Obama takes first step in White House bid (GOLDEN RAT THROWS HIS HAT INTO THE RING)

In an announcement weighted with history and moment, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who less than three years ago was serving in the Illinois Senate, declared today his intention to run for president.

"As many of you know, over the last few months I have been thinking hard about my plans for 2008," Obama said in a statement on his presidential exploratory committee Web site. "Running for the presidency is a profound decision—a decision no one should make on the basis of media hype or personal ambition alone—and so before I committed myself and my family to this race, I wanted to be sure that this was right for us and, more importantly, right for the country.

"I certainly didn't expect to find myself in this position a year ago. But as I've spoken to many of you in my travels across the states these past months; as I've read your emails and read your letters; I've been struck by how hungry we all are for a different kind of politics."

Obama's move dramatically punctuates the extraordinary arc of a political career for a man who said he had trouble even renting a car to attend the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles in 2000. But his stirring speech at the Democratic National Convention in Boston in 2004 catapulted him to a hybrid status of politician as celebrity that continued with his election to the Senate and his status now as the first African-American candidate considered a leading contender for his party's presidential nomination.

He is expected to face two daunting challenges, one to raise up to $100 million for his campaign and the other, to compete with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, among many others, in what would be the longest and most expensive presidential campaign in history.

Regarding school choice, there was an exchange that you simply have to read to believe. It starts with the moderator Phil Ponce posing a question to Obama.

PONCE: Thank you. Let’s move to the question of education. Mr. Obama, you’ve said that you consider education as the most important civil rights issue facing America today. Currently, your children are in private schools. If you’re elected to the Senate, will you send them to public schools?

OBAMA: Well, my children currently go to the lab school at the University of Chicago where I teach, and my wife works, and we get a good deal for it. But, so–

(laughter, applause)

OBAMA: –it depends on whether we move or not. And that, obviously, hinges on the election and what’s gonna happen. We’re gonna choose the best possible education for our children, as I suspect all parents are gonna try to do. And that’s part of the reason why, consistently when I’ve been in the state legislature, I’ve tried to promote those kinds of reforms that would improve what I think is an inadequate performance by too many public schools, all across the state.

PONCE: But you’re against vouchers, as a senator.

OBAMA: I am.

PONCE: You have the means, to have a choice–

OBAMA: Absolutely.

PONCE: –for your children. What about the families that don’t have the means? Is it fair for them–

OBAMA: What they–no–

PONCE: –not to have a choice?

OBAMA: –what they need is more money in their pockets.

And that’s why I’ve supported programs like the Earned Income Tax Credit, that provides tax relief to low-income families, so that they can use that money any way that they want, including sending their kids into private schools.

PONCE: Is that enough of a help, Mr. Keyes?

KEYES: I’m sorry, y’all–I do not see the day when every American family is going to be employed by the University of Chicago so they, too, can have a choice.

(laughter)

KEYES: I think that we had better get there a little sooner than that. And I think that the way we get there sooner than that, is to let the money we spend on education follow the choice of the parents, so every family in Illinois–whether they are rich or poor–will be able to have the same scope to do what they think is best for their children.

I do not understand why we should believe it right to imprison the parents of people with less means in failing public schools, when, and then–oh! “I’ll let them have a little more money, so they can go on paying twice for education”? Paying with the taxes, and paying as well with money they have to dig into their pocket to earn?
…

Obama makes a good living and knows he is getting a “good deal”, but openly acknowledges he refuses to give a deal to parents in the form of school choice vouchers. Instead he wants to give people back money after they’ve been taxed twice. I don’t know if Obama ever pulled his kids from that private school, but every bio I read mentions his family lives in Illinois. Which means they probably still attend a private school on that “good deal”, while he refuses to make it easier for other parents to get a good deal. (Even if his kids went to public school in DC they’d be sure to attend a school unlike the school in your neighborhood.)

Obama takes first step in White House bid

This little weenie, Obama, is just faking it. The media is taking these weeks and months to blow this guy up into someone special and meaningful and substantial. What bull. But there is a reason that they are doing it.

And Rush Limbaugh today is marveling in his total ignorance why this guy is getting all this attention from the lefty/socialist/liberal media when that media really wants Hillary as President. LOL. Rush is confused............

The answer is real simple.

Obama is being pumped up by the media so that he will make a great VP candidate beside 'The Beast'.

The Dems. in 2008 will go with a very well-rounded ticket --- Hillary/Obama/2008

One has a penis and the other is quite sensitive about his ears.

You are wrong.

I saw Obama's video today. He is running now because he knows he can win. Reagan ran in 1980 for the same reason.

Smart Democrats understand that Hillary will lose to Rudy or McCain. Now this guy comes along and treats a camera the way Reagan treated it.

He will be their nominee. He can win the White House. Don't sell him short just 'cause his nickname's "Obambi". He's got good, seasoned North Side advisors like David Axelrod.

Obambi taught ConLaw at the University of Chicago Law School, people. That makes him smarter than Hillary, or Bill!

Clinton ran in 1991 because he understood that timing is everything. Obama understands that, as well.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

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