US 2008 Presidential Campaign/Debate Discussion Thread - Part Catorce!

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Wonder if the following will haunt Obama if it gets out before the Ohio primary:

Obama staffer gave warning of NAFTA rhetoric
Updated Wed. Feb. 27 2008 11:45 PM ET


Barack Obama has ratcheted up his attacks on NAFTA, but a senior member of his campaign team told a Canadian official not to take his criticisms seriously, CTV News has learned.

Both Obama and Hillary Clinton have been critical of the long-standing North American Free Trade Agreement over the course of the Democratic primaries, saying that the deal has cost U.S. workers' jobs.

Within the last month, a top staff member for Obama's campaign telephoned Michael Wilson, Canada's ambassador to the United States, and warned him that Obama would speak out against NAFTA, according to Canadian sources.

The staff member reassured Wilson that the criticisms would only be campaign rhetoric, and should not be taken at face value.

But Tuesday night in Ohio, where NAFTA is blamed for massive job losses, Obama said he would tell Canada and Mexico "that we will opt out unless we renegotiate the core labour and environmental standards."

Late Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Obama campaign said the staff member's warning to Wilson sounded implausible, but did not deny that contact had been made.

"Senator Obama does not make promises he doesn't intend to keep," the spokesperson said.

Low-level sources also suggested the Clinton campaign may have given a similar warning to Ottawa, but a Clinton spokesperson flatly denied the claim.

During Tuesday's debate, she said that as president she would opt out of NAFTA "unless we renegotiate it."
 
so now it appears i won't get to vote in the primary at all.
i went down to early vote today.
apparently the computer already thinks i've moved out of the county.
i updated my drivers license with my parents address since i'm moving out of the country in a few days.
yay me for trying to think ahead. :angry:
if i want to vote in the primary i'd have to drive 600 miles to the county where my parents live. :sigh:
 
ladywithspinninghead said:
Wonder if the following will haunt Obama if it gets out before the Ohio primary:

Obama staffer gave warning of NAFTA rhetoric
Updated Wed. Feb. 27 2008 11:45 PM ET


Barack Obama has ratcheted up his attacks on NAFTA, but a senior member of his campaign team told a Canadian official not to take his criticisms seriously, CTV News has learned.

Both Obama and Hillary Clinton have been critical of the long-standing North American Free Trade Agreement over the course of the Democratic primaries, saying that the deal has cost U.S. workers' jobs.

Within the last month, a top staff member for Obama's campaign telephoned Michael Wilson, Canada's ambassador to the United States, and warned him that Obama would speak out against NAFTA, according to Canadian sources.

The staff member reassured Wilson that the criticisms would only be campaign rhetoric, and should not be taken at face value.

But Tuesday night in Ohio, where NAFTA is blamed for massive job losses, Obama said he would tell Canada and Mexico "that we will opt out unless we renegotiate the core labour and environmental standards."

Late Wednesday, a spokesperson for the Obama campaign said the staff member's warning to Wilson sounded implausible, but did not deny that contact had been made.

"Senator Obama does not make promises he doesn't intend to keep," the spokesperson said.

Low-level sources also suggested the Clinton campaign may have given a similar warning to Ottawa, but a Clinton spokesperson flatly denied the claim.

During Tuesday's debate, she said that as president she would opt out of NAFTA "unless we renegotiate it."

This story sounds incredibly suspicious to me. There's just something about it that does not seem credible at all. It reads more like it should be in The National Enquirer than a reputable news paper. And yes, if this article was about Clinton, even McCain, I would think the same thing.
 
U2isthebest said:


This story sounds incredibly suspicious to me. There's just something about it that does not seem credible at all. It reads more like it should be in The National Enquirer than a reputable news paper. And yes, if this article was about Clinton, even McCain, I would think the same thing.

:lol: at the comparison of CTV to the National Enquirer. It was actually one of the top stories on CTV, the most watched Canadian news broadcast. Pretty reliable, not comparable to Fox :no: but it's not quite the CBC either :wink:

It's at CTV.CA if you want to check it out.
 
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ABEL said:
so now it appears i won't get to vote in the primary at all.
i went down to early vote today.
apparently the computer already thinks i've moved out of the county.
i updated my drivers license with my parents address since i'm moving out of the country in a few days.
yay me for trying to think ahead. :angry:
if i want to vote in the primary i'd have to drive 600 miles to the county where my parents live. :sigh:

Can you vote absentee? Or is it too late to request the ballot?
 
ladywithspinninghead said:


:lol: at the comparison of CTV to the National Enquirer. It was actually one of the top stories on CTV, the most watched Canadian news broadcast. Pretty reliable, not comparable to Fox :no: but it's not quite the CBC either :wink:

It's at CTV.CA if you want to check it out.

Oh, I realize it wasn't actually from a tabloid-like source, but the tone of the article reads much more like an Enquirer story than a professional piece of journalism that should be coming from an national news broadcast like CTV. I didn't actually think that CTV was a tabloid paper. Sorry, I should have been more clear!:reject:
 
ABEL said:
so now it appears i won't get to vote in the primary at all.
i went down to early vote today.
apparently the computer already thinks i've moved out of the county.
i updated my drivers license with my parents address since i'm moving out of the country in a few days.
yay me for trying to think ahead. :angry:
if i want to vote in the primary i'd have to drive 600 miles to the county where my parents live. :sigh:


Well, you can't blame the computer when you changed your address on your driver's license and re-registered to vote in another county. :shrug:

You should just go permanent absentee since you'll be out of the country full time.
 
A new interview with Bruce Springsteen includes some of his thoughts on Obama:

In the current presidential race, "there are two really good Democratic candidates for president. I admire and respect them both enough to wait and see what happens." But while he won't endorse Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama yet, he specifically praises the latter, who cited Springsteen as the person he would most like to meet in a recent interview with People.

"I always look at my work as trying to measure the distance between American promise and American reality," Springsteen says. "And I think (Obama's) inspired a lot of people with that idea: How do you make that distance shorter? How do we create a more humane society? We've lived through such ugly times that people want to have a romance with the idea of America again, and I think they need to.

"The hard realities and how things get done are important, too, but if you can effectively convince people that it's possible to make things better, they get excited."

http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2008-02-27-springsteen_N.htm
 
Bono's American Wife said:



Well, you can't blame the computer when you changed your address on your driver's license and re-registered to vote in another county. :shrug:

You should just go permanent absentee since you'll be out of the country full time.

i can blame the computer (or human error) when:
- new voter registration card never arrived.
- county elections website still has my listed as being registered in dallas and tells me what precinct to vote at.

:hmm:


and yes i will be voting absentee in the november election :wink:
 
politico.com

February 28, 2008
Read More: Barack Obama

Selling gay rights

Obama's rally in Beaumont today was the highest-energy of this Texas swing, with a crowd that was about three-quarters black cheering at almost every turn.

An interesting moment came when he was asked a question about LGBT rights and delivered an answer that seemed to suit the questioner, listing the various attributes — race, gender, etc. — that shouldn't trigger discrimination, to successive cheers. When he came to saying that gays and lesbians deserve equality, though, the crowd fell silent.

So he took a different tack:

"Now I’m a Christian, and I praise Jesus every Sunday," he said, to a sudden wave of noisy applause and cheers.

"I hear people saying things that I don’t think are very Christian with respect to people who are gay and lesbian," he said, and the crowd seemed to come along with him this time.

The moment reminded me of a conversation I had recently with a senior figure in the national gay rights movement, who noted that Obama's deference to some black Christian discomfort with homosexuality — his refusal to dump the "ex-gay" gospel singer Donnie McClurkin from a tour — angered some gays and lesbians; but conversely, that his ability to sell gay rights in the black church is unique and appealing.
 
This is Senator Obama's open letter that I read on Andrew Sullivan's site



I’m running for President to build an America that lives up to our founding promise of equality for all – a promise that extends to our gay brothers and sisters. It’s wrong to have millions of Americans living as second-class citizens in this nation. And I ask for your support in this election so that together we can bring about real change for all LGBT Americans. Equality is a moral imperative. That’s why throughout my career, I have fought to eliminate discrimination against LGBTAmericans. In Illinois, I co-sponsored a fully inclusive bill that prohibited discrimination on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity, extending protection to the workplace, housing, and places of public accommodation.

In the U.S. Senate, I have co-sponsored bills that would equalize tax treatment for same-sex couples and provide benefits to domestic partners of federal employees. And as president, I will place the weight of my administration behind the enactment of the Matthew Shepard Act to outlaw hate crimes and a fully inclusive Employment Non-Discrimination Act to outlaw workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. As your President, I will use the bully pulpit to urge states to treat same-sex couples with full equality in their family and adoption laws. I personally believe that civil unions represent the best way to secure that equal treatment. But I also believe that the federal government should not stand in the way of states that want to decide on their own how best to pursue equality for gay and lesbian couples — whether that means a domestic partnership, a civil union, or a civil marriage.

Unlike Senator Clinton, I support the complete repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) – a position I have held since before arriving in the U.S. Senate. While some say we should repeal only part of the law, I believe we should get rid of that statute altogether. Federal law should not discriminate in any way against gay and lesbian couples, which is precisely what DOMA does. I have also called for us to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and I have worked to improve the Uniting American Families Act so we can afford same-sex couples the same rights and obligations as married couples in our immigration system. The next president must also address the HIV/AIDS epidemic. When it comes to prevention, we do not have to choose between values and science. While abstinence education should be part of any strategy, we also need to use common sense. We should have age-appropriate sex education that includes information about contraception. We should pass the JUSTICE Act to combat infection within our prison population. And we should lift the federal ban on needle exchange, which could dramatically reduce rates of infection among drug users. In addition, local governments can protect public health by distributing contraceptives.

We also need a president who’s willing to confront the stigma – too often tied to homophobia – that continues to surround HIV/AIDS. I confronted this stigma directly in a speech to evangelicals at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, and will continue to speak out as president. That is where I stand on the major issues of the day. But having the right positions on the issues is only half the battle. The other half is to win broad support for those positions. And winning broad support will require stepping outside our comfort zone. If we want to repeal DOMA, repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and implement fully inclusive laws outlawing hate crimes and discrimination in the workplace, we need to bring the message of LGBT equality to skeptical audiences as well as friendly ones – and that’s what I’ve done throughout my career. I brought this message of inclusiveness to all of America in my keynote address at the 2004 Democratic convention.

I talked about the need to fight homophobia when I announced my candidacy for President, and I have been talking about LGBT equality to a number of groups during this campaign – from local LGBT activists to rural farmers to parishioners at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Dr. Martin Luther King once preached. Just as important, I have been listening to what all Americans have to say. I will never compromise on my commitment to equal rights for all LGBTAmericans. But neither will I close my ears to the voices of those who still need to be convinced. That is the work we must do to move forward together. It is difficult. It is challenging. And it is necessary. Americans are yearning for leadership that can empower us to reach for what we know is possible. I believe that we can achieve the goal of full equality for the millions of LGBT people in this country. To do that, we need leadership that can appeal to the best parts of the human spirit. Join with me, and I will provide that leadership. Together, we will achieve real equality for all Americans, gay and straight alike.
 
So, according to her ad Clinton is better suited to be President because if the phone rings at three o' clock in the morning she already knows the world leaders, from her time as First Lady. Ok, let's take a quick look at some of the countries she would probably contact in a state of emergency:

worldleadersngq.jpg



Hm, did she think nothing happened in the rest of the world since she left the White House? Or is she trying to tell anyone that she knows today's leaders who have been opposition leaders at best back in 2000? I seriously doubt she knows too many of today's world leaders.
 
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