kimblr.com

When George W. Bush ran for president in 2000, an influential megachurch pastor from Texas made an early endorsement that helped him win over skeptical evangelical conservatives.
That pastor was the Rev. John C. Hagee.
At the time, Mr. Hagee was pretty much the same public person he is today: a hard-line pro-Israel preacher and best-selling author whose evangelistic enterprise was built on apocalyptic prophecies that many Jews, Roman Catholics and other Christians found disturbing. Yet it was never an issue when Mr. Bush’s campaign trumpeted the support of Mr. Hagee, as well as that of multimedia evangelists like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.
Eight years later, Mr. Hagee’s presidential endorsement is suddenly more a curse than a blessing.
On Thursday, four months after Senator John McCain of Arizona, the presumptive Republican candidate, stood next to Mr. Hagee at a news conference and announced how delighted he was to have his endorsement, Mr. McCain renounced it. He acted after a Web site released a recording of a sermon in which Mr. Hagee said Hitler and the Holocaust had been part of God’s plan to chase the Jews from Europe and drive them to Palestine.
Mr. McCain also rejected the endorsement of the Rev. Rod Parsley, an Ohio pastor who had been retooling his church into a get-out-the-vote machine for Republicans. The problem for Mr. McCain was that Mr. Parsley was vocally anti-Islam.
Presidential candidates have always had to vet their vice-presidential candidates, their consultants, their pollsters and their major donors. Campaign 2008 is proving that they also have to vet their members of the clergy.
It started with Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the leading Democratic candidate, who denounced his own former pastor and spiritual mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., after Mr. Wright aired his Afro-centric version of conspiracy thinking at the National Press Club.

nytimes.com

Ben Affleck was one of the first A list celebrities in Hollywood to endorse the junior Senator from Illinois.
Affleck’s commitment to Obama knows no bounds. Whether its wearing an Obama T-Shirt while going for coffee with his wife Jennifer Garner and baby Violet, or speaking on the campaign trail, Affleck will be a face often seen in the Fall Presidential campaign.
Affleck is long a political activist and many believe he will someday run for office.
The Obama girl is not the only female with a crush on the potential next President of the United States.
This superstar may serve as Woody Allen’s muse of late, but it Scarlett Johansson’s support as well as Affleck’s that made it OK for those in Hollywood to pop on that Barack Obama pin.
Johansson is routinely passing out Obama buttons, bumper stickers and even gave a shout out to the candidate on her debut CD’s liner notes.
Also watch for Johanssen to appear for Obama as the candidate wishes.
She has already been a part of video compilations put together by Black Eyed Peas’ Will.I.Am.
Another early supporter of Barack Obama, “Private Practice” star Kate Walsh is never seen without her Barack Obama pin. Whether stylishly sporting it on a dashing coat or flashing the two-handed “O” to paparazzi that follow her every move, when it comes to passion for politics, Kate Walsh has a heart solely set on Obama’s historic run to become America’s first African American president.
Obama’s first celebrity endorsement was the biggest. Oprah Winfrey came out for her local Senator in the early going. It was her on the campaign trail in South Carolina that convinced African Americans that this candidate was for real and they, as a people, had a true shot at making history if they got behind the man from the South side of Chicago.

sheknows.com

On the night that Barack Obama clinched his party’s nomination, one-third of Hillary Clinton’s supporters in Montana and South Dakota said they would not vote for the presumptive Democratic nominee.
Exit polls from both states demonstrate that Obama inherits a fractured coalition after the longest primary race in modern history. Demographic divisions dug by class, race, gender and political philosophy haunted Obama until his last contests, effectively forcing the Illinois senator to limp across the finish line Tuesday night.
The cappuccino versus coffee Democratic divide between upper class and working voters continued. Coffee Democrats were more likely to back Clinton while cappuccino Democrats were more likely to back Obama. That these divisions were also deepened by gender and racial identity — rooted in long-sought historic firsts for women and blacks — means that there exists an unprecedented intra-party burden that befalls Obama.
On Tuesday the more working-class white Democratic electorate of South Dakota once again proved un-winnable for Obama, as has been the case in contests from Ohio to Kentucky. By contrast, Obama won Montana, which was more upper class than South Dakota, and not nearly as liberal as in Oregon and Vermont, where Obama has fared best.
In Montana, Obama won six in 10 Democratic voters who had completed college but only won half of those without a college degree. In South Dakota, Clinton won six in 10 working class voters, while earning a slimmer majority of support from college-educated voters.
Four in 10 South Dakota voters were college educated, compared to half of Montanans.
Slightly more voters were liberal in Montana than South Dakota. Democratic voters in South Dakota were also about 10 percentage points more likely than in Montana to name the economy as their most important issue.
Roughly one quarter of Clinton voters in Montana said they would vote for McCain in November if Obama were the Democratic nominee; about one in 10 said they intended not to vote. When South Dakota Democratic voters were asked how they would vote if Obama was the Democratic nominee, about 15 percent of Clinton supporters said they would back McCain and an equal portion said they intended to sit out the general election.

politico.com

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themoderatevoice.com

Cindy McCain appears in the June issue of Vogue looking relaxed, beautiful and well, American. In images captured by famed photographer Norman Jean Roy, McCain’s wife is ditching her usual Stepford look in favor of a more relaxed, human look.
Robin Givhan called it earlier, when she wrote in an article about the aspiring first ladies, “McCain appears to be working to shatter a public image of the pretty — but starched — accessory.”
The wife of (one of the) Democratic hopefuls, Michelle Obama, also had a Vogue shoot last September, which produced images that had an opposite message to McCain’s.
Givhan commented: “Obama’s photos seemed crafted specifically to help the viewer imagine her in the role of first lady. She is a study in little black dresses, conservative pearls, preppy hair and restraint. Again, the implied message is unmistakable: I am neither subversive nor threatening. I am not some scary ‘other.’ I am Camelot with a tan.”
Who will be the next president of the United States? Bet on the Presidential Election at Bodog.

beat.bodoglife.com

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn’t generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers:
* What’s up on the superdelegate front? Over the last 24 hours, Obama has picked up two (Mike Morgan in Oklahoma and Lena Taylor in Wisconsin) and Clinton got one (Vicky Harwell of Tennessee). An Edwards pledged delegate from New Hampshire has also moved to Obama. (At this point, Edwards’ delegates are, to a certain extent, like superdelegates, in that they can pick whomever they want.)
* Speaking of endorsements, the United Steelworkers, which had supported Edwards, also announced their switch to Obama this morning.
* In a classy move yesterday, Hillary Clinton defended Obama from McCain’s Hamas-related attacks. Good for her.
* Bloomberg reported yesterday that Obama picked up endorsements from “three former chairmen of the Securities and Exchange Commission, two of whom were appointed by Republican presidents.” “We believe Senator Obama can provide the positive leadership and judgment needed to take us to a stronger and more secure economic future,” they said
* Obama has been wearing a flag pin on his lapel this week. Reporters find this fascinating.
* A woman reporter pressed Obama on the plight of auto workers before a media availability had begun, prompting Obama to ask her to “hold on one second there sweetie.” He later called her directly to apologize.
* I find it hard to believe, but a Rasmussen poll found that more than one in four Clinton supporters (29%) want her to run as an independent, third-party candidate if her Democratic bid comes up short.
* NARAL’s decision to endorse Obama was not immediately embraced by some of the organization’s state affiliates, who have decided to remain neutral.
* I’d like to hear a little more about this: “Progressive Media will not be running an independent ad campaign this year,” David Brock, the head of the organization, confirmed in a statement. “Progressive Media was established to be an independent on-going progressive issue advocacy organization,” Brock added. “We were not established for one issue, one candidate or one election cycle. But donors and potential donors are getting clear signals from the Obama camp through the news media and we recognize that reality.”

thecarpetbaggerreport.com

(05-06) 22:23 PDT — A landslide victory for Barack Obama in North Carolina and a nail-biter win for Hillary Rodham Clinton in Indiana - where she had been expected to prevail easily - turned Tuesday night’s Democratic primaries into a momentum-killer for the New York senator, who seems to be falling even further behind in her quest for the party’s presidential nomination.
And even as voters were still casting ballots in the nation’s final big-state primaries, Clinton launched a new tactic, suggesting that the “finish line” for the nomination has shifted.
Obama earned a decisive, double-digit victory in North Carolina, where 115 delegates were at stake. Winning in the Tar Heel State appeared to be a strong sign that he was back on track after his campaign appeared nearly derailed by the controversy regarding his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Clinton, pounding populist themes like a gas-tax holiday and underscoring her connections with working-class voters, delivered another back-to-the-wall victory in Indiana on Tuesday, squeaking out a 51-49 percent win, a 12,000-vote margin over Obama in a state with 72 delegates up for grabs.
The Obama campaign quickly downplayed Clinton’s showing in Indiana, seizing on exit polls that suggested she might have gotten a boost from the “Limbaugh effect” - as an estimated 11 percent of Republicans said they crossed over to vote Democratic, the vast majority for the New York senator. Conservative talk-show host Rush Limbaugh earlier this year launched what he calls “Operation Chaos” to try to skew the Democratic primary vote totals, and he told The Chronicle Tuesday night he was “extremely proud” of the results in the most recent primaries.
With six contests left to go in the calendar, Obama’s definitive win in North Carolina, which boosted both his popular vote and delegate count, puts Clinton further behind in the endgame for the nomination. And it is likely to weaken her case with potential campaign donors and undecided superdelegates alike.

sfgate.com

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Barack Obama took a big step toward the Democratic presidential nomination with an easy victory in North Carolina on Tuesday, and Hillary Clinton vowed to keep her struggling campaign alive after narrowly winning Indiana.
The results helped Obama widen his lead over Clinton in the gruelling Democratic duel for the right to face Republican John McCain in November’s presidential election with just six nominating contests remaining.
Both candidates looked ahead to contests next week in West Virginia and May 20 in Oregon and Kentucky, but Clinton was nearly out of opportunities to change the course of the race.
“We have seen that it’s possible to overcome the politics of division and distraction, that it’s possible to overcome the same old negative attacks that are always about scoring points and never about solving our problems,” Obama said at a victory rally in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The Illinois senator’s 14-point victory in North Carolina was a dramatic comeback from a difficult campaign stretch that began last month with a big loss in Pennsylvania and was prolonged by the controversy over racially charged comments by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
Obama, 46, sounded like he was already focused on the general election showdown with McCain. “This fall, we intend to march forward as one Democratic Party, united by a common vision for this country,” said Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president.
The results meant Clinton missed her best chance to narrow Obama’s lead in pledged delegates who will help pick the nominee at August’s convention. She won Indiana by just 23,000 votes out of more than 1.25 million votes cast in the state, but promised to keep up the fight.
“It’s full speed on to the White House,” Clinton said at a victory rally in Indianapolis, with her husband former President Bill Clinton standing behind her. “We’ve got a long road ahead, but we’re going to keep fighting.”

swissinfo.ch

I NDIANAPOLIS - Barack Obama swept to victory in the North Carolina primary today but fell behind Hillary Rodham Clinton in Indiana, the last big-delegate prizes left in their long race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Obama’s win mirrored earlier triumphs in Southern states with large black populations, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and South Carolina among them.
That made Indiana a virtual must-win Midwestern state for the former first lady, who was hoping to counter Obama’s persistent delegate advantage with a strong run through the late primaries.
Returns from 40 percent of Indiana precincts showed Clinton with 56 percent of the vote to 44 percent for Obama.
In North Carolina, Obama was gaining 64 percent of the vote.
The economy was the top issue by far in both states, according to interviews with voters as they left their polling places.
Indiana exit polls charted a racial divide that has become familiar in a long, historic campaign pitting a black man against a white woman.
Obama was gaining more than 90 percent of the black vote in Indiana, while Clinton was winning an estimated 61 percent of the white vote there, running ahead of her rival among white men as well as women.
She also had 51 percent of independents’ votes, to 49 for her rival, a statistical tie, and was winning among Democrats, 53-47.
In North Carolina, Clinton won 60 percent of the white vote, but Obama claimed support from roughly 90 percent of the blacks who cast ballots.
The impact of a long-running controversy over Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was difficult to measure.
In North Carolina, six in 10 voters who said Wright’s incendiary comments affected their votes sided with Clinton. A somewhat larger percentage of voters who said the pastor’s remarks did not matter supported Obama.
The effect of Clinton’s call for a summertime suspension of the federal gasoline tax — which dominated the final days of the two primaries — was impossible to judge.

news.bostonherald.com

(04-23) 04:00 PDT Washington - –
Winning Pennsylvania on Tuesday, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton added the nation’s sixth-largest state to an impressive list: California, Ohio, Massachusetts, New York, Texas, New Jersey and in her view, Florida and Michigan.
Yet few Democrats important to her nomination seem to much care, including superdelegates such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, whose comments have seemed to favor rival Sen. Barack Obama, and former Vice President Al Gore, who is estranged from the Clintons.
Nor are they paying much attention to her argument that Obama’s inability to put her away in the big states, all of which carry large numbers of Electoral College votes in November, expose weaknesses in an Obama candidacy against Republican Sen. John McCain.
They might be listening instead to Obama’s argument that he will win California hands down in the fall, along with other overwhelmingly Democratic states Clinton claims, and that he can put in play smaller ones like Virginia that she can’t touch.
Yet the campaign has exposed Obama’s glaring weakness among the working-class whites Democrats need to win the presidency.
“If I told you somebody was winning California, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, Michigan and Florida and was not winning the nomination, you’d say something was wrong,” said Democratic consultant Doug Schoen. “And something arguably is not right.”
If Democrats had the same winner-take-all process that catapulted McCain toward the GOP nomination despite close victories in a fractured field, Clinton would have all but wrapped up the Democratic nomination on Feb. 5, when she took four of the six largest states, including California by a nine-point margin.
The Electoral College is a similar winner-take-all system that would seem to play to Clinton’s strengths and prey on Obama’s weaknesses.
Obama could be, as his campaign insists, changing the electoral map by energizing millions of young voters and drawing independents.

sfgate.com