Category: Barack Obama

An interesting endorsement from the man who helped slay the last big inflationary wave.

A profile of the couple behind Obama’s Los Angeles money machine. (Hat tip: Wilshire and Washington.)

A reader writes:

Contra your speculation, my guess would be that Obama’s strength in NYC comes mainly from Brooklyn, not Manhattan. Brooklyn = Minorities + Overeducated White Youth; Manhattan = Rich Old People + Tourists + Harlem.

All of the black politicos in Brooklyn are lining up behind Obama; not so the Harlem powers-that-be. Everywhere you go in brownstone Brooklyn you seem Obama stencils and posters; I’d be really surprised if the closeness of the NYC race wasn’t emerging from this dynamic.

A reader does the math:

Winning New York City would be more than a symbolic victory for Obama. In New York State, twenty-three Congressional Districts have five delegates apiece, and six CDs have six delegates. Five of those six are in NYC. Were Obama to carry those districts, he’d score 4 delegates to Hillary’s 2, or 3 to her 1 if Edwards tops 15%. In the remaining CDs, if Obama can just top 30%, the delegates will split 3-2 in favor of Hillary, or 2-2-1 if Edwards meets the threshold.

The point is this. Using the numbers in the poll you cite, and the conservative assumptions that Hillary wins every single district out of the city, that Obama everywhere garners at least 30%, and that Edwards doesn’t meet the threshold anywhere, the pledged delegate tallies for New York State would be: Hillary 132, Obama 100. You can knock one delegate off of Hillary’s total for every upstate CD in which Edwards cracks 15%; if he breaks that statewide, subtract another 6 from Hillary and 4 from Obama.

The point is this. Hillary’s strategy is built on the assumption that she can leverage huge leads in NY, NJ, and CA to compensate for her losses in the south and midwest. And in the last week, that strategy has gone up in smoke. She’s finished; if our national media wasn’t innumerate, it would have noticed by now.

My roots are showing:

Whether or not the senator is a product of talk shows and is the very definition of a style that epitomizes the ideal of "change," Europe sees Barack Obama as the antithesis of George W. Bush. And confronted with the state of the world, this is something that makes all the difference. Seen from the Old Continent, Obama symbolizes the American spirit in the European heart. Barack Obama may not represent the full complexity of America, but he certainly represents the America that exists in the Europe’s wildest imagination.

Hat tip: William Kern.

Obama’s on a roll.

From the Hill:

In one instance Clinton appeared to gauge Obama’s response before showing her own. When Bush warned the Iranian government that "America will confront those who threaten our troops, we will stand by our allies, and we will defend our vital interests in the Persian Gulf" Obama jumped up to applaud. Clinton leaned across Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), seated to her left, to look in Obama’s direction before slowly standing.

Josh Claybourn helps explain how some on the right are drawn to Obama:

As a libertarian-minded conservative, I agree with almost nothing of Barack Obama’s actual policy positions. Whether it is with education, health care, or fiscal matters, Obama is a liberal in the truest sense of the word. He fails to respect federalism and his policies can often border on socialism. Indeed, I have trouble identifying any policy positions of Obama’s that appeal to me. In short, I think Barack Obama would make a terrible Head of Government.

Yet, as David Kopel has deftly noted, the Head of State is an entirely different role altogether, and regardless of your ideological perspective, there is something tremendously appealing about Obama. Indeed, several of his recent speeches – his Iowa victory, a speech on MLK Jr. Day, and the South Carolina victory – have given me goosebumps and caused me to swell with pride at being an American.

Could his position on drivers’ licenses for illegals come back to haunt him?