Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico plans to endorse Sen. Barack Obama in the Democratic race for president Friday, an Obama campaign spokesperson told CNN.In an e-mail to supporters, Richardson said Obama will be a "historic and a great President, who can bring us the change we so desperately need by bringing us together as a nation here at home and with our allies abroad."
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"My affection and admiration for Hillary Clinton and President Bill Clinton will never waver," Richardson wrote in his e-mail. "It is time, however, for Democrats to stop fighting amongst ourselves and to prepare for the tough fight we will face against John McCain in the fall."
Obviously, this is a major endorsement for Barack Obama, one of the few remaining endorsements that might actually make a difference (the others are people like John Edwards, Al Gore, and possibly a few others like Nancy Pelosi).
Although I wish that Richardson's endorsement of Obama had come before Texas, I'm thrilled to have it now. As the candidate in the 2008 Democratic presidential field with the most foreign policy experience BY FAR, Richardson's endorsement of Obama directly counters the absurd charge that somehow Obama isn't "ready on Day 1." Actually, come to think of it, Richardson also has the most domestic policy experience of any 2008 Democratic candidate, as a Congressman (for 14 years), as Secretary of Energy, and as Governor of New Mexico. So, Richardson's endorsement of Barack Obama actually counters the "not ready on Day 1" silliness in both the foreign policy AND domestic policy arenas.
For whatever reason, Richardson's candidacy never really caught on, but now he can make a difference in helping to sway voters -- and superdelegates -- to Barack Obama. Perhaps more importantly, this is excellent news for the Obama campaign that comes at the right time, after days of controversy (and "swiftboating," in the case of the McCain campaign) over Rev. Wright's offensive remarks. Hopefully, this endorsement of Barack Obama by Gov. Richardson will give the pundits and talking heads something else to talk about over the weekend. We'll see.
P.S. Gov. Richardson's full endorsement statement is below (bolding added by me for emphasis)
During the last year, I have shared with you my vision and hopes for this nation as we look to repair the damage of the last seven years. And you have shared your support, your ideas and your encouragement to my campaign. We have been through a lot together and that is why I wanted to tell you that, after careful and thoughtful deliberation, I have made a decision to endorse Barack Obama for President.We are blessed to have two great American leaders and great Democrats running for President. My affection and admiration for Hillary Clinton and President Bill Clinton will never waver. It is time, however, for Democrats to stop fighting amongst ourselves and to prepare for the tough fight we will face against John McCain in the fall. The 1990's were a decade of peace and prosperity because of the competent and enlightened leadership of the Clinton administration, but it is now time for a new generation of leadership to lead America forward. Barack Obama will be a historic and a great President, who can bring us the change we so desperately need by bringing us together as a nation here at home and with our allies abroad.
Earlier this week, Senator Barack Obama gave an historic speech. that addressed the issue of race with the eloquence, sincerity, and optimism we have come to expect of him. He inspired us by reminding us of the awesome potential residing in our own responsibility. He asked us to rise above our racially divided past, and to seize the opportunity to carry forward the work of many patriots of all races, who struggled and died to bring us together.
As a Hispanic, I was particularly touched by his words. I have been troubled by the demonization of immigrants--specifically Hispanics-- by too many in this country. Hate crimes against Hispanics are rising as a direct result and now, in tough economic times, people look for scapegoats and I fear that people will continue to exploit our racial differences--and place blame on others not like them . We all know the real culprit -- the disastrous economic policies of the Bush Administration!
Senator Obama has started a discussion in this country long overdue and rejects the politics of pitting race against race. He understands clearly that only by bringing people together, only by bridging our differences can we all succeed together as Americans.
His words are those of a courageous, thoughtful and inspiring leader, who understands that a house divided against itself cannot stand. And, after nearly eight years of George W. Bush, we desperately need such a leader.
To reverse the disastrous policies of the last seven years, rebuild our economy, address the housing and mortgage crisis, bring our troops home from Iraq and restore America's international standing, we need a President who can bring us together as a nation so we can confront our urgent challenges at home and abroad.
During the past year, I got to know Senator Obama as we campaigned against each other for the Presidency, and I felt a kinship with him because we both grew up between worlds, in a sense, living both abroad and here in America. In part because of these experiences, Barack and I share a deep sense of our nation's special responsibilities in the world.
So, once again, thank you for all you have done for me and my campaign. I wanted to make sure you understood my reasons for my endorsement of Senator Obama. I know that you, no matter what your choice, will do so with the best interests of this nation, in your heart.
Sincerely,
Bill Richardson
I hope this is the case!
Meanwhile, you might want to seriously think about this craziness before you start throwing stones about Obama and his church.
There's a reason Hillary Clinton has remained relatively silent during the flap over intemperate remarks by Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. When it comes to unsavory religious affiliations, she's a lot more vulnerable than Obama.You can find all about it in a widely under-read article in the September 2007 issue of Mother Jones, in which Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet reported that "through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as "The "Fellowship," also known as The Family. But it won't be a secret much longer. Jeff Sharlet's shocking exposé The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power will be published in May.
Whoops.
The book has been blurbed by serious thinkers like Thomas Frank and Rick Perlstein.
Obama may never overcome the bias that lets McCain off the hook for his associations with white evangelical preachers who've made extreme statements, but, if Clinton is still in the race when Sharlet's book is published, I think there will be plenty of interest in Clinton's association with this secretive group. Moreover, the power of the group ought to make anyone who isn't blinded by racist fear forget about Obama's church.
I cross-posted that on Daily Kos and got absolutely pilloried as an anti-Catholic until Sharlett himself came to my defense on that site.
He's an expert on these things.
Perhaps all she is demonstrating by joining such a group with prominent Conservative women is that spiritiual matters can cross political divides?
I mean, I have no idea. I have never met Hillary Clinton, so I don't profess to know her hidden motivations, assuming there even are any.
What is news to me is that even if she were free to let her freak flag fly, she might not, and it may be due to religious beliefs she came to believe before she went to college.
The Fellowship took over the Falls Church Episcopal church. This church along with the Truro Episcopal church in Fairfax City now pledge alliegance to an African Bishop who has written articles saying that homosexuals should be put to death.
The Fellowship is an alliance of the most right wing political and religious leaders. One purpose, among other things, seems to be to eliminate the moderate churches giving Christians the choice of their extreme views -or nothing. The fact that the Fellowship has hijacked these two churches in Northern Virginia is a source of great embarrassment to me and I hope to other decent people in the area.
Well, it is this:
There's a reason Hillary Clinton has remained relatively silent during the flap over intemperate remarks by Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. When it comes to unsavory religious affiliations, she's a lot more vulnerable than Obama.
While the proposition that Clinton has remained silent is debatable, how does Erenreich know this is the reason she remained silent? I defy anyone to read the article and explain to me the source of this insight.
Remember, this assertion is the single thing that is new in this article. It is asserted as a fact. It is completely unsupported by a single fact.
Furthermore, I deny and resent Erenreich's statement that the 20-year relationship between Obama and his spiritual leader over a 20-year period, the Rev. Wright, is "unsavory." (Yes kids, read that last sentence of the first paragraph closely -- she is comparing two relationships that she calls "unsavory.").
Erenreich's work is usually impeccable. This is pretty poor work, if you ask me.
(As for Clinton's relationship with Coe, I read Sharlet's article, and it is not at all clear to me what this exact relationship is, except that she is in a Bible study group with which he is affiliated, much less whether it is unsavory or not. Nowhere does the article allege that Clinton is any way directly associated with the Family However, I refuse to engage in a debate over that -- it was wrong to bring it up with Obama, and it is equally wrong to raise it with Clinton, IMHO).
Oh, and by the way, the presentation of Wright's remarks are totally out of context. The chickens coming home to roost statement was his quoting an ambassador appointed by Reagan speaking on Fox news. And the "god damn" remarks were presented totally out of the context in which they were said, and were far less offensive in that context than were the words of a PAt Robertson, a Rod Parsley or a John Hagee which might claim for example that Katrina was God's punishment on New Orleans for open gay pride.
As far as your comments condemning Robertson, Parsley and Hagee, I certainly agree. Wouldn't it be interesting if Atheism were the norm and Christianity or any other religon for that matter was the exception.
As to your repeated spittle-flecked use of the word charlatan, let's grade charlatanism on a bell curve as to its affect. On the one hand, Reverend Wright's parishioners numbering in the thousands apparently found the spiritual empowerment they were seeking in a church which, from the looks of it, successfully channeled deep emotions, including anger, into a vibrant and self-affirming Christianity. And if Wright' church was, to a degree, Afrocentric in its emphasis, it's only fair to acknowledge that devout Baptists, traditional Roman Catholics, all Mormons, Wahabi Muslims and orthodox Jews are well known religious groups whose beliefs are founded on an exclusivity which effectively condemns -- admittedly simplifying sometimes complex beliefs here -- everyone else who doesn't choose to observe their particular creed to eternal hellfire.
As to Reverend Wright, and your transparent attempts to conflate him to Senator Obama, have there been marauding groups of black United Church of Christ parishioners out killing or assaulting whites and/or trying to destroy the United States? Yes or no? Straight up, SW Democrat, yes or no?
In terms of measurable influence in the real, material world -- as in killing, assaulting and looting -- there is a much more dangerous charlatan loose in this land. Fueled by ego and ambition, Senator Clinton mindlessly championed George Bush's preemptive invasion of Iraq, with the resultant slaughter of thousands of innocents, the deaths of 5000 American soldiers, the effective bankrupting of our treasury, all the while claiming to be a progressive Democrat who champions ordinary folks.
btw- senator clinton is the one who wants to withdraw immediately from iraq.
She's for or against things solely on the basis of whatever is expedient at any given point in time as long as it's self-aggrandizing.
The only concrete conviction Senator Clinton hews to is her blind ambition.
She believes in nothing, except herself.
She will do anything -- suffer mortification and humiliation, triangulate her position, lie, create a fictional persona that flies in the face of empirical evidence, trash people, carpetbag, pretend she's a feminist, pretend she's married, pretend she's a populist, pretend she's a centrist, kiss up to the cancerous defense industry -- as long as it furthers her sociopathic pursuit of the White House.
Despite being slightly behind in the current delegate count, she still has a real chance of winning.
Without winning over 63% in every remaining state she cannot catch him in delegates, states or popular vote.
Obama and his supporters should not underestimate the number of people - independents and some Democrats that are so offended by Rev. Wright that they will not, under any circumstance, support him. His mass appeal to both sides has been seriously undermined.
This tells me that there was almost never any chance that you were going to vote for Obama, Wright controversy or no Wright controversy. The right wing noise and smear machine would have found some piece of nonsense for you to be sufficiently 'outraged' about, and you would have used that for your 'justification' to vote for McCain.
Never mind that McCain has actively sought out and continues to actively ask for the support of bigots like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and 'Pastor' Agee, men who have said that America deserved 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina because of homosexuals and abortionists, and one of whom has called the Catholic Church the 'Great Whore' of Revelation.
Never mind that McCain would keep American in Iraq in perpetuity (assuming the Dems continue to not challenge our 'unitary executive'), nor that he would probably start a war with Iran and/or Syria, nor that he's likely to continue the fiscal policies of the Bush regime that are bankrupting this country.
Never mind all that -- you were sufficiently outraged by some heated remarks by a preacher in the candidate's community that you would not vote for him. This says a lot more about you and your issues than it does about anything else. This says to me that you were never going to be comfortable or likely to vote for any black person for the Presidency, but sadly I do agree with you that there is a significant portion of the population that may think like you. I continue to hope and believe that this proportion can be overcome.
You obviously did not listen to the man's speech, or, if you did, you were not able to understand what he spoke, meaning you were unable to insert yourself into his shoes and the shoes of blacks all around this country. I am sure you will be outraged by my assertions, and will spout that you would happily vote for some theoretical black person that didn't have such baggage. And to that I say, your words here bespeak an inability to hold the actual black candidate and the white candidates to the same standards. And that, to me, shows me where you are coming from.
You wrote:
Obama and his supporters should not underestimate the number of people - independents and some Democrats that are so offended by Rev. Wright that they will not, under any circumstance, support him. His mass appeal to both sides has been seriously undermined.
I'll stipulate that you did not in fact say that you were one of such people. As such, I apologize for suggesting that you were one such person.
That being said, I will still emphatically say that the way you presented the 'facts' of the situation bespeaks an inability on your part to hear what Barack said in his speech on race/Wright. [However, I will surely not argue that the way that the establishment media covers these made up issues will not affect his ability to try and connect with us in hopes of changing the parameters of our national conversation.]
He absolutely denounced all of the most inflammatory statements that his preacher made, just as he was made to properly prostrate himself and deny all of Farrakhan's statements -- even though he had never asked for Farrakhan's blessing. My original point stands firm -- this black man is forced to deal with all kind of nonsense while all kinds of bigots are allowed to encircle and ally themselves with Senator McCain, with not a crossword asked.
It is worth asking, why are black candidates held to different standards than white candidates?
Maybe you can answer me that about SW Va.
But what about the much greater scrutiny and media bias shown towards Hillary and in favor of Obama during the first year of these races. It was so overwhelming and obvious that even Saturday Night Live made fun of it. Only now with these videos of the charlatan Wright has any criticism been directed towards Obama, despite Barack's valiant efforts to address the issue of race in his historical speech.
Most all of what Reverend Wright said is manifestly true, probably true or has a lot of truth to it.
Obama and his supporters should not underestimate the number of people - independents and some Democrats that are so offended by Rev. Wright that they will not, under any circumstance, support him.
Speaking of offensive, those people have had their say: they supported the worst president in our history in 2000 and 2004. Now they can get out of the way.
And if the "some Democrats" you're referring to include yourself, SW Democrat, it's no wonder that you're a Clinton supporter. A serious suspension of disbelief seems to be a requirement to accept the fiction-based persona she has been attempting to sell.
For forty years between 1932 and 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) conducted an experiment on 399 black men in the late stages of syphilis. These men, for the most part illiterate sharecroppers from one of the poorest counties in Alabama, were never told what disease they were suffering from or of its seriousness. Informed that they were being treated for "bad blood," their doctors had no intention of curing them of syphilis at all.The data for the experiment was to be collected from autopsies of the men, and they were thus deliberately left to degenerate under the ravages of tertiary syphilis-which can include tumors, heart disease, paralysis, blindness, insanity, and death. "As I see it," one of the doctors involved explained, "we have no further interest in these patients until they die."
Her own campaign acknowledges there is no way that she will finish ahead in pledged delegates. That means the only way she wins is if Democratic superdelegates are ready to risk a backlash of historic proportions from the party's most reliable constituency.Unless Clinton is able to at least win the primary popular vote - which also would take nothing less than an electoral miracle - and use that achievement to pressure superdelegates, she has only one scenario for victory. An African-American opponent and his backers would be told that, even though he won the contest with voters, the prize is going to someone else.
People who think that scenario is even remotely likely are living on another planet.
As it happens, many people inside Clinton's campaign live right here on Earth. One important Clinton adviser estimated to Politico privately that she has no more than a 10 percent chance of winning her race against Barack Obama, an appraisal that was echoed by other operatives.
In other words: The notion of the Democratic contest being a dramatic cliffhanger is a game of make-believe.
This is Richardson's only chance of getting back to DC where he wants to be. He blew his chance with Hillary when he made his deal with Obama in Iowa. He actually thought he could play both sides. Oops.
"The time that he could have been effective has long since passed," he continued, "I don't think it is a significant endorsement in this environment."
http://www.politico.com/news/s...
Shame, nwt. Your days of being a total and utter tool are numbered.
John McCain accepted the endorsement of and refused to repudiate a guy who said Katrina happened becaues of a gay rights parade.
Why do the Republicans get a pass on hanging out with right wing ministers while Obama gets pummeled with hanging out with one who espouses left-wing views?
Where's the consistency?
I don't nececessarily agree with what the guy says, but he GOP has the Democratic Party running around with its tail between its legs apologizing for everything. No wonder voters don't think we stand for anything.
I believe their attitude (not even upright enough to be termed a "stance") is due to two factors:
1) the power of the mass media which, far from being "liberal," is in fact a propaganda arm of the Republican Party, or, rather of the Super Elite which basically controls the Republican Party and which regards that Party as their favorite political child; the Democratic leadership has been so thoroughly whipped and savaged by that media they self-censor and have shaking fits when threatened with another attack, and there is no countervailing Democratic media to buffer them.
2) The Super Elite also has most of the Democrats under their thumb as well, in one way or another, and most of the Democratic Party leadership has in fact bought into the prevailing philosophy as well (the DLC, for example), so, between intellectual slavery and moral cowardice, Democratic leaders can never think or move out of the box for an effective response.
I cannot imagine why they are delaying. And furthermore, every day that they do is not just disappointing, but also disillusioning. I really admire both of them (have written so many times). But their silence during the unbelievable attacks on Obama's patriotism, ability, and leadership strength ought to be repudiated.