England for Obama

Keith Olberman of MSNBC’s COUNTDOWN compared Senator Obama and Senator McCain’s TV performances on June 3.

Despite the campaigns being held against the backdrop of what Barack Obama called a “rough couple of weeks” he decisively won North Carolina and came within a whisker of also winning Indiana. He is now the the presumptive nominee.

Hillary Clinton meanwhile has cancelled all public appearances today, including scheduled interviews on morning TV shows, as speculation grows that she will soon concede that the race is over for her. If she doesn’t, and last night she talked of going on, then she can expect diminishing financial support as well as being handed defeat as superdelegates swing behind the presumptive nominee.

Barack Obama has now won 32 of 47 contests; is 34 pledged delegates short of a majority; and just 173 total delegates shy of the winning line. It’s clear now that the Democratic Party will unite behind Barack Obama and focus on soundly defeating John McCain in November.

Another finalist in the Obama in 30 seconds ad contest is called “Join me”:

The battle over the Indiana primary is being fought for the most part on the McCain/Clinton “Gas Tax Holiday” proposal, which has been universally slated by economists. As we said before, it is a fight Obama is not shrinking from, despite being a populist move on Clinton’s part.

Early in the morning, Barack Obama held a press conference to condemn the plan (see video above) and stated that it had already been tried but proved to be a failure in Illinois. He attacked Hillary Clinton for her choice of language the day before when she called on members of Congress to support her policy, echoing President Bush’s phrase “you’re either with us or against us”.

Later in the day, the Obama team released a second TV advert about the proposal:

Hillary countered by reiterating that she planned to introduce legislation in the Senate, forcing Obama and other Democrats to vote against it, then releasing a follow-up TV ad of her own:

Meanwhile there are indications that Barack Obama’s principled stance may be resonating with superdelegates. One undeclared superdelegate, Congressman and Senate candidate Mark Udall, wrote a stinging rebuke of her policy on his website yesterday saying:

“The so-called ‘temporary gas tax holiday’ that Senators Clinton and McCain propose won’t deliver this needed relief. This will not create the economic relief they say it will, because prices will continue to rise until we address the real source of this problem. We do need to provide immediate relief for families hard-hit by spiraling gas prices, and we can do that by demanding the President stop adding to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. This will ease the production crunch that is causing these skyrocketing gas prices.

“Senator Clinton claimed yesterday that I either stand with her on this proposal or stand with the oil companies. To that I say: I stand with the families of Colorado, who aren’t looking for bumper sticker fixes that don’t fix anything, but for meaningful change that brings real relief and a new direction for our energy policy. We can’t afford more Washington-style pandering while families keep getting squeezed.

“It is exactly the kind of short-sighted Washington game that keeps us from getting real results to our energy problem. Experts across the ideological spectrum agree that it will increase the deficit, drain money away from Colorado roads and bridges, and hurt the environment, all without actually making prices lower for drivers.”

The third finalist in the Obama in 30 seconds ad contest is called “Imagine”:

As the race hots up for the next primaries in North Carolina and Indiana you’re going to hear a lot about “a gas tax holiday.” That’s because Hillary Clinton has jumped on the McCain bandwagon and is proposing to cut taxes on petrol, which the Americans call ‘gas’, for the 3 months of summer. British readers facing the prospect of paying £1.50 a litre may look enviously as Americans baulk at paying $4 a gallon, and would probably love to see taxes on petrol cut too, but economists agree that the ‘tax holiday’ plan is a very bad idea indeed.

The problem with the plan is that the moratorium on the 18.4-cents-per-gallon tax is unlikely to be passed on to consumers, but pocketed by the oil companies. It might even increase petrol prices at the pump, because the price is mostly determined by tight supply.

The battle is now on for Barack Obama, who opposes the plan, to explain the reality of what is likely to seem like money for nothing to voters. In effect he’s asking them to vote for higher taxes, or at least that’s how it will probably look to many. It could hardly be a more difficult proposition if McCain and Clinton were to hand out Dollar bills, rather than try to buy votes using Federal money.

Obama isn’t shying away from the task though, quite the opposite. As the video above shows, he’s linking the plan to a more central theme - that the “old politics” of gimmicks is symptomatic of all that’s wrong with Washington. Instead he’s trying to push his policy of levying a windfall tax on the oil companies and cut taxes on “middle income” families by $1,000.

He’s also gone on the offensive politically by publishing statements by two former Clinton administration Energy secretaries slamming the proposed tax break. One of them, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, called it “a shameless political ploy that would do nothing to help American families.” The other, Federico Pena, called it “the kind of pandering that insults people’s intelligence.”

It’s a tough sell all the same, but one which may pay long term benefits as superdelegates are likely to be impressed by the principled stand based on sound economics. The voters however aren’t known for voting for perceived higher taxes in America any more than they are in the UK.

“They are the best practitioners of the old politics, so they will no doubt call me a traitor, an opportunist and a hypocrite. I will be branded as disloyal, power-hungry, but most importantly, they will use the exact words that Republicans used to attack me when I was defending President Clinton.”

That’s how Joe Andrews predicted his switch to Obama would be characterised by the Clinton campaign yesterday and, given that they had previously branded Bill Richardson a “Judas” for backing Barack, it’s not hard to see why.

So it comes as no surprise that Hillary’s campaign tried to marginalise Joe Andrew’s Indiana credentials in an MSNBC interview. It was a huge mistake though, because Joe Andrew not only fought back, but dealt an embarrassing knock-out blow to the attempt.

In modern parlance, the Clinton campaign got owned:

Having accused Barack Obama of being an elitist, despite being the poorest of the candidates (and he made his money on his book sales), Hillary Clinton who is reported to be worth $110 million said this on Fox News:

“Rich people, god bless us. We deserve all the opportunities to make sure our country and our blessings continue to the next generation.”

During a media stunt to highlight the petrol tax holiday plan McCain dreamed up and she endorsed, she was also caught not being able to use a coffee machine. The video of that shot to the top of YouTube yesterday with almost half a million viewers watching it in 24 hours.

Here are both in one video:

Today is the 5th anniversary of the photo-op of President Bush standing on an aircraft carrier’s deck in front of a star-spangled banner declaring “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq. Since that time, thousands of US and Iraqi lives have been lost and the Republican’s candidate shows no sign of wanting to change the occupation of that country.

The Democrats however have the opportunity of nominating a candidate who has consistently opposed the war, or they can nominate Hillary Clinton. Clinton knows how fundamental this choice could be, so has lied about Obama in an attempt to muddy the clear blue waters which divide them on this issue. Lied is a strong word, but one we have had to use in the past with Senator Clinton, so before the brickbats fly let’s recap on Hillary’s Iraq problem:

I’m grateful to The Jed Report for creating this video, entitled Hillary Clinton: War, Lies, and Misjudgement.

We leave the final word to Hillary Clinton herself:

If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from.

“We always knew this was an improbable journey, when we started off,” Obama said in an interview with NBC’s Meredith Vieira aired this morning on the Today show. “I think because of our success, people have forgotten that. People discount what we’ve accomplished and then focus on, well you know, you’ve lost a couple of states… But the truth is, that we always knew this was hard, and the reason is, because we’re trying to do something new….

“Let’s be honest here, I am an African American named Barack Obama who is running for president… That’s a leap for folks.”

Indeed it is, but are there also double standards, and racism, at work too? So asks a Texas blogger in what is perhaps the best summary of those double standards I’ve ever read.
Judge for yourself here.