Well, Casey, Obama just can't win, can he?  Someone says he's got no plan, but then you lay out the plan, and someone says it's more hot air.

These are sounding less like legitimate concerns about a candidate, and more like soundbites that you say when you have nothing better to say against a candidate.

The bottom line for me - I trust Obama. I've studied his life and his experiences and believe that he is the best person to lead us.

No one can use "experience" against him because who, running against him, has ANY sort of experience to speak of?  What did Hillary do?  She couldn't sell Universal Health to a Democratic Congress in the early 90s.  That's like not selling water to a thirsty man.  And now that she's on the insurance companies' payroll, her new plan is an attack on America's sick.  She has no experience that she can point to and claim qualification that she's fit to be President.  Certainly no more than Obama - and the fact of the matter is, I don't trust her, and I do trust him.

And he can and will beat McCain and unite America, and she will not beat McCain and she can not unite anyone outside the corporate media, right wing radio talk show hosts and her small band of followers.   

A few thoughts on Barack Obama.

I've been following his career longer than most.  He was a professor at my law school and my representative in the Illinois State Senate in the late 1990s, so I've been paying attention to him.

The paradigmatic example of the Obama approach to a problem is this:  Illinois -- Chicago in particular -- had a problem in the 1980s and 1990s with police brutality.  Most famously, a police commander named Jon Burge was beating confessions out of suspects.  Burge was the worst, but by no means the only.  State Senator Obama hit upon a solution: why don't we videotape all police interrogations.

This idea met with near-universal opposition.  The police hated it.  The Republicans hated it.  The Democrats hated it.  The new governor (a Democrat) promised he would veto it.

This didn't stop State Senator Obama.  Instead, he began meeting with all of his opponents.  He listened to their problems with his proposal.  He explained why he thought his proposal was important.  Where he saw that his opponents had legitimate concerns, he worked with them to change the bill.  Where he thought changes would destroy the purpose of the bill, he held the line and worked to persuade his opponents to come around to his way of thinking.

In the end, the bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and with the support of the police and the governor.

Since he got to the U.S. Senate, Senator Obama has worked to get a number of initiatives passed.  He took a leadership position on two ethics packages -- one of which he cosponsored with Senator Coburn, one of the most conservative Senators.  He took a leadership position on non-proliferation, working with Senator Lugar to get a non-proliferation bill passed.

I heard a story once about a moderate Republican who went to Karl Rove to talk about a particular bill.  The bill had enough support to pass, but just barely.  This Republican explained that if one small change were made, the bill would pass with 80% support.  Rove's response was that the bill was going to pass without the change -- so there was no need to make the change.  Why accomodate the other side when you have the ability to force what you want down their throats?

I don't know if that story is true.  But it certainly could be (and not just with Karl Rove, either -- you could see the Democrats doing the same thing).  What I really like about Senator Obama is that he looks for that 80% solution; he tries to find our common ground and figure out a way we can all build together from there.

Mike - Honest question, do you think the same hicks who voted in George W. for two terms are going to vote in a Black liberal? I know people say it's 2008 and we've come a long way, but do you really think as a whole we've come that far? Even my most staunch Democrat friends believe he's a longshot if he wins the nomination.

Casey

I have a few problems that make me a bit weary of Obama, but at the same time there's no way in Hell I'd vote for McCain. McCain lost me with what he's said about the troop surge and the economy. The troop surge is NOT working for the purpose it was intended (giving Iraq time to train its own troops and police to take over), and McCain's "bringing them home with honor" will mean in body bags. We need a President who has at least a clue about the economy, not some idiot who just says he can get advisors to handle that. 

As for Obama....

His dealings with Tony Rezko are a bit fishy. Sure, there are pics of Rezko with the Clintons when Bill was in office around, but Rezko was a known Dem supporter and fundraiser and wasn't in any legal trouble. The real estate deal between Rezko and Obama happened after Rezko was already in hot water with the government.

Obama's religion is suspect. Now, for all I know, he may really be a Christian, but there's a few screwy things going on involving his church. One is that a magazine put out by his church gave an "Impowerment Award" to Louis Farrakan, a militant racist Black Muslim. The explanation given for that....that the magazine is actually published by the church's former pastor's daughter...is about as weak as you can get. Why would ANY Christian church or organization give anything to Farrakan, when the only thing he deserves is someone's foot up his ass?

And the SNL skit a few weeks ago making fun of how the media has been treating Obama was pretty much dead on, even if they did severely exaggerate things. Obama's either been given softball questions or not called on the carpet when he hasn't actually answered some of the questions he's been asked. During most of the CNN debates (Man, is Wolf Blitzer a bad moderator, or what?), most of Obama's answers left me pretty confused, because he either wasn't answering or was only half-answering quite a bit of them.

There was an article in the paper here a few weeks ago...an editorial by a black reporter...that sadly pointed something out; the Obama campaign is setting a dangerous precident. A lot of blacks are voting for Obama simply because he's black, and several people who have either given their support to Hillary or been critical of Obama have been getting death threats. The reporter believed that the reason no one was challenging Obama was because people were afraid they'd be accused of being racist if they did so, and Obama could end up being untouchable if he becomes President, even if he turns out to make Bush look like a genius.

Its hard to notice, but I think Obama is also a bit arrogant, as well as an idiot. He's whining about the Michigan and Florida situation because he didn't have his name on the ballot, not because of what happened with those states being punished, when the rules never said the candidates couldn't be on the ballots, just that they couldn't campaign there. (That was addressed on MSNBC earlier to day, which just shows Obama isn't all there) And he's apparently claiming to have won Ohio, which is a load of bull.

I think Obama will set African-American politics back if he gets elected and turns out to be a bad President. If that happens, any African-American who runs for the job the next 20 years or so after will be a damn fool.

I am hoping Hillary wins Pennsylvania, and I hope the way things are going show the Dems that they need to toss out their idiotic system to delegate sharing. That needs to go, and so do caucuses.

(And this isn't a problem with Obama himself, but I think his wife is a bitch. What she said about being proud of America for the first time in her adult life severely pissed me off.)

Obama lost the Texas primary and won the Texas caucus. He picked up 99 delegates to Clinton's 95. Looks like a narrow win to me.

Well, if it was Texas, pardon me. That's what I get for secondhand knowledge, as I was told by someone that it was Ohio Obama was claiming he won.

Michael, Obama's been going to that church for a long time, and I'm not actually saying he is a Muslim or anything, but if it was my church who gave an award to Farrakan, quite frankly I'd be looking for a new church asap.  I do expect the Republicans to try and  use what his church did against him, though. If they speedboated Kerry....

And Obama is an idiot for complaining about Michigan when he chose to stay off the ballots there when being on it wasn't against the rules - campaigning was, not being on the ballot. Personally, I think they SHOULD re-vote in those two states, but as punishment for what got them in trouble in the first place (which is what they're doing), not because some people have been whining that it wouldn't be fair to use the ballots already cast because Obama was stupid enough to keep himself off the ballots the first time, and I don't think that should be an issue. But if it turns out to be too much of a hassle and costs too much, I think they should just count the ballots already cast, tell Obama tough crap, and punish Michigan next time by making them hold their primary dead last.

The same source that told me the wrong state Obama was claiming he won...my father, actually.....is saying that Obama's solution to the situation in Michigan (don't know about Florida) would be to just split the delegates down the middle, and I find that laughable if its true. Telling him tough noogies that he stayed off the ballot the first time and giving Hillary the delegates she got in the first voting would make more sense than doing that, since its Obama's (or his people's) own fault that he wasn't on the ballot the first time. 

Note: My feelings would be the same if it was Hillary who had stayed off the ballot instead of Obama. You shouldn't get a do-over or vote split just because you screwed up, no matter who you are.

Note: My feelings would be the same if it was Hillary who had stayed off the ballot instead of Obama. You shouldn't get a do-over or vote split just because you screwed up, no matter who you are.

*************

And the delegates from Florida and Michigan just shouldn't count at all. They knew they were breaking the rules by holding their primaries early. They voted for them, after all. The only reason Hillary wants them to count is because Obama isn't on the ballot.