Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

All you latte-drinking Obama supporters keeping score at home should take note that the Panderer-in-Chief was fixing herself a cappuccino while on her fake gas station visit.

Barack Obama spoke out today in North Carolina.

Over the weekend and this morning Barack Obama’s former pastor Reverend Jeremiah Wright burst back onto the national scene - this time by his own choice and in full context. In doing so he has created the most significant challenge to Barack Obama’s quest for the presidency. Jeremiah Wright’s reemergence may be fatal to Barack Obama’s candidacy.

Barack Obama, in spite of the Wright controversy, will become the Democratic nominee for president. The challenge to Obama’s candidacy is not fatal for him in the primaries. Hillary Clinton has lost, in spite of the tortured logic of her campaign and her supporters. The damage Wright causes Obama is in the general election.

Speaking this morning at the National Press Club Jeremiah Wright went beyond his measured interview with Bill Moyers over the weekend. Reverend Wright who in the PBS interview made the case for reconciliation today became combative during the question and answer session. When asked why he was speaking out now, he said:

On November the 5th and on January 21st, I’ll still be a pastor. As I said, this is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright. It has nothing to do with Senator Obama. It is an attack on the black church launched by people who know nothing about the African-American religious tradition.

And why am I speaking out now? In our community, we have something called playing the dozens. If you think I’m going to let you talk about my mama and her religious tradition, and my daddy and his religious tradition, and my grandma, you’ve got another thing coming.

Then Reverend Wright explained away Barack Obama’s landmark Philadelphia speech as what politicians do:

What I mean is what several of my white friends and several of my white, Jewish friends have written me and said to me. They’ve said, "You’re a Christian. You understand forgiveness. We both know that, if Senator Obama did not say what he said, he would never get elected."

Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls, Huffington, whoever’s doing the polls. Preachers say what they say because they’re pastors. They have a different person to whom they’re accountable.

As I said, whether he gets elected or not, I’m still going to have to be answerable to God November 5th and January 21st. That’s what I mean. I do what pastors do. He does what politicians do.

I am not running for office. I am hoping to be vice president.

However, what Reverend Wright doesn’t seem to realize is that he was not speaking as a pastor this morning - he had entered the realm of politics. By bringing this controversy firmly into the political mainstream he has taken what was a distraction and made it a central issue in this campaign. He has put Barack Obama in a precarious position.

By his combative tone today, Reverend Wright has undercut Senator Obama’s message of change and racial reconciliation. Wright has transformed what was merely an issue of Obama’s pastor making incendiary remarks on YouTube into a black versus white issue. Reverend Wright took the bait of those making political hay and gave them more haymaking fodder. He has turned the issue into an attack on black churches rather than what was a political attack on Barack Obama.

To win in November, Barack Obama will have to distance himself from Reverend Wright’s tone. As Obama explained in Philadelphia, frustration exists across the racial divide. It is the way Obama chose to address that frustration that distinguished Obama from Wright and made him such an appealing candidate. Now Obama will be forced to push Wright further away just as Wright seems bent on tying himself to Obama.

The danger for Obama is that this time as he pushes Wright away he risks alienating the African American vote. Wright has portrayed the controversy as an attack on the black church. Obama’s task is to put distance between himself and Reverend Wright without risking his strong base of support in the African American community - a constituency without whose strong support at the polls no Democrat can win the general election. In Philadelphia last month, Obama had to reassure white voters that he was who he said he was. This time he has trouble on both sides. Trouble created, it seems quite intentionally, in the last few days by Jeremiah Wright.

How Barack Obama handles this moment will likely determine whether he becomes the next President of the United States. On the issues, Barack Obama has the better of the argument against John McCain. In November if he runs against McCain he wins. The Republicans’ only chance this November is to make the election about race. Jeremiah Wright has now given the Republicans a giant opening. Barack Obama needs to move this election past race and onto the issues. If he cannot he will lose in November.

This is a defining moment in this campaign. It is likely that this week, as Barack Obama responds to Jeremiah Wright, he will win or lose the presidency.

1:50AM With 98.91% of the precincts reporting the Pennsylvania secretary of state reports Clinton 54.3% to Obama 45.7%, or a margin of between 8 and 9 points. There is currently a vote difference of 193,377. Hillary Clinton, after all the sound and fury, will only net somewhere between 8 to 11 delegates coming out of Pennsylvania. Barack Obama just spent Hillary Clinton into debt and she barely got a handful of delegates.

10:38PM Philadelphia is coming in very strong for Obama, currently 65% to 35% (with over 125,000 vote margin) with 95% of the precincts reporting. The Philadelphia suburbs are yet to come in. Currently with 76% of the precincts reporting in Pennsylvania Clinton leads 54% to 46%. Her popular vote lead in Pennsylvania is currently about 140,000. That puts her on track for less than 200,000 vote margin out of Pennsylvania. It looks like, if these numbers hold (and they may narrow), Hillary Clinton has lost ground on Barack Obama with time running out. What was impossible is about to become even more so after Pennsylvania is done.

9:35PM With 20% of the precincts reporting, Clinton leads about 53% to 47%. Philadelphia is slow to come in, but enough has come in for the networks to call it for Clinton. Obama is winning Philadelphia with nearly 60%. He needed about 70% to turn the race in his favor. But 60% in Philadelphia may be enough to keep the margin of Clinton’s victory small.

8:51PM MSNBC calls it for Hillary Clinton. Now we wait for all the votes to come in to see what her margin of victory is.

8:37PM MSNBC has changed their designation from "too close to call" to "too early to call". With nearly none of the precincts reporting Clinton has a lead. The change in terminology suggests that MSNBC will eventually call it for Clinton. The real question is by how much will she win.

8:22PM There are some interesting exit polls for Obama. He is taking Philadelphia by 69%, Philadelphia suburbs by 62%, Pittsburgh by 38% and holding at 42% in the rest of the state. Those numbers are in Ed Rendell territory (Rendell beat Casey by 10 points by raking up numbers around Philadelphia). Obama is also doing significantly better amongst white men than he did in Ohio. I am still holding to my prediction of Clinton 52.8% to Obama 47.2%, but these exit polls are pleasantly surprising.

8:09PM The conversation on MSNBC is about how Clinton can exit the race gracefully. The atmospherics coming from the Clinton campaign suggest they are preparing the ground to spin a narrow victory. It’s either rope-a-dope or genuine nervousness. We shall see.

8:00PM As polls close MSNBC has it too close to call. This could be a long night.

7:26PM Polls close in about 30 minutes. Early exit polls abound. On the aggregate, unreliable, early exits Drudge has Clinton up 52% to 48%, while NRO has Obama up 52% to 47%. Both numbers probably mean practically nothing. The internal numbers from exit polls from CNN, MSNBC and others are much more interesting. Gun owners go to Clinton 58% to 42%, African Americans go to Obama 92% to 8%, first time voters go to Obama 60% to 38%, late deciders go to Clinton 58% to 42%, white males go to Clinton 55% to 45%.

Hillary Clinton’s topline number (that with gun owners) is 58% to 42%. Assuming all Pennsylvanians owned guns, Clinton would win by a 16% margin.  Given that some other demographics are going to Obama, and some substantially toward Obama, the exits suggest a single digit Clinton victory at best. The real wildcard is what percentage of the vote Obama wins in and around Philadelphia and what percentage of the total votes comes from that region. Reports suggest huge turnout in and around Philadelphia. We will find out how large in the next few hours.

Hillary Clinton’s closing argument in Pennsylvania:

Barack Obama’s closing argument in Pennsylvania:

and Bill Clinton tells you why you should vote for Barack Obama:

Pennsylvania goes to the polls tomorrow. The polls have steadied over the last week and, while he remains behind Clinton by about 6 points in the polls, there may be a slight Obama momentum going into tomorrow. My prediction is here (I am sticking to it until I am put to shame by the actual results!). But tomorrow evening we will be counting the results of the only poll that matters.

It is the last weekend before the Pennsylvania primary. Most of the polling has been completed and now all that remains is for the Democrats in Pennsylvania to make their preferences known. In the last month and a half, Barack Obama has shrunk what appeared to be a 20 point Hillary Clinton advantage to about 5 points, according to the latest poll of polls at Pollster.com. According to Pollster, Hillary Clinton leads Barack Obama 47.4% to 42.3% with 10.3% undecided. Because of the large number of undecideds among voters whose demographic favors Clinton, many are saying that this could result in a double digit Clinton win in Pennsylvania. If the results indeed show a double digit Clinton win it would conform to what has been long expected in Pennsylvania. However, my sense is that the results will be much closer.

My prediction for Tuesday is that Hillary Clinton will win 52.8% to 47.2%, approximately a 6 point victory over Barack Obama.

When reading polls this late, the conventional wisdom is that late deciders break for the candidate who is ahead - Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania. A look at the polls before the Ohio and Texas primaries seem to confirm this observation. In both cases, Hillary Clinton received a higher percentage of the vote than what the final polls indicated. It appeared that those shown as undecided in the polls went toward Clinton. However, a more likely explanation is that those undecided in a primary within a day of the primary are likely to just stay home. A closer look at the polling and the results support that conclusion and offer some clues as to what we might see in Pennsylvania.

Currently in Pennsylvania Hillary Clinton garners 47.4% to Barack Obama’s 42.3% and 10.3% show as uncommitted in the polls. The decideds amount to 89.7% of those polled. If only those who appear as decided vote on Tuesday one would expect Hillary Clinton to get 52.8% (47.4 divided by 89.7) and Obama to get 47.2%. I posit that this is the most likely outcome as the undecideds this late in the game are likely not motivated enough to get to the polls. Undecideds are not the same as late deciders that will show up in the exit polls. The late deciders are already likely factored into the polls this close to the primary. Just for comparison, if we were to give all of the "undecideds" to Clinton (as the conventional wisdom suggests) the outcome in Pennsylvania would be Clinton 57.7% and Obama 42.3%. That outcome is highly unlikely, but you can consider that to be Hillary Clinton’s top-line number.

Now, let us look at the numbers in Ohio and Texas. Hillary Clinton won Ohio 54% to 44%. The final polls in Ohio before the primary had Clinton winning 49.6% to 43.6% with 6.8% undecided. The decideds amounted to 93.2% of those polled. By our calculations Clinton would have won Ohio 53.2% to 46.8%. If the undecideds had moved into Clinton’s column, she would have won 56.4% to 43.6%. As it turns out the results are very close to our prediction that assumed the "undecideds" stayed home.

In Texas, Hillary Clinton won 51% to 47%. The final polls in Texas before the primary had Clinton winning 47.8% to 45.9% with 6.3% undecided. The decideds amounted to 93.7% of those polled. By our calculations Clinton would have won Texas 51% to 49%. If the undecideds had moved into Clinton’s column, she would have won 54.1% to 45.9%. Once again the results were very close to our prediction that assumed "undecideds" stayed home.

You will notice that in both Ohio and Texas Obama underperformed the predictions by about 2%. The 2% went to "other". A similar percentage in Pennsylvania may go to "other" giving Clinton a 52.8% to 45.2% win. That would give Clinton a 8% margin of victory.

How the final numbers ultimately turn out will depend a lot on the get-out-the-vote efforts of each campaign. But the numbers suggest a likely 6 point Clinton victory and maybe a margin as high as 8 points. With this kind of a margin, out of Pennsylvania’s 158 delegates Clinton is likely to get at best 84 delegates to Obama’s 74 delegates - a net gain of 10 delegates. In reality, because of Obama strongholds in delegate rich areas of the state Clinton’s net delegate gain is likely to be smaller. When all is said and done, Hillary Clinton will likely come out of Pennsylvania - her last best state - without winning anything close to enough delegates to cut into Barack Obama’s insurmountable delegate lead of 163. For all the sound and fury surrounding Pennsylvania, this "neck and neck" race has been lost since February. Hillary Clinton hopes to keep up the illusion of this "neck and neck" race by a double digit win in Pennsylvania. However, if the polls hold and the voters do their part the illusion will have died in Pennsylvania.

The Hillary Clinton campaign is very worried about what the right-wing noise machine will do to Barack Obama should he become the Democratic nominee. So, in a friendly show of Democratic solidarity, the Clinton campaign has been digging up and throwing all the right-wing talking points it can find at Barack Obama. The Clinton campaign says that they are doing this now so Obama will be ready for the Republicans in November. The Clinton campaign is so committed to helping out the likely Democratic nominee that they have even prepared a three-page essay containing right-wing attacks on Barack Obama. I thank the Clinton campaign for such foresight and for their due diligence. I have no doubt they are committed to getting Barack Obama elected in November.

Sadly, there is very little chance that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee. Short of a nomination stolen by the super delegates, Hillary Clinton has no chance. However, in the event that the super delegates hand the nomination to Hillary Clinton, it is imperative that those of us who want a Democratic victory in November do what we can to dig up all the right-wing talking points against Hillary Clinton now so that she will be prepared when the general election comes. All Democrats, including MoveOn.org (a group that Hillary Clinton remains grateful to for bailing out her husband), should help vet the former First Lady in the event of a stolen nomination.

We all know what the usual attacks will be on Mrs. Clinton. There is no need to repeat them here. What we must do is vet her against attacks such as this one that the McCain camp is making against Senator Obama.

I take no joy in typing up right-wing talking points. But I consider it my duty as a voter to help Mrs. Clinton should she be the nominee.

One issue that Mrs. Clinton feels is relevant is who a politician associates with. She made it abundantly clear at the debate this week that no matter how tenuous the association, a candidate must be held accountable for the words or actions of these associates. I fear that this position that Mrs. Clinton has taken may come back to hurt her in November. The Republicans will surely bring up Abdurahman Alamoudi in connection with any Clinton general election campaign. Hillary Clinton should be prepared to defend this association.

Abdurahman Alamoudi was the founder of the American Muslim Council. He was charged with laundering money from Libya and of providing money to al Qaeda, Hamas and other terrorist organizations. He was convicted in 2004 and sentenced to 23 years in prison. It turns out Mr. Alamoudi was also involved in an assassination plot. Unfortunately it turns out that Mr. Alamoudi and his organization, the American Muslim Council, had raised money for both George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton.

The American Muslim Council and an associated group held a fundraiser in 2000 where they raised $50,000 for Hillary Clinton. Mr. Alamoudi also separately contributed $1000 to Mrs. Clinton’s Senate campaign. When the news of this fundraiser and contribution surfaced Hillary Clinton was forced to return the money:

Hillary Rodham Clinton said yesterday that she would return $50,000 in political contributions received at a fund-raising event sponsored by a Muslim organization based in California.

Mrs. Clinton said she was offended by remarks attributed to members of the organization, the American Muslim Alliance. The group’s president has been quoted as defending a United Nations resolution that he said allowed for the use of armed force by Palestinians against Israel, while other members have been accused of making anti-Semitic remarks.

Mrs. Clinton’s decision to return the money, as well as $1,000 from an official of another American Muslim group, the American Muslim Council, puzzled leaders of both Muslim organizations. The groups acknowledge that they have some members with extreme views on Israel, but say that they are mainstream and oppose terrorism. Officials in the groups yesterday took issue with the characterizations of the remarks.

Hillary Clinton tried to distance herself from the fundraiser but it turned out that she had accepted a plaque from them:

At a news conference in Queens, Mrs. Clinton announced that she would return the money. ‘’The statements that are attributed to the organization and some of its members are offensive and outrageous,'’ she said. ‘’I don’t want anyone to be under a misimpression. I don’t want anyone to have a false idea about what I believed was the case, so I am going to return all of the money.'’

Mrs. Clinton also said she would return $1,000 to Mr. Alamoudi of the American Muslim Council. She said she did not know that the fund-raising event, which was held in Boston in June, had been sponsored by the American Muslim Alliance even though she was photographed at the event accepting a plaque from the chairman of the group’s Massachusetts chapter.

Unfortunately there was also a letter with Mrs. Clinton’s signature thanking the group for the fundraiser:

At the same time, Mrs. Clinton acknowledged that a White House office had written what she called a form letter, on official stationery, to the American Muslim Alliance, thanking the organization for a plaque it awarded her at a fund-raising reception in Massachusetts, where she raised $50,000 last June. After the donations were disclosed last week, Mrs. Clinton returned the money, saying that she had not been aware that the alliance, some of whose members have been quoted as defending the use of violence against Israel, had been an event sponsor.

Mr. Lazio’s aides asserted that the letter was proof that Mrs. Clinton had misled New Yorkers about her knowledge of the event.

But Mrs. Clinton, whose aides had learned that some reporters had obtained the letter, called a news conference and forcefully denied the Lazio campaign accusation. She said the letter was an automatic response by the White House gift office after she had returned to Washington from the trip to Massachusetts. She said the signature was electronically generated and she had never seen the letter before yesterday.

Mr. Lazio’s spokesman, Dan McLagan, laughed off that explanation. ‘’She said she didn’t remember the group, or the plaque,'’ Mr. McLagan said. ‘’But she thanked the group for the plaque. Surprise, surprise, Mrs. Clinton wasn’t telling the truth again. I’m shocked.'’

Mrs. Clinton had, in fact, acknowledged receiving the plaque, as one of hundreds she had been given.

One can understand that with so much money coming in, it is hard to keep track of who you are thanking for fundraisers. However, I suspect the Republicans in November will not be so kind.

To make matters worse, Mr. Alamoudi has been quoted in public supporting Hamas and Hezbollah:

At another Washington rally, on Oct. 28, 2000, the AMC’s Mr. Alamoudi led the thousands in attendance to chant their support for Hamas and Hezbollah. "Hear that, Bill Clinton, we are all supporters of Hamas," he declared. "I wish they argued that I am also a supporter of Hezbollah." (When the New York Daily News asked about these comments earlier this week, Mr. Alamoudi denied making them, telling the reporter: "You better check your Arabic." When the reporter noted that he had given the speech in English, Mr. Alamoudi replied, "It was in English? Oh my God, I forgot!")

Back while Hillary Clinton was in the White House, she and Bill Clinton had no problems inviting groups such as Mr. Alamoudi’s to the White House. The White House maintained that these meetings were part of their "big tent" approach:

In the spring of 1996, I had lunch with a senior adviser to the Clinton Administration and to Hillary. I asked him if there was any concern over the article I had published in The Wall Street Journal that revealed that both the president and first lady had hosted militant Islamic groups, which had, at the White House, proclaimed their support for terrorism.

"This administration believes in a big tent." the adviser responded. "Besides, we’ve gotten no flak, so why should we back off?"

Hillary Clinton herself defended these associations and meetings:

The most telling moment of the first lady’s news conference–which has yet to be reported–came in response to a question as to why, she has met repeatedly over the years with other groups that had openly supported Hamas, Hezbollah and other foreign terrorist organizations.

"I think what you’re referring to," she said, "is that over the course of the last seven years as part of the administration’s efforts to open lines of communication and build bridges with Muslim Americans and Muslim leaders from all over the world, many, many people have been invited to the White House. I have been part of some of those events. I have hosted some of them. I would imagine that some of the people who were invited were members of organizations with whom I would have had serious disagreements about some of the things those organizations have said. . . . So I think that if you want to talk about what the White House has tried to do, what the administration has tried to do to try to promote a framework for peace, it certainly included lines of communication to many different groups and many different individuals."

Yet in the debate this week Hillary Clinton had this to say about politicians and their associations:

It is clear that, as leaders, we have a choice who we associate with and who we apparently give some kind of seal of approval to. And I think that it wasn’t only the specific remarks but some of the relationships with Reverend Farrakhan, with giving the church bulletin over to the leader of Hamas, to put a message in.

You know, these are problems. And they raise questions in people’s minds. And, so, this is a legitimate area, as everything is, when we run for office, for people to be exploring and trying to find answers.

…

And it goes to this larger set of concerns about how we are going to run against John McCain. You know, I wish the Republicans would apologize for the disaster of the Bush-Cheney years and not run anybody, just say that it’s time for the Democrats to go back into the White House.

Unfortunately, they don’t seem to be willing to do that. So we know that they’re going to be out there, full force.

And, you know, I’ve been in this arena for a long time. I have a lot of baggage, and everybody has rummaged through it for years.

By her own standard, the Republicans are likely to come after her for her association with Mr. Alamoudi and all those people she hosted at the White House and gave them a "seal of approval". Yes, it is unfortunate. But Hillary Clinton should be prepared for the right-wing attacks. And in keeping with her campaign’s approach of early vetting, I will do what I can to make sure she is prepared for these horrible horrible attacks on her character and her associations that are certain to come.
 

There was something very odd about last night’s Democratic presidential debate on ABC. Certainly the bulk of the debate was directed at challenging Barack Obama on issues that Hillary Clinton has tried to make hay off in the last month and a half. Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos were not shy about going after Obama with every right-wing talking point available, including a question given to Stephanopoulos by right wing talking head Sean Hannity. But, even with all the attacks thrown at Obama on the excuse that Republicans would attack him with these so the moderators should, there was something very odd about the debate. Last night I could not put my finger on it.

Then tonight I read this post by Will Bunch at the Philadelphia Daily News and this one by Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo. The posts are about Nash McCabe, the woman who asked Obama the flag pin question via videotape. She asked:

Senator Obama, I have a question, and I want to know if you believe in the American flag. I am not questioning your patriotism, but all our servicemen, policemen and EMS wear the flag. I want to know why you don’t.

It was a question that of course was challenging Obama’s patriotism. It is an "issue" that the right wing has been trying to manufacture for months now. It was odd that ABC would inject it into the mainstream on a prime-time Democratic primary debate. It was odder still that ABC would use a citizen to broach the topic, rather than have the moderators do it. It was meant to be a question that ordinary voters care about. One imagines that ABC went to Pennsylvania and asked voters what questions they would like to ask the candidates, and from among the many they gathered, they picked a few that were representative of what was on voters’ minds. Not so.

It turns out ABC found Nash McCabe not from the neighborhoods of Pennsylvania, but from the pages of the New York Times. McCabe was featured in this article earlier in April that appeared on the New York Times. Her issue was the flag pin and why she didn’t like Barack Obama:

Ask whom she might vote for in the coming presidential primary election and Nash McCabe, 52, seems almost relieved to be able to unpack the dossier she has been collecting in her head.

It is not about whom she likes, but more a bill of particulars about why she cannot vote for Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.

“How can I vote for a president who won’t wear a flag pin?” Mrs. McCabe, a recently unemployed clerk typist, said in a booth at the Valley Dairy luncheonette in this quiet, small city in western Pennsylvania.

Mr. Obama has said patriotism is about ideas, not flag pins.

“I watch him on TV,” Mrs. McCabe said. “I keep looking for that lapel pin.”

Now, it is bad enough that ABC would seek out a person specifically for a pre-determined question that was being pushed by fringe elements of the American right wing. It has the feel of a hit job. It gets worse when you realize that the title of the New York Times piece was "In Ex-Steel City, Voters Deny Race Plays a Role" and the article dealt with the the role of racism and the varying reasons voters give to mask their reasons for voting against an African-American candidate. The article continues:

Americans have a long tradition of voting against candidates rather than for them. But in the first presidential campaign with an African-American as a serious contender, there may be a new gyration in the way voters think, the need to explain the vote against the candidate who is black.

“I don’t say this because he’s black, but the guy just seems arrogant to me, the way he expects things to go his way,” said Harry Brobst, a truck driver who had never registered to vote until this year.

Mr. Brobst said he would vote in the primary “not so much for,” but against.

…

But when dismissing Mr. Obama, voters in this former steel center, whatever their racial feelings, seem almost compelled to list their reasons, if only to pre-empt the unspoken race question.

Because he voted “present” too often as an Illinois state senator. Because he speaks very well, but has not talked about reviving the coal industry. Because he would not command the respect of the military. Because there is something unsettling about his perfect calm, they say.

…

He said he did not “know what to make of Obama.” Mr. Musick said he had liked the senator but then decided that he did not “for a bunch of reasons.”

“It’s not about race,” he added. “It’s about a feeling I have.”

Regardless of what McCabe’s actual motivation may be, ABC News surely knew that the New York Times article was about race. In the context of the article, the flag pin question was a proxy for racism. That ABC chose to seek this woman out for this very question puts ABC News’ journalistic credibility in serious jeopardy. We may have watched a new low in American journalism last night. Exactly how low ABC went last night is only now becoming clear.

The Panderer-in-Chief Hillary Clinton tells us how she really feels about blue-collar America:

"’Screw ‘em,’ she said, ‘you don’t owe them a thing, Bill, they’re doing nothing for you.’ Bill rose to their defense, ‘as if rehearsing an old but honorable debate he had been having with his wife for decades,’" as one attendee recalled.

"’I know these boys,’ Bill said. ‘I grew up with them. Hardworking poor white boys who feel left out.’ He pointed out that liberal reforms had often ‘come at their expense’ and that the Democrats had to ‘find a way to include these boys in our programs.’ Hillary had no rejoinder, but during cocktails after the seminar she stood apart, ‘opaque and unsmiling.’"

Alan Wolfe, professor of political science at Boston College, who was at the gathering where Hillary spewed forth offers this recollection:

Both Chris Orr and Michael Crowley have brought up Ben Barber’s recollection of how angry Hillary had been at a 1995 Camp David retreat that was attended by a number of intellectuals. “Screw ‘em” was the term of art she directed–shall I say bitterly?–against white working-class Southerners. Harry Boyte, who was there, has also chimed in, pointing out, along with Barber, that Bill, by contrast, talked about the need to reach out to them.

"So, you’ve got two guys we’ve barely heard of remembering a verbatim quote from 13 years ago?… Sounds totally and completely reliable," responded Jay Carson from the Clinton campaign. Make that three. I was there. I hope people have heard of me. And Barber and Boyte have it right.

A lot of people compare Barack Obama to Bobby Kennedy. To me, he most resembles Bill Clinton, at least the Bill Clinton I knew then.

In light of her comments, I hope no one starts calling the Pander-in-Chief bitter.

Hillary Clinton cares so much about Pennsylvanians that she doesn’t even bother to put real Pennsylvanians in her "Pennsylvania" man-on-the-street attack ad, while real Pennsylvanians boo her:

It is no surprise that Americans simply don’t trust Hillary Clinton.

It is becoming increasingly difficult for me to write seriously about a campaign that has gone to the edge of ludicrous and then jumped over, so instead of writing words that will essentially have the same effect I offer you the following video that sums up the Clinton campaign: