This is an insult to black voters. South Carolina was put up front in the primary process to give African-Americans a voice.

For Hillary to ignore them and just send Bill in her place is an insult, one that won't be felt just in South Carolina.

Please

someone - anyone tell me your sick and tired

of the Bushes and Clintons

Hillary is Bills robot

enough of these people allready

It's been the plan all along. In the beginning allllll the talk was about Iowa, NH, and SC. No one mentioned NV. Then the race baiting started, and the complaining about caucuses in NV, and the focus moved to NV, and Obama's strength in SC was increasingly framed as a racial thing. So now it is supposedly unimportant because it is just black people supporting the black candidate, which is just what the Clintons wanted this entire time, to make Obama seem like a Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, someone with black support but nothing past that. They framed it brilliantly. And yes, her "skipping" SC (even though it was on the table this entire time, she thinks that if she stays away from the state for the last few days before somehow it won't matter, like somehow that primary won't occur without her "caring" about it) is a slap in the face to black voters, but obviously the Clintons weighed their broader strategy against their diminishing traditional support from the AA community, and they (and especially their surrogates) kicked the AA community to the curb. I'll be interested to see how that will play out if she gets the nomination...we'll see how inclined African Americans are to turn out for the Clintons in a general election after all this. Who knows, I don't pretend to. It'll be interesting. Although I still hope it won't come to that, because no amount of African American turnout in the general will save Hillary from getting destroyed by McCain.

WTF?!?! Bill has a day job . . . Just what does Hillary have on him to force him to prostitute hisself on her behalf like this?

TPM???

Shake my damn head!!!!

The debate is tonight...she'll be back there Thursday and Friday...

leaving a whole two days where she isn't in state.

Stop.Yourselves.

Enough of the dishonest Clintons. They are just like the Bushes. This nation needs to say "thanks for your service, now shut up and go away."

David

Be carefull, Bills a gonna crush your smokes!

See the problem with you people is that you constantly write off people for no good reason. Was Bill dead after he "did not have sex with that woman?" No. Because he knows how to play the game. You kids need to grow up and understand that politics is the ultimate hardball. Everyone knows politicians lie, and they don't care. That's already figured into it. What they want to know is whether they are lying in a way that wins or loses. Bill wins. Plain and simple. Every time. Period.

Looks like Obama will be having some whine with that cheese.

"Was Bill dead after he "did not have sex with that woman?""

No. Just impotent politically. Now he's trying to get his hard on back by getting his wife elected. Not a pretty sight.

Obama can be Hillary's secreatry of Kumbaya.

some idiot named david wrote: "Everyone knows politicians lie, and they don't care."

I care. People with character and integrity care; obviously that doesn't include you.

So if Obama leaves S.C. for a day is that a problem, also?

The problem is the Big Dawg in S.C. not Hilliary out of S.C. Unless, you believe Bill and Hill are interchangeable! But this is another problem!

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=273319

Nation has the entire video of the MLK speech. Really inspiring speech and an interesting hypothesis about the root cause of the country's problems.

I used to be a strong Hillary Clinton supporter, and I spent many painful weeks in the 1990's defending Bill Clinton against the vitriol of friends and co-workers. Now, I am ashamed for it, and neither I nor any of my co-workers would ever vote for Hillary Clinton.

The Clintons' actions and tactics have been shameful. In Nevada, they closed the caucus doors down early to block Obama and Edwards supporters from voting, on top of giving deliberately false directions to the caucus sites. And in those caucus sites that weren't shut down prematurely, Clinton supporters were constantly hurling obscenities at supporters of their opponents. This on top of disrupting get out the vote efforts in New Hampshire, and trying to close NV caucus sites outright as well as trying to stop college students in Iowa from voting.

IOW the Clintons are disenfranchisers and even race-baiters, period.

This is tactless, classless, downright pathetic. It is not what we need as Democrats and certainly not what we need as a nation.

Now, from people in South Carolina, there are even scattered reports about a failed Clinton campaign to rig one of the electronic voting machines they use down there. I don't know if this is true or not, but the very fact that the report has such credibility in so many quarters is enough to bring into question South Carolina's bumbling electronic voting system.

The worst part is that the stench of vote fraud and tampering as practiced by the Clintons, is calling into question the viability of our democracy itself.

I really do now fear for the future of our country. South Carolina is especially volatile, with its very large Black population in the midst of the Clintons' race-baiting tactics (esp. referring to Obama as a drug-dealer or a Muslim terrorist sympathizer). When you compound this with the stench of vote fraud and disenfranchisement as practiced by the Clintons, you get a combustible mixture that will explode into urban riots when African-Americans, after their long and painful history here, feel that they have been deprived of their right to vote and have their votes be heard.

An awful lot of my friends have lately been taking French lessons and moving to places like France or Italy. I used to think they were crazy, but now I understand what they had in mind-- the USA has become a sinking ship.

Poor Hillary
Looks like the African American voters in SC dont want to be on Hillary's plantation any more. So Hillary doesn't dare to show up in the state.

Sending Bill down there.
What is he going to do - go to a Black coffee shop and cry.

"Two for one. That's what we were talking about you Obamaniacs! Bill will flat beat the ?@#! out of Obama, and Hillary can stand by with a frying pan and clonk him if he gets up!"

..that's the sound of incoherent desperation - a tune I wish that I could download on my IPOD.

Even a not credible black candidates like Jesse Jackson won Southern states like Alabama, why bother your time if you can spend time better elsewhere. there is plenty of time to patch up with the black community. By not competing agressively in SC, Hillary avoids direct confrontation with obama, which works only better for him.

By the way, Obama is supposed to transcend racial divisions. Oh yea, he now begs the black community to save his big a$$ and his wife's big mouth. This man has very little in common with the black community but skin color. After all, he did not spend a single youthful day in the black community. But for his skin color, he would have never been able to run anything at this stage of his life. His candidacy is no different from George Pataki's for NY governor or GWB for president. It is being propelled by consultants!!!

She is leaving it all to Bill? How nice of her. I am wondering what kind of lies and dirty tricks this once respected man will do/say in SC while the good guy on the tag team, Hillary, goes elsewhere.

I hope Obama kicks them both in the butt but good in SC.

"If Barak Obama were a womoan he would have already been laughed off the stage. He is weak in experience, etc."

..its a shame that the facts don't concur.

In all honesty, since the SC debate etc. is happening during and on MLK Day, it definitely gives Obama an advantage because of his heritage. But is Obama appealing to the people of SC merely to vote for him because he is black? There has been wall to wall coverage of the rally and endorsement of Oprah, and Obama's stump speeches being compared to MLK. Yet, one thing really bothers me that it appears that Obama can use his race when he wants to yet no one else is allowed to raise the issue of race because then it is classed as "racist".

I always wonder too about one other thing. The following are comments his wife made in a Vanity Fair article that stated, and I quote:
"She said she has no interest in an ongoing quest for the White House. “To me, it’s now or never,” she tells me a few days later, in Chicago, where we’ve met up again at the campaign’s Michigan Avenue headquarters. “We’re not going to keep running and running and running, because at some point you do get the life beaten out of you. It hasn’t been beaten out of us yet. We need to be in there now, while we’re still fresh and open and fearless and bold. You lose some of that over time. Barack is not cautious yet; he’s ready to change the world, and we need that. So if we’re going to be cautious, I’d rather let somebody else do it, because that’s a big investment of time, just to do it the same way. There’s an inconvenience factor there, and if we’re going to uproot our lives, then let’s hopefully make a real big dent in what it means to be president of the United States.” "

If you are wanting to be compared to following the legacy of MLK and his dream, then I don't really remember ever hearing MLK trying for something once in his quest for civil rights and then giving up if he didn't succeed the first time. Is this not an important issue that should be further delved into in that if he has accelerated his quest for the presidency as she stated in the article and he doesn't win, then that is it?

Source: Jamaicaobserver.com

Why vote for Obama?

Rev Mervin Stoddart
Monday, January 21, 2008

The United States of America has seen many credible black people run for president over the years but in the 2007-2008 campaign, especially after his victory in the Iowa state caucus, Barack Obama has managed to generate near fanatical following in the USA and worldwide. The most obvious question to be asked is why. Prior to Obama, the black presidential candidate who generated the greatest following was the Rev Jesse Jackson, and comparing the candidacies of both black men should provide some answers for the supposed Obama-rama now underway.

Jumping out at readers immediately should be the fact that Jackson had much more leadership experience and down-in-the-trenches political achievements than Obama, especially in the civil rights movement. Three conclusions may be drawn from this comparison to Obama, whose "few years as senator" completes the experience section of his political resume. First, the Obama frenzy is typically American, that is, more froth and appearances than solid foundations. America, with its Machiavellian movers and shakers, is one big Hollywood and so the Oprah factor in the Obama campaign might give it more fizz than the Jackson attempt. Second, experience or not, another black person running for the US presidency in a century when a black president is decades overdue is bound to draw strong following. Thus, Obama's showing owes much to Jackson's record and work in more ways than one. Ergo, Obama is the beneficiary of the years of fighting for black rights in the USA by Jackson, Marcus Garvey, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, and hundreds of others, and so now the rise of Obama is being helped along by the zeitgeist. Third, despite being inexperienced, Barack Obama has one thing that Jesse Jackson lacked, namely, a white parent, which in racist America is half the qualifications needed to be president. But I believe that solid leadership experience is important, and if America is to get back on track after eight years of disaster under George Bush and Dick Cheney, and if the welfare of blacks is to be advanced, then Hillary Clinton is the only logical choice for US president this time around. The economic success and black advancements of the Bill Clinton presidency speak for themselves; and Hillary's leadership in the White House then was commendable.

Black Americans would be foolish to look for their next president among the Republicans in that grand old racist party with its right-wing fundamentalist Christian bigots. This hints at another potential reason for the Obama frenzy, namely, the possible Republican conspiracy to register as Democrats, vote for Obama in the season of primaries, and set him up for the downfall in the real elections, thus socking it to Hillary, who, among the Democrats, has the best chance of being elected president against any and all of the Republicans now running.

Furthermore, in this era of stealing elections in the USA, demonstrated in Florida and Ohio by Bush in 2000 and 2004, it would be much easier to get the US Supreme Court to decide in favour of a white Republican male than for a black male Democrat, by using that tried and proved trick of 2000.

But even if Obama did slip through and become president with a majority popular vote, it would be easier to persuade the Electoral College to deny that black man the presidency, than to deny a white woman. And even if by luck or design Obama were to be sworn in as US president, it is certain that those haters, who murdered people like Dr King, John F Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy, would find it easier to bump off black Obama than to kill white Hillary. Chances are, if nominated, Obama might have to choose a white male for his vice president; and in the event of his death the American presidency would be "back to normal". Black Barack is therefore the Republicans' and many of white America's ideal candidate to win the Democratic primary, and if I should vote for him I could technically be voting Republican - a thought as repulsive as endorsing Adolph Hitler. Obama is evidently a sincere man but he might be unaware of how much he is being manipulated by the movers and shakers in the USA, mother of all racist nations.
So what if the real powers behind the US presidency should engineer the election and ascendancy of black Obama? It might be so that they could stage the biggest terrorist attack on his watch to continue their Orwellian drama initiated on 9/11. Could they this time possibly frame Iran for the next big one, thus accomplishing through President Obama what they might not get to do under Bush, that is, murder some more politically strong Arab/Muslims and steal more oil by invading Iran? What is more dramatic than a man with a Muslim background leading the stealth crusade against Muslims begun under George Bush the First?

Individual people of colour, sincere white folk who abhor racism, and predominantly black nations of the world should not get caught up in the Obama frenzy being staged by the shallow, tabloid-oriented, deceitful American media. They should analyse the issues and delve behind the media frenzy to evaluate the prospects for change in America under an Obama presidency versus a Hillary Clinton administration. Granted, now that Republicans have mastered the art of rigging presidential elections, it might be a moot point whether Obama or Clinton wins the primary.

Nevertheless, despite her whiteness and her despicable pro-Iraq war votes, Hillary Clinton, compared to Obama, is a stronger, more experienced leader with superior ideas for rescuing America and advancing human rights, including black welfare. With so much at stake for the USA and the world, why should anyone, especially blacks, vote for Obama?

Rev Dr Mervin Stoddart is a freelance writer out of Florida.

-INMerv@hotmail.com.

Look, Obamamaniacs, SC is not a big prize in the Democratic primary season. It is a relatively small state and it votes heavily Republican every general election. John Edwards won the state in 2004 but that win didn't do much for him as the primary moved on.

Clinton is behind there and has little chance of winning. Devoting her time to other states following is quite understandable. There are only so many days until Feb. 5th and so many dollars to invest.

I'm was a committed Democrat but if Hillary is the nominee I will vote for McCain. And after the impotence of Reid & Pelosi's leadership I will register to Independent. God what joke.

Mandy, even Vegas papers had caucus time as 11:30. Get over it, the guy at Kos didn't have his facts straight, Hillary didn't pull a fast one.

Hillary didn't abandon blacks - she's said nothing but kind encouraging words, and offered serious programs. That Obama framed her MLK comment as racist is her problem. Quite frankly, I think Obama's making a mistake bringing up MLK too much - it makes it obvious what a lightweight Obama is - not just experience wise, but also in oratory and philosophical ability. King stood out, was memorable.

For those who can't count, blacks make up 12% of the population. Women make up more than 50%, and even larger percentage of voters. It's pretty obvious which makes for the larger support group.

But pay attention - Hispanics now make up 15%. And their votes count twice. Why? Because they've shown they can and will vote Republican if not catered to. So if you gather one Hispanic vote, you're also taking a vote from the Republicans. If you gather one Black vote, the alternative is typically a non-vote.

foreigner - you might think about Obama's response to Hillary, that the street work is more important than what goes on in Washington. After thinking about that, I wonder why he's running for President, rather than expanding his street organizing efforts. But then the reality is just he's not that thick - 3 years here, 3 years there. The Illinois Senate being a part-time job with the other half teaching. He simply hasn't had the intensity of MLK or even the Clintons. There's nothing wrong with being relatively boring middle class, but if we wanted a movement around it, then Lennon should have written a song about "A Middle Class Hero Is Something To Be".