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.
LOL.
That last one is perfect for the laugh I knew I would get on this thread, nice tag too. Carter is gonna break that poor girls heart(Clinton).
I watched my grandfather get this way as he grew older. He became very cranky, striving for attention by doing things that were over the line at times, saying things that made people uncomfortable, and he was more cantankerous than ever. But he was so convinced that he was wise and contemplative and had all the answers and everyone else was wrong and didn't see things clearly. No one could change his mind. We loved him and we just thought he was acting strangely, but it ended up he had Alzheimer's. He wasn't totally without an ability to remember things like other Alzheimer's patients. It was just that sometimes would get on a soap box about a subject and no one could stop him from ranting or making statements that were really upsetting and almost frightening about how he felt about things - the government, people he didn't like, etc. He seemed to be trying hard to start a fight. I often thought he was somehow worried about his life ending, and he wanted to do or say something important that people would remember before that time came. I am wondering if this might be what is going on with these men.
Well maybe she Doesn't.
Just one more clown in the circus.
A pastor who is a friend of Wright but thinks that Wright is a tragic figure who is arrogant and has wasted his talent. He claims, that Obama was in an abuse relationship with Wright.
Wright was like a father who formed him into what he is today.
Obama could not bring himself to betray him.
It’s hell to get old,probably even harder for old socialists.
LOL!
GREAT one, potlatch!
I want some of that action! ;o)
“I took so many antihistimines I thought I was Mr. Peanut.”
-Mort, ‘Family Guy’
LOL, thanks DC.
You can see, I’ve been busy making things.
You’ve been as busy as a bee, and it’s easy to see you’ve spent a lot of time on your creations.
Carter has always been a silly little man.
Sadly, that’s why I’m always so late on letters, lol.
I just ‘have to’ be working on something!
Maybe so, but he'd still have the title of "America's Worst Ex-President". No one else (not even Slick) comes close.
To have that old racist Rev Wright around Obama’s neck is bad enough - but to add Carrrtaaa to the mess is downright cruel. Obama might just as well “give it up”...
Wright as father figure, the Black man that did not abandon Obama. Barack Hussein Obama LOVES the guy, this is indeed rich. Of course you know that Obama is toast.
.
LOL!
That’s terrific potlatch!
Thanks devolve. It is a very dark looking image to me but I’ll look at it on my laptop.
Appropriate right now, lol. Obama took a beating.
[I want some of that action! ;o)]
You don’t want to punch your nice new computer screen out, lol!
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