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By Nat Hentoff $18.15
By Orville Schell (Foreword), Wayne Miller
$35
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Hillary Clinton is under immense pressure to exit the campaign, but thanks in part to one of her rivals, she would be saying goodbye to more than the presidency. Because of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, Clinton has until the convention in August to recoup her loans. After that, she could be out more than $11 million.
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 AP photo / Carolyn Kaster
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By Bernard Weisberger — Throughout the primary campaign, Democrats have been explaining, equivocating and ultimately fretting over the role of superdelegates, but those unelected power brokers are themselves the result of previous party contortions. Perhaps the time has come for a new model.
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 Flickr / marcn
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Hillary Clinton will surely stir controversy with racially charged comments that appeared Thursday in USA Today. The candidate noted an article “that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.” “There’s a pattern emerging here,” she added. Audio update.
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By Ellen Goodman — Barack Obama cannot win the White House without the support of women, many of whom have identified with Hillary Clinton. What better way to reach those voters than the story of the fascinating woman who raised him?
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 time.com
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Everyone from Tim Russert to Time magazine seems to have decided that there’s absolutely no way Hillary Clinton can get the nomination. What happened? Sure, her chances of winning enough pledged delegates are nearly impossible, but wasn’t that true after Pennsylvania? Wasn’t it true before Pennsylvania?
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However one feels about Hillary Clinton, there’s something sad about former presidential candidate George McGovern’s announcement that he no longer supports Clinton and is backing her rival. Clinton worked for McGovern 36 years ago, when he campaigned against another unpopular war.
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 observer.com
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Between April 11th and Tuesday’s primaries, Hillary Clinton was forced to dig deeply into her personal coffers, giving her own campaign an additional $6.4 million in order to stay in the race for the Democratic nomination. Her campaign says she may “invest” more, though critics have more or less discounted Clinton’s chances to win.
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 Supreme Court / Steve Petteway
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The Democrats have been worried about unifying their party, so it’s odd that John McCain would pick this moment to give them another reason to band together. If elected, McCain said Tuesday, he would think of conservative Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito “as the model for my own nominees” to the Supreme Court.
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 AP photo / Elise Amendola
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Judging by exit polls, two groups made the difference for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton Tuesday night. A strong showing from African-American voters and gains elsewhere helped Obama to a big win in North Carolina. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, could thank older voters for what turned out to be a nail-biter of a victory in Indiana.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Lately, the campaigns of both Democratic contenders have changed—and those changes have made both stronger. Now there’s a contest between the old Obama and the new Clinton. Updated.
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 Flickr / John Edwards 2008
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As North Carolinians head to the polls, John Edwards, their former senator, has disclosed that after months of being politically courted he will not endorse any candidate in the Democratic primaries. The two-time presidential contender and his wife, Elizabeth, recently sat down with People magazine to explain what they like—and don’t like—about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
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 Flickr / BohPhoto
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A day before the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, most polls agree that Barack Obama will win North Carolina and Hillary Clinton will win Indiana. A week later, the candidates face off in West Virginia, where Clinton holds a sizable lead. It remains nearly impossible, however, for her to catch up in the pledged delegate count.
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 AP photo / Elise Amendola
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Monday found Democratic presidential contenders Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama working furiously to draw distinctions between their stances on key issues like rising gas prices and America’s strained relations with Iran—and, of course, to take shots at their opponent’s positions in the remaining hours before Tuesday’s Indiana and North Carolina primaries.
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Tab, The Calgary Sun —
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The shamelessly liberal “Boston Legal” tackles the schism that has occurred in the Democratic Party and, one presumes, among the show’s viewers. This clip picks up in the middle of a debate about the legality of poaching pledged delegates.
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It is a period of political civil war. Hillary Clinton, striking from her hidden base in Pennsylvania, has scored a major victory against Barack Obama. During the battle, rogue surrogates provided distractions from real issues. Pursued by the Republican Party’s sinister agents ... well, you get the idea.
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As the Democratic convention draws closer, the candidates are making their cases more and more directly to the superdelegates. On the Sunday before the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton each made hour-long appearances on morning talk shows that few voters actually watch. It’s the party insiders who never miss a “Meet the Press” who probably will decide the nomination, and the candidates know it.
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Tom Hanks has a preferred candidate, but what makes his endorsement interesting is not the person he chooses, but how he frames that choice. This video, which appeared on the actor’s MySpace page, seems as much a comment on the celebrity endorsement as it is an endorsement by a celebrity.
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The man who made his mark on the last presidential election cycle with his campaign-sinking scream, DNC Chairman Howard Dean, was the bearer of good predictions for Democrats on Thursday’s “Daily Show.” He explained the super-cryptic superdelegate system, the controversial notion of “electability” and what it’s like to be the candidate who missed out in ‘04 for “saying boo-ya at the wrong time.”
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A star reporter for the Los Angeles Times has written a clear, even elegant anatomy of an economy that is much worse than you probably think.
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By Eugene Robinson — There’s something maddening about this presidential campaign. It has become irrelevant whether anything the candidates say actually makes sense. Case in point: cutting the gas tax.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Do white right-wing preachers have it easier than black left-wing preachers? Is there a double standard?
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 AP photo / Gerald Herbert, file
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By Bill Boyarsky — We are letting religious fanaticism dominate the presidential campaign. The candidates have brought it on themselves with tedious references to their churchgoing piety. Now we’re all paying for it. Who cares what their preachers say?
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Director Michael Moore paid a visit to “Larry King Live” on Wednesday night, holding forth on a number of timely topics, including his decision to endorse Barack Obama, his newest documentary (about the ‘04 presidential election), Hillary Clinton’s interview the same day on “that other station” and the persistent controversy surrounding the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
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By Joe Conason — As Jeremiah Wright gleefully tours the airwaves, inflicting severe political damage with almost every utterance, he is proving that racism isn’t the only obstacle to a black president.
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Hillary Clinton tells Bill O’Reilly (always an elevator of conversation) that “I take offense at” the comments of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Michelle Obama, meanwhile, would rather the press just move on.
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 Flickr / Joe Crimmings Photography
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By Tom Hayden — Chris Hedges is wrong. The left hasn’t lost its nerve, it has found a voice capable of rallying millions. Progressives shouldn’t turn their noses up at that kind of movement just because it isn’t perfect.
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 Flickr / soggydan
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While the spotlight is starting to singe the Democrats, it’s true that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have gotten heaping doses of attention compared with the supposed media darling, John McCain. Here’s one indication: The covers of Time and Newsweek have featured the face of an Obama or a Clinton eight times since Super Tuesday.
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A new poll shows Hillary Clinton closing the gap in North Carolina, a state that has been firmly in Barack Obama’s corner for weeks. According to the survey, Clinton has made gains among white voters, which many will doubtlessly attribute to the re-emergence of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The race remains tight in Indiana.
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Barack Obama has officially severed ties with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, whose Monday address he described as a “spectacle.” Said a “saddened” Obama: “The person that I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago.”
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By Eugene Robinson — The media tour he’s conducting is doing a disservice that goes beyond any impact it might have on Obama’s presidential campaign.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — This is supposed to be a big election, but it has given every sign in recent weeks of becoming a small one. As a result, the public and the media are showing signs of exhaustion with what had once been an exhilarating contest.
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The competition between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to win their Senate colleagues’ endorsements is still very close, but Obama moved one notch ahead of Clinton Monday with the addition of Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico to his list of supporters, which has now grown to 14.
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After laying low for some time, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has been speaking out about the controversy that has tarnished his name. The minister seemed to enjoy this encounter with the media, too many elements of which relied on YouTube to lay out the facts of their stories.
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 Flickr / Joe Crimmings Photography
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By Chris Hedges — The corporate state is our shadow government. Candidates who aspire to higher office get corporate money if they promote corporate interests. Barack Obama’s campaign message, filled with lofty promises of change and hope, is also filled with repeated reassurances to the corporate elite.
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 Flickr / Jurvetson / World Economic Forum
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Ryan Lizza in The New Yorker quotes a Bill Clinton aide explaining why there has been so much tension between the former president and Barack Obama: “I think this campaign has enraged him. ... He doesn’t like Obama.” Why? Here’s one theory: While Hillary Clinton has adopted her husband’s legacy, Barack Obama has been assailing it.
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Satire by Andy Borowitz —
The Democratic race for president has descended to “a level of meanness and acrimony that is damaging to American politics,” the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth said today.
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Barack Obama has frozen out Fox News since he found himself the victim of the network’s attack journalism at the start of the campaign. Here he lifts the ban to run the gantlet with Chris Wallace on flag pins, the Rev. Wright and, to be fair, more substantive issues.
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 www.flickr.com/photos/emilymills
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By Bill Boyarsky — When looking at Sen. Barack Obama’s primary election results, I always check the white vote first. I imagine many Democratic National Convention superdelegates do, too. The reason is obvious: Obama is the first African-American with a strong chance of winning the presidency, and his prospects depend on whether whites will give him a vote.
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By David Sirota — If television is the nation’s mirror, then no two TV characters reflect the intensifying “two Americas” gap better than Chris Matthews and “The Wire’s” Jimmy McNulty.
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By Eugene Robinson — Who picked this movie? A few months ago, the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination looked as if it would be the feel-good political campaign of the decade, if not the century. Instead, we’re having to endure an endless loop of “Alien vs. Predator.”
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Perhaps it was inevitable: The Democrats’ battle for the presidential nomination has now led us into the thicket of race and religion.
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Lesser journalists continue to characterize the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s sermons as hate speech, without ever having heard more than snippets of them. As Wright tells the great Bill Moyers, the meaning of his sermons has been deliberately distorted to achieve a political goal, and it worked. Updated.
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There’s a seasonal sport going on in the media: the age-old tradition of primary prediction. Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary gave a whole host of TV hosts and pundits another shot at handicapping yet another big race between dueling Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama—but alas, as the contest concluded, heady excitement gave way to darker sentiments.
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RJ Matson, Roll Call —
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 flickr.com/photos/ttoes
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After yet another big push—and facing more of the same—Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are, unsurprisingly, feeling the strain of the long campaign trail. Meanwhile, top Dems Harry Reid, Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi may make their own push—to urge superdelegates to make their presidential preferences known by July 1.
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NBC political director Chuck Todd, basking in hypotheticals, repeatedly explains that, while it simply isn’t done, “if we called things like this ... you would say, ‘OK, the pledged delegate count is over.’ ” Guess which of the candidates featured this video on his YouTube channel?
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