Now that it is official, that the US is in a recession, the unemployment lines are getting longer, homes are foreclosing, companies are going out of business, (or getting bailed out), people are losing their pensions in the market, and people everywhere are tightening their belts, plus Christmas is right around the corner, it seemed a good idea to do a *Soup’s On!* thread.

I love making homemade soup. Many times the ingredients are already in the cupboard, and they are super tasty on a cold winter day. And I love that a little bit of ingredients go a long way! They are also great to whip up if you have family coming over. My father in law loves my soups!

Below are the recipes for two of my favorite soups. I make them all the time. Please share your favorite recipes below, or just borrow those that sound tasty!

Pasta e Fagioli

2 tblsp. olive oil (or oil, if you don’t have olive)
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped (you can also use dried or powder)
1 – 3 potatoes (dep. on size, and preference – I prefer 3), chopped in bite size cubes
2 ripe tomatoes, coarsely chopped (I have used 1/2 can of chopped tomatoes when I didn’t have fresh, and have even used tomato paste)
5 cups chicken broth (I use 2 bullion cubes with 5 cups water)
sprig of fresh thyme, sage or rosemary (I usually use dried, but fresh when I have it – very tasty)
2 cans cannellini beans, drained about 14oz each (corona beans, butter beans (fagioli di spagna), or borlotti would work, too. my mom even used lima beans)
6 oz. dried pasta – orecchiette, mezza penne, shells, bowtie or other small pasta
a pinch (or two) of red hot pepper flakes (I like mine on the spicy side)
salt and pepper to taste
fresh parmigiano to serve

Heat olive oil in large saucepan, add onion, garlic, and potato and cook for 5 minutes till golden. Add tomatoes and cook for 2-3 minutes.

Add the stock (bullion), sprig or spices, beans, pasta, pepper flakes, sale e pepe. Bring to a boil and simmer about 10 minutes until pasta and potatoes are cooked.

Serve and sprinkle with parmesan. And enjoy!!

*note – Depending on the type of pasta you use, mind the time that the potatoes and pasta cook. I usually cook the potatoes a little before adding the pasta, but if I use 12-14 minute pasta, I remember to not overcook the potatoes.

Also – I usually cook the pasta in a separate pan, and add only enough to two servings of soup. And when I reheat two more servings, I add the pasta to those servings. When eating the soup one or two bowls at a time, the pasta, if left in the soup gets really big. Not a big problem, but I prefer my pasta *fresh* each serving. But if you are serving 4-6 people, add pasta all at once. The recipe says four servings, but we usually get 5 or 6.

****

My Easy Peasy Broccoli Potato Soup

6 cups water (i usually toss in some rock salt, about a tablespoon, but I use it every day, if you don’t have it, no worries)
6-8 potatoes peeled and chopped in large cubes*
broccoli (fresh or frozen, one head or a large bag)*
1 or 2 bullion cubes if you have it
1/4 cup flour*
1/2 small onion, diced*
1 tblsp butter or marg*
2 cups milk*
sale e pepe

*ingredients are guesstimates/approximates. I never measure, I just use what I have and add as I need.

Add the potatoes to the water, and bring to boil. (I add the potatoes before the water is hot because when I drop the potatoes in, the water splashes me, and if it is boiling, it hurts, and then I get cranky. So, it is better when the water is not boiling…) I boil for ~10-15 minutes…I usually just check them with a fork. You want them soft, but not too mushy. (keep in mind you have to cook the broccoli too, when testing for potato *doneness*)

When the potatoes are getting pretty soft, add the broccoli. Cook for another ~5-10 minutes. Again, for me, the fork test works best.

While the potatoes and broccoli have been cooking, you want to cook your onions in butter/marg. until they are golden (people always say this, but I have yet to find my onions gold-like in appearance…)

When they are golden (not burnt, or black or ruined) add the flour, and stir, cooking the flour. If too dry, throw in some butter, if too wet, toss in a little flour. I cook this for ~3 minutes. The slowly stir in milk. You will keep stirring and cooking, to thicken this up.

When your potatoes and broccoli have reached their doneness – not too hard, not too mushy stage – you need to mash them. I use my immersion blender, but you can use a hand blender, or masher, or you can put soup in a blender but that can get messy. The immersion blender rocks for making soups! (If you don’t have one, ask for one for Christmas!)

I blend, leaving a few potato and broccoli chunks, but you can blend as chuncky or as smooth as you like. Add the thickened milk mixture, and blend a little more. Add salt and pepper.

No need to strain anything, because the water quantity is already measured. You can top the soup with parmigiano, or cheddar cheese, if you like.

***

I also love to eat my homemade croutons with these soups. I use stale bread, left over bread from our daily bread (my husband is Italian, and has to have his fresh bread every day! So, I save up the *scraps* and make my croutons. This recipe is from Hillbilly Housewife, whose site I love. She is much more precise in her recipe, I just tear and cut at will, and guesstimate the ingredients. They are also great for French Onion Soup – much easier to eat than one big piece of bread.

Croutons

10 slices of bread, heels are fine (homemade or store bought)
1/2 teaspoon basil
1/4 teaspoon oregano
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon celery salt (or 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon celery seed)
1/4 to 1/3 cup oil

First make 2 piles of your bread. Using a very sharp, serrated knife, slice them into small cubes. I make 5 cuts each direction, one down the center, and two to each side, but you can do it the way that works best for you. Place all of the bread cubes into a large bowl. Sprinkle on the seasonings. Toss briefly to mix in the seasonings. Next dribble in the oil somewhat evenly. Now gently toss everything together. The oil will help the seasonings stick to the bread and also make the bread crispy without actually having to fry it. Spread the croutons on a large cookie sheet, use two if you need to. Bake them at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes or until they are crisp. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the pan. Store the croutons in a plastic bag, or resealable container.

Buon appetito!

The storyline being fed to (and swallowed by) most of the public is that Granny Dunham, Obama’s defacto mama, has taken a turn for the worse and is humming Bob Dylan’s, “Knock, Knock, Knocking at Heaven’s Door.” Demonstrating that politics are secondary when it comes to family, Barack will dash off to Hawaii today and sit by her side. Sort of a pre-shiv’ah ritual bereavement. He does not care whether this puts his campaign at risk. He’s above politics. It is Grandma for gods sake!!

If you have finished hurling into your air sickness bag, here’s what is really going on.

Remember Barack’s August vacation? Yeah, he cared so much about Granny that he saw her only for an hour and did not take Michelle and the girls to visit the woman who he credits with helping raise him. Pretty odd behavior.

This trip is part of a scripted campaign event. It is a sign that the Obama team are so confident their boy has the election in the bag, that they are stepping up efforts to solidify Barack’s image as a regular, mainstream Joe. Hence the visit to Granny in a time of need. Now Grandma Dunham is an elderly woman and is coming off of a broken hip. From the sound of it she is a feisty old gal and no more in peril of keeling over than any other 86 year old woman. Check out this CBS story, which is based on a interview with Barack’s great uncle and his granny’s brother:

Payne, who is Obama’s great-uncle, said his sister was hospitalized briefly but is back home in her Honolulu apartment, where Obama’s sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, cares for her. Obama plans to suspend campaigning later this week to visit his grandmother, and Payne is planning to fly there for her 86th birthday, which is Sunday.

Payne, 83, said he spoke to his sister briefly on Monday.

“We had a short and as upbeat as possible conversation,” said Payne, a retired university library administrator. “She hated the hospital.”

She’s got the normal problems of an aging body but, with plans for the birthday party, it does not sound like a wake is imminent. Let’s face it, if Granny Dunham was departing this mortal coil (and let’s face it, she is an old lady and will die at some point) wouldn’t the whole family go? Shouldn’t Barack’s daughters get a chance to say good bye to Great Grandma Dunham.

Here’s Dylan, get well Granny Dunham.

The recent, reluctantly released papers from Obama’s time as head at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) and his time on the board of the Woods Fund sheds new light on his relationship with Bill Ayers and the seamy milieu of Farrakhan’s Chicago.

The CAC and Woods Fund money paved the way for Obama’s political career:

the monies doled out through the Woods Fund to these groups, including [Bill] Ayers own Annenberg Challenge, helped cement Obama’s political relationships and bond with key players in Chicago.

Stanley Kurtz said that CAC money did not go directly to schools:

“Instead of giving money directly to schools, they gave to what they called external partners, and these external partners were often pretty radical community organizer groups.”

And Steve Diamond writes that Ayers was focused on what:

Ayers calls “social justice” approaches to teaching and “small schools” as well as race-based approaches to curriculum in the public schools.

Ayers and Obama funneled money intended for education to race-based curriculum. Matthew Weaver reports:

let’s also not forget organizations that received funding from Barack and Bill [Ayers], such as:

Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) Arab American Action Network (AAAN) founded by husband and wife Rashid and Mona Khalidi. Maoist Mike Klonsky, another terrorist member of the Weatherman Children and Family Justice Center, Bernardine’s organization. Trinity Unity Church and Rev. Wright.

Ayers is an important part of the Chicago racial Left, a loosely affiliated group of churches, academics, and activists who include Jeremiah Wright, Pfleger, Farrakhan, the group ACORN, and many others. The racial Left is not committed to fighting racism — a noble cause — but instead looking at the world through a racial lens. This means that issues of class — which affects whites, women, gays, etc. — is frequently dismissed. Instead, there are disquisitions on “white privilege,” without discussing the fact that poverty knows no color. The racial Left, of course, is a class struggle between those who have and those who do not, and many of it’s proponents have attended the best schools and hold the highest positions in the academy and in government. It’s no accident that Bill Ayers, the scion of a wealthy family, is a primary member of the racial Left. And it’s no accident that Obama, surrounded by millionaires in San Francisco, pointed out that his difficulties in Pennsylvania were due to skin color (identifying those resistant to him as white) and then ridiculing them as religious, intolerant of immigrants, and as the owners of guns, all cultural indicators to the racial Left of the despised lower-income whites. He could just have easily said those who are bitter cling to Jeff Foxworthy, shop at Wal-Mart, and hump their sister, or any other stereotype used against low-income whites.

The racial Left is about protecting status:

Not only is Ayers using Obama’s rapid ascent to celebrity in order to capitalize on his own unquenchable thirst for fame by having his memoir Fugitive Days reissued in January 2009, he is also working with Hollywood to have his memoir turned into a movie. As if that’s not enough, he and his wife, Bernardine Dorhn, have authored a book, soon to be released, entitled Race Course Against White Supremacy.

Belying it’s title, this book is NOT about white supremacists, such as the Aryan Brotherhood, but instead states that “white supremacy is the dominant political system” in American’. From Amazon’s Product Description:

Arguing that white supremacy has been the dominant political system in the United States since its earliest days—and that it is still very much with us—the discussion points to unexamined bigotry in the criminal justice system, election processes, war policy, and education. The book draws upon the authors’ own confrontations with authorities during the Vietnam era, reasserts their belief that racism and war are interwoven issues, and offers personal stories about their lives today as parents, teachers, and reformers.

Stanley Kurtz has uncovered that Obama attended Farrakhan’s Million Man March, and Obama’s close friend, Michael Pfleger, is close to Farrakhan:

Although it’s been discussed before (because it confirms that Obama attended Louis Farrakhan’s Million Man March), a 1995 background piece on Obama from the Chicago Reader has received far too little attention. Careful consideration of this important profile makes it clear that Obama’s long-standing ties to Chicago’s most rabidly radical preachers call into question far more than Obama’s judgment and character (although they certainly do that, as well). Obama’s two-decades at Trinity open a critically important window onto his radical-left political leanings. No mere change of church membership can erase that truth.

As Matthew Weaver posted, Rev. Farrakhan just pronounced Obama the Messiah (watch the video here):

“You are the instruments that God is going to use to bring about universal change, and that is why Barack has captured the youth. And he has involved young people in a political process that they didn’t care anything about. That’s a sign. When the Messiah speaks, the youth will hear, and the Messiah is absolutely speaking.” – Louis Farrakhan

In addition to being the leader of NOI, Farrakhan is first and foremost a politician, and one of the most powerful in Chicago. And Obama has at least one NOI member on his payroll.

In a June article from Reuters entitled “BREAKING NEWS: Nation of Islam Activists on Obama Camp Payroll” states that

“Sen. Barack Obama employed and continues to employ senior staffers who belong to the Nation of Islam, and the presidential candidate has some “worrying” ties to the controversial group headed by Louis Farrakhan, a former key Obama insider told AARON KLEIN… The former insider confirmed Obama is directly aware of the Nation of Islam members on his staff.”

“A key constituency for Obama was Hyde Park, where Farrakhan lives. To be successful politically in that area, you need to be involved with Farrakhan, since he’s a strong power in the district,” said the former insider.”

“The former insider identified former Obama worker Shakir Muhammad as a Nation of Islam activist. Muhammad was paid by Obama’s office as a photographer…According to a black supremacist source tied to Farrakhan, Muhammad previously worked as a bodyguard for the Nation of Islam chief.”

In fact, according to the article, Cynthia K. Miller, a known Nation of Islam activist who served Obama in his early state Senate days and was treasurer for his U.S. senatorial campaign, and a paid consultant in 2003 and 2004, was the beneficiary of help from Obama by another one of his Chicago friends, Tony Rezko.

“The former insider said Obama asked indicted Chicago businessman and Obama financier Tony Rezko to get his treasurer, Miller, a state government job with
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.”

While researching the source of Michelle Obama’s alleged “whitey” rant, we discovered direct connections between the Nation of Islam (NOI), Stokely Carmichael, Jeremiah Wright’s Black Liberation Theology and, most prominently, Louis Farrakhan.

According to Larry Johnson’s sources, the Michelle Obama tape captures her in sordid company:

The sources who have seen the tape report that Michelle says
disparaging things about “whites” and that Louis Farrakhan is visible.
There is no identifying information on the segment they have seen to
identify the location or time when this was recorded. [emphasis added]

Those who are following this matter will recall that Michelle Obama, when asked about these allegations, is reported to have said that “whitey” is not a word used by African Americans today. However, we documented that Mrs. Obama’s primary text for her Princeton thesis was Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton’s 1967 book Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America, and we showed how Carmichael used the term “whitey” repeatedly, thereby establishing an epistemological connection between Carmichael and Mrs. Obama. In other words, Michelle Obama is the intellectual offspring of Stokely Carmichael.

Before going further, it should be noted that Reverend Jeremiah Wright was once a member of the Nation of Islam, though it’s not clear when he was involved with NOI. Ryan Lizza of the New Republic first reported that:

Wright was a former Muslim and black nationalist who had
studied at Howard and Chicago, and Trinity’s guiding principles–what the church calls the “Black Value System”[Emphasis added]

But back to Stokely Carmichael. Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, the Federal Bureau of Investigations has released hundreds of pages from their files on Stokely Carmichael. It’s a treasure trove for those interested in the history of the civil rights movement. What we found most interesting, however, were the large number of documents connecting Carmichael with the NOI. For instance, the document below is an Airtel sent to Director Hoover on July 29, 1966, from Chicago. The subject is Stokely Carmichael and it concerns NOI leader Elijah Muhammed’s “CALL FOR SUMMIT MEETING, MAJOR CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS.”

There are three areas of interest for us: first, the Airtel came from the city of Chicago; second, the year 1966 (more on that later), and third, that the Nation of Islam — in the manner of the infamous mob meeting in Apalachin in 1957 — was organizing all of the major civil rights groups.

It has been widely reported, and documented here, that Carmichael was an “Honorary Prime Minister” of the Black Panther Party, and that he was the leader of the innocuous sounding Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The following document, however, shows that Carmichael was open to violence as a political tool–see the highlighted sentence below–”This nonviolence bit is just a philanthropic hang-up,” and that he was indeed a founder of the Black Panther Party:

In the following document we initially noticed Carmichael’s willingness to use violence. He is paraphrased as saying that “in his opinion, the black man is justified in using any means at his command to obtain what he believes is due him,” indicating an acceptance of violence as seen through a racial frame. What’s more interesting, however, is the next paragraph. “Louis Walcott, Minister of the New York City Muslim Mosque, Nation of Islam, also participated in this conference.” See the second paragraph below:

The name Louis, of course, was glaring. Could it be he? A quick Google search linked to a 1996 Morning Edition transcription of a Bob Edwards piece on Farrakhan:

The early life of Louis Farrakhan, who grew up as Louis Eugene Walcott, was heavily influenced by his loving but demanding mother and his poor but safe neighborhood of Roxbury, Boston, in the late 1940s.

Over the last decade, Louis Farrakhan has emerged as one of the most visible and formidable black political leaders in America

Let’s add up what we have so far: Stokely Carmichael, Michelle Obama’s primary source and intellectual ancestor, shared the stage with Louis Farrakhan, the same man who she allegedly shared a stage with when she said “whitey.”

Carmichael and Farrakhan may have shared more than a stage. The document below indicates but doesn’t conclude that Carmichael may have been a Muslim himself. Although heavily redacted, the FBI’s source said that “Stokely Carmichael, [redacted] as ‘one of us’ which this source interpreted as meaning a member of the Muslims.”

Whether or not Carmichael was a Muslim is unclear. What is clear is that at sometime in the summer of 1966 there was a meeting of the minds between some civil rights groups, black radicals, and the Nation of Islam. These groups organized into a force promoting and preaching a racist form of black nationalism. The document below describes a meeting that clearly shows this union of forces: Carmichael and Minister Louis “made it clear they wanted to unite with all Negro groups regardless of philosophy.” Note the date of August 18, 1966:

This takes us back to Jeremiah Wright and the question of when Wright was a Muslim. According to Wright’s Wikipedia entry:

In 1963, after two years of service, Wright joined the United States Navy and entered the Corpsman School at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Wright was then trained as a cardiopulmonary technician at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

“In 1966, as a U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman,” the Wikipeida entry continues, Wright assisted with the care of President Johnson. Extrapolating from these dates, it appears that Wright was in Maryland between 1964 and 1966, and this may have been the time when he was a member of NOI. Wright didn’t start at Trinity until 1972, and evidently received spiritual training after receiving a master’s degree in English in 1969.

Also in Maryland in 1964 was Stokely Carmichael, where he was arrested “as a result of demonstrations in that city.” This doesn’t mean that Wright knew Carmichael, but surely Wright was cognizant of Carmichael’s work and of NOI as well. This is likely the time when he was a “Muslim and black nationalist.”

However Wright was radicalized, it is clear that he consciously appropriated the language and tenor of the Nation of Islam.

Wright’s statement that 9/11 was deserved retribution (“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans…America’s chickens are coming home to roost”) is a perfect echo of Malcolm X’s statement that “The assassination of Kennedy is a result of that way of life and thinking. The chickens came home to roost.”

Although it appears that Wright began his focus on Black Liberation Theology sometime after 1966, his racial attitudes and rhetoric have imitated that of NOI since at least 1970. Wright’s blaming the United States for creating AIDS to kill minorities is but just one example of his thinking being in lockstep with NOI.

Black Liberation Theology was first formed in 1966. According to NPR:

Black liberation theology originated on July 31, 1966, when 51 black pastors bought a full page ad in the New York Times and demanded a more aggressive approach to eradicating racism. They echoed the demands of the black power movement, but the new crusade found its source of inspiration in the Bible.

Keep in mind that NOI’s Elijah Mohammad called for a summit of black leaders on July 11, 1966, only 20 days prior to the official formation of Black Liberation Theology. If the dates don’t convince you of a synergy between NOI and Black Liberation Theology, please note Wright’s mentor — and Black Liberation Theology founder — James Cone’s words about NOI’s Malcolm X:

Malcolm X was not far wrong when he called the white man ‘the devil.’ The false Christianity of the white-devil oppressor must be replaced by an authentic Christianity fully identified with the poor and oppressed.

The black intellectual’s goal, says Cone, is to “aid in the destruction of America as he knows it.”

Couple these words with Wright’s own view that:

There will be no peace in America until whites begin to hate their whiteness, asking from the depths of their being: ‘How can we become black?’

In 1998, Louis A. De-Caro, Jr. published a book titled Malcolm and the Cross: The Nation of Islam, Malcolm X, and Christianity. De-Caro’s book underscores the racial nature and revolutionary intent of the NOI’s promotion of a black “Christianity”:

Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam based their religious orthodoxy more on the Bible than on the Qur’an. In part, this was because they sought to convert black Christians. More- over, Elijah Muhammad taught that the Bible, actually the story of “dark people,” had been distorted by the white man in order to enslave and oppress black people in the United States.

The Nation of Islam and Black Liberation Theology are two doors to the same room. Black Liberation Theology is a “palatable” form of “Christian” black nationalism. The fiery anti-American, race-baiting words of Wright, Ayers, Meeks, Pfleger, and Moss are from the same philosophical cauldron as the Nation of Islam. It’s obvious now why Wright’s Trumpet Magazine featured Farrakhan on the cover:

Some have said that Michelle Obama’s thesis proves nothing because it was written more than 20 years ago. We suggest that it was no accident that the Obamas sought out Wright a mere 2-3 years after she wrote her thesis and stayed with him for nearly 20 years, even while he preached the vilest and most hateful sermons that our nation has been forced to hear. TexasDarlin writes:

It’s no wonder that the Obamas joined Trinity United, grew close to Jeremiah Wright and Michael Pfleger, and actively defended the church. And there is no doubt in this alert reader’s mind that Michelle Obama clung to Trinity as long as possible politically and, unfortunately for her husband, perhaps many years too long for most voters’ palates.

But the Obamas’ connections to the Nation of Islam go deeper than Rev. Wright. Louis Farrakhan’s political connections extend to the Obamas directly through Chicago politics and Tony Rezko. Larry Johnson writes that:

Before Barack came on the scene, THE MAN in his political district was Louis Farrakhan. No one could take Alice Palmer’s seat without Farrakhan’s blessing. No one. I do not fault Barack Obama for seeking out the blessing of Farrakhan, but the story of what was done behind the scenes to get rid of Barack’s predecessor—Alice Palmer—has not been told. A knowledgeable source tells me that Tony Rezko played a direct role in this feat. And Rezko has been tight with Farrakhan.

At some point, probably between 1964-66, Jeremiah Wright was a member of the Nation of Islam and was indoctrinated into its odious brand of racist theology. And make no mistake, Wright’s race-baiting is not indicative of the vast majority of black churches. A pastor at LivePrayer writes:

Please hear me very clear. Black liberation theology is a perverse view of the Scriptures and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a radical view held by a very small minority of black pastors. This is NOT representative of the black church or the overwhelming majority of black pastors who preach and teach the true Gospel of Jesus Christ without looking at it thru the lens of color. Every black pastor I know condemns Dr. Wright and this perverse racist theology.

In 1966, a group of “Christian” ministers, at the behest of Elijah Mohammad, began to preach the same teachings as NOI. Stokely Carmichael and Louis Farrakhan actively worked to bridge the gap between these two groups, and Carmichael would soon publish a book espousing much the same separatist ideas. Carmichael’s book “guided” Michelle Obama’s thesis and soon she and Barack would join Trinity United Church of Christ.

The continuity of the teachings of Carmichael, Farrakhan, Cone, Pfleger, Wright, and Ayers is incontrovertible; it’s all about skin color.

Christopher Hitchens asks:

how is it that the loathsome Wright married him, baptized his children, and received donations from him? Could it possibly have anything, I wonder, to do with Mrs. Obama?

Obama’s targeted use of Malcolm X’s super-charged racial code words (“hoodwink, bamboozled”), and his followers’ continuous charges of racism against Obama’s opponents as a political tool has been well documented. It shows that Obama has a studied understanding of the racial radicalism of Malcolm X, Farrakhan, Wright, Pfleger, and Ayers coupled with the cold-blooded instincts of a heartless politician. The Obama campaign has already smeared as racists vast swaths of the Democratic Party, people who were drawn to the Party for its commitment to civil rights. Now he employs the same tactics against John McCain, a champion of immigrants who has never had a hint of racism associated with his name.

Sinclair Lewis is frequently quoted as saying: “When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”

In today’s upside down world, racism has come to America embodied in a multi-racial politician and carrying the banner of the Democratic Party.

Obama and his supporters have been complaining the last couple of days, accusing the McCain campaign creating mob mentalities. I have read that they are forming lynching mobs, stirring up anger, and causing division.

And, you know what? The people ARE mad. But you can’t blame it on John McCain and Sarah Palin.

People are sick and tired of being called racist, over and over, and over, and over, and over again for not supporting Obama.

People are sick and tired that every single issue they bring up against Obama is called a racist attack.

People are really sick of hearing that Palin wearing white is a shout out to the KKK and therefore racist.

PUMA’s are pissed off at the lynch mob mentality that formed to paint Hillary and Bill Clinton as racists.

People are pissed off about the caucus fraud that they witnessed, by the Obama camp.

PUMA’s are pissed off at the DNC and their behavior during the Primary.

PUMA’s are angered that Obama and the DNC never spoke out against the vitriol attacks on Hillary.

PUMA’s are destroyed, feeling abandoned by their party.

PUMA’s are pissed off at all the boo’s and shouts that came with the mention of Hillary’s name at Obama rallies.

People are pissed off at the sexist attacks towards Hillary during the primary.

People are pissed off at the vitriol and sexist attacks on Sarah Palin, now.

People are beyond pissed about ACORN and the number of fraudulent registered voters, and Obama’s ties to ACORN. And that Obama gave them $800,000.

People are beyond pale that tax payer money, millions of dollars, has been paying for this fraud.

And that the Democrats attached this to the bailout bill.

People are mad that Obama lied about Wright.

People are insulted that Obama lied about Ayers.

People are disgusted that Obama lied about Rezko.

People are scared about all of Obama’s other questionable associations.

People are sick and tired of the biased pro-Obama media.

People are sick and tired of Obama taking credit for things that he had no hand in.

People are pissed off at the attacks they have endured, from Obama supporters, for months.

People are pissed off at being threatened with riots, should Obama lose.

People are disgusted with Obama’s major flip flops.

People are worried, since learning, about Obama’s socialist past.

People are freaked out by the Obama worship, the militant like groups, the *blue shirts*, the Hitler-esque salutes and symbols, and the children singing videos.

People are pissed off that Obama has very few accomplishments, and is given a pass.

People are pissed off that Obama is caught saying one thing publicly and another thing privately, and is given a pass.

People are pissed off that it is reported that Obama tried to negotiate with Iraq, and delay withdrawal to his benefit, and it is ignored in the media.

People are pissed off that Obama claims to have superior judgment, but makes massive judgment mistakes repeatedly, and is given a pass. The latest one today, wrt to the Hamas meeting.

People are astonished at the fake presidential seals, air force one, and world tours.

People are mad about learning the deceptive polling tactics – not asking which candidate you are supporting, but only asking issue related questions, and then assigning you a candidate.

People are sick and tired of listening to constant crazed attacks on Sarah Palin coming from Hollywood. And idiotic videos from Diddy.

People are sick and tired of being called racist, but the media ignoring that 93% of African Americans voted for Obama.

People are sick and tired of being harassed in the street for wearing a Clinton, or McCain/Palin button.

People are sick and tired of their Pro-Clinton or McCain yard signs being stolen.

People are outraged that their vehicles were vandalized for having Clinton or McCain stickers on them.

People are tired of being terrified by pro-Obama thugs who scream racist charges, and more, while they are sitting in restaurants.

People are sick and tired for doing research and trying to get to know a candidate and are personally attacked for it.

People are sick and tired of having Obama thugs hack their web sites and/or shut them down.

People are sick and tired of Obama supporters who never engage in dialogue or debate, but just resort to personal attacks.

People are sick and tired of enduring months and months of attacks, and listening to biased media coverage, and watching the attacks and lynch mob type behavior on the Clintons, and her supporters, and now McCain and Palin.

And NOW that a few people have stood up and vented that anger, and a few have screamed *terrorist* or *kill him* with the mention of William Ayers, McCain and Palin are being accused of forming lynch mobs, trying to divide the country, and worse.

Obama said that McCain and Palin are stoking anger and division.

It is not McCain and Palin that are stoking anger and causing divide. That was accomplished by Obama, the DNC, the MSM and the thug like behavior of Obama supporters.

People are pissed off. And people are feeling panicked. But, you can’t blame that anger on McCain or Palin. You can blame that on Obama and his supporters.

You can only kick a dog so many times before he finally bites you back.

(I could link to examples of every one of these situations, but frankly didn’t care to spend the time. They are out there. They have all happened. And I am sure there a many more.)

The Obama campaign has had a deliberate strategy of calling the Clinton campaign racist and the media has allowed itself to be led along. Obama himself confessed to this strategy in the Nevada debate when shown a copy of a campaign memo directing campaign workers to use race-bating to defame Hillary Clinton.

January 27, 2008:

Please, just fuck off. Bill Clinton made exactly the right point and Obama’s defenders are playing into the worst of the Right-wing racist tropes, that there is something tainted about successful black candidates who get majority black support.

January 28, 2008:

I’ve spent a good amount of time here on this blog defending HRC against bogus claims of racism, and I’ve smacked The Golden One around for engaging in his own race-baiting, trying to milk liberal white guilt for all it is worth.

There is no person, no campaign, no victory that can justify deliberate use of racial divisions. Leave it to the Republicans to immolate themselves on the pyre of racism come November.

February 2, 2008:

Then begins the long slog towards South Carolina, with the media, the blogosphere and Obama’s campaign screaming at every turn that the Clintons are racists.

March 31, 2008:

My point here is not to promote the Clintons (though I think they deserve it), but to emphasize the way in which they are demonized by their own party. They become the embodiment of the old South, the unrepentant, segregationist South, just as northern blue collar voters who challenge the party orthodoxy are labeled Archie Bunkers.

April 5, 2008:

Here is the challenge to the Democrats – how to cease treating working class whites the eternal “Other” of the party, the roadblock to fulfilling the promise of the nation, and seriously address the ways in which the party will help all Americans live their lives with dignity.

April 28, 2008:

I have seen it put cynically (hell, I have put it cynically myself) that Obama was just promising the (mostly white) comfortable class of the party that he wouldn’t insist on looking at those nasty claims of justice if they would just elect a black dude and redeem their souls.

May 2, 2008

The assault on the Clintons has no basis in policy or political philosophy. It is an attack on uppity white trash who dares to succeed in the world without assimilating into the ruling elite, and for the added insult of being adored by the nation precisely for their common connections.

May 4, 2008:

Hannah Arendt, my favorite political theorist, has been excoriated as a racist for pointing out that integration and post-racial sociality is not such a big deal when the person being integrated is already part of your socio-economic class, remains a numerical minority within your enclave, and is no threat to your social standing or economic power.

May 6, 2008:

Obama’s campaign is certainly doing pernicious race-baiting, but mostly to initimidate critics and shame wavering white voters.

May 8, 2008:

What I’m seeing is an amplified, exaggerated perversion of the lessons, biases and attitudes I encountered in my very liberal college education, things that resonate with me in strange ways, playing on the way I learned to see the world as divided into evil whites, good whites and the oppressed Others we good whites had to free from the evil whites.

May 18, 2008:

I don’t see the Hillary campaign saying a bad word about the voters, even those who vote for her opponents. I don’t see the campaign explaining away their losses because of some flaw or failing in the voters.

May 21, 2008:

Failure to create the conditions under which vast majority of the party will have no doubts that he will serve the interests of the party and be protective of those who dissent from him will leave not just Obama but the party itself in dire straits in the months to come. Riverdaughter has a brilliant post up on The Confluence. You need to go read it all beause it is good in every regard

May 23, 2008:

I’m reading the reports on the mendacious attacks the Bogger Boyz are making on Hillary by completely perverting her comments about RFK.

Rather than weigh in on the current idiocy (which is being handled very nicely by Riverdaughter & Co. over on the Confluence. If you have not read that blog, stop, go there, read and bookmark. I’ll be here when you’re done.)

May 31, 2008:

1. I am not saying in any way shape or form that Larry Johnson is lying about the existence of some video of Michelle Obama. Please. Larry would not do that. A video of some kind exists.

2. If you read his posts closely, Larry does not claim to have seen the video in question himself. I may have missed a post where he did state this, but in the posts I have read, he does not. He was very clear that he has spoken to at least two people who do not know each other, who he trusts completely, and who have attested to the existence of a video.

September 24, 2008:

When Democratic women say “The Obama camp has run a sexist, mysogynistic campaign,” we are told we’re wrong, no such thing, there was not any sexism there, except maybe some from Tweety. When Democratic women say, “No, it’s not his race, it’s his lack of commitment to the programs that matter to us,” we are told that, no, we’re all just racist bitches, and that it’s our fault if he doesn’t win.

September 16, 2008:

The ultimate shadow of Reagan is that you don’t win by defending losers, only by securing the interests of the winners. That is the dark heart beating in the chest of the Unity Democrats. They are done with the losers.

May 2, 2008:

It is the deep guilt of the liberal upper class that we know, every last miserable one of us, that our privilege is due to centuries of white supremacy and to the informal, unspoken, but pervasive advantage our skin color and behavioral patterns gives us in this society. It is our Moby Dick, the whale we pursue obsessively through political seas, frantic to have material proof that we are innocent of the crimes of our nation.

He almost wrecked Barack Obama’s presidential dreams, and now firebrand pastor Jeremiah Wright has helped destroy a Dallas church worker’s marriage – and her job, The Post has learned.

You’ve seen the disgusting video of Reverend Wright, in a Sunday sermon, doing the the “hump” to suggest that Bill Clinton “done us wrong”:

The background story to Wright’s second marriage calls into serious question Wright’s “right” to preach to anyone. Here’s more from the Post:

Wright has been married to his second wife, Ramah, for more than 20 years.

The preacher reportedly wooed Ramah away from her first husband in the 1980s, when the couple came to marriage counseling at Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

Now let’s see more reminders of Obama’s Reverend Wright. Remember this “America’s Chickens Come Home to Roost”?

The 37-year-old Elizabeth Payne admits to the affair but gives few other details.

Elizabeth Payne, 37, said she had a steamy sexual affair with the controversial, racially divisive man of the cloth while she was an executive assistant at a church headed by a popular Wright protégé.

She has since basically been excommunicated from the church, fired from her paid position in the church, and divorced. Her husband dashed to divorce court after the affair was discovered. She did have this to say about her life post-Wright:

Elizabeth Payne said she has been banished by Haynes and the flock at Friendship-West.

“I’m not a member of the congregation anymore; I’m not even allowed on the premises,” she said.

And she had this to say about her affair with Wright, her job and divorce:

“I was involved with Rev. Wright, and that’s why I lost my job and why my husband divorced me,” Payne said.

She refused to reveal when the adulterous affair started or how she met Wright.

But fellow churchgoers at Friendship-West “found out about the affair in the spring,” Payne said.

At the time, she was secretary to the Rev. Frederick Haynes III, a longtime Wright disciple.

In April, Payne organized a series of Texas public appearances by Wright, 67. Weeks before, Obama had disavowed his preacher of 20 years after Wright’s anti-government rants came to light.

“Liz was by Rev. Wright’s side day and night during those days,” a church source said.

“It’s all true,” said Payne, adding that she has filed a wrongful-dismissal claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to get her job back.

In an interesting twist, Wright gave a sermon about trouble in relationships at a church in New Jersey. Here is more on that:

“There’s no such thing as a problem-free relationship,” he told a packed Elmwood United Presbyterian Church. “In life, you’ll have unexpected problems.”

Here are his words minus a controversial statement.

Payne’s husband, Fred Payne, 64, said he learned of the affair in late February, when he discovered e-mails between his wife and Wright.

“There must have been about 80 of them, back and forth,” he said. “Wright said things like he was going to leave his wife for Elizabeth.”

And now we need to be reminded of Obama on his spiritual mentor….

And we know that Reverend Wright/Wrong became a albatross around Obama’s neck. Obama did what he always has — he denied any knowledge of the sermons — the same way he denies responsibility for anything his campaign does!

And this is the man we want leading our country? Not!

Obama your “chickens have come home to roost!”

Dean had this to say, “Our party has been a no-majority party for a long time. The fact is that the Democratic Party is made up of lots of different people” and “If you look at folks of color, even women, they’re more successful in the Democratic Party than they are in the white — excuse me — in the Republican Party.”

And here are Dean’s words recorded for posterity’s sake:

Politico.com, July 1, 2008: “Obama to scrap Bush’s faith-based office“

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) plans to slam President Bush’s faith-based program as “a photo op” and a failure on Tuesday, and says he would scrap the office and create a new Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships that would be a “critical” part of his administration. [...]

Anticipating criticism from the left, Obama said: “I believe deeply in the separation of church and state, but I don’t believe this partnership will endanger that idea. …

Just how faith-based must Americans become? It’s bad enough to have have the Democratic leadership undemocratically hand-pick an unqualified, inexperienced candidate in whom we are just supposed to “believe.” Now this candidate is going to “expand Bush’s faith based programs,” the A.P./Yahoo reports. (Memeorandum.com is tracking blog posts.)

Plenty of us may be praying in the next four years, but must it be on the job too? Oh wait! Obama was in Ohio when he announced his faith-based initiatives yesterday. You remember Ohio, don’t you? Where Hillary demolished Barack by double digits? Which means, to Barack, that much pandering must be done to win over the voters who rejected him on March 5th. But this much pandering?

… Obama’s support for letting religious charities that receive federal funding consider religion in employment decisions could invite a storm of protest from those who view such faith requirements as discrimination.

Guess who rails against federal funding of faith-based initiatives: Obama’s entire primary base of far-left liberals.

You know. The Kossacks. The Move-On devotees. The civil libertarians. The Glenn Greenwalds.

Actually, me too. Government aid programs should have no tie-ins to any religion of any kind. Imho.

I realize Obama needs to pander in the Midwest where he did so poorly, particularly in key states like Ohio where those Midwest “typical white people” rejected him in the primaries.

I listened to Keith Olbermann’s “Special Comment” last night advising Obama on how he should speak out about and vote on FISA.

Olbermann is desperately trying to keep you on the right course on FISA, Barack. The first-class ketchup addict, his MSNBO pals, and the reverential media are willing to tap dance on the head of a pin to help you get elected. But, eventually, even they, perhaps, will reach their limits (one hopes).

Yesterday, alone, Barack threw MoveOn.org and Gen. Wesley Clark under the bus. Sadly, it’s doubtful that the MoveOn devotees will catch on to Obama — even while he “goes along to get along” on every policy matter they care deeply about, including Bush’s funding of faith-based charities. As I wrote yesterday, the only time Obama will have his hand out to MoveOn is when they have a check in theirs.

Obama knows it too. He can abuse MoveOn between now and November, and those gullible people will still plaster his photo on their home page and beg their membership to donate to him.

He’s already thrown so many before them under the bus, as our cartoonist PatRacimora noted on May 3, 2008:

Once again, he’s thrown his hardcore allies under the bus solely for the sake of winning.

PatRacimora gave Obama’s supporters some good advice in late May: “Be careful. You still IN the bus may well be next.”

Ironically, it was Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s 20-year “close adviser” — like “an uncle to me,” Obama once said — who, after he got thrown under the bus, noted bitterly that Obama is just a typical politician.

Rev. Wright saw through Obama. Finally. Will the rest?

Now let us pray:

When, Oh Lord, when will my brothers and sisters see the light about this rock-star idol? I beg you, Almighty One, deliver us from this false prophet.

Before it is too late. …

Which would be the fourth week of August, 2008.

Dorothea LANGE, “Migrant Mother,” 1936

A friend paraphrases a famous story to illustrate why she may vote Republican for the first time in 40 years: in the late 1960s, when the feminist movement was still thought of as a novelty, a boorish male reporter asked the heterosexual Gloria Steinem if she was a lesbian. Steinem responded, “I am if you’re the alternative.”

There is a growing consensus at No Quarter and elsewhere that Obama’s tactics have made him an unacceptable alternative to Hillary, and many of us will be voting for McCain, writing in Hillary, or staying home.

As Hillary continues to increase her popular vote lead and absolutely crush Obama in critical states, many are looking at a potential Obama nomination as a coup d’état similar to Florida in 2000, facilitated by the neo-liberal-Dean wing of the Party, African American power brokers, and the Clinton-hating media. Regarding Florida and Michigan, Anglachel writes:

Lack of legitimacy means relying on force to win. If you have to bully people to make them be quiet, you have lost legitimacy. If you have to remove votes from the contest in order to win, you have lost legitimacy. The objection Hillary supporters have to “teh Rulz” to exclude Michigan and Florida is how nakedly they are used to force the numbers themselves into submission.

A commentator agrees with Anglachel and points out that:

The FL/MI debacle not only robbed Clinton of delegates, but it robbed her of momentum that would have affected later contests. It robbed her of frontrunner status. In fact, with those 2 states and Super Tuesday, she probably would have been close to winning.

An Obama nomination — after the selective but intentional disenfranchisement of Michigan and Florida, the relentless race-baiting by Obama and his surrogates, and the venom from his supporters — is repugnant to many of us who, to use Arthur Schlesinger’s phrase, are unrepentant and unreconstructed liberals and New Dealers.

What we are witnessing is nothing short of the breakup of the historic Democratic coalition. Chris Bowers, Obama supporter and writer at Open Left, dreams of a cultural change in an Obama Democratic Party which is almost a parody of the brie and Chardonnay stereotype:

There should be a major cultural shift in the party, where the southern Dems and Liebercrat elite will be largely replaced by rising creative class types. Obama has all the markers of a creative class background, from his community organizing, to his Unitarianism, to being an academic, to living in Hyde Park to shopping at Whole Foods and drinking PBR. These will be the type of people running the Democratic Party now, and it will be a big cultural shift from the white working class focus of earlier decades.

Further illustrating their break with traditional liberalism, Markos Moulitsas has declared himself a libertarian Democrat, in other words: a politically correct Republican. These neo-liberals are really proposing a Party run by those who have little need for government and instead focus on identity politics, environmentalism, post-partisan government, and the rejection of American exceptionalism. The neo-liberals demonize the traditional Democratic base of poor white voters precisely because these voters rely on government and expect their leadership to fight partisan battles on their behalf. They are also deeply patriotic and weary of the moral relativism put forward by the likes of Jeremiah Wright.

Because of Obama’s anemic performances in West Virginia and Kentucky, the campaign and its supporters imagine a new Party. Sean Wilentz writes

the Barack Obama campaign and its sympathizers have begun to articulate much more clearly what they mean by their vague slogan of “change” – nothing less than usurping the historic Democratic Party, dating back to the age of Andrew Jackson, by rejecting its historic electoral core: white workers and rural dwellers in the Middle Atlantic and border states.

It remains to be seen whether the breakup of the Democratic Party more resembles (A) the McGovern disaster of 1972 and 20 years in the wilderness, or (B) a dismantling of the current coalition more akin to the Republicans replacing the Whigs in 1856.

In whatever form our Party takes, the perpetrators of this breakup are the Obama campaign and the neo-liberals. It’s their demonization of low-income white Americans which is largely the cause of our coalition’s breakup. Wilentz continues:

Without a majority of those voters, the Democrats have, since the party’s inception in the 1820s, been incapable of winning the presidency. The Obama advocates declare, though, that we have entered an entirely new political era. It is not only possible but also desirable, they say, for Democrats to win by turning away from those whom “progressive” pundits and bloggers disdain variously as “Nascar man,” “uneducated,” “low information” whites, “rubes, fools, and hate-mongers” who live in the nation’s “shitholes.”

Hillary’s ability to keep this race so close, with virtually no African American support, shows Obama’s incredible weakness as a candidate. This is not because of race, as the neo-liberal race-baiters would have you believe, but because Obama does not articulate an economic message which appeals to low-income whites. According to Wilentz:

Every poll shows that economics, health care, and national security are the leading issues for white working class voters – and for Latino working class voters as well. These constituencies have cast positive ballots for Hillary Clinton not because she is white, but because they regard her as better on these issues. Obama’s campaign and its passionate supporters refuse to acknowledge that these voters consider him weaker — and that Clinton’s positions, different from his, as well as her experience actually attract support. Instead they impute racism to working class Democrats who, the polls also show, happen to be liberal on every leading issue. The effort to taint anyone who does not support Obama as motivated by racism has now become a major factor in alienating core Democrats from Obama’s campaign.

The class warfare now raging in the Democratic Party, while both sides ostensibly are on the Left, is actually the classic struggle between the proletariat workers (blue-collar whites and Latinos) and the petite bourgeoisie (neo-liberals). African Americans have mostly gone to Obama because of the historic nature of his candidacy; many, however, were pushed to Obama by the race-baiting wedge utilized by Obama and the neo-liberals, a tactic identical in form and result as that used by Lee Atwater and other Republican operatives. Obama’s hostility towards the white working class, as seen with his bitter-gate remarks, is the exact framework from which many of the neo-liberals view this struggle:

Obama’s dismissal of white working people represents a sea-change in the Democrats’ basic identity as the workingman’s party – one that has been coming since the late 1960s, when large portions of the Left began regarding white workers as hopeless and hateful reactionaries.

Arthur Schlesinger, eminent historian and New Frontiersman, foresaw the dangers of identity politics as a substitute for progressive policy. He believed in an activist government which should be used “to improve opportunities and to enlarge freedoms for ordinary people.” The Obama campaign’s desire to win the nomination, regardless of its illegitimacy, and their hostility towards poor white Americans is a movement which is tearing the Democratic Party apart. Many of us believe that the best way to fight for working Americans — regardless of color — is to make sure this movement is defeated.

When Hatfield presented former President Bill Clinton with a check for $440 after Friday’s rally at the Williamson Fire Station, the man who was once the leader of the free world seemed to nearly come to tears.

“You sold your bike to get this?” Clinton asked the McAndrews, Ky. native.

The reply was “yes” and a whole lot more. … Read all.

_____________________

Unlike the Obama ostriches — in hiding from the West Virginia vote — Hillary Clinton, her campaign, and her volunteers are flooding West Virginia in anticipation of its Tuesday primary.

Barack chooses to IGNORE an estimated 1,816,856 residents, perhaps because only 3.49% of the population is black. And perhaps he thinks these kinds of voters are hopelessly ignorant and incapable of voting for him.

The Obamedia joins in — and ALWAYS (isn’t it amazing?) highlights some white voter who expresses views that the punditry and latte elite class can point at and mock. Here’s the latest from the Financial Times — these are paragraphs one and two of the FT’s top story today, “W Virginia keeps distance from Obama”:

Like most people in Mingo County, West Virginia, Leonard Simpson is a lifelong Democrat. But given a choice between Barack Obama and John McCain in November, the 67-year-old retired coalminer would vote Republican.

“I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife’s an atheist,” said Mr Simpson, drawing on a cigarette outside the fire station in Williamson, a coalmining town of 3,400 people surrounded by lush wooded hillsides.

WHAT A PATHETIC, PREJUDICED IGNORAMUS! WHAT A SMALL-TOWN HICK HE MUST BE!

The reporters no doubt chuckle about the millions of e-mails being circulated among white Christians throughout this nation — and I do mean MILLIONS of e-mails — that raise numerous questions about Obama’s true allegiances. Some of the e-mails contain factual errors but there are also many truthful statements in each of them, sufficient to warrant concern by any patriotic American who worries about handing the code for the “football” to this man.

It was thanks to my daughter’s observations, a couple months ago, that I began noticing how these effete reporters zeroed in on people who might make misrepresentations of Obama as the TYPICAL WHITE VOTERS against whom Obama must fight uphill in a desperate struggle against prejudice and racism.

It was the Sunday night that 60 Minutes reporter Steve Kroft, in a story on the Democratic race between Clinton and Obama, interviewed a white family which had been devastated by job losses and by serious health problems. But Kroft immediately went for the jugular against the white husband, who said he thought Obama was Muslim. Kroft righteously corrected him, and lectured the man that it wasn’t true. My daughter was appalled by Kroft’s behavior, given that the man was sobbing with grief over his inability to help his very ill wife, and that he was fighting his own health problems, yet was unable to find work, let alone health insurance.

In other words, my daughter observed, Kroft chose the self-righteous path of correcting the man’s suspicions about Obama instead of focusing mostly on the man’s nearly hopeless medical and financial problems, and his utterly broken spirit and his tear-drenched face.

Wherever they go, journalists seem able to find, and highlight, some white voter who claims Obama is Muslim. And they LOVE to write up such people, mocking them, denigrating their worries, essentially writing them off as racists.

And they thereby write off the millions of those “typical white voters” — no matter their own crises, their financial woes, their health plights.

As Truthteller wrote below, about the citizens of Kentucky:

“Typical white people” matter, even if Obama, Brazile and other Washington, DC, elites denigrate and dismiss them. Or perhaps Obama really does despise the “typical white people” of Kentucky. After all, he and his wife listened to the following again and again when they attended the “God Damn America” Church in inner city Chicago for a full twenty years: …

It’s early, and I need more coffee before I write more. But my two primary theses are these:

(1) These “typical white voters,” no matter what opinions they may have of Obama, are entitled to their views and are understandably wary of a candidate about whom they KNOW VERY LITTLE — and that is in good part because the effete media, with the exception of Fox News and a few other outlets, has not adequately explored this man’s shadowy past.

I.e., their suspicions (and what they’re saying really is more an expression of suspicions rather than hard-core beliefs) are not laughable until such time as they are comfortable with proof that the views are untrue.

As Larry Johnson so smartly pointed out last evening in “Some Questions Obama Refuses to Answer“:

The puff piece (some might call it an act of journalistic fellatio) on Barack Obama in the Sunday New York Times is but another reminder that most of the mainstream media have gone AWOL when it comes to getting Barack Obama to tell the truth about his past. …

“Typical white voters” read these puff pieces and see them for what they are: An elite press force-feeding a view of Obama on us that is SIMPLY NOT TRUE.

(2) These “typical white voters” are being further alienated against Obama by a press and a Democratic party that treats them — in knee-jerk fashion — as if it is THEY ONLY who are capable of racism.

NEWS FLASH: Racism is an attitude that ALL people are capable of having, why even — gasp — Barack Obama, his pastor, his fellow parishioners in particular.

NEWS FLASH: There is racist treatment against white people too.

NEWS FLASH: When the “typical white voters” of West Virginia and Kentucky hear, on the news, the vicious, racist words of Jeremiah Wright and Obama’s other spiritual advisers, they are ACTUALLY WISE to be suspicious of Obama’s true attitudes about white people and about his allegiances.

On April 13, 2008, the night of the CNN “Compassion Forum” — a phony and artificial event that betrayed any honest discussion of true compassion — I wrote a warning about what to expect:

During tonight’s forum, I wonder if Barack Obama will be asked about his highly controversial comments about small-town Pennsylvanians, and if he’ll be asked about his 20-year close association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright as well as his other spiritual mentors, including Rev. James Meeks, Rev. Otis Moss, and Father Michael Pfleger.

From Saturday’s Chicago Sun-Times, “Rev. Jeremiah Wright criticizes media at Eugene Pincham funeral“:

[...]

While discussing “seven lessons the judge taught me,” Wright never mentioned church member Obama, who has rejected some of Wright’s comments, which included denunciations of America for its mistreatment of black people and claims that America’s promotion of terrorism abroad helped prompt the 9/11 attacks. But Wright did take the opportunity to bash some of the critics of his controversial statements, including Fox News personalities Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity.

And while Wright made no mention of terrorism, he did revisit the topic of America’s mistreatment of blacks, saying America’s founding fathers “planted slavery and white supremacy in the DNA of this republic,” and adding that Thomas Jefferson wrote, “ ‘God would punish America for the sin of slavery.’ I guess that makes Thomas Jefferson unpatriotic,” he said to the cheers of the congregation.

[...]

Escalating into full-preaching mode, Wright thundered, “Fox News can’t understand that. [Bill] O’Reilly will never get that. Sean Hannity’s stupid fantasy will keep him forever stuck on stupid when it comes to comprehending how you can love a brother who does not believe what you believe. [Pincham’s] faith was a faith in a God who loved the whole world not just one country or one creed.”

At that point, congregants nearly drowned Wright out with a booming standing ovation.

Wright also referred to Fox News as “Fix News.” …

Well, well. It is, at best, politically expedient to pass off all blame on Fox News when, in fact, commentators for dozens of major media outlets and innumerable bloggers of all political stripes have objected strongly to Rev. Wright’s hateful, racist and inaccurate attacks on America and the American people. …

So, when “typical white people” hear that Rev. Wright received a “booming standing ovation” for his hate-filled speech, why should we NOT be suspicious? Why should we not be wary?

SADLY, the day before, there was a black preacher in Virginia who attempted to set the record straight and to let EVERYONE — INCLUDING TYPICAL WHITE PEOPLE — hear what an expression of TRUE compassion is.

But his event, despite his efforts to gain publicity through a nationally distributed press release, was largely ignored.

Had the “typical white voters” of Kentucky and West Virginia heard, and read, the words of this black preacher, they would have agreed entirely with him — and the color of his skin wouldn’t have mattered one bit to them.

You see, the truth is that probably 99% of “typical white people” are able to see past skin color.

All they simply want are 1) not to be ridiculed for their worries, 2) to be told the truth and 3) be reassured that the candidate is indeed a true American patriot.

Here is what I wrote about that Virginia black preacher’s efforts that night:

Here’s some detail on the protest yesterday by Bishop E.W. Jackson Sr., of Norfolk, Virginia’s Exodus Faith Ministries who “like Wright also a former Marine and also African American will sound a very different note than has been heard from Wright’s sermons”:

Black Minister in Norfolk Area Declares ‘Unity & Patriotism’ Day as Counter-Balance to Jeremiah Wright’s Speech at Norfolk Church

Bishop Jackson Calls for Unity Based On Ideals & Patriotism – Not RACE

Sunday, April 13th, 11:30 Am – 1701 Park Ave. (Hoover Ave. Entrance), Chesapeake, VA. at Exodus Faith Ministries

Contact: Bishop Jackson, 866-573-0772, 757-546-7587

[...]

Wright has been quoted as saying “God damn America”, accusing the Government of creating the AIDS virus to kill blacks, and calling the United States a white supremacist country.”

Says Bishop Jackson, “Last Friday I buried a young African American soldier who died from wounds suffered in Iraq”. “Before he went on that mission – his second voluntary tour – he told his mother he was prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for his country. Seen in that light, Rev. Wright’s remarks are beneath contempt and denigrate the sacrifice of Sgt. Jevon K. Jordan and many other Americans, black, white and every other ethnic background.”

Bishop Jackson has begun a campaign to counter the remarks of Rev. Wright and those who defend him. He argues that Wright’s so called “black liberation theology” is not representative of what African American preachers are offering in pulpits around the country. “We preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified, not hate your country, hate other people and avoid ‘middle class-ness’. The Anti-American, Anti-Israel, pro-Farrakhan message that Wright teaches is heretical to the Bible and Christianity. Christians are too busy teaching what God is doing for us to become obsessed with what real or imagined enemies are doing to us. God commands that we forgive.”

Bishop Jackson is an unapologetic patriot. …

An unapologetic patriot.

That is what these “typical white voters” want to know about their candidate.

That is why “typical white voters” are alarmed that Obama has refused to wear the flag pin.

That is why “typical white voters” were horrified when they saw the footage of Obama — unlike Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson, John Edwards and the other Democratic candidates — refuse to put his hand over his heart during the playing of the national anthem.

::::::::::::::

And with that in mind, let me remind you of the story that a very dear friend told me about what occurred at the King County Democratic convention last month, in the ridiculously P.C. liberal city of Seattle.

The delegates had to wait for a speaker to arrive — a speaker for Hillary Clinton. Most of them, a MOB of them, were there to vote for Obama.

The convention chair suggested activities to pass the time while they waited, more and more impatiently, for Hillary Clinton’s speaker to show up.

The convention chair suggested that the group rise and say the Pledge of Allegiance.

The mob of Obama supporters booed so loudly, says my dear friend, that they drowned out the chair’s comments trying to get them to calm down.

Yes, they BOOED THE SUGGESTION TO SAY THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE.

Why should any truly patriotic American want anything to do with Obamabots who boo a simple suggestion that they pay homage to their own country?

Why?

And that is what the God-fearing, patriotic “typical white voters” of West Virginia and Kentucky sense about both Obama and his supporters: That they are NOT patriots. That they do NOT want this country, as it exists, to continue. That they do NOT share their values of loving this country which, despite its history, has done MORE for the rights of human beings than practically any country in the entire history of mankind.

NO ONE has been more critical of this country, at times, than I. At the “orange place,” I wrote diary after diary decrying the treatment of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, the practice of extraordinary rendition, the bombing of civilians, and on and on.

But never once — never — did I stop loving this country, and appreciating all that it has given to all of us.

After all, when my daughter was in the second grade in a Seattle public school, I asked the principal why the students didn’t say the Pledge of Allegiance each morning — as was always done when I was a child in another Washington state town — and as is REQUIRED by state law. The principal informed me that “we don’t do that at this school,” and that “this school” disagrees with U.S. policies, and therefore did not wish to recognize the country in a positive light.

So it is an act of conscience that does not permit me to support Barack Obama, his disappointed-in-America wife Michelle, and his AmeriKKKa-hating preacher Jeremiah Wright. EVER. Because I DO NOT TRUST what they would do with the power they would be given if Obama should become president.

If that man in West Virginia — who the Financial Times chose to mock today — feels wary about Obama — I join him proudly in his wariness. He may have a fact or two wrong about Obama, and he may not be able to articulate his wariness as well as he might, but he is CORRECT in worrying. I join him in worrying plenty about Obama.

As Larry Johnson has warned us, in article after article, there is plenty to worry about: His associations with racist preachers, his associations with slumlords, his associations with a criminal Iraqi billionaire, his associations with Hamas leaders, his associations with known and unrepentant terrorists like William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, and on and on.

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Another consideration about West Virginia:

Also critical is that Democrats consider West Virginia a “swing state.” Bill Clinton won West Virginia “by large margins in 1992 and 1996″ but voted for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004, with Bush winning “the state’s five electoral votes in 2004 by a margin of 13 percentage points with 56.1% of the vote.” The overwhelming factor there was that Bush’s campaign was able to convince West Virginians that John Kerry was too effete, too liberal, and too unpatriotic, partly through the Swift Boat strategy.

Conceding Kentucky to Clinton, Obama has already dismissed Kentucky Democrats as so many “typical white people” whose participation in the Democratic primary is inconsequential. Kentucky Democrats will determine the outcome of the general election, however. And according to a poll conducted on behalf of Herald-Leader/WKYT on May 7-9, 2008, Obama has an electability problem with Kentucky Democrats.

I quote:

Wright’s remarks are important or very important to 43 percent of those polled. Among white voters, his statements were important to 46 percent, compared to only 11 percent of black voters.

Compounding this problem is Obama’s elitist remark about white, rural, bitter voters who “cling” to guns and religion. According to the poll I cite above,

Twenty-nine percent of voters said they didn’t care about Obama’s comments about rural voters clinging to guns and religion.

In other words, 71% of Kentucky Democrats do care about Obama’s derisive statements about rural white voters who “cling” to guns and religion.

Compare these alarming figures to the following finding of the Herald-Leader/WKYT poll:

Twenty-three percent of those polled said Clinton’s misstatements about whether she was under sniper fire in Bosnia were important to their vote.

Clinton’s statements about Bosnia have not affected Kentucky Democrats’ perception of her viability and electability. I guess the voters of Kentucky know how to pick a President.

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Lest one try to dismiss the results of this poll, let us remember that the Democratic nominee will have to win Kentucky in the general election. Bill Clinton won Kentucky in 1992 with 44.55% of the vote, and he won it again in 1996 with 45.84% of the vote. Neither Gore nor Kerry could carry Kentucky, and neither of them managed to win the White House. Kentucky, in other words, is an important swing state, and Obama with his out of touch elitism will not be able to carry it if almost half of Kentucky Democrats find his pastor’s statements offensive.

Clinton, on the other hand, can carry Kentucky. Just listen to this expert on Kentucky politics and culture:

“It is the working class support that Hillary is enjoying and Bill Clinton did alright by the working and middle class,” Gershtenson said. “Those folks enjoyed improving times over the course of his terms and I think that makes a big difference.”

“Typical white people” matter, even if Obama, Brazile and other Washington, DC, elites denigrate and dismiss them. Or perhaps Obama really does despise the “typical white people” of Kentucky. After all, he and his wife listened to the following again and again when they attended the “God Damn America” Church in inner city Chicago for a full twenty years:

I received this from a highly reliable source in the greater Portland area, which has an absentee ballot system:

I took a call from a voter who was sent to us by the elections office. Obama canvassers in Obama clothes ID’d this couple as Clinton voters and offered to “help” by taking their ballots to turn in.

What does this mean in the greater scheme of things? Oh, a few votes here and there.

What does this really mean in the greater scheme of things? That Barack Obama has CULTivated a cadre of volunteers nationwide to not only make sure he wins but also to use any means necessary to do so. (To wit: Gary, Indiana, Texas caucuses, and on and on.

UPDATE: Now factor in this highly reliable source’s experience at a polling place on Tuesday in North Carolina:

His victory in NC was predicated on a large African-American turnout. And I had to absorb abuse slung at me by Obama supporters who are now convinced the Clintons and Clinton supporters are attempting to deny an African-American the Presidency.

I staffed a demographically split precinct, and the turnout was 80-20 African-American. Everyone, including those who are illiterate, unemployed, attached to IVs and in wheelchairs, arrived at the polls yesterday.

I had fingers pointed in my face. A high school principal who transported 17 year olds from his school to the polls refer to me as a racist, as well as hostile Obama supporters tearing Clinton literature right in front of my eyes.  One Obama supporter told me I did not belong at the precinct.

[Susan's NOTE: Can you imagine YOUR high school principal, or any for that matter, doing the following: 1) packing a bus with 17-year-olds to get them to vote, en masse, for Barack Obama, and 2) in FRONT of those students, harassing and accusing a Clinton supporter of being a "racist"?

Can you imagine anywhere in the U.S. where such behavior by a principal would be tolerated, let alone encouraged? Well, apparently it is in North Carolina.

Can you imagine ANY responsible adult bussing a large group of impressionable teenagers to their FIRST voting experience, and essentially ORDERING them to vote for Barack Obama? Let alone a high school principal?

And that the lesson those teens have carried with them, since that day, is that -- if and when they vote -- they MUST always vote for the black man?]

I seriously doubt I can support Obama after what I witnessed yesterday in
Charlotte, NC. I will also note that Obama only won 37% of the Caucasian vote. He exacerbated racial divisions, and this explains why he won this state.  All this is a direct result of Michelle Obama’s race baiting the night before in Charlotte.  Because I believe Democrats do not treat each other in such a manner, I will not vote for Barack Obama in November.

Why, we simple Clinton supporters cannot begin to compete with such tactics because, first, it’d never occur to us to do so.

Isn’t it ironic that the Clintons are the ones constantly accused of playing hardball political games?

Yet it is Obama and his hardcore followers who are the ones using — I repeat — any means necessary to “win”?

::::::::

Please read:

Who “sent” Obama?, by law professor Steve Diamond.

And Larry’s story here: “Why is Obama Hiding the Truth About William Ayers? Follow the Money.”

I know, I know — you’ve been urged to read Larry’s piece before. Read it again. In conjunction with Professor Diamond’s article. Everything falls into place once you do so.

Caveat: I abhor conspiracy theories. I find things like the 9/11 conspiracy theories not only ludicrous and laughable, but also exceedingly tedious.

Funniest thing. I also found the lockstep views of fellow students who read Mao’s Little Red Book to be exceedingly tedious.

I guess I was never cut out for such programming.

Worrisome: I don’t think that Howard Dean or Nancy Pelosi begin to realize what they are unleashing.

Donna Brazile does, however. That’s becoming obvious.

NOW, many of you didn’t read or comment on Truthteller’s extremely important piece yesterday, “Saint Sabina Raises the Roof on Obama’s Den of Political Tricks and Corruption.”

But I urge you to do so in the context of what I am hinting at above. LOOK at the list of names involved. CONSIDER that the priest, Fr. Michael Pfleger, is a extremist radical. Then CONSIDER who’s working with him. CONSIDER who his allies are: Louis Farrakhan, Jeremiah Wright, Otis Moss, James Meeks, David Axelrod, Barack Obama, Alexei Giannoulias — whose banks is INFAMOUS in Chicago for loaning money to the MOB (and to Tony Rezko).

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Sometimes I feel like the “crazy aunt” who everyone in the family ignores until something happens that makes them realize she was right all along. I’m not bragging that I’m right. I’m begging you to consider these pieces of information and to PIECE THEM TOGETHER.

Perched on a picnic bench his week in Indiana, Michelle Obama asked the gathering to judge her husband based solely by the “choices he has made and his values.” Good directive, so I got started.

1. In his landmark speech in Philadelphia, he chose to say that Reverend Wright, his pastor of and counsel of 20 years, was family and that he could no more turn his back on Reverend Wright than he could on the Black community. But this week, after the bombastic Wright repeated his old rants in public forums (nothing new) Obama turned him into garbage.

2. He knows his grandmother loved him more than anything. So he described her as a “typical white person,” namely prejudiced and fearful of Blacks.

3. Alice Palmer, State Senator and Obama mentor, attempted to run again in 1996 to retain her position.

     Obama relentlessly challenged the petition process and managed to push out all of his rivals, including Palmer. He ran as a candidate who would empower the powerless, but, as the Chicago Tribune put it (April 3, 2007), “The man now running for president on a message of giving a voice to the voiceless first entered public office not by leveling the playing field, but by clearing it.”

4. At a fundraiser on “Billionaires Row” in San Francisco, Obama described the very people he said he would rise up as “bitter” and as a result they clung to guns and religion as well as their prejudices against people who are different than they are.

Here are four major decisions where it was expedient for this so-called uniting hope and change candidate to reverse a commitment to an intimate ally, downgrade granny (and all of us Whites), pushed out a respected colleague, and insulted the very people who make up the majority of our citizens.

Now, how do I FEEL about these “choices” and “values” that Michelle Obama told me to go by? For me, feelings come out best in a cartoon.

Be careful. You still IN the bus may well be next.

[HYSTERICAL(ly) (funny) UPDATE: "Lefties Seething Over Obama on Fox." An amusing snippet: "a Kos Kid swears not to vote for Obama, now that he has Fox cooties on him."]

MyDD‘s Jerome Armstrong levels Obama in his review of Mr. Hope’s answers. If there’s still a single sober person left at the “orange place,” they must be tearing their hair out.

Obama literally gave Hillary his middle finger last week, but today he proverbially gave the DKos/TPM/HuffPo/Code Pink/MoveOn communities BOTH of his middle fingers. Obama did another Jay-Z today to cater to the Fox News viewers, dusting all of those far-left groups off his shoulder, just as he attempted to dust off Hillary’s legitimate challenges. But, first, this specific section is for you faithful No Quarter readers:

A shorter Obama: The far left?  That’s over there, and I’m willing to take them on.

OBAMA: …In terms of capital gains, I’ve suggested we might go back up to 20 because -

WALLACE:  You have suggested 28.

OBAMA:  Well, but what I’ve said is, I certainly would not raise it higher than it was under Ronald Reagan.

This is an Obama classic, he mentioned 28, then saw that Clinton wouldn’t go that high, so now he’s revisioning all of what he said to a part of what he said, and specifically a part of what he said that overrules all of what he said because… well, when he first said 28 he didn’t know 28 was higher than what it was under Reagan, or something like that… Anyway, getting Reagan’s name as the one he’s following for guidance on the tax code is brownies on Fox. …

As I said, that quote above was for you sane No Quarter readers. And you all recall that Charlie Gibson had to school Obama on capital gains taxes in that last ABC debate just before the Pennsylvania primary. (It’s no wonder he’s running from any more debates. It must have been humiliating to be caught not knowing or having studied the issue of capital gains taxes — no matter how smart or Ivy League educated you are.)

And, no matter how often you are being compared, embarrassingly, to Adlai Stevenson, George McGovern or Michael Dukakis …

… I’ll wager that any of those three former presidential nominees, even if they all did get crushed in the general election, could have answered that question far better than you, and wouldn’t have had to have capital gains explained to them by a TV anchor.

The next part is for the delusional left:

Obama is trying to separate himself from the most strident parts of his base, and he does this pretty effectively throughout the interview:

OBAMA:  Well, I think there are a whole host of areas where Republicans in some cases may have a better idea.

WALLACE:  Such as. Obama mentions deregulation of industry, charter schools, a new variation of merit pay.

WALLACE:  But, Senator, if I may, I think one of the concerns that some people have is that you talk a good game about, let’s be post-partisan, let’s all come together — just a couple of quick things, and I don’t really want you to defend each one, I just want to speak to the larger issue…

OBAMA:  No, look, I think this is fair.  I would point out, though, for example, that when I voted for a tort reform measure that was fiercely opposed by the trial lawyers, I got attacked pretty hard from the left.

During the Roberts -

WALLACE:  John Roberts, Supreme Court.

OBAMA:  John Roberts nomination, although I voted against him, I strongly defended some of my colleagues who had voted for him on the Daily Kos, and was fiercely attacked as somebody who is, you know, caving in to Republicans on these fights. …

There’s much more in Jerome’s “Obama on Fox transcript,” including a link to the transcript.

My brief two cents:

Karl Rove’s analyses on Fox News have been pretty damn smart. Except when he insists that Obama is a far left liberal. He’s about as liberal as my cat is a dog, or Larry is for Obama.

The truly scary part is that Obama stands for, essentially, nothing.

Obama stands for Obama.

His entire campaign has been premised on creating a cult-like adoration of him as a transformational figure.

The issues be damned.

That worked incredibly well for a rather long time. As po’ Barry himself has complained, this campaign has gone on so long that babies have started walking and talking since he began running for president. True enough, Barry. Thing is, that’s a GOOD thing.

Because perhaps — just perhaps — there’s a shot that even the most deluded of your followers will finally see that your entire David-Axelrod-invented campaign is based on people transferring their own “aspirations” onto you as somehow able to fulfill their own fantasies.

When people fall for a candidate because it flatters their own vanity, it is just not, um, good for the country, let alone the world.

When even MoDo isn’t liking what she’s seein‘ — and she sees that your magic glitter has worn off — you’ve gotta worry, Barry.

This magic pony just isn’t the real deal.

Obamabots, it’s time to stop shopping in toy section of the store.

But after the Obama campaign’s “go-for-broke” Pennsylvania strategy, after their avalanche of negative ads, negative mailers and negative attacks against Sen. Clinton, after their record-breaking spending in the state, a fundamental question must be asked: Why shouldn’t Sen. Obama win?

Good question. Obama can’t win because he’s not a candidate of substance; he’s a candidate of style, and “bitter” blue-collar Dems have enormous economic anxiety, they want a candidate who will address their concerns, and they want a winner.

“Hope” is too vague a promise. In addition to Pennsylvania, there’s another canary in the coal mine.

Superdelegates, listen up: The canary that dropped dead is Obama in Massachusetts: in current match-ups, Obama and McCain are tied there. The Boston Herald’s Michael Graham writes about Obama’s weakness in the Bay State:

[John] Adams noted during the Boston Massacre trial that “Facts are stubborn things.” And it appears that, for the moment, the facts have caught up with Obama here in Massachusetts.

How else to explain the amazing, astounding and unthinkable results of the latest SurveyUSA presidential poll: Republican John McCain is tied with Barack Obama in the Bay State.

The last Republican to win Massachusetts? Ronald Reagan. The last Republican before that? Dwight Eisenhower. Even George McGovern managed to carry Massachusetts in 1972, the one Democratic holdout in Richard Nixon’s 49-state landslide.

Let these facts sink in for a moment. At this date, Obama is tied with McCain in one of the most reliable Democratic states in the country. We’re not talking about swing states here, places like Ohio and Pennsylvania where Obama is under-performing. That’s a whole different concern. We’re talking about a state as blue as the water off Nantucket in August. Now close your eyes and imagine the Republican Convention: grainy black-and-white film of McCain The War Hero, the maverick, the smiling friend of Hispanics. Then GOP operatives roll another video: it’s Obama the liberal, the friend of a terrorist, the elitist in San Fransisco with his chardonnay-drinking friends talking about those poor, bitter white folks who love their guns and God too much to vote for a black man named Barack, and then the garish voice of Rev. Wright screaming “No, no, no, God Damn America!”

Graham continues:

Replace “McGovern” with “MoveOn.org” and you’ve seized the essence of the Obama candidacy. He’s the most liberal U.S. senator, advocating tax increases on the “wealthy” and enjoying the support of Gov. Deval Patrick, Sen. Ted Kennedy, The Boston Globe-Democrat and every 9/11 conspiracy kook in the People’s Republic of Cambridge. He’s got all the players in Massachusetts behind him except the ones who actually vote.

And this is the key line:

While Hillary Clinton soundly beats McCain in Massachusetts in the new SurveyUSA poll, 56 percent to 41 percent, the Obama/McCain number is 48 percent to 46percent, well within the margin of error.

Graham believes the reason for Obama’s weakness is Democrats’ desire to win, “What they want is victory – at virtually any cost.” He suggests that Bay Staters see Obama as too weak to take on McCain. There is some truth to this notion, but when you consider that Obama lost to Hillary in Massachusetts even while he had the entire liberal establishment behind him, it must be something else. What’s happening in Massachusetts is what we’re seeing in Pennsylvania: Obama doesn’t connect with blue-collar voters. It’s not his race or Harvard pedigree; the election of Governor Patrick dispels that idea. It’s the fact that Obama mocks the concerns of working people and his policy proposals are milquetoast next to Hillary’s, particularly in regards to the concerns of blue-collar workers.

Obama talks about “change,” but real voters in the real world want health care and jobs. Obama’s mushy rhetoric reminds many Democrats of the Compassionate Conservative George W. Bush in 2000. Harry Truman once said, “Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time.” It’s no wonder then that 32% of Hillary supporters in PA would vote for The War Hero if Obama gets the nomination. Superdelegates, it’s 3 a.m. and your phone is ringing. It’s Massachusetts: the canary is dead.