Home > Jay Bookman > Archives > 2008 > July > 08
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Obama not happy with Vernon Jones
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Barack Obama distanced himself from DeKalb CEO Vernon Jones Tuesday, and by “distanced himself” I mean he gave Jones a straight-arm shove that would make an NFL running back proud.
“I do not endorse him; I have not endorsed him,” Obama said Tuesday in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “He put my picture on his literature, without asking me.
“Now I will tell you in the southside of Chicago, and I’m assuming here in Georgia, those kinds of things aren’t uncommon. It’s a little less common to do when you’re a U.S. Senate candidate when presumably the scrutiny is a little higher.”
Obama, who was in metro Atlanta for two fund-raisers and a town hall meeting in Powder Springs said he thinks he met Jones at a previous campaign event.
“I think he may have come to an event of ours a while back,” Obama said. “The reason I think I may have met him is I know somebody told me as I was shaking his hand that he had taken pride in voting for George Bush twice.”
So I think that clears up any questions about that.
Permalink | Comments (41) | Post your comment |
Sam, Obama and the gay question
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I haven’t put much credence in talk of Sam Nunn becoming Obama’s running mate, largely because Nunn has been out of politics and the public eye for so long. But the rumors keep popping up in interesting places.
For example, Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter argues in his current column that picking Nunn as vice president makes practical sense:
“First, you have to win. General elections are fought in the middle, which is exactly where Sam Nunn sits. They are fought over independents and moderate swing voters, who would like Nunn. Above all, he would help lift his party’s presidential nominee over the threshold of credibility that, for all the positive polls for Democrats, still stands between Barack Hussein Obama and the presidency.”
Alter also notes that a Nunn candidacy will be opposed by many in the gay community because of his advocacy of the “don’t-ask-don’t-tell” policy for gays in the military:
“Nunn’s position now is a mixture of new rhetoric (‘I’m grateful to the thousands of gays and lesbians serving today’) and a willingness to ‘review the policy’ with an eye toward ‘eventually’ changing it.
I too have been struck at the depth of the anger at Nunn in the gay community, and I think it’s mistaken. In the past 15 years, a lot of Americans both in public and private life have gotten more comfortable than they used to be about gay rights, including a lot of people who learned in those years that their son, daughter, father, mother, sister or brother is gay.
Holding a grudge against people for opinions they no longer hold doesn’t make much sense, especially on an issue in which public sentiment has swung so far so quickly. The winners can afford to be magnanimous.
Permalink | Comments (63) | Post your comment |
“The devil went down to Georgia, he was lookin’ for a soul to steal”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I still haven’t seen convincing evidence that Georgia could be in play for Barack Obama; two consecutive polls by Insider Advantage claim the race is tight, but no other pollster has come close to producing similar results. Until that happens, it’s all just bluster.
That said, the GOP explanation for Obama’s interest in Georgia is downright ludicrous. He’s spending time and money here because he’s in trouble in Pennsylvania and Ohio? Oh come on, at least give us something plausible.
First off, that’s factually incorrect. Obama’s up by about 8 points in Pennsylvania, about 4 points in Ohio, according to pollster.com. McCain would love to be in that kind of trouble.
Second, if Obama really were in trouble up north, wouldn’t he stay in that region to try to fix the problem? Campaigning in Georgia to fix your problems in the Rust Belt would be like responding to 9/11 by attacking a country that had nothing to do with it. Only fools would do something like that.
The best explanation is psychological. There’s a sense of panic in GOP circles that a blowout may be coming this fall, and Obama’s folks want to feed that panic. If that fear grows, McCain will have problems raising money, enthusiasm for his candidacy will decline, GOP turnout will fall and intra-party squabbling will increase. So the Democrats want to feed that fear — they want to make it grow big and fat until it consumes the soul of the McCain campaign.
“One of the premises of our campaign is we don’t just intend to win, we want a mandate,” Obama says, and you don’t hear talk like that from McCain.
It’s still a long way to November, and a lot can change. The race is far from over. But Obama coming to Georgia is like a football team walking onto the opponent’s home field and dancing on its emblem. It’s about intimidation.
.JPG)
-1.JPG)
Services »
