Barack Obama's Race Is a Lingering Factor for Some Ohio Voters, According to Focus Group
Maybe Peter Hart is one of those Democrats who, like Chicago Cubs fans, have gotten to within a few games...outs...strikes of victory so often, only to have it cruelly denied, that they take a gloomy disposition into any favorable circumstance.
Or maybe the 2008 election ain't over 'til it's over.
Is there a Steve Bartman out there getting ready to lunge for a foul ball and deprive the Democrats of their triumph?
On a rainy and gloomy October day in Washington, the über-pollster Hart has conveyed an appropriately glum report for his fellow Democrats from a focus group he conducted in Ohio yesterday.
"Words that one often hears from the chattering class like 'in the bag,' 'over,' and 'done deal' seem premature for Ohio," Hart says. He predicts "a closer election in Ohio than what many of the public polls may suggest."
The economic mood in Ohio is dour. The Obama supporters have more hope and enthusiasm, and Sarah Palin is "more a negative than a positive," says Hart. The public polling data give Obama a lead and suggests that race will not be a deciding factor next week.
However, "there is not a focus group session where one cannot feel some undercurrent about the racial issue having some impact on people's decisions," Hart reports. If just 15 percent of likely voters are confessing to pollsters that they have feelings of racial prejudice, he notes, it "might represent as many as 20 million voters."
Now, many of them may live in states like Alabama or Texas, which are not going to go Democratic this year, but there's a good chance that a significant number live in Florida, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Virginia, Ohio, and other battleground states.
Hart's focus group, which he conducted for the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, will be broadcast on C-SPAN tonight, at 8 and 11 p.m.
If you watch, pay close attention to a 62-year-old nanny named Cookie, who should be a cinched Democratic vote. A former legal secretary whose husband lost a good-paying job and now earns $8.50 an hour, she is a lifelong Democrat who has always voted Democratic. Cookie voted for Hillary Clinton in the primaries and says she is undecided, but the way she talks, Hart predicts, "Senator Obama will not be winning her vote."
"Her problems with Obama are personal rather than policy oriented," notes Hart. "It seems likely that race is a component of her reluctance to support him."
Bottom line: "Ohio is close," Hart says, "and listening to these voters, Ohio may be even closer than one might suspect."
Hart "feels a sense of disquiet" about Ohio, "where the fears of those who are struggling economically extend far beyond the economy to social and cultural issues."
"Looking at the fundamentals, Ohio should be clearly blue, but listening to these voters, Ohio's outcome remains a question mark."
And so, perhaps, is the election.
Tags: Ohio | presidential election 2008 | voters | Barack Obama | race
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forget the hype think American please read me
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/authors/id.71/author_detail.asp
HOME > PUBLICATIONS > The Great Obama Swindle of 2008
* IN THIS SECTION
October 28, 2008
The Great Obama Swindle of 2008
Raymond Kraft
PART ONE
OBAMA: THE ILLEGAL ALIEN
I have become 100% convinced, to a moral certainty, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Barack Obama is not only not a "natural born citizen" as required by the U.S. Constitution to be president, but that he was not even born in the USA, not born in Hawaii, probably in Kenya, never naturalized. If he is elected, he will be the UnConstitutional President from the moment he takes the oath of office, the first president who is not a citizen of the United States.
Why I am so sure?
I was not convinced by the lawsuits filed by Philip Berg, Andy Martin, Jerome Corsi, and others seeking disclosure of Obama's birth certificate. I was not convinced by the books and articles that now abound contesting Obama's origins. I was convinced by the behavior of Barack Obama and his lawyers, asking the governor of Hawaii to seal Obama's birth certificate so it could not be seen, by anyone, and by the behavior of Barack Obama and his lawyers, sealing his records at Columbia University and Harvard Law. Barack Obama is hiding himself from America. And he wants to be POTUS, and Commander-in-Chief.
In the litigation business, one quickly learns that if somebody has a document that will be good for them, they can't wait to give it to you. And if somebody has a document that will hurt them, they'll be tap dancing faster than Richard Gere in Chicago to keep you from getting it.
Obama is tap dancing.
If I were Obama's lawyers, and if there was a good, authentic, birth certificate that proved Barack Obama's birth in Hawaii, I would tell him to instruct the Hawaiian Department of Health to provide a certified copy to every journalist who asked about it, to the Courts and plaintiffs in all the lawsuits, and to make the original available for inspection by any expert forensic document examiner any litigant or news agency engaged to examine the birth certificate for authenticity. I would tell him to come clean, and end the speculation. And I would tell him that the speculation could cost him the election.
But that's not what Obama's lawyers are doing, they're filling motions for summary judgment, not on the merits of the case, but on "technicalities," at least in the Berg case, arguing that Citizens, voters, do not have standing to enforce the United States Constitution, and at least one judge, Richard Barclay Surrick, has agreed.
But what Obama and his lawyers and the Democrat National Committee (DNC) are not doing is being open and honest with America. They're tap dancing faster than Richard Gere in Chicago. So we are forced to this conclusion as a matter of logical necessity:
1. If Barack Obama could produce a good birth certificate that would verify his status as a "natural born citizen," he would. Failing to do so can only hurt him. Failing to do so can cost him the election.
2. He hasn't, and is doing all possible not to.
3. Therefore, we can only conclude that he can't, and that his birth certificate, if it exists at all, is either altered, forged, or shows him born outside the U.S. We have to conclude that producing his birth certificate, if he can, will prove he is not eligible to be president, not a natural born citizen, or not a citizen at all. We can only conclude that Obama and his lawyers know that producing his birth records will hurt him even more than not producing them.
Now, I could be wrong. Barack Obama can prove me wrong by producing a good birth certificate. But he hasn't. Will he? Can he?
PART TWO
NO "STANDING" TO SUE?
In the case of Berg v. Obama, US Federal Judge Richard Barclay Surrick agreed with Obama's lawyers and ruled that Berg, as a citizen, as a voter, has no "standing" to enforce the United States Constitution. I have read that other agencies have asserted that only another presidential candidate has standing to sue respecting the qualifications of a candidate, presumably because, arguendo, only another presidential candidate could be injured (lose an election) as a result of a non-qualified candidate on the ballot.
This may be the most patently absurd, illogical, incomprehensible, astonishing, mind-boggling, and utterly stupid argument I have ever heard in my life – and from a Federal Judge, at that. And if I didn't make myself perfectly clear, let me know and I'll try again.
Let's do the analysis.
1. The U.S. Constitution is a CONTRACT between The People, The States, and The United States, the federal government, that defines and limits the role of the federal government, and the rights of the States and The People, and, among other things, defines and limits the qualifications for president, i.e., that the president must be over the age of 35 years, and must be a natural born citizen.
2. Any party to a CONTRACT has standing to enforce it. This is as basic as it gets. Contract Law 101. First week of law school stuff. And it seems that lawyers and judges all over the country have forgotten all about it. Also, the Constitution was intended to benefit all American citizens, We, The People, and in basic contract law the intended beneficiaries of a CONTRACT, i.e., us, also have standing to enforce it.
3. If We, The People, do not have standing to enforce the CONTRACT, the U.S. Constitution, then it is unenforceable, and if it is unenforceable it is just a historic curiosity that means nothing. It’s just an old piece of parchment. But that was not the intent, and to give intent to the CONTRACT it must be enforceable by its parties and beneficiaries.
4. We, The People, have standing under the First Amendment "to petition the government for redress of grievances." If we have a grievance that a non-citizen, illegal alien, is running for president, I think the First Amendment unequivocally gives every American citizen standing to sue the government to redress that grievance and enforce the Constitution.
I think Judge Richard Barclay Surrick is dead wrong, illogically wrong, irrationally wrong, legally wrong, I think his legal analysis of this issue, in legalese, stinks.
PART THREE
THE DUTY OF CONGRESS
Article II, Section 1, requires that upon taking office the President of the United States shall take the following oath:
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of the President of the
United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution
of the United States."
Article VI, Clause 3, requires that Senators and Representatives requires:
"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution . . ."
Members of Congress take this oath:
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."
Having taken this oath, Sen. Barack Obama has violated his oath of office if he is refusing to disclose a birth certificate that proves his candidacy for president is unconstitutional, and I believe this is a mandatory basis for his impeachment.
Having taken these oaths, the President, the Vice President (an executive officer of the United States), every member of the Senate and House, every member of every State legislature, and every executive and judicial officers of the United States and of each State, has a mandatory duty per Article VI Clause 3 of the US Constitution to "support and defend" the Constitution, and that would necessarily include taking whatever action is necessary to assure that no person who does not meet the Constitutional requirement of "natural born citizen" ever becomes President.
And every Federal Judge, and every Justice of the Supreme Court, having taken this oath, also have a mandatory duty to "protect and defend" the Constitution by doing whatever is necessary to assure that no person who does not meet the Constitutional requirement of "natural born citizen" ever becomes President. Indeed, I believe that the Supreme Court has a sua sponte duty to resolve this dispute by ordering, on its own initiative, the immediate production of all of Obama's birth records in order to confirm his place of birth, and prevent the election of an UnConstitutional President. So far, all Justices of the Supreme Court have failed this mandatory duty.
So far, the President, the Vice President, every member of Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, ever Federal Judge and Justice, every member of every State legislature, and every governor, have failed in this duty. They have all failed to fulfill their oaths of office. Every one. They must all demand that Sen. Barack Obama either (a) produce a good birth certificate proving his status as a "natural born citizen," or (b) withdraw his candidacy before November 4th.
All those who do not should be impeached for having failed their oath of office.
PART FOUR
THE GREATEST SWINDLE IN HISTORY
If Senator Barack Hussein Obama cannot prove that he is a "natural born citizen," then Obama, the Democrat National Committee, the Democrats in the Senate and House who support him, and others such as former president Bill Clinton who openly support him, have perpetrated the greatest swindle in history by falsely and fraudulently misrepresenting Obama as Constitutionally eligible to be president, concealing the truth about his place of birth, thereby inducing millions of Democrats by the fraud of concealment, by the lie of non-disclosure, by "trick and device," to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the Barack Obama presidential campaign to elect an UnConstitutional President.
My opinion.
Note, this is a fraud perpetrated by Sen. Barack Obama, the DNC, and hundreds of Democrats in Congress, on their own constituency, the Democrat voters of America. It is a fraud of the Democrats, by the Democrats, and perpetrated on the Democrats. And it has defrauded Democrats out of more than $600 million.
According to their oaths of office, every Democrat member of Congress has an affirmative duty to assure that their presidential candidate is constitutionally qualified. As soon as questions about Obama's birth arose, every Democrat in Congress had a mandatory duty to confirm his eligibility by demanding release of his birth records. But, they have not. Not to my knowledge. Instead, every Democrat in Congress is complicit in the cover up – the cover up – of Obama's birth certificate, by failing to demand full disclosure to confirm his place of birth.
In my opinion, unless Obama can produce a good birth certificate proving that he is a "natural born citizen," then every Democrat member of Congress, every person managing Obama's campaign, every officer and director of the Democrat National Commitee, and every person who has ever taken an oath to "support and defend" the Constitution and is now supporting an UnConstitutional candidate for president, has participated in a vast left-wing conspiracy to defraud millions of Democrats out of hundreds of millions of dollars to elect an UnConstitutional President.
In my opinion, every one of these people, hundreds of them, should be prosecuted for fraud under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), for if Obama is not a "natural born citizen," that is what the Democrat National Committee (DNC) has become. And every one of them should be tried, convicted, and sent to prison for decades, for this is a $600 billion swindle of America's Democrats, a swindle perpetrated by the DNC and Barack Obama.
Now, I could be wrong. I could be wrong about every opinion I have expressed here.
Sen. Barack Hussein Obama can prove me wrong, quickly, simply, easily, by opening the doors of the hospitals and the Hawaiian Department of Health and showing us, showing America, showing the Democrats, all of his birth records.
Unless and until he does, I will remain convinced that Barack Hussein Obama is not an American citizen.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Raymond S. Kraft is an attorney and writer in Northern California. He can be contacted at rskraft@vfr.net.
The REAL Point
The point Farrell was making (I hope) is that race WILL play a factor in the election to some degree. If you vote McCain instead of Obama AND you are white, it doesn't make you racist. Just like if you are black, and voting for obama. However, America has a history of prejudice towards other races. So no matter how "United" the States is, there will always be an impact on the elections when race is involved.
And don't get me started on religion. I don't see how faith should play a role in deciding the next president. I think religion has more of an impact on the election than race does. I've seen both parties and their negative ads, but the one the struck me democrat was that republican bs vid about her opponent being "godless". That missus, is very underhand.
Cookie- Peter Hart and the Focus group
I stayed up till 3 a.m. to watch this..NO WHERE, NO WAY did Cookie "lean toward issues with race". NO WAY. Shame on you Peter Hart!
She, like me and most of the participants couldn't put their finger on what is wrong with Obama. It is not because he is black or bi-racial. It is because he is as they said last night "too packaged", "too slick". They said he lacked experience and the writer is correct - they created a final sample question which weighted a percentage to 3 areas- The Economy, Social Issues (abortion, gun control, gay marriage, etc.) and "other" including health care and the Iraq war.
Guess what they almost all said??? That social issues matter MORE by percentage than any other issue. In other words - VALUES.
Not one person at the table said Obama was the guy to handle international issues except as a "communicator". It was the group, not the moderator who kept bringing up the war in Iraq- a wake-up call for him and his observers.
I think Hart, a DEMOCRATIC pollster had a BIG wake-up call with Cookie and the others about truth in this race. That it has NOTHING TO DO WITH RACE, but it has everything to do with voting with someone you identify with relative to values. For Cookie - if everything is equal, the only thing left is experience and ability on the international stage relating to national security.
I was just like Cookie - a die-hard Democrat - voting for Hilary and loving Biden but will vote for McCain in 2008. Hilary was right - many of her 18 million will cross the line to vote "right" this year.
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