Did you mean Grudge match?  I can't figure out the title if you indeed meant Grunge... were you listening to Nirvana or Pearl Jam while writing this ;-)

has become a one issue (aipac) neo-con.

i would bet his vote goes for mccain in nov. regardless of who is running against him.

Ed Koch.... The guys a joke.  

I'd also say that Any New York "politician" is going to have little credence in this, just as any CHicago politiician is going to have little credence.  Both are biased and are NOT acting in the parties best interests.  

At the least though, you'd think it would be someone with prominence... not the woman who was part of one of the worst electoral defeats in history nor a man who is ridiculed in pop culture as the "asexual" mayor.

So far, Obama vs. McCain has McCain winning. The media suddenly lets McCain win the narrative every time this happens. There's no surprise in this to me.

IMHO BO will do much better than HRC in a lot of traditional red states but he will still not do quite well enough to win any of them.  And as Nov 4th get closer the electoral college will look very similar to 2000 and to a lesser extent 2004.  But the fact is BO will not do very well in OH, FL, VA, KY, or WV. He just doesnt appeal to those voters and that is why HRC won so big in those states.

As i have written IMHO BO has to win CO and hold onto every state that Gore won to win in the GE. If he loses any state that Gore won (like NM) he can not get to 270 electoral votes.  And i also think that BO could win the popular vote by 2% and still not win the election because he does do so well in red states.

I understand that BO supporters disagree and the fact is we will see in Nov.  But i also say that BO better win because if he doesnt the members of the tradition democratic party (including the Clinton crowd and supporters) are going to be really angry and asking some hard questions and demanding some real changes.

david

Mayor Koch got this part right, "although in politics you never ever can count anybody out." If McCain and Obama start to go at it, don't count Obama out.

Ed Koch...I wonder if he'll end up supporting McCain. I hope not. Poor McCain has enough problems already. Too many problems.

Obama's Money Cartel: How Barack Obama Fronted for the Most Vicious Predators on Wall Street

Wednesday, 07 May 2008  
by Pam Martens

The candidate that claims to be the only presidential contender who doesn't take money from lobbyists is in fact the biggest recipient of lobby-related contributions. Barack Obama rakes in millions from law firms serving the interests of Wall Street, including the financial institutions that gave us the subprime lending crisis. Lawyers that work for firms that earn hundreds of millions of dollars for lobbying may technically not be lobbyists, but they share in their colleagues' earnings as influencers of Congress - a legal loophole that allows Obama to claim his hands are clean of lobby loot. "The top contributors to the Obama campaign are the very Wall Street firms whose shady mortgage lenders buried the elderly and the poor and minority under predatory loans."

Read the entire article closely and then answer this question: Can you tell any difference between G.W. Bush and Barack Obama except skin color? You've been bamboozled, hoodwinked!

Barack Obama IS the Corporate Candidate:

http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.p hp?option=com_content&task=view& id=613&Itemid=1

Uh, Hillary has actually promised to help.

Not sure who Ronk is, but he sounds like a bitter ender:

"Still, Hillary is Hillary. Capable. Unshakable. Ready to take the 3A.M. call -- any day, any time of day -- no matter what."

After her disastrous campaign, I'm not sure what the capable refers to.  If she had run a more competent campaign, she would have won the nomination.

do we support the Democratic nominee?  Or do we keep slicing & dicing.

The reason the voters are split is that we've had two good candidates.  That'll split things, no surprise.  And with Cinton & Obama running it'll naturally tend to split along gender & racial lines.  That doesn't necessarily equate to large-scale racism or sexism.  

But to say that the split will continue is silly handwringing.  When there's only one Democratic candidate there'll be only one who represents our values & policies.  Anyone who wants a better world more than revenge will support that person.

It'd be nice if Clinton didn't point to the split as evidence that Obama can't get whites, but what else is she going to do right now?

Koch is just saying what most people know to be true. Obama will lose the general election. When your demographics START out worse than Kerry (who lost) then your chances of winning the general election are pretty much zero.

Over the past two months, Hillary and Obama poll about the same against McCain.  So what is the basis for concluding that she can beat him but he faces some demographic impossibility?  It's just assertions without evidence.

"Hard-working white Americans" is an unfortunate phrase.

Do whites who don't support her not work hard?
And are black voters hard-working as well?

Those questions will come up for some.

Speaking of blue collar white americans. I guess Obama can count them out in Nov and you can thank Donna Brazile and her fat mouth. She released us all on Tuesday night and said the party did not need us to win. John McCain's campiagn said that they will go after that demographic yesterday and  that they can expect to gain about 20% or more. You guys just lost.

All that matters now is how Obama fares in the next three and a half months as "McCain versus Obama" plays out in the national media spotlight.

The focus should now be on McCain v. Obama bigtime.  See how that plays out. See how Obama fares one-on-one with McCain. (We need Hillary in the wings though in case something goes awry.  Hang in there, Hillary.)

only white Americans are "hard workers".  Hopefully she was misquoted.

As an African-American, I am hoping she didn't really mean what she said.

When you have lost the contest, you have lost the contest and have to accept who is going to win.

If Hillary thinks that Barack is not acceptable, she should just decide to run as an independent in the general election.  Otherwise, she needs to "suck it up" and deal with the fact that someone else is going to win the nomination- even if she thinks this person will lose.

At this point, if she wants to stay in the race, that is fine.  Mike Huckabee did the same thing.  But, to continually degrade and insult who is going to be the democratic nominee is just selfish and destructive to the chances of Barack becoming our next president.

I sadley can no longer contain my frustration. I am constantly having flash backs to Bushbag's refusal to accept reality and begin removing troops from Iraq and instead esclated the war. I am a wheelchair bound Disabled Vietnam war vet. I detest this war more that one can imagine. I have been plagued by nightmares and flashbacks ever since bushbag and his fellow coward Cheenie started it. Now to witness Hillary's refusal to face reality and the math is swo simular to Bushbags antics. I keep expecting to hear her say she will "Begin to SURGE" any minute now. As she has steadily marched toward the bottom she seem to be morphing in to the man she wants to replacet! I love her and her husband but I hate what her obsession and inabilitty to accept defeat has turned her into.

Criticism of Clinton's casual equivalence of "hard-working" and "white americans" can't be dismissed as "political correctness."

Of course, Lester Maddox insisted he wasn't racist too.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn 4158/is_20030626/ai_n12698178

the Democratic party on his website.

Instead of talking about how Obama has problems with the white working class voters, perhaps the discussion should be on how can Obama reach these voters.

Some suggestions:

1. Put Hillary on the ticket.

2. Choose a running mate if it isn't Hillary that could help draw those voters.

3. Unite with the Edwards part of the Democratic wing.  Edwards' campaign manager just endorsed Obama.  He will help with unions.  I have a feeling that Edwards will be Obama's Attorney General.  Perhaps Obama will announce his cabinet at the convention.  His cabinet nominees could help unite the party.

4. Improve Obama's language on reaching these voters.  Before it was Edwards who reached these voters.  Then after Edwards dropped out, Hillary morphed into this "fighter for the people" and she began reaching these folks.  Perhaps Obama has to make a transformation.

I find Hillary's statements to be unfortunately worded.  I don't like the way this is being framed.

Frankly, I think the electability argument has been played out at this point and ought to be dropped.  Maybe Barack Obama is utterly unelectable, but you know what, people have heard the argument and they're either going to be swayed or they're not.  Saying it over and over again doesn't help anything.  As far as the remaining superdelegates are concerned, I think they'll be a lot more receptive to the argument if it's made in private.

I think people's tolerance for a continuation of the campaign is directly proportional to the positive nature of said campaign.  Which is to say, even a staunch Clinton supporter like myself is not up for another month of "white people won't vote for Barack Obama."  And you know, if you say it enough, you probably make it a self-fulfilling prophecy, which isn't good for anyone.

Obama can't win without working class whites, Clinton can't win without African Americans.  If we can't unite, McCain wins.  The goal between now and November has to be to unite behind our nominee.

Obama took serious flak in the media and this site went berserk when he used the phrase "typical white woman", despite the fact that it was used in context to make a very elegant point about race. There was nothing elegant or high-minded about Clinton's comment here, and to see the front page trying to call criticism of it pc run amok is absurd.

This is exactly the same pattern of behavior we have seen out of Clinton for the entire campaign, and I don't mean racism. If she loses, be it an individual state, a type of contest, or now a demographic, she immediately moves to dismiss them as unimportant and less worthy than the ones she wins.

I truly don't believe that the Clinton's are racist, but now that she has lost the AA vote the AA vote gets to join the long list of "things that don't matter".

The super-duper delegates could end this at any time by endorsing Obama. Why haven't they done this if they think this drawn out nomination battle is hurting the party?

Support for Obama has been in decline since voters started finding out who he really is. Just look at the NC results vs. VA nearly 3 months prior. White male support dropped over 40% and white female support dropped 27%. NC and VA have almost identical demographics so what changed was his support base.

Hillary is by far the better candidate. Ed Koch is correct. Obama will lose in November. Half of Hillary's supporters, and that means 25% of the party, will not vote for him. They will either stay home, write in Hillary, or vote for McCain.

Hispanics will not vote for Obama. Looking at the demographics, Obama would likely get:

35% to 38% of the white vote
35% of the Hispanic vote
93% of the black vote

That's a losing proposition.

Kos had an interesting piece yesterday on the silliness of looking at Obama's success with black voters while ignoring key non-race-based stats.  (There are 2 numbers for each category, the first is the total %-age of the vote for that category in the state, the second is the %-age of those votes that Obama won):

                                % of vote  % for Obama
IN: People with college degrees  35       56
NC: People with college degrees  44       57

IN: First time primary voters    19       69        
NC: First time primary voters    22       60

IN: Independents                 23       54
NC: Independents                 19       45*

IN: Liberals                     39       56
NC: Liberals                     42       63

IN: Urban                        33       60
NC: Urban                        27       66

IN: White 17-29 year-olds        12       54
NC: White 17-29 year-olds         8       57

IN: All 17-29 year-olds          17       61
NC: All 17-29 year-olds          14       74

IN: 17-64 year-olds              86       52
NC: 17-64 year-olds              80       60

However, he said her primary support doesn't prove she's more electable. Either Democrat will get "the vast majority" of the other's primary election votes in a general election, he said.

If you look at past primary elections, its common for supporters of the losing candidate to state that they won't support the winner. By the time the general election rolls around, most of them do. And note that I said most and not all. There will be people who stay home or vote for someone else. But as Larry Sabato points out, they're not that significant when you look at big picture.

People need to realize that demographic splits in a primary election don't coorelate well with performance in a general election. If Clinton won the nomination, is she only going to get 10-15% of the African American vote? And in a matchup with McCain, is she going to get as big a share of the white male vote as she did in the primaries. The answer to both questions is no.

to reach out to these people Sen. Clinton is talking about - and do it in the right way.  I think all reasonable types will come around -  and as the economy will not magically turn around before November - people will listen if he does it in the right way.  And if the some of the press continues to be in his cheering section - it will be easier for him than it was for for him than either Sens. Gore or Kerry and unfortunately HRC.    

Lazy: "working, hard-working Americans, white Americans"

Where does that leave blacks?  Pretty obvious, huh?

Not real: pretty much the whole tenor of that larger quote.  White votes are the votes that count - a candidate that overcomes losing the white vote by doing well among blacks is somehow not winning through 'real' votes.

And this is a woman who wants to represent the Democratic Party as its Presidential candidate.

If this was vaudeville, a hook would've pulled her off the stage by now.  Time to get her out of there.

Glad to see people calling out Ed Koch for what he is. A contrarian crank whose inconsistent and odd opinions haven't mattered for a long time.

You want the opinion of a former NYC mayor, try David Dinkins or Rudy Giuliani.

That's a big if, counting on the Old Media not to turn on Obama after Hillary is out of the picture.

better than a ninety year-old ex-mayor.  

I'm so happy to know that I'm not lazy and shiftless.  Thanks Hillary!

Hillary should not be talking about "white voters" at this late stage- it is indeed shameless.  She should blame her lost on blind loyalty- she kept Penn way past overdue- did anybody read ATRIOS who reprinted a story that showed that Penn did not know that delegates were proportionally allocated?-How the hell is Ballston supposed to run a campaign if they do not even know how the delegates are apportioned- imagine running the White House in a similar fashion.

runs as an independent she is now unelectable in the Democratic party.

are ugly and divisive. She is playing the same sort of linguistic games (linking "hard-working" and "white") that the GOP has perfected over the past 20 years. She knows exactly what she is doing--playing to racial bigotry. Any Democrat worthy of the name should condemn such blatant race baiting.

I don't understand how we're expected to believe the electability argument from the same people who hatched the disastrous inevitability campaign. I mean, they couldn't even win a primary in which they had all the advantages and were the assumed nominee coming in. Honestly, is anyone buying this?

As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, (as opposed to lazy black Americans?) is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college (as opposed to college educated elites?) were supporting me."

And it's sadly what we've come to expect from the Clintons and their ever sorrier campaign.

"Hard-working white Americans"

Nice.  Let's skip the dog whistle and just ask directly for the support of "real Americans" who don't like the uppity negro who has already won the election.

She makes it really hard to imagine forgiving her.

This follows, however, from the constant use of "white, working-class voters" when most of Obama's black voters are also working-class.  There is no virtue in being white or black; there is great virtue in being a hard working person.  So the hidden implication here -- that "lazy" blacks want Obama and have it in for "hard working" whites (or that the democratic party somehow "needs" people who think that way to win)  --  is as ugly as it gets.  And as it has been since Clinton got desperate, whether or not it has been coming from her surrogates (like Ferraro) or -- as now -- directly from her own mouth.

I don't want to share a party with racists; and I don't care to win if "winning" depends on pandering to racism.  I'm funny that way, but then I still think that's what it means to be "progressive."  

And the weird thing is that I don't think Hillary (unlike Ed Koch or Gerry Ferraro) is a racist, exactly.  Not in her heart.  But that she is willing to play one on TV out of political expediency (just like she was willing to become a warmonger out of political expediency) means she is worse, in some ways, than a racist: she has no principles other than winning at any cost.

No way.  Yuck.

At some point, very soon, Obama must admit his weakness (at least in private) and reach out to Clinton to help shore up his deficiencies, which are considerable. Otherwise, Democrats will lose their bid for the White House.

I mean, this is George Wallace territory, my "progressive" friends.

Of course the slicing and dicing of the electorate is a problem, for the simple reason of internal inconsistency, if nothing else. And the fact is that that inconsistency is ALL ABOUT RACE.

The pundits and the Clinton campaign talk about "white working class" vs. "blacks". Think about it: "white working class" is a description of two things: race and (crudely) socioeconomic status. "Black" is a description solely of race.

If you're white, the pundits blather about soccer moms, security moms, latte drinkers, Prius drivers, evangelicals, etc. But it you're black, you're just black--no subtlety here, folks. Melanin in your skin is all that counts.

Tell me if you ever hear an electorate-carving pundit talking about "black working class" as compared to, say, "black college graduates". I'm waiting....

This is worth a look.

Gore in 2000
Kerry in 2004
Obama in 2008

All losers.  And which of the vaunted MSM and the liberal blogistadt will be standing on November 5th to take the blame?  Oh, I can imagine the MSM meme right now: "Yeah, Obama lost, but really, Hillary would have done worst!"

Oh yeah?

Those Hillary supporters that will not vote for McCain just need to go away, register as independents or republicans.  They only hurt the party.  They can join the Limbaugh repugs that voted for Clinton!

I am so sick of the media pandering to the votes that will be racially divided no matter what.  Why does not someone come out and just say that the bigots will vote for McCain.  That is what Hillary has been implying for quite awhile, Bill also.  Its a sad day for the Clintons to come down to this dirt.

I used to want the dream ticket-ha, NO MORE, I now think Hillary would not be good for OBAMA.  He should be able to pick who he wants.  Hillary may negotiate for Clark?  or herself?  Time will tell.

I know so many whites that are OBAMA supporters, they are all so called "white working class or blue collar" voters.  That junk they keep throwing out is just racist.

OBAMA will grind Mc Cain into the ground, well, maybe McCain will win AZ, those folks usually fit the bad judgement area!

Hillary lost the nomination because she doesn't appeal to the majority of voters.  And by majority of voters I don't mean whites, because I refuse to make this about race.

I mean voters aged 17-64.  Obama does well with that age group, but does poorly among voters 65 and over.

Hillary does well among voters aged 65 and older and doesn't fare as well with voters under the age of 65.

That's what's going on here.

He merely appealed to racial divisions that existed and attempted to increase the racial divisiveness for opportunistic reasons.

HRC has been doing the same thing as George Wallace. Obama's right. HRC isn't racist. But she is exploiting racial divisiveness. And people like Jerome look like they are encouraging people to believe other Americans are too racist to elect a Black POTUS.

What's the implied message in Jerome's argument? The implied message is that Democrats who want to win should vote against Barack Obama? Why? Because he's Black and "White" voters won't elect a Black man.

I'm sure Jerome isn't racist. He's merely asking fellow Democrats to vote against a candidate because he's Black.

Again, I want to stress that I'm sure Jerome is a good person. So he can't be racist. Therefore, telling people to vote against Obama because's he's Black isn't a racist call to action.

Delegates are really irrelevant at this point for determining who the nominee will be. Of course, some superdelegates may make their decision to go with Obama because of his thin lead in the overall pledged delegate count, but because the two, Obama and Clinton, are so close and because Clinton has won most of the major blue state contests, what the Democratic electorate in this nation has essentially said to the superdelegates is this: "Please decide who can beat John McCain."

West Virginia and Kentucky will be blowouts for Clinton to the tune of maybe 70%. Oregon will be close, maybe within 5 points as Washington state was in its primary. Puerto Rico will be big for Clinton. Montana and South Dakota will favor Obama, maybe in the 60% range. So we have a tie, folks. It's in the superdelegates' hands.

I'd like to remind everyone that McCain became the presumptive nominee of his party when he passed a magic threshold for elected delegates which was not in dispute. The magic number for pledged delegates to determine the Democratic nominiee may be in dispute entirely into August, so how could anyone possibly say that Obama is the nominee?

If she can, then why doesn't she have faith in her ability to convince her voters that Obama is a better option than McCain?

Yeah. I think Ed Koch, who endorsed George W. Bush in 2004, has a lot of credibility here.

Question:  I'd like someone to tell us, for comparative purposes, the last time that a Democratic presidential candidate won the white vote?

Answer:  It doesn't happen.  If it did, then the Democrat would win the election by 13 points once the Black vote was added in.  The fact is that Democratic presidential candidates ALWAYS lose the white vote, and then make up the difference among Blacks.