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John McCain urged North Carolina Republicans today not to air a TV ad attacking Democrat Barack Obama over his association with his controversial former pastor. The N.C. Republican Party plans to air the ad, which features a clip of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. attacking America, and which hits the two Democratic candidates for governor, who will share the May 6 ballot with the Obama and Hillary Clinton, for endorsing Obama. "They should know better," the narrator says. "He's just too extreme for North Carolina." In a letter to state party chairwoman Linda Daves, McCain writes, "From the beginning...

Unable once again to score a knockout, Sen. Barack Obama is likely to make his new negative tone even more negative -- with a sharp eye on trying to end the Democratic presidential nomination fight after the May 6 primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's victory yesterday in Pennsylvania has only accentuated the quandary that Obama faces: Stay negative and he risks undermining the premise of his candidacy. Stay aloof and he underscores Clinton's argument that he will not be able to beat a "Republican attack machine" sure to greet him this summer. Obama campaign manager...

Another Odd Guru By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, April 22, 2008 4:20 PM PT Election '08: Killing God and destroying the right to private property are usually associated with communism. They also seem important to the prominent legal theorist serving as Barack Obama's technology adviser. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig likes to treat his audiences to a short video that doesn't always go over so well. In it, Jesus Christ lip-syncs Gloria Gaynor's late '70s disco hit "I Will Survive," during which he strips down to just a diaper, effeminately struts along a city street and finally...

The Powerline guys have audio of William Ayers, in 2007, describing the United States: "Empire resurrected and unapologetic, war without end, an undefined enemy that’s supposed to be a rallying point for a new kind of energized jingoistic patriotism, unprecedented and unapologetic military expansion, white supremacy changing its form, but essentially intact, attacks on women and girls, violent attacks, growing surveillance in every sphere of our lives, on and on and on, the targeting of gay and lesbian people as a kind of a scapegoating gesture to keep our minds off of what’s really happening". The problem for Obama isn't...

Terrorist Fundraisers for Obama   By Patrick PooleFrontPageMagazine.com | Wednesday, April 23, 2008 Two years ago, Hatem El-Hady was the chairman of the Toledo, Ohio-based Islamic charity, Kindhearts, which was closed by the US government in February 2006 for terrorist fundraising and all its assets frozen. Today, El-Hady has redirected his fundraising efforts for his newest cause - Barack Obama for President. El-Hady has his own dedicated page on Barack Obama's official website, chronicling his fundraising on behalf of the Democratic Party presidential candidate (his Obama profile established on February 19, 2008 - two years to the day after...

When I first met the woman who became my wife, I was highly motivated to keep her, because she was the most wonderful, beautiful, decent woman I had ever met. As we began to know one another, I told her that I didn't want to dwell on one another's past, because the past simply was not relevant to the now. It may have seemed like a noble, romantic gesture on my part, but it was purely selfish. I had been a bit of a man-whore in my younger days and did NOT want it to affect any possible future with...

Exit Polls Show Many Party Voters Could Back McCain The long, bitter contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama seems to be taking a toll on the enthusiasm that once permeated the Democratic electorate. Exit polls of Pennsylvania Democrats Tuesday found that roughly one in three voters had serious concerns about at least one of the presidential contenders. SIGNS OF TROUBLE • Worry for Democrats: Exit polling in Pennsylvania reveals deep splits that could hurt the party's chances in November. • Going Negative: Many voters thought both candidates unfairly attacked one another. • Time to Heal? The fall election is...

It was a horrible, shocking, unnerving experience. Reading some of the things Barack Obama's pastor has said, I suddenly saw something with which I completely agree!! He said five days after 9/11: "We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye...." His point: Chickens were coming home to roost. I agree. We certainly committed terrorism and murder when we dropped two atomic bombs on open cities in Japan. And, as Ron Paul has said, correctly, re: 9/11: The terrorists were over here because,...

No doubt, Barry Obama's supporters are earnest and passionate about their guy. There are those that worry, though, that this passion is rooted primarily in a visceral, emotional attachment to the abstract, amorphous idea of Barry Obama. The idea of who this man is and why he was (as the fervent would claim) sent to us from the right hand of God the Father is different for everyone, unique to each individual supporter, and really only constitutes his or her personal passions, which they project onto their blank-slate/empty-suit faux-savior.

  April 23, 2008   This cartoon/graphic is free for noncommercial use in emails, blogs, and forums.  iowapresidentialwatch.com

The North Carolina Republican Party will unveil a 30-second ad tomorrow that attacks Democratic gubernatorial candidates Beverly Perdue and Richard Moore for endorsing Barack Obama. The ad, per the party, will reference "controversial figures from Barack Obama's past" and raise the question of the candidates' "judgment" in supporting him. The ad will be unveiled at an 11am press conference. Spokespeople for the Democratic gubernatorial campaigns say that they have not yet seen it and declined to comment. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright is expected to play a starring role. It's unclear how extensive the buy will be, because the buy itself...

Nothing in the hysteria over last week's Democratic debate – including the unprecedented opprobrium press critics heaped on the ABC moderators – should have come as any surprise. That doesn't make it any less fascinating a guide to current strange notions of what is and is not a substantive issue in a presidential contest, or any less striking an indicator of the delicate treatment Mr. Obama's media following have come to consider his just due. Moderators Charles Gibson's and George Stephanopoulos's offense was to ask questions Mr. Obama didn't want to address. Worse, they'd continued to press them even when...

From President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's office and the sitting rooms of high-ranking mullahs to university campuses and the Farsi-language blogosphere, Iranians are following the American presidential race more avidly than ever before. That's partly because they're eager for the exit of President Bush, who branded Iran part of an "Axis of Evil" and implicitly raised the possibility of a military strike against the country over its alleged nuclear weapons program. But the Iranians' interest is also driven by a sense among many Iranians that the candidacy of Barack Obama offers real hope for repairing the U.S.-Iranian relationship. Commenting on the Iranian...

The Nation -- Republicans are sharpening their knives against Barack Obama. No smear is too insignificant to broadcast. According to Time Magazine's Michael Scherer, Floyd Brown, the creator of the infamous Willie Horton ad--credited with sinking Michael Dukakis's candidacy in 1988--is launching a new ad campaign against Obama.

In last week's Philadelphia debate, Hillary Clinton said she would commit the United States to a retaliatory attack against Iran, presumably with nuclear weapons, if it dropped the bomb on Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, or Kuwait. Asked if "it should be U.S. policy now to treat an Iranian attack on Israel as if it were an attack against the United States," Clinton astonishingly responded that she'd use American nukes not just to defend Israel, our traditional strategic ally, but also other neighboring states such as the U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait from an Iranian nuclear attack. Barack Obama's...

If he becomes the Democratic Party's nominee for President, Sen. Barack Obama will lose the general election for this reason: When the smiles and platitudes are set aside, Obama's campaign and the philosophy of his cadre amount to one big put-down of America. Anomalous among Western leaders, the president of the United States serves as head of both state and government. Moreover, he is elected directly by the voters, unlike in a parliamentary system whereby a leader attains power through the success of his party. As such, the president represents something very personal to Americans. He is, for four or...

In today’s Washington Times, Michael O’Hanlon suggests the U.S. should engage Iran diplomatically, for “hawkish” reasons: U.S. diplomatic contact with Iran, the sooner the better, still makes sense — not because it will likely produce any breakthroughs, but because . . . “hawkish engagement” can set the U.S. up more effectively to galvanize the kind of growing international pressure on Iran that is probably our only long-term hope of producing better behavior from Tehran. By trying to talk, we better position ourselves to get tough and have others join the effort. Through negotiation, we can prove to the world that...

I stumbled upon this while I was on YouTube looking for video of Obama whining over being asked a question about Carter. This is what I found instead. Watch it til the end, it runs 3 minutes, then tell me Barack Hussein Obama isn't a globalist. http://youtube.com/watch?v=-PJa3jaEVyM

As the bitter Democratic primary caboose careens into its latest stop in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, has anyone noticed what has been happening in this amazing race? The real story is that ever since Sen. Barack Obama’s come-from-behind win in Iowa last January, Democrats across the country have been trying to slam the brakes on his inevitability as the nominee. And even though the math says Obama has won the nomination, a huge swath of the party does not want to accept this fact. For most of the campaign, the press spin about Obama has been warm and fuzzy. Sen. Hillary...

GREENSBORO - For political pundits, the explosive controversy spawned by the fiery videotaped comments of Rev. Jeremiah Wright was a near-fatal blow to the historic presidential aspirations of Sen. Barack Obama [D-Ill]. But to the Democratic hopeful's wife, Michelle, it was an important "opportunity," long ignored by others, to lead the nation towards a critical dialogue on race, and bridging the entrenched gaps that divide the American people. An opportunity her husband gallantly seized, Ms. Obama adds, to bring about the hope and change she says America "desperately" needs. In an exclusive interview with The Carolinian upon her momentous first...

Will a Barack Obama presidency mean a significant break from Bush’s policies towards India, asks Dhruva Jaishankar. With a civilian nuclear deal hanging in the balance, a depressing forecast for the global economy and the spectre of Islamic extremism continuing to haunt the subcontinent, the US presidential elections are of special interest in India. From the Indian perspective, Barack Obama, who, regardless of the results of Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary, remains favoured to win the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, cuts an enigmatic figure. Obama voted for the Hyde Act in 2006, but famously introduced an amendment that threatened fuel supply...

Exit polls have shown that the contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has produced deep divisions among Democratic constituencies. It looks something like tribal warfare. Whites have voted, if you average the results from the states, 53 per cent to 39 per cent for Clinton; blacks, 80 per cent to 17 per cent for Obama; Latinos, 58 per cent to 39 per cent for Clinton; Asians, in California (the one primary state where they're numerous enough to gauge), 71 per cent to 25 per cent for Clinton. The differences in voting by the young, overwhelmingly for Obama, and the...

PITTSBURGH - Barack Obama, who said Republican John McCain would be an improvement over President Bush, argued Tuesday that his comment didn't undercut Democrats' contention that the GOP nominee-in-waiting offers the same as the unpopular president. "To say that John McCain and some of his instincts may be better than George Bush's, that's a low bar," the Democratic presidential candidate said, adding that he also has stressed that McCain is offering "warmed-over versions of Bush foreign policy and economic policy." "So, there's no contradiction there," Obama said. In Reading, Pa., on Sunday, the Illinois senator was trying to argue that...

Barack Obama could see race backlash By Alex Spillius in Philadelphia Last Updated: 9:34pm BST 22/04/2008 Barack Obama faces the prospect of a rising backlash against his race and background as he inches towards the historic feat of becoming the first black US presidential nominee. In a foretaste of things to come, a leading Republican said yesterday that the Illinois senator’s colour would be worth up to 15 percentage points for his Republican opponent John McCain in November’s election, while it emerged that a Pentecostal minister had posted a sign outside his church reading: “Obama, Osama - humm, are they...

Garin: Fewer Whites See Themselves In Obama's Story By JONATHAN TILOVE — Monday April 21, 2008WASHINGTON — Democratic pollster and strategist Geoffrey Garin, in an interview with Newhouse News Service while he was still unaffiliated with any candidate, extolled Sen. Barack Obama's broad cross-racial appeal."While Sen. Obama is a person of color, he is also at the same time an incredibly unifying figure,'' Garin said early last year. "I think there are lots of Americans, including a lot of white Americans, who can see themselves somewhere in the Obama story.'' Now Garin is chief strategist for Sen. Hillary Clinton, and...

Obama’s acceptance of Moore, MoveOn.org support is an insult to our Armed Forces and nation To: media “at” barackobama.com, watchdog “at” barackobama.com, info “at” barackobama.com cc: Multiple Internet blogs, with encouragement to copy to other blogs and circulate as viral E-mailDear Mr. Obama, The Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States commands the obedience of our men and women in uniform by law, but we are confident that you also appreciate the need to command their respect. We bring to your attention the endorsement of filmmaker Michael Moore at his Web site. ...In 2004, Mr. Moore...

I was talking the other day to a prominent Republican who asked me what I thought John McCain’s strongest issues would be in the general election. Lower taxes and the argument he will be better able to protect America from its enemies, I said.Republicans have a pretty good track record with those two. The Republican shook his head. “You’re missing the most important one,” he said. “Race. McCain runs against Barack Obama and the race vote is worth maybe 15 percent to McCain.”The man I was talking to is not a racist; he was just stating what he believes to...

PHILADELPHIA - A six-week, increasingly caustic Pennsylvania primary contest between Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama culminated Tuesday as voters registered their choice — a decision that could save or sink Clinton's flagging candidacy. The candidates questioned each other's character and readiness to be commander in chief in last-minute television ads and barnstormed the state in a final pitch for votes in the most populous and delegate-rich state remaining in the nominating contest. Some 4 million Democrats were eligible to cast ballots, with 158 delegates at stake. Clinton was relying on a decisive win to reinvigorate her candidacy, while...

Barack Obama, stubbornly clinging to his right to be charismatically shallow, at first complained that Hillary Clinton was unfairly criticizing him for being all flair and fluff with no substance. Now he's upset that Clinton and the media won't let him discuss substance. Based on some of his speeches lately, I'm thinking he ought to be grateful for the diversion because his policy proposals might not survive serious scrutiny. Maybe it's unfair to interpret literally Obama's repeated stump speech assertion that we Americans aren't perfect but are "perfectible" and conclude he possesses a New Age or secular humanist worldview rather...

Bill Moyers Journal to Air First Television Interview With Reverend Jeremiah Wright Since ControversyMonday April 21, 8:58 am ET Source: Bill Moyers Journal NEW YORK, April 21 /PRNewswire/ -- The Reverend Jeremiah Wright will be interviewed on PBS this week by Bill Moyers in his first broadcast interview with a journalist since he became embroiled in a controversy for his remarks and his relationship with Barack Obama. Wright, who retired in early 2008 as pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, where Senator Obama is a member, has been at the center of controversy for comments he made...

Mark Steyn and James Lileks have reacted on tonight's show to the 2007 audio of Ayers and Dohrn dug up by Guy Benson. Much should be written about it and what it tells us about Senator Obama, but whether the MSM even notices remains to be seen. A caller from North Carolina, Steve, noted the obvious: We know what Dohrn and Ayers were thinking about the U.S. in 2007. We know that they know Obama well, and have "vetted" him. And we know they supported him from 1995 forward. UPDATE: Powerline's John Hinderacker begins the hard-look at "The Friends of...

Provided to you by "le blog drzz", France's first conservative blog owned by Freeper drzz. HOST - DANIEL PIPES - PH.D from Harvard - 84th on the list of the most influential Harvard alumni in the world. - Former adviser of Rudy Giuliani - Nominated for the US Peace Institute by President Bush in 2005 - 12 books, columnists in national and international papers, multiple appearances in TV and radio shows. --------- 1. The Bush presidency will end next January 2009. Is its legacy satisfying on your point of view ? What are BushÂ’s strongest successes - and failures ?...

If the Democratic National Convention failed to produce a bounce for John Kerry, the same cannot be said of Illinois State Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic Party’s candidate for United States Senator from Illinois. While this rising star in the Democratic Party spouted some conservative themes during his speech, the rhetoric may be deceptive. While Obama spoke of individual responsibility – such as stating that the government cannot teach kids to read, parents must – his ideology and voting record is quite different. Obama is very liberal. Among his campaign contributors are George Soros, People for the American Way, pro-abortion...

MUNCY VALLEY, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - Barack Obama's efforts to woo white voters in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary have been hurt by his comments on small town bitterness and his association with an outspoken pastor, some residents of Muncy Valley say. Local people called the Illinois senator arrogant, unpatriotic and un-Christian after his remarks that residents of small towns in Pennsylvania and elsewhere are bitter because of job losses, and so have turned to traditions like guns, religion and anti-immigrant sentiment. "He is saying people are weak, dumb and naive, and they are seeking religion as a way of getting through,"...

Still undecided? If you're a Pennsylvania Democrat and today dawned with you still struggling, it could mean one of several things: You could be one of those terminally indecisive people, for whom even ordering at Applebee's becomes an hour-long agony. More likely, it means you're an earnest citizen who feels how momentous this choice is - but not a person who can resolve it through identity politics, the tug of "first woman" or "first black." Perhaps you're a substance maven whose study of wonky Web sites has taught you that, along the grand spectrum of political thought, the differences between...

Barack Obama, meet John Adams. Adams noted during the Boston Massacre trial that “Facts are stubborn things.” And it appears that, for the moment, the facts have caught up with Obama here in Massachusetts. How else to explain the amazing, astounding and unthinkable results of the latest SurveyUSA presidential poll: Republican John McCain is tied with Barack Obama in the Bay State. The last Republican to win Massachusetts? Ronald Reagan. The last Republican before that? Dwight Eisenhower. Even George McGovern managed to carry Massachusetts in 1972, the one Democratic holdout in Richard Nixon’s 49-state landslide. Replace “McGovern” with “MoveOn.org” and...

But I have been listening to all of the attempts that people are making to bring Obama down -- and, by the way, these attempts are not so much to destroy him or harm him in the Democrat primary because it isn't going to happen. So we're looking at the general election in terms of Obama. This weekend, I ran into some Republicans who were for Obama. They know full-fledged he's a liberal. They don't care. They like his personality. So when you tell 'em about William Ayers, they don't care. When you tell 'em about Jeremiah Wright (and they...

For Barack Obama, campaign 2008 has been a series of absurd but consequential tests. First, there was the faith test: Profess publicly that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior. ....... Then there was the patriotism test: Recite the Pledge of Allegiance and wear an American flag lapel pin...... Having passed the God test and the country test, Obama recently has been subjected to the God and country test: Embrace the nation's beloved slogan, "God bless America." When the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's remix of this political favorite began to hit the airwaves, ...Obama... attempt damage control, appeared on cable news.......

According to Schlussel [syndicated columnist] "...a former Obama insider says that Obama's sudden aversion to NOI and Farrakhan is belied by the fact that Obama employed and continues to employ several Farrakhan acolytes in high positions on his Illinois and U.S. Senate campaign and office staffs." ... Cynthia K. Miller, who served as Treasurer of his Senate campaign. ... Jennifer Mason who currently serves as Obama's Director of Constituent Services and who oversees the hiring of interns for Obama. ... Obama's Illinois Senate district consisted of prime Nation of Islam territory including Hyde Park where Farrakhan's mansion is located...

Handsome, intelligent, charismatic, blessed with a golden tongue, and irresistible to his besotted followers, Elmer Gantry – the title character of Sinclair Lewis’s 1927 novel – inspired his supporters to swoon, indeed faint, at his seductive oratory. He told them they were “sinners,” then gave them “hope” that they could “change” if they would only follow his path to redemption. As it turned out, Gantry was a fraud – a sinner himself – ultimately exposed and discredited. “That’s not fair!” liberals protest. “Gantry was fictional.” True, but he is a character that resonated with the reading public because he was...

ALBURTIS, Pa.—Their passion is on display, table by table, row by row. Six-shooter revolvers, World War II-era rifles, plastic automatics, AK-47s, knives as long as your forearm, Nazi memorabilia, sniper scopes, hunting shotguns, bullets, shells, stickers ("If You Come In This Door, You Will Be Killed"). It's a drizzly, chilly morning in this tiny eastern Pennsylvania town, but the muddy parking lot outside the low-slung cinder block community center for the gun show is full. Fathers linger over displays with their sons. Vendors crack jokes and swap stories. To them, the scene is as American as a baseball game. But...

Howard Guttman, the campaign finance chair (I think that's the title) for Barack Obama is on Laura Ingraham's show now. When Laura asked him about competing against the most powerful political couple (or force) in the last 50 years, he answered with a different description. "We are running against the most divisive force in American politics." May the fighting created blood on the floor in Denver.

New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton continued to pull away from rival Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois as the campaigning in Pennsylvania ended and voters prepared to cast ballots Tuesday, the latest Newsmax/Zogby daily telephone tracking poll shows. Clinton now leads Obama, 51% to 41%, having gained three points over the past 24 hours as Obama lost one point, pushing her beyond the poll’s margin of error to create a statistically significant lead for the first time in the Pennsylvania daily tracking poll. Meanwhile, 6% remained undecided and another 3% said they preferred someone else in the two-day tracking poll....

RUSH: Do you remember the genesis of MoveOn.org? The whole point of MoveOn.org, it was a Clinton front group. "Move on," meant, "Can't we move on from the impeachment? Can't we move on from all of these scandals? Can't we move on from all of these little Chihuahuas yapping at the heels of the Clintons? Can't we just move on?" With that in mind, in February 2008 in a closed door fundraiser (phone quality here), this is Mrs. Clinton talking about MoveOn.org. HILLARY: We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings out the activist base of the Democratic...

U.S. Sen. John McCain said Sunday he was concerned about U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's ties to former radical William Ayers. "... his relationship with Mr. Ayers is open to question... if you're going to associate and have as a friend and serve on a board and have a guy kick off your campaign that says he's unrepentant, that he wished they had bombed more," McCain said.

Alger Hiss. Barack Obama. Bill Maher. (snip) While all of this made Hiss a familiar favorite player with the press and Establishment insiders, what brought him fame -- and ultimately brought him down -- was the charge in 1948 that throughout a considerable portion of his career he was in fact a Soviet spy. The purpose here is not to recount the particulars of the Hiss case. After a series of stunning events, finally including the revelation of stolen State Department documents that conclusively proved Hiss's guilt, Hiss went to prison. It was what surfaced in the course of the...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Democratic White House contender Barack Obama could not hide his irritation Monday when asked by a reporter what he thought about former president Jimmy Carter's meeting with Hamas last week. "Why can't I just eat my waffle?" the Illinois senator said as he ate breakfast in Scranton, Pennsylvania, according to MSNBC television pictures. Pressed again for an answer, he replied: "Just let me eat my waffle." Obama, who is battling Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, criticized Carter last week for seeking to meet with leaders of the Islamist movement, which he said was "a terrorist...

History, in Marx's famous dictum, tends to repeat itself: the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce. So what do you call it the third time around? A bad sitcom? A bad marriage? A bad dream? All three of those seem like viable ways of describing the Democratic Party's current predicament, locked in an endless and self-destructive struggle with itself, like a would-be Buddhist penitent unable to atone for eons' worth of bad karma. Even in the annals of Democratic ritual suicide, the 2008 campaign is something special: It's not just that the protracted and painful nomination...

MIDI - NIGHTS IN WHITE SATIN