Posted on 04/30/2008 5:37:06 PM PDT by mdittmar
Former President Jimmy Carter has given Barack Obama a major boost by calling for the bitter Democratic nomination battle to end on June 3rd and speaking glowingly of his ability to “transform the image” of America.
Mr Carter did not formally endorse Mr Obama but in an interview with The Daily Telegraph made crystal clear where his sympathies lie. He even sketched out the kind of inaugural address the first black United States president could deliver.
Coming from the most distinguished of some 300 uncommitted "super-delegates” - the Democratic party leaders who will crown their party’s nominee - Mr Carter’s new public stance is a blow to Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the White House.
I don’t see any reason at all to continue after June 3rd when we know who got the most [pledged] delegates, who got the most popular votes, who won the most states and so forth,” said Mr Carter, 83.
June 3rd is when the final primaries will be held, in South Dakota and Montana Mrs Clinton, who has a virtually insurmountable deficit among the "pledged” delegates allocated according to votes and is highly unlikely to overcome Mr Obama’s popular vote lead, intends to fight for the Democratic nomination all the way to the party’s convention in August.
Her advisers believe her only hope of defeating Mr Obama would be to persuade the super-delegates that his “electability” against John McCain, the Republican nominee, is so questionable that they should put aside the results of the voting and anoint her instead.
Mr Carter emphasised that he and many other super-delegates would not countenance this. “It would be undemocratic if the super-delegates blatantly went against the decision of Democratic voters across the nation.
"And I think that many super-delegates who have not yet declared their preference have the same feeling that I do, including the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. She’s said over and over that whoever gets the most [pledged] delegates by June 3rd ought to be the nominee.”
It would be “too bad” and damaging to the party if the battle went to the nomination, he said. The role of super-delegates, he argued, was to swing behind the winner chosen by the voters and not to usurp them.
Mr Carter, who is promoting a new book called “A Remarkable Mother" about his mother Lillian, who died 25 years ago aged 85, indicated that he felt a close personal bond with Mr Obama.
Both had mothers who worked to overcome racial divisions and who moved abroad in the 1960s to help the disadvantaged - Mrs Carter as a Peace Corps volunteer in India and Mr Obama’s mother as an anthropologist in Indonesia.
"They were very similar in not being bound by previous custom and willing to break taboos and mores that society establishes that they considered to be inappropriate,” Mr Carter said.
His mother, whom he adored, would “be delighted I think at the prospect of a black man being elected president". In an aside that will give scant comfort to Mrs Clinton, he added: “And she would be pleased - I wouldn’t say delighted - at the prospect of a woman being president.”
The former president, who travels the globe dealing with the conflict resolution and human rights issues promoted by his Carter Centre, told this newspaper that “overseas there is an intense infatuation with Obama, perhaps more than there ever has been in previous history with any candidate".
A Nobel Peace Prize winner who abhors the policies of President George W. Bush, Mr Carter added: “A lot of them see Obama as kind of a diametrical opposite from George W. Bush and they think that he will bring to the presidency a brand new picture of what the White House and Washington and the United States ought to be.”
He mused openly about how Mr Obama might harness this feeling in an inaugural address.
"If the first statement he made was while I’m president of the United States we will never torture another prisoner and while I’m President of the United States we will never go to war unless our own security is directly threatened...it would transform the image of the United States in the minds of many people around the world.
“Lost it like a fox. Jimmah doesn’t want the title of “America’s Worst President” any more,”
Well, he’s stuck with it.
"You suck", says Gorzaloon.
“Bill Clinton, in twenty years.”
Clinton would rather be like Hugh Heffner in 20 years.
An open letter to Carter, STFU !
Just think Jimma, he can be just like you.
Well, if he’s OK by Jimmy, he’s OK by me.
____________________________________________________________
Louis Farrakhan, at the annual Saviours' Day celebration in Chicago, Feb. 25, 2008: "This young man is the hope of the entire world that America will change and be made better"..."If you look at Barack Obama's audiences and look at the effect of his words, those people are being transformed."
Source: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=4337417
Louis Farrakhan, at the Millions More Movement rally in DC, Oct 15, 2005: "...what Mao Tse Tung did was, he went to the cultural community, and they [Farrakhan spreads his arms beneficently] accepted his idea."..."Mao Tse Tung ... had a billion people whose lives he had to transform."..."the idea of Mao Tse Tung became the idea of a billion people, and China became a world power on the base of the culture and the arts community. If we had a ministry of art and culture in every city we'd create this movement
[in the U.S.]."
Source: http://thedrunkablog.blogspot.com/2005/10/communist-plot-noted.html
Louis Farrakhan, Santiago de Cuba, February, 1998: "There is not a member of the black masses in the United States who is not proud of the example set by Cuba and its revolution, with Comandante Fidel at its head"
Source: http://www.fiu.edu/~fcf/farakhan21898.html#says
Why do liberals care so much what other people--and other countries--think of them? There's a lesson to be learned here, well besides never to trust Jimm'uh...
Good one! Communist "party". lol!
This story reminds me of an Adolf Hitler quote from the mid-1930’s;”Give me ten years and you will not recognise Germany!”
High praise, indeed.
In her case a burka might actually be an improvement.
Strongly disagree with your, ‘carter shut up’.
I believe this is an absolutely proper endorsement.
Anybody who has the same vision of America the Great that is similar to Carter’s vision SHOULD vote for SnObama.
I suspect that somewhere deep in his mind, Carter would really love to have SnObama become president. At least then, Carter would have some chance of not being seen as the most damaging foreign policy president.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.