Clintons Playing the Race Card?

Watched Hillary on "Meet the Press" this morning. She's now attempting to paint the Obama campaign with the same stripes the media has been painting her with this past week - implying Obama is lying, exaggerating, and taking her and Bill's comments out of context in an effort to make them look bad. Calling into question the intent and the content of public statements made by Billary that are, if not overtly, at least inadvertently racist, is not the same as spreading innuendo and rumor through the internet. As to Hillary's claims that she fired people in her campaign for their false statements - she let the "Barack is a Muslim and attended a madrassa as a child" rumor fly for the entire NH campaign and didn't, at first, admit to it. Then when it was irrefutably traced back to her campaign, she waited until AFTER she'd eeked out a win in NH before firing the "responsible party" who was probably just some low level fall guy.

As to what Hillary is accusing Barack of - lying about her statements regarding MLK and Bill's now infamous "fairy tale" speech - several black leaders, such as SC Congressman James Clyburn, and concerned journalists were the first to take notice of the pattern of subtle race baiting that both Clintons have been participating in for some time now. The Obama campaign is calling into question direct quotes made by their opponent - that's responsible campaigning. We should ALL be looking at the candidates' records, questioning their intent, and examining their character before we just blindly give them our vote. Apparently Hillary thinks her extremely slow reaction to the slew of lies her campaign is slinging (slow enough to make sure they have enough time to hit and resonate before retracting them after the damage is done) gives her the moral high ground in her eyes, and Obama's calling her to account for her public words makes him "negative." I'm not buying it. And hoping millions of South Carolinians won't either.

You, too, Bill?

I used to like Bill Clinton... But I was SHOCKED by the Clinton campaign's dirty campaigning in NH. I thought that was something only Republicans did. It was like we were fighting against Karl Rove out there on the streets. I had several people - registered Democrats, I might add - who were sure that Obama was a Muslim terrorist that wanted to "take America down from the inside..." And where did they get this info? Why emails from he Clinton campaign, of course. Dis-GUSTING. Seriously, is this what we want from our President? 4 more years of the same crap we've gotten for the last 8? I can say that I loved Barack before I went to NH and totally supported his policies, but now I am FERVENT that he is the right person. We ran such a CLEAN campaign in the NH election, the ethical nature of the Obama campaign in NH came from the top down. And the campaign itself was run from the ground up. Democracy at its best.

If you think Hillary can change and run a positive campaign, here is, essentially, what Bill said on the Sharpton show yesterday - vote for Hillary, because this is her last chance, but Obama will have other opportunities. I.e. - "don't vote for who you think is the best candidate, just throw the old girl a bone, give her a pity vote, because this young kid has time on his side." Using that logic, we all should have voted for Dole in '96. Pathetic. They know her time is past and her potential was always limited. They're just trying to force her on the American public because the value of the Republican party has never been lower, which is her only chance of ever being elected.

I think we owe it to ourselves and the country we love to choose the RIGHT candidate. I'm not suffering through another mediocre President because she feels the Office is owed to her for some reason...

Notes from NH

Moments that stood out from Primary weekend:

• The first day I canvassed, I was really intimidated. It seems so crazy to just walk up to someone's door and knock and then launch into a political discussion with someone you don't really know... But you'd be surprised how many people will talk to you - invite you in, even. I went to the door of one man who had a note by his name that said he was an Independent voter, had been visited by us before and showed he was "leaning towards" voting for Senator Obama. When he answered his door, I apologized for interrupting the football game which was clearly on on the tv behind him. "No problem," he said. I told him I was back because the election was close and I wanted to see if he had any questions about Barack Obama. I gave him a quick run-down as to why I was campaigning for Obama. He listened politely, and when I asked him if he had any questions, he said "No, I think I know who I'm voting for." I asked who, and he said, without irony, "Mitt Romney." There's a strange first and second choice. Romney/Obama '08 anyone?

• As we were doing a visibility in the middle of town on Monday - which basically consists of holding a bunch of signs, whooping and hollering and trying to encourage people to honk as they drive by (silly, I know, but it seems to be a method of all campaigns everywhere) - an elderly woman exited the bank across the street and yelled, "I wouldn't vote for him if he were the last candidate on earth! Obama rhymes with OSAMA!" Um, what?!?

• My friend Heather called a man and as soon as she got him on the line and started her appeal, he said, "Say no more, he's the man!" When she asked if he'd be voting for Obama on Tuesday, he said, "I can't vote." She had his registration information in front of her and said she was sure he was registered, to which he replied, "Yea, but I got convicted of a felony recently..." Whooops!

• Heather also called someone who said flat out, "I don't vote for N***ers." Wow. Didn't think anyone admitted to that anymore.

• I canvassed at a house with a WWII Veteran license plate on the car in the drive. The wife and husband were listed as registered Democrats. A note indicated that the wife had been visited before and said she was "definitely" voting for Barack. The husband answered the door when I called upon them this time. Immediately the husband began ranting that Barack was a liar. I asked him "What do you perceive he's lied about?" He responded "Everything." I asked him to elaborate and he started to explain to me that Barack Obama was a Muslim terrorist who was trying to bring down the US from the inside... I told him we'd have to agree to disagree on that one, and politely excused myself. He told me to be careful on the ice as I left. Wonder if he knew about his terrorist abetting wife?

• The night before the polls, our last task was to hang little "Don't Forget to Vote for Barack!" door hangers on the houses of people who had expressed a strong interest in him. This began at about 7pm at night, right after the surprise rally that Senator Obama had just held in town. Of course we were all "Fired Up and Ready to Go!" Until we got out and started actually doing it. There's nothing worse than sneaking up to someone's house in the dark. Especially in an area where some houses are about 500 feet off the main road, in the pitch black, with a truck in the driveway adorned with an NRA sticker. And a huge "Beware of the Dog" sign on the fence. My friend Heather and I got stuck with a particularly desolate route way on the outskirts of town. All of the sudden we came upon about 400 cars lining either side of the road. We looked at each other and said, "Rally." But for who? Why for Mike HUCKABEE!! The rally was just letting out. So here we are, double parking Heather's car in the middle of the road, both of us exploding out of either side of the vehicle, running - sometimes long distances - to the house on our list, or the house next to the house on our list because it was so dark we couldn't see house numbers, and coming back to giddy Huckabeeans waiting to pull their car out of the spot we'd blocked them into. Imagine the headlines: "Obama Supporter Run Over by Huckabee Backer." At one point, we saw about 6 Goth kids in the full hair and makeup, 8 inch platform boots, etc. getting into their mini-van carrying "Huckabee!" signs and high-fiving each other. Neither of us could figure THAT one out.

• My favorite call was to a man who stopped me in mid-sentence and said, "O-BAH-ma... He's a liberal, right?" I responded, "Well, yes, he's a progressive candidate." To which he replied, "We don't got nuthin' to do with liberals in THIS house. They can all go to HELL," and promptly hung up on me. I smiled as I looked down on his voter registration information: "Registered Democrat."