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Dem Chances In Oregon Senate Race Rise As Indy Candidate Quits
Democrats just got some good news in the Oregon Senate race, with an independent candidate who might have siphoned votes from the Democratic nominee now deciding to drop out of the race, leaving the Dem free to focus all his energy on taking out vulnerable incumbent Gordon Smith.
The liberal candidacy by John Frohnmayer, a former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, might have eaten into support for Democratic nominee Jeff Merkley, who has narrowly trailed Smith in the most recent polls. With the race whittled down to two candidates now in a state that is likely to be carried by Barack Obama, the Dems' chances are now helped by them not having to worry about a third-party spoiler affecting the outcome.
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Very cool.
June 10, 2008 6:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
How come we have all these threads on Hillary and Lieberman and other Dems who oppose Obama despite him being the DNC leader...YET
nothing on SUBSTANCE
Like
Obama's TRADE Statement today on the deficit?
http://thepage.time.com/obama-statement-on-trade-deficit/
TPM cafe...it is time to start talking about substantive issues and not finding every little statement you can that raises doubts about Obama's candidacy.
At the very least he deserves balanced coverage.
geesh
June 10, 2008 7:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is very good news.
Frohnmayer staying in the race most certainly would have acted as a spoiler. While Frohnmayer comes from an ostensibly moderate GOP family background, he had staked out positions to the left of the solidly progressive Jeff Merkley, who had already been attacked in some quarters of the progressive grassroots for being to "establishment" because the DSCC recruited him to run for the nomination. During the primary, which was hotly contested with Portland activist Steve Novick, a sizable portion of the Democratic/progressive netroots/grassroots where unfairly casting Merkley as too "establishment" even though Merkley lead the most productive progressive legislative session in the state house in decades.
So Frohnmayer staking out an independent run to Merkley's left, would have handed the race to Sen. Gordon Smith-R who votes with Bush 90%+ of the time, yet has a penchant for bamboozling the electorate with a faux "moderate" and "independent" routine when the election cycle rolls around.
Smith has a massive war-chest, but is polling under 50% and the last public polling in May had Merkley and Smith in statistical tie. So if anyone who says they want more and BETTER Democrats in the Senate, its time to put your money where your mouth is and back Merkley a donate and replace Bush rubber-stamper Smith with a rock-solid progressive Democrat in Jeff Merkley.
June 10, 2008 8:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
SHit. Screwed up the close tag there.
This is very good news.
Frohnmayer staying in the race most certainly would have acted as a spoiler. While Frohnmayer comes from an ostensibly moderate GOP family background, he had staked out positions to the left of the solidly progressive Jeff Merkley, who had already been attacked in some quarters of the progressive grassroots for being to "establishment" because the DSCC recruited him to run for the nomination. During the primary, which was hotly contested with Portland activist Steve Novick, a sizable portion of the Democratic/progressive netroots/grassroots where unfairly casting Merkley as too "establishment" even though Merkley lead the most productive progressive legislative session in the state house in decades.
So Frohnmayer staking out an independent run to Merkley's left, would have handed the race to Sen. Gordon Smith-R who votes with Bush 90%+ of the time, yet has a penchant for bamboozling the electorate with a faux "moderate" and "independent" routine when the election cycle rolls around.
Smith has a massive war-chest, but is polling under 50% and the last public polling in May had Merkley and Smith in statistical tie. So if anyone who says they want more and BETTER Democrats in the Senate, its time to put your money where your mouth is and back Merkley a donate and replace Bush rubber-stamper Smith with a rock-solid progressive Democrat in Jeff Merkley.
June 10, 2008 8:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Happy. Happy. Joy. Joy.
June 10, 2008 8:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just read this on Washington Post.com's site by a blogger. Has anyone heard this before, and does it make any sense? Legal opinion anyone? Obama is a constitutional law teacher, so WFT?
CAN OBAMA BE PRESIDENT?
It seems that Barack Obama is not qualified to be president after all for the following reason:
Barack Obama is not legally a U.S. natural-born citizen according to the law on the books at the time of his birth, which falls between "December 24, 1952 to November 13, 1986? Presidential office requires a natural-born citizen if the child was not born to two U.S. citizen parents, which of course is what exempts John McCain though he was born in the Panama Canal US Law very clearly stipulates: ".If only one parent was a U.S. citizen at the time of your birth, that parent must have resided in the United States for at least ten years, at least five of which had to be after the age of 16." Barack Obama's father was not a U.S. citizen and Obama's mother was only 18 when Obama was born, which means though she had been a U.S. citizen for 10 years, (or citizen perhaps because of Hawaii being a territory) the mother fails the test for being so for at least 5 years **prior to** Barack Obama's birth, but *after* age 16. It doesn't matter *after* . In essence, she was not old enough to qualify her son for automatic U.S. citizenship. At most, there were only 2 years elapsed since his mother turned 16 at the time of Barack Obama's birth when she was 18 in Hawaii. His mother would have needed to have been 16+5= 21 years old, at the time of Barack Obama's birth for him to have been a natural-born citizen. As aforementioned, she was a young college student at the time and was not. Barack Obama was already 3 years old at that time his mother would have needed to have waited to have him as the only U.S. Citizen parent. Obama instead should have been naturalized, but even then, that would still disqualify him from holding the office.
*** Naturalized citizens are ineligible to hold the office of President. *** Though Barack Obama was sent back to Hawaii at age 10, all the other info does not matter because his mother is the one who needed to have been a U.S. citizen for 10 years prior to his birth on August 4, 1961, with 5 of those years being after age 16. Further, Obama may have had to have remained in the country for some time to protect any citizenship he would have had, rather than living in Indonesia. Now you can see why Obama's aides stopped his speech about how we technically have more than 50 states, because it would have led to this discovery. This is very clear cut and a blaring violation of U.S. election law. I think the Gov. of California would be very interested in knowing this if Obama were elected President without being a natural-born U.S. citizen, and it would set precedence. Stay tuned to your TV sets because I suspect some of this information will be leaking through over the next several days.
-------------------------------------------
Thomas Sowell
Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow
The Hoover Institution
Stanford University
Stanford, California 94305
June 10, 2008 9:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
well, we all know WTF, not WFT......
June 10, 2008 9:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nothing to it.
Hoover Institute drivel. Obama is a natural born citizen.
June 10, 2008 9:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wonder if Sowell really authored that? Or maybe one of his colleagues fed him a false lead, hoping he'd make a fool of himself? I mean, he can't be that much of a dim bulb, can he?
Or can he? The Hoover-Institutionalized gaggle does include such blinding luminaries as:
- Ed Meese
- Donald Rumsfeld
- Condi Rice
- Pete Wilson
Oh, maybe I get it. Even though Obama was born in Hawaii two years after it became a state, maybe he's not a natural-born citizen because his mother had a Cesarian? Or maybe an epidural?
Feh.
June 11, 2008 1:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama's mother was a natural born citizen from her own birth. The entire premise is bunk.
June 10, 2008 9:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks so much.
June 10, 2008 9:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not only that, but Hawaii became a state in 1959.
Barack Obama was born in 1961. In Hawaii.
Which, if his mother hadn't been a citizen (since she was, he could have been born anywhere in the world and been a citizen by right of her citizenship) would have qualified him to be one of those "anchor babies" Michelle Malkin likes to screech about.
But since he was born in the US of a US mother, it's all bullshit anyway. And penned by Thomas Sowell? Quel surprise.
June 10, 2008 9:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jenn, I don't know Thomas Sowell. I just googled him and found out he is African American.
Also, another thing. This article was about Wexler signing onto DK's impeachment thing.....several people were ranting about Wexler's backing Obama and how they loathed him for that as Obama is no friend of the Jews. I don't know where all this hatred is coming from, Obama clearly stated his support for Israel. I am confused. Is this a race issue or something more? Also, overall, I read there are more Muslims than Jews in the U.S., so why all the fervor over Israel when Bush has done nothing? If anything, Bush has made Israel less safe with all the unrest.
June 10, 2008 10:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Which tells us the premptive occupation was never about Israeli security.
It was -- and will continue to be -- about peak oil, which is now upon us.
June 11, 2008 12:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
MiddleChild
MCCain was not born in the US but in Panama Canal.
His parents are US citizens and so is he.
June 11, 2008 1:39 AM | Reply | Permalink