openentrance – What's Really Going OnWhat's Really Going On

Not sure how this happens, but both Clinton and Obama say they won last night. I think the only true winner last night was CNN as I stayed up way too late trying to see what would happen. As far as results, Obama won 13 States compared to Clinton’s 9 States, but the important thing that matters is delegate votes, which Hilary is leading 825 to 732. So this was essentially a tie depending on who you ask since over 2,100 delegates are needed to gain the parties nomination. You can go to any number of sites to see results, but here are a couple of stats that I found interesting:

• In Georgia, 88% of Black voters selected Obama. This is much higher than expected.

• 70% of Hispanics in California voted for Obama. This is significant because Hispanics make up 30% of the population of Califronia. Here is an interesting post that I read questioning whether Blacks have been betrayed by Hispanics.

• Utah, Idaho, and Kansas were three of the states that Obama won on Tuesday. I would have lost that bet.

• Almost 90% of Blacks in Illinois voted for Obama. Not so surprising since it is his home state.

• Obama and Clinton spent over $21 million on TV Advertising in the past two weeks

• Clinton has challenged Obama to a weekly debate because she does not have enough money to keep buying ads

This will be a tight race throughout with some pundits predicting both may head to the democratic convention without enough votes to secure the nomination. Obama is expected to fair well in the primaries over the next week which include Louisiana, Washington DC, and Maryland.

This is my first time paying attention this closely to Super Tuesday and my biggest take away for next time is just go to bed and read about it in the morning. That three hours California is behind us is no joke.

Oprah gained my respect with this speech at her most visit to the campaign trail for Barack Obama. A couple of months back Oprah received a lot of push back from her viewers who felt that she was betraying women and the people who supported her show by not endorsing Hilary Clinton. Many felt that as a women who has gain much of her popularity from a predominately base of women, more particularly white women, that she should automatically endorse Clinton.

This video answers all of those questions and what she thinks about what people have to say about her choice to endorse Obama. You can’t help but respect this type of response. I think she even became a long shot at getting her hood pass back when she hit them with “Don’t play me small.” If the N-word had not been outlawed, I think it would have made a nice punctuation at the end of that sentence.

Spotted at Sandra Rose

Not that the polls have been the most accurate measuring sticks this primary season, it is still worth noting that in the latest Rueters/C-Span poll, Barack Obama has taken a 2 Point lead over Hilary Clinton in California. This is significant because just a few weeks ago, Clinton was ahead by double digits.

In California, Obama gained two points on Clinton overnight to lead 46 percent to 40 percent, with a margin of error of 3.2 percentage points. Obama wiped out a 1-point Clinton advantage in Missouri to take a 47 percent to 42 percent lead, with a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.

“The momentum is with Obama,” said pollster John Zogby. “If this trend continues it could be a very big night for him.”

New Hampshire taught us not to get too excited by what these polls predict, but Tuesday is going to be a huge day. I am sure Bill Clinton couldn’t sleep last night as he prepared some ridiculous comments for today that he will apologize for tomorrow and say he was misunderstood. If you are in one of the 22 states involved in Super Tuesday, make sure you get out and have your vote count. Probably for the first time ever, every vote will count.

The Govenator can’t be happy about this! In a move similar to her other family members, Maria Shriver has endorsed Barack Obama in his presidential run. Maria Shriver is the wife of California Republican Govenor Arnold Schwarzenegger, but is also the niece of John F. Kennedy.

This is in line with the endorsements of Obama last week from her uncle Senator Ted Kennedy and her cousin Caroline Kennedy. Caroline Kennedy wrote a glowing endorsement for Obama in the New York Times last weekend, saying about Obama, “I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.”

This Tuesday will be a huge day in deciding how real the possibility is of Barack Obama becoming President, but with these type of endorsements the likelihood continues to improve.

Source

It is now Charles Rangel’sturn to support the Clinton’s and take a shot at Obama as he calls Obama’s remarks “absolutely stupid” when referring to Barack’s comments about Hilary saying that President Lyndon Johnson was more instrumental in Civil Rights than Martin Luther King Jr. Rangel says:

“But there is nothing that Hillary Clinton has said that baffles me. I would challenge anybody to belittle the contribution that Dr. King has made to the world, to our country, to civil rights, and the Voting Rights Act,” said Rangel. “But for him to suggest that Dr. King could have signed that act is absolutely stupid. It’s absolutely dumb to infer that Doctor King, alone, passed the legislation and signed it into law.”

Rangel also implied that Obama’s admission of prior drug use in his autobiography may have had a financial motive: “I assume that the book was not written for political purposes. It was honest….It was a big mistake for him to have done it [used drugs.] For him to be honest enough to write about it, I guess he thought it might sell books.”

What I find most amazing about his comments is that if you heard them live, it did sound as if Hilary implied that Lyndon Johnson was the reason for the Civil Rights Act. There would have not been a bill to sign had the years of pain and suffering led by MLK had not been endured. Signing the bill is the easy part. So a comparison of the two is ridiculous. So I understand supporting your candidate, but none of us should throw rational thinking out the window and change words to make them different than what was said.

Not sure what the goal of Rangel, like Robert Johnson, bringing up Obama’s admitted drug use is. He is not denying it and anyone that believes that they are electing a person to president with no pass history is fooling themselves. No matter what they say or their ads portray, they all have a history. Most of which includes drug use although they do not admit. And if Obama did it to sell books, then one hell of a job because he sold a lot of them!

Who’s next to slam Obama?

Source

It is a fairly simple script that everyone seems to be following: Say some ridiculously offensive comment and then say you were either misquoted or totally deny the whole thing. Add BET Founder Robert Johnson to the list.

Whole campaigning with Hilary Clinton over the weekend in South Carolina, Bob had this to say about Obama:

 He then added: “And to me, as an African-American, I am frankly insulted that the Obama campaign would imply that we are so stupid that we would think Hillary and Bill Clinton, who have been deeply and emotionally involved in black issues since Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood – and I won’t say what he was doing, but he said it in the book – when they have been involved.”

Moments later, he added: “That kind of campaign behavior does not resonate with me, for a guy who says, ‘I want to be a reasonable, likable, Sidney Poitier ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.’ And I’m thinking, I’m thinking to myself, this ain’t a movie, Sidney. This is real life.

Now I am not saying that he has to arbitrarily support Obama if he truly believes Hilary is a better candidate, but he damn sure should not be the person throwing Obama under the bus. Just don’t talk about him if you have nothing to say, but for Johnson to being up Obama’s drug use, that he admitted to, is a bit low. At least Obama admitted to it rather than lying about it like most others.

It’s funny that he would bring up that point as he supports the wife of the man that said “I didn’t inhale.” If he wants to talk about insulting, that is pretty much playing you for a fool. Johnson later says that his comments were taken out of context, but not sure what else he could have meant. It’s okay to just say nothing sometimes.

Source