Clinton's Racial Fear-Based Strategy

The Clinton campaign has clearly shifted its campaign to play on racial fears in a way so blatant and damaging that it could have lasting negative effects for the Democratic Party. This type of racial fear-based campaign has not typically been seen from Democratic campaigns in decades, and will only further divide the populations that real Democrats have worked so diligently to unite in recent years. It appears that Hillary is so hell bent on being the nominee that would destroy the party in the process and eliminate even her own chances of winning the general election. I am sadly dissapointed in her campaign's tactics and can no longer honestly say that such deceitful practices are mainly Republican campaign strategies. Her campaign's (and the main stream media's) obsession with Obama's former pastor has had no other real effect other than playing on the less-educated white people:

"Regardless, Clinton appeared to be gaining strength among voters, especially the white working-class which has reacted negatively to Obama's association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright — the Illinois senator's former pastor who called from the pulpit for God to damn America for it's treatment of African Americans.

Reflecting that shift, a poll released Thursday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press showed Clinton's lead over Obama nationally among whites who did not attend college had increased from 10 points in March to 40 points at the end of April."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080502/ap_on_el_pr/campaign_rdp

Obama Winning Pledged Delegates, Clinton Winning in the Media

Here's a good article summing up how Obama is actually winning the pledged delegate count:
http://www.slate.com/id/2182565/

Many media outlets are reporting either the number of states won in which they often mention Florida and Michigan where 0 delegates will be awarded due to their disobeying of the DNC by moving their primaries before 2/5/08 and they give Clinton the victory in New Hampshire and Nevada. New Hampshire was a tie for pledged delegates and Obama actually won more delegates in Nevada, 13 to 12. Or the media uses the super delegate count which is actually generated from endorsements from other elected or previously elected officials and not chosen by voters at all! This includes the endorsement of former President Bill Clinton! See more info here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18277678/

Roughly 40% of the delegates required to win the nomination are based on political endorsements and not actually decided on by voters. Not very democratic at all.

The Cost of the War in Iraq

$1,300,000,000,000.00 dollars by the end of next year (http://www.usnews.com/blogs/capital-commerce/2007/11/14/is-the-iraq-war-costlier-than-doing-nothing.html)

1,220,580 estimated Iraqi deaths since the invasion in 2003 (http://www.opinion.co.uk/Newsroom_details.aspx?NewsId=78) Another more conservative estimate is 655,000 (http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/10/11/iraq.deaths/)

2,000,000 displaced Iraqi people (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/1DD49F17-737A-40E6-B1C9-42128BE2E963.htm)

3,864 American soldiers dead and at least 28,451 wounded (http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2007/11/16/american_deaths/)

“…one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror,” G.W. Bush, 9/6/2006 (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/06/five_years/main1980074.shtml)

The Campaigner in Chief

The Campaigner in Chief, I mean the Commander in Thief, I mean Bush recently said," ... The Democrat approach to Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses." Hopefully American voters are not susceptible to this level of blatant attempts of voter manipulation. Doesn't he have a job he's supposed to be doing?
I find an interesting paradox in his statement. I believe that the victory for the terrorists he is referring to actually comes with every wave of fear forced upon American people by the Republican led administration. Or the almost three thousand lost lives of American soldiers sent to a poorly planned war based on false intelligence gathered to support a pre-September 11th plan to invade Iraq. Or perhaps the terrorists might view the over half a million Iraqis dead and the hundreds of thousands displaced as a bigger sign of victory than Americans electing Democrats to office. But I suppose Bush should know what the terrorists view as a victory ... it takes one to know one.

Terrorism is the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives. - US Federal Bureau of Investigation

The Terrorists

We’ve let radical right White House extremists
steer our nation into the abyss
until we became the terrorists,
until we became the terrorists.

Guided by power and world domination,
they’ll stop at no unjust abomination
to remain the world’s most powerful nation
and deliver to us hatred and alienation.

Our hunger for power and greed are the beasts
that fuel our existence within the Middle East
while corporate giants continue to feast
at the expense of the innocent they care about least.

Where does it end, our addiction to oil
that keeps landing our soldiers upon foreign soil?
With freedom and terror wrapped together in fists
we have become the terrorists,
we have become the terrorists.

The Radical Right Is Never Wrong

According to Bill O'Reilly, the reason for the recent actions of North Korea and Iran is soley to influence the outcome of the upcoming elections and get Americans to vote against Republican candidates. But then he says, "America's enemies are emboldened by the stalemate in Iraq and feel they can do anything they want to do." So what I don't understand is that if America's enemies are so emboldened by the actions of the blundering Bush administration then why would they want American's to vote out the those responsible? Once again O'Reilly's lack of logical thought is replaced by his simple-minded sound bites of America good, enemies bad.

O'Reilly Article

Bush Declares War On Hatred

Published: June 17th, 2006

UNASSOCIATED PRESS, June 17th - Due to President Bush’s difficulty claiming true victory in the never-ending Global War on Terror, or the Struggle to Protect American Freedom from the Terrorist Adversary, or The Battle Against Islamic Insurgency, or whatever happens to be the name of the week, he has declared a Global War on Hatred. “If we could just get them folks to stop hatin’ so much, then we’d all be better off, the American people would be better off, and the loved ones of those who lost their lives in the tragic events of September 11, 2001 would be better off,” said Bush at a White House press conference on June 16th, 2006. Bush cited “new scientific research that shows indespicable proof that terror is linked to hatred, much more indespicable than the proof that linked Iraq and al-Qaeda, this is real scary stuff folks…I’ve seen the numbers and numbers don’t lie." He added that the administration has absolutely no plans or oversight beyond this declaration of war, other than “the immediate obliteration of any persons or group of persons displaying any type of hatred-type thoughts or actions.” Bush has announced the creation of a special division of Homeland Security, in cooperation with the CIA, FBI and ATF, to assess hatred levels in all human beings across the planet, beginning with the United States and the Middle East (excluding Israel). The Hatred Elimination Leaders for Protection (HELP) was created and funded with approval of the Senate at 2:45am, early Friday morning. After the President’s press conference, Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld expressed concern that there may, in fact, be a number of bearers of hatred right here in our own system of government. Although he did not expand much on this statement, he did add, “these haters often have very opposing views to the current administration, do not support the American troops, are unpatriotic, and have difficulty understanding the fundamental principle that freedom isn’t free.” He also requested anyone with information on such a person to contact HELP immediately. Strangely, there were no Senate or House Democrats available for comment. Chief White House Citizen Manipulator, Carl Rove, added,” The War on Hatred will also have benefits other than curbing terrorism, like a positive turn in Bush’s approval ratings, for instance.”