Posted on 06/01/2008 9:00:51 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
LANSING, Mich. - After his preacher problems, Barack Obama doesn't need another association with a charismatic, radioactive public figure. Still, Kwame Kilpatrick, the tarnished mayor of Detroit, is a hard man to avoid completely.
That places the Democratic presidential candidate in a bit of a dilemma when he campaigns in Michigan this week and later in the race.
Obama meets voters Monday in Troy, a Detroit suburb, just when his party needs to ease wounds from its internal fight over the renegade Michigan primary.
The party's rules committee decided Saturday to seat the state's delegates at the convention but hold each to half a vote. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign cried foul.
Obama could use the mayor's enthusiastic support in Detroit, a city of 900,000 where blacks make up more than 80 percent of the city's residents and nearly always vote Democratic.
Kilpatrick's get-out-the-vote operation in Detroit could be key in a hotly competitive state that doesn't know Obama that well, thanks to an agreement by the Democratic candidates not to campaign for the primary and his decision to remove his name from the ballot.
Yet Obama has to fear angering thousands of voters who may see Republican Sen. John McCain as a better presidential choice than someone who cozies up to an elected official charged with lying under oath about an affair and his role in the firing of a top police official.
If Obama ends up giving him the cold shoulder, Kilpatrick seems inclined to excuse his absence.
"He's running a very smart campaign, and his campaign is not to be walking, holding hands, singing `Kumbaya' with Kwame Kilpatrick," the mayor said, speaking of himself in the third person. "I'll be making sure that he gets the turnout in Detroit to help him win Michigan."
Kilpatrick urged Obama to concentrate on swing counties surrounding Detroit and traditionally Republican areas such as Kent County in the west, "where he really needs people to understand who he is, what he's about, what's his platform and how he gets to the presidency and what he will do for Michigan."
Although the Detroit City Council has asked Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm to remove Kilpatrick from office, he could remain mayor through the rest of this campaign season. Kilpatrick insists he has done nothing wrong and has talked of running for re-election next year.
The mayor faces charges of perjury, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and misconduct related to explicit text messages sent to a former aide.
Rallies have been held for him and money has been flowing into his legal defense fund. A prominent Detroit businessman, Peter Karmanos, recently said the mayor should stay "because he's the best we have."
Yet there are signs he may be wearing out his welcome.
In a recent poll conducted for The Detroit News and four Michigan TV stations, 84 percent of respondents statewide, 69 percent of blacks statewide and three-quarters of voters in Detroit said he should leave office.
Obama has his own base of support in Detroit, with state Sens. Tupac Hunter and Buzz Thomas leading the effort, and polling finds a favorable opinion of him in the city.
But statewide, McCain has been running even or slightly ahead of him in surveys.
McCain clearly intends to fight for Michigan, where Democrats' victory margins have narrowed in recent presidential elections.
The Arizona senator began running television ads this week in Michigan and Pennsylvania portraying himself as someone with answers for the economic worries voters face on energy, health care and foreclosures.
The poll finds him leading Obama in suburbs west and south of Detroit and in voter-rich Macomb County to the north, as well as having a clear advantage with independents and white voters.
Although he came in second to native son Mitt Romney in the hard-fought Jan. 15 GOP primary, McCain blanketed the state in the week leading up to the election, holding town hall meetings and visiting the Detroit auto show. Many voters still have warm feelings for McCain, who won Michigan's 2000 GOP primary against George W. Bush.
In contrast, Obama is still introducing himself to Michigan voters.
The Democratic Party disallowed the Michigan and Florida primaries because they were moved earlier in the year than party rules allowed. The weekend compromise boosted Clinton's delegate count but still left Obama poised to win the Democratic nomination.
The chance to vote for a black candidate is likely to bring many Michigan blacks to Obama's side. The question is whether he can get a majority of voters in this crucial swing state — and whether Kilpatrick helps or hurts those efforts.
You will know him by the people he surrounds himself with.
In this May 7, 2007 file photo, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama acknowledges the crowd after being introduced by Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick at the Detroit Economic Club in Detroit. After his preacher problems, Obama doesn't need another association with a charismatic, radioactive public figure. Still, Kilpatrick, the tarnished mayor of Detroit, is a hard man to avoid completely. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File)
Democratic presidential candidate and Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) shields his eyes as he speaks in Aberdeen, South Dakota May 31, 2008. (Rick Wilking/Reuters)
Hell — they’re “brothers”, aren’t they?????
A couple of Affirmative Action Lawyers...who learned the Law, but failed to respect the Law or Truth.
They’ve both proved - you can take the racist thug out of the ghetto — but you can’t take the ghetto out of the racist thug.
Good story....I think Michigan is really in play because of Kwame. The rest of the state realize what a diasaster Kwame has been for Detroit, and what Gov Granholm has been for the state. Her recent raising of taxes has pissed off a lot of voters, and now even that tax increase appears to have not been enough. The stock of the Dems in Michigan is tanking and Sen Levin, Gov Granholm, and Mayor Kwame can’t lay Michigan’s woes on George Bush. Barry gonna have tough sledding in Michigan.
Good reason to quit your church, good reason to distance yourself from those who want a piece of the action you can give.
Just how many excuses can a man give? How many times does he have to say "that's not me" before he realizes that his unknown has become defined, and it isn't very pretty?
[singing] Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right...
Ever notice how when a Democrat buddies up with racial supremacists, convicted terrorists, indicted criminals they're inevitably described in ambiguous non-judgemental terms like "charismatic" (Kwame), or "outspoken" (Wright), or "reform activist" and "respected advisor" (Ayers) ?
Meanwhile McCain gets the endorsement of a guy like Hagee who he's known for a whole 40 minutes and that's phrased as "extremist evangelical Christian", "revealing comments the Holocaust was God's will", etc.
Obama never was ghetto. He's just a prissy spoiled brat who overcompensated his "blackness"...until it became inconvienent.
If they do get cozy, you can bet their instant messages will be juicy.
Obama spent the last 20 years in a ghetto “church”, lived in Indonesia and traveled to Africa to “gain his street creds”....
It looks like he succeeded in absorbing the “ghetto culture”...
He went “native”, in spite of his privileged WHITE FAMILY provided background...
Obama is of, from and part of the “ghetto”....now.
He CHOSE that position..
He can dump his white granny, his black pastors, his racist “church”.......but he can’t dump his racist “ghetto born” mentality.
In spite of his background and advantages — he’s become one of the “boyz from da hood”...
If you would like to be added or dropped from the Michigan ping list, please freepmail me.
Never underestimate the stupidity of the dem bloc here in Michigan. In spite of Kilpatrick, in spite of Granholm, in spite of Dillon, in spite of Stabenow's husband, the unions still maintain a stranglehold here. My early prediction: By mid-July, Michigan will no longer be considered a battleground state. Solid blue.
Mr. McCain should not waste a minute or a dollar in MI.
There’s a massive demographic change going on in MI. The communist governor has instigated a plan to create a welfare/socialist state, and it’s working.
As a result, hundreds of thousands of productive citizens and businesses have left the state. And more hundreds of thousands of productive citizens are ready to flee if they can sell their homes. What remains are welfare bums and government employees and citizens collecting some kind of government check - all rat voters.
The majority remaining are stupid liberals who have drank the kool-aid and blame Bush or the former governor for all the state’s many problems. And neither logic nor reasoning can penetrate their few remaining brain cells.
There’s massive fraud rampant in the state - crooked business, thieving quacks, a##hole bureaucrats robbing the public till, flase claims for workmen’s comp, SS disability aided by shyster lawyers - and we have a traitorous RINO state attorney general who refuses to do a damn thing about it. This state is the real culture of corruption.
This attorney general will not send poll watchers into Detroit to investigate and prosecute the massive voter fraud there. He’s comfortable and protected in his perfidy.
McCain will lose MI and lose big. Detroit will manufacture enough votes to give the state to the Marxist obama.
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