Lynn Sweet Sour on Team Obama

...at least at the moment.
Here's what she had to say about the Senator's recent "stealth fundraising":

"Barack Obama's image managers don't want you to know about most of the donor events he is headlining -- including one tonight in Manhattan for Democratic elites where the top hosts have raised $100,000 each for Obama's White House bid.

Obama makes his second visit this week to New York -- Hillary Rodham Clinton territory -- as his campaign insists you don't deserve to be able to know where he is going to raise millions of dollars unless he or his operatives feel in the mood.

In the span of about five hours Monday night, Obama appeared at small events in Manhattan, and then he breakfasted with donors Tuesday morning.

Last Sunday, the Obama campaign wanted all of the stories to be about his visit to Selma, Ala., to mark the anniversary of a historic voting rights battle -- so there was no advance official disclosure that he was flying to Boston from Alabama to scoop up campaign cash.

The Obama team pushed back one Boston event so Obama could stay longer in Selma. He used the time to create a photo op with himself and former President Bill Clinton without archrival Hillary in the frame. I watched Obama skipping out of Bill Clinton's induction into the Voting Rights Hall of Fame -- after allowing a decent amount of time for pictures.

Obama's counselors did not want you to know that on Feb. 22, he hit St. Louis for a fund-raising event. They did not want you to know about the existence of fund-raisers in Ohio."

(more)

Farrakhan on Obama

From ABC News

"I like him very much. I like him, he has a fresh approach," the Nation of Islam's leader said. "And I'm fearful, because there's a structure in our government that no matter who sits in the seat of power, there are forces that one has to contend with if one is able to attract the masses of their votes. Barack Obama is doing quite well."

Farrakhan said that if Obama was avoiding controversial black leaders like himself, Rev. Al Sharpton, and Rev. Jesse Jackson for fear of alienating white voters it would be an acceptable price to pay for an Obama victory.

"If avoiding me would help him to become president, I'd be glad to stay in the background, because of the taint that's on the minister," he said. (more)

Obama's Pastor Snub: Sign of a Bigger Problem?

"Obama slights his own pastor, another error in wooing blacks" (Chicago Sun Times)

Mary Mitchell writes:

"Obama took some bad advice from campaign staff who underestimated the impact such a slight could have on a candidate who has to woo the black vote. Now, the shuttered prayer has come back to haunt him.

Although sources close to the campaign assured me that the relationship between Obama and Wright is "closer than ever," in an interview with the Times, Wright "expressed disappointment but no surprise" that Obama "might try to play down their connections."

And Mitchell brings up an issue Barack Oblogga touched on last month -

"...this entire incident provides some insight into a missing ingredient in Obama's campaign stew.

"First of all, I don't know who you would call in Barack Obama's campaign," Conrad Worrill told me.

Worrill is the national chairman of the National Black United Front, and a longtime grass-roots political organizer across the country. If he doesn't know who to call, that's a problem.

"It is clear that black people want to support his candidacy," Worrill said. "What is missing is an African-American at a high level to assist in structuring black participation in his campaign in black communities across the country."

Obama's campaign claims this is not a matter of "neglect," but that Obama's had a slow start in putting together his staff. Two weeks ago, he brought Ertharin Cousin on board as a senior adviser for African-American and women's outreach."

Evangelicals Probe "Inside Barack Obama's Church"

First - the originator of the phrase "Audacity of Hope" (Rev. Jerimiah Wright) gets barred from speaking at Barack's coming out party....then he has to deal with CBN News bum-rushing the pulpit.

David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network writes:
"I’ve been to Barack Obama’s church. Before I give you my impressions, I want to alert you to the fact that there is a growing chorus of critics who believe Obama’s Church is bad news. Some are calling it too liberal and that it promotes a black separatist agenda." more

The South Carolina Split

From foxcarolina.com

COLUMBIA, S.C. Illinois Senator Barack Obama will be speaking to the South Carolina Legislative Black Caucus at a special event next month.

Obama's selection comes after a disagreement with supporters of New York Senator Hilliary Clinton.The Caucus' invitations committee had already invited Obama and he had accepted when Clinton supporters questioned the selection.

Charleston Senator Robert Ford and Hopkins Senator Darrell Jackson had questioned the invitation, but conceded yesterday.Orangeburg Representative Gilda Cobb-Hunter says it's important to have Obama speak as an example to young African-Americans.She says Obama's candidacy is historic. Others point to campaigns by Greenville native Jesse Jackson, the Reverend Al Sharpton, Shirley Chisolm and Carol Moseley Braun.

Forget New Hampshire, and Iowa....it's gonna be all about South Carolina in 2008. Dems need to get a reality check from John McCain on just how crazy Sowf Carolacky can be.

• "Clinton can't bounce Barack" (NY Post)
  

Obama Answers Questions About Finances

From the NTY

Less than two months after ascending to the United States Senate, Barack Obama bought more than $50,000 worth of stock in two speculative companies whose major investors included some of his biggest political donors.

One of the companies was a biotech concern that was starting to develop a drug to treat avian flu. In March 2005, two weeks after buying about $5,000 of its shares, Mr. Obama took the lead in a legislative push for more federal spending to battle the disease.

The Senator responded that:
"...he retained a broker upon the recommendation of a wealthy friend and top contributor, George W. Haywood. The senator said he did not specifically instruct the broker to follow the investment patterns of Mr. Haywood, who along with his wife, Cheryl, has contributed nearly $50,000 to his campaigns and political action committee.

“What I wanted to make sure was that I didn’t want to invest in companies that would potentially bring conflicts with my work here or not abide by some public statements I’ve said in terms of how things work,” Mr. Obama said. “Obviously, the thing didn’t work the way that I wanted it to, which is why we ended up discontinuing it.”

But, he added: “It wouldn’t be surprising to me that he was recommending stocks similar to me that he would be recommending to others.”

Barack Hearts Beyonce

From America's Next First Lady
















more

The Audacity of Dissing Your Preacher

From the NYT

The Bill Factor

The overflow crowd outside Brown's Chapel where Barack Obama was speaking was clearly larger than the one outside First Baptist where Hillary Clinton was in the pulpit. But neither one of them caused the kind of excitement among the crowds that former President Bill Clinton elicited whenever his shock of white hair appeared.

From the Montgomery Advertiser:

An estimated 8,000-11,000 people walked across Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge Sunday afternoon, the most to take part in the bridge crossing celebration since almost 20,000 people came in 2000 to see then President Bill Clinton.

Although presidential hopefuls Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton joined a list of civil rights notables in the annual commemoration of “Bloody Sunday“ as well as the successful march from Selma to Montgomery, it was Bill Clinton who was once again the star.

“He’s a rock star. There is just no other word for it,” said Kaye Ivy, 31, of Tuscaloosa. Her 12-year-old Lantz Lipham shook hands with Hillary Clinton and Obama, but started shouting “I got his picture,” when he got a picture of Bill Clinton with his cell phone. The crowd applauded.

Camera flashes were like a strobe light as the former president stepped out of his security vehicle to join in the march. Following the march he was inducted into the National Voting Rights Museum Hall of Fame.

“We want Bill to be the president again!“ said Robin Rembert of Selma. Getting out her cell phone, she began frantically calling a friend. “This is who I’ve been waiting to see all day,“ Rembert said. “I love Bill Clinton.“

But can Bill transfer his popularity to Hill in quantities large enough to beat Obama?
CNN's Queen Crowley asks that very question.

The Selma Secret

The NYT also provided this handy little map to show just how close the churches were.










What VERY few of the news outlets bothered to mention is what lies between the two churches...the George Washington Carver housing projects. A symbol of just how far many black people HAVEN'T come since that march across the Pettus Bridge in 1965.

While Sen. Obama's oratory was more inspiring than Sen. Clinton's - she had one trick up her sleeve besides Big Willie. Hillary took at least a half hour out of all the marching and speechifying to hold a very it-takes-a-villagey meeting with some of the people who run the child care center at those projects. It was the kind of small, face-to-face meeting that could very well help her hold on to some of the votes apparently being siphoned by Obama.

Given Sen. BO's admirable history of working to empower people trapped in public housing - it was surprising that his team did not make sure he spent some quality (highly publicized) time in Carver Homes - and that they did not have him mention the plight of those people...and millions more like them... in at least one of his THREE speeches of the day.

Playing Nice in Selma...But Still Need Buffers

From the NYT
"The visit to Selma, a historically rich, economically struggling city, became a proxy battle for black support between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama, whose candidacy represents a threat to Mrs. Clinton’s traditional base. That competitive dynamic intensified on Sunday with the debut of Mr. Clinton on the campaign trail, six weeks into his wife’s bid, and among a bloc of voters who are at once devoted to the former president and torn between his wife and Mr. Obama.It was the first side-by-side appearance of Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton in the 2008 presidential campaign, and the political theater of the two campaigns overlapped repeatedly, but with a polite tone that contrasted with their political skirmishing of recent weeks."

Pouring It On As Thick As Molases

Obama v. Clinton - The Sermon-Off

Hil's Hometown Paper Calls It: Barack Wins Selma Showdown

The New York Daily News says the junior senator from Illinois bested the junior senator from New York as both gave pulpit speeches on civil rights sacred ground.

Both campaigns spent a carefully choreographed Sunday in Selma, Alabama site of "Bloody Sunday" - the 1965 beatdown Black protesters got while demanded their right to vote.

From the Post:

"Hillary Clinton was very good, Barack Obama was a little better.

In the battle for Selma — and the black vote across the U.S. — yesterday's round went to the senator from Illinois.

Both were greeted enthusiastically at historic black churches, where they pumped up the congregations with fiery speeches. Both were cheered as they marched to the Edmund Pettus Bridge, walking in the steps of civil rights pioneers beaten bloody 42 years ago.

But on a day when two presidential heavyweight contenders came to town, it was Obama's intensely personal and provocative remarks at Brown Chapel AME Church - and the rock-star treatment he received along the route of the march - that gave him an edge."