democratic nomination and thereby crushing the hopeful acolytes of Barack Obama.   By crushing their hope I argued that Hillary would drive the 30 and under crowd out of the ’08 election.

Prescience isn’t always 20/20!

10 days later and Barack Obama creates an environment that could cause Generation Y to fore-go politics all together.
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(H/T – Michelle Malkin via Sean Hackbarth)

James P. Lucier makes a pretty good case for Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal being John McCain’s VP nominee over at The American Spectator. I will admit, he makes a very good case. However, it would be a very high-risk/high-reward combination for Jindal. If McCain wins, whoever his Vice President is would be “next in line”. I’ve pointed out a couple times that since 1956, the “next in line” has won the Republican nomination.

However, if McCain loses, whoever his Vice-Presidential nominee is will be doomed to never see the Oval Office. Over at Michelle’s place, I asked the question of who the last person (besides Walter Mondale, who was also Vice President) was that came back from being on the bottom half of a losing ticket to become a Presidential nominee on a major-party ticket. Rather than depend on somebody else to do the research, I decided to do it myself. Since 1804, when the election of Vice President was officially separated from that of President by the 12th Amendment, there have been 4 people who failed as a major-party VP nominee (Democrat-Republican, Federalist, Democrat, Whig, Republican) who came back to become a Presidential nominee:

– Rufus King (Federalist): Lost on bottom half of the Charles Pinckney/King ticket in 1804 and 1808, became the Federalist Presidential nominee in 1816, lost the election.
– Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democratic): Lost on the bottom half of James Cox/Roosevelt ticket in 1920, became the Democratic Presidential nominee in 1932, won the election and 3 more.
– Bob Dole (Republican): Lost on the bottom half of the Gerald Ford/Dole ticket in 1976, became the Republican Presidential nominee in 1996 (after Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush took their turns as “next in line” and after finishing second in the 1988 Republican nomination to secure his own “next in line” claim),
– Walter Mondale (Democratic): Lost on the bottom half of the Jimmy Carter/Mondale ticket in 1980 (was for re-election), became the Democratic Presidential nominee in 1984, lost the election.

Let’s see. Only 4 times in 204 years has a failed VP candidate become a Presidential candidate, and only once has that person become President on his own merit. I must note John Tyler did become President in 1841 after William Harrison died in office and after being one of the failed VP candidates of the Whig Party in 1836; however, he ultimately did not run for his own term as he was tossed out of the Whig Party and the Democrats didn’t want him.

I’d rather let Jindal season a bit in Louisiana and finally break the “next in line” chain in 2012.

Now that sermons from Barack’s Pastor, Jeremiah Wright, have come to surface:

"The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied."

It’s time for Obama to update his rhetoric:

…And it just reminds me that we’ve got a tragic history when it comes to race in this country. We’ve got a lot of pent-up anger and bitterness and misunderstanding. But what I continue to believe in is that this country wants to move beyond these kinds of divisions. That this country wants something different.

Becuase it’s apparent that not Everybody wants to move “beyond these kinds of divisions,” and some of those who appear most challenged are those closest to him.

"Barack knows what it means living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people," Wright said. "Hillary would never know that.

"The government gives them (African Americans) the drugs”

Jeremiah Wright

Now that it’s apparent that he can’t ignore the abhorent statements of his 20 year Pastor, Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama is attempting to find a way to escape further damage.

Finally, he has removed Wright from the African American Religious Leadership Committee, a group that was advising the Obama campaign.

In an attempt to provide some explanation for why he didn’t know about Wright’s comments earlier, Barack, in a post on the Huffington Post wrote…  “The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation.”

Who is he trying to get by with that statement? If my Pastor said:

“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.”

during a Sunday morning sermon, it wouldn’t have mattered if I was there or not. I can assure you that that statement would have sent a fire storm through our congregation and been discussed by EVERYONE as we considered whether there should be some sort of disciplinary action taken on our Pastor.

So that leads me to one of two conclusions:

A. Obama is disingenuous at best and a flat out liar at worst when he says:

When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign.

How would he or Michelle have missed the hubbub a statement like that would have created?

or

B. The rhetoric that has come to light from Jeremiah Wright was common place and because it was not unusual, it didn’t stir any controversy within the congregation when he said things like the above quote. If this is the case, then whether Barack was there on any particular Sunday is irrelevant because the type of speech would have occurred regularly and Barack would have been present for some and perhaps many sermons of similar content.

I kind of hope the answer is A because I can’t even imagine what kind of regular hate filled diatribes would get a congregation, that claims to be Christian, to excuse the language and statements that have now become public.

Item #1 (H/T – Allahpundit) – The Hill reports on a very grim conversation with National Republican Senatorial Committee chair John Ensign. Selected lowlights:

– On the heels of not getting anybody for Mark Pryor’s seat in Arkansas, the NRSC had wealthy potential challengers in New Jersey and South Dakota balk.
– About half of the 49 existing Senators (which presumably includes the 5 retirements) are well behind in fundraising, with the incumbent Dems whose seats are up this year raising $1.2 million more than the incumbent Pubbies up for re-election.
– Related to that, the NRSC has less than $15 million in cash on hand, compared to the Dem counterpart’s $30 million.
– The money kicker; despite the RNC having a lot more cash on hand than the DNC, the RNC isn’t expected to help out any.
– The Virginia seat currently held by John Warner, one of those retiring, will almost certainly go to the ‘Rats.
– The only ‘Rat seat with “top-level” recruit with a realistic shot of winning is in Louisiana (seat currently held by Mary Landrieu), with the NRSC touting a long-shot in Massachusetts.

I guess the only question is, will the ‘Rats get to 60, or close enough, to not get rid of the filibuster?

Item #2 (H/T – see-dubya in the comments section of that thread, or you could look at the post before this one for Shoebox’s headline contest) – The Washington Times’ Fishwrap reports the National Republican Campaign Committee discovered its former treasurer filed fraudulent financial audits between 2001 and 2006. According to the House Republican campaign arm, Christopher J. Ward transfered several hundred thousand dollars without authorization from the NRCC to outside committees, and then transfered money from there to what appeared to be his personal and business bank accounts.

Boy, is that ever “great” timing. Of course, since the NRCC is in the business of protecting RepublicRATs like Tom Petri from even primary challenges like one being explored by Calumet County District Attorney Ken Kratz (H/T – Brad V. at Try to Focus), maybe the NRCC would be better if it were defunded.

Revisions/extensions (10:59 pm 3/13/2008) – I guess I should mention the NRSC sent over a fundraising letter today. Since see-dub wants to see the reply, I’ll dig it out of the trash, open it up, and craft a reply. Of course, since it is almost 11 pm, I’ll have to toss it over while I sleep.

R&E part 2 (11:39 pm 3/13/2008) – I don’t know what I’m still doing up, but see-dub says, “Give directly to the candidates, not the RNC/NRSC/NRCC".

Here’s a story that’s too good to pass up.   I propose we start a contest to come up with the best title/headline for this story:

WASHINGTON (AP) – The committee in charge of running House Republican campaigns said Thursday that a former treasurer “deceived and betrayed” the group, which is missing hundreds of thousands of dollars"”and possibly more"”due to fraudulent acts conducted over the past several years.

Complete story here.

Here’s a couple of headlines to start the fun:

NRCC Treasurer makes personal earmark!

or:

Deceit and Betrayal: Doing to them what they do to us.

There have been a number of recent articles suggesting that Barack Obama has reached his peak and will likely see declines in his popularity.   A review of the Rasmussen Presidential Tracking Poll seems to confirm this.

In today’s poll, Barack Obama is shown as having a favorable rating of 52%.   His rating has dropped from a high of 56% of just 3 weeks ago.   During that same time frame, John McCain’s favorability rating has remained flat or up slightly at 53%.   While these are the numbers that generally get the headlines, it’s the underlying numbers that tell me that Obama has hit his peak. (more…)

It’s official, John McCain is no longer adoringly  referred to as  “The Maverick.”

In another “Are we living in Bizzaro world or what?” story, the AP reports several Dem blasts of John McCain as the person responsible for Boeing’s loss of the Air Tanker contract.   Somehow McCain’s work to uncover corruption that included a former Boeing CFO and a former Air Force official being jailed and a $6B overcharge to the US taxpayers is now a bad thing!
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