Sen. Barack Obama on Tuesday became the first African American to win the nomination of a major political party in the US, as he claimed enough pledged delegates from the contests in Montana and South Dakota and, more importantly, enough superdelegate support yesterday to push him across the 2,118 threshold needed.
Obama's upset of Hillary Clinton was the lead on each of the network news reports, and was the top story in the major dailies. Obama took a victory lap before what the Minneapolis Star-Tribune calls a "raucous" crowd of 17,000 the Xcel Center in St. Paul, Minnesota site of the GOP convention in August -- praising Clinton and pivoting to target his new adversary, Sen. John McCain. USA Today reports Obama "focused largely on the general election against" McCain "at his victory rally late Tuesday in St. Paul." Superdelegates, "among them former president Jimmy Carter, already had lined up behind Obama and pushed him over the 2,118 delegate total needed to be nominated before the polls closed in the Mountain West, where a total of 31 delegates were at stake." The Washington Post reports in a front-page story that Obama "savored what once seemed an unlikely outcome to the Democratic race with a nod to the marathon that was ending and to what will be another hard-fought battle" against McCain.
The media is already beginning to frame the terms of the coming campaign. The CBS Evening News reported, "With an eye toward those Republicans who may be disillusioned with the Bush administration, Obama will offer himself as an alternative, arguing that John McCain ensures nothing so much as a third term for Bush, more failures at home and abroad, a candidate with no plan to bring the troops home from Iraq, and a hands-off economic policy without relief for hard-pressed Americans." Another example: in a widely distributed AP piece, Obama's victory is said to "set up a five-month campaign with" McCain, "a race between a first-term Senate opponent of the Iraq War and a 71-year-old former Vietnam prisoner of war and staunch supporter of the current U.S. military mission." Similarly, McClatchy reports the McCain and Obama campaigns "are certain to offer very different visions. Obama opposed the Iraq war from the start; McCain, a heroic former prisoner of war, is the steady supporter of invading Iraq who pushed for more troops, not fewer, when the long conflict looked increasingly dire. McCain embraces the Bush administration's economic policies favoring private-sector leadership and low taxes, while Obama favors higher taxes on the wealthy, lower taxes on the middle class and more government intervention in economic affairs."
While Sen. Barack Obama effectively wrapped up the Democratic nomination yesterday, Sen. Hillary Clinton said yesterday she was not ready to concede the race. The Washington Post reports in a front page story that "characteristically measured and noticeably upbeat," Clinton "did not explain her next move when she addressed her supporters in the dingy basement gym at Baruch College. If her speech seemed a valedictory, she did not say she was ending her campaign. If she lavishly praised Barack Obama -- who 'inspired so many Americans to care about politics and empowered so many more to get involved' -- she did not endorse him." The Los Angeles Times says Clinton "seemed unable to abandon her argument that she should have had the prize. 'In the millions of quiet moments, in thousands of places,' she told her fans, 'you asked yourself a simple question: Who would be the strongest candidate and the strongest president?' Clinton provided the answer. She ticked off the states she had won -- including South Dakota on Tuesday night -- and reiterated her much-disputed claim to have been the choice of more voters."
There is significant speculation in the media today that Clinton is not conceding in order to pressure Obama into selecting her as his running mate. Speaking on a conference call with legislators from her home state of New York yesterday, Clinton reportedly expressed interest in joining Obama on the Democratic ticket, the AP reports. On the conference call, Clinton "said she was willing to become Obama's vice presidential nominee if it would help Democrats win the White House, according to several participants in the call." The CBS Evening News reported Clinton "is signaling interest in the vice president slot on the ticket. Asked by fellow New York lawmakers about it today, Clinton said, quote, I'm open to it." On ABC World News, George Stephanopoulos said, "Now that she says she's open to considering it, a lot of her supporters want it, that puts Barack Obama in a bit of a box. He either has to pick her -- he certainly has to seriously consider her. And if he doesn't want her, he has got to do it in a way that doesn't diss her or her supporters."
However, the media is already beginning to examine some of the problems with an Obama-Clinton ticket. For example, on the CBS Evening News, Bob Schieffer said, "I am told, Katie, that Senator Clinton's husband is the one who is mainly pushing this, telling her she needs to try to get on the ticket. Certainly there will be some pluses and minuses. A plus is obvious. She can help him bring women to support him, she can help him with blue-collar workers. But there are some minuses. And the main minus is Bill Clinton himself. Does Obama want to bring on the questions that will be asked about his personal life, how he made all the money he's made in recent years?"
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Fittingly, yesterday's primaries were again a split decision, with Sen. Barack Obama winning Montana and Sen. Hillary Clinton winning South Dakota. In Montana, CNN reports Obama topped Clinton 57%-41%, while in South Dakota, Clinton beat Obama 55%-45%, CNN reports this morning.
Print coverage of Sen. John McCain's speech last night from Louisiana was nearly uniform in identifying two main themes: McCain is said to have emphasized Sen. Barack Obama's relative inexperience and his own record of defying President Bush on key issues. The New York Times, for example, says McCain "used his speech here to highlight his independence from the president in areas including the early handling of the war, global warming and government spending." McCain also "took square aim at Mr. Obama, proclaiming that he had 'accumulated the most liberal voting record in the Senate,' mocking him for belief in diplomacy with enemy nations and even criticizing him for voting for Mr. Bush's energy bill, which Mr. McCain opposed." According to the Washington Post, McCain "wasted no time...launching his first general-election broadside...casting the Democrat as an out-of-touch liberal who offers a false promise of change."
The Los Angeles Times adds, "Using a mocking tone, the 71-year-old McCain cast" Obama, "who is 46, as 'a young man' who has bought into the 'failed ideas' and 'big-government solutions' of the past. He even took a swipe at Obama's campaign slogan, 'Change We Can Believe In,' by offering his own new slogan: 'A Leader We Can Believe In,' which was prominently posted on a green placard behind him."
USA Today notes that McCain senior adviser Charles Black "said the campaign planned the speech with the expectation that Obama would clinch the Democratic nomination Tuesday. 'This is the first night of the general election,' Black said. 'So we're going to draw a clear contrast between McCain and Obama.'"
With the effective conclusion of the Democratic primary, the media today is beginning to look seriously at some of the challenges Sen. Barack Obama is likely to face in his coming battle with Sen. John McCain. The Washington Post, for example, says the primary "revealed a racial schism within the Democratic Party, and potential resistance to a black candidate in some parts of the country that will play out in the general-election campaign." In an analysis article, the Los Angeles Times examines Obama's need to woo "the white working class, Latinos, and independent and moderate Democratic women frustrated that their dream of historic achievement was derailed by the dreams of others," and asks if Obama can "sell his vision of hope and change to the political middle?" On the CBS Evening News, Jeff Greenfield said of Obama's win, "This is hardly a triumphant march. He's lost most of the primaries starting on March 4th. In fact, no nominee of either major party since the dawn of the primaries will have lost as many big states as Obama has."
Exit Polls Show Wright Ties Remain A Concern For Voters The Wall Street Journal reports some "worrying signs" for Obama came out of in yesterday's final pair of primaries, as Obama "showed weaknesses in South Dakota in particular that rival Hillary Clinton's campaign has warned could haunt him in November." Early exit polls show "voters Tuesday appeared to have strong concerns about his two decades of membership in Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago."
Sen. Barack Obama is now faced with the task of rebuilding a unified party sundered by the lengthy and contentious primary. He wasted no time in beginning that process yesterday. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Obama's "camp immediately began the work of reaching out to" Sen. Hillary Clinton "and he reportedly called Clinton in an effort to bring her backers into the fold." The New York Post reports that during his victory speech, Obama called Clinton's campaign "barrier-breaking," and added, "Our party and our country are better off because of her, and I am a better candidate for having had the honor to compete with Hillary Rodham Clinton."
Obama is also looking for something more tangible from Clinton's backers, as the New York Times reports his campaign "is gearing up to recruit many of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's top fund-raisers, a move that could provide him with a huge infusion of cash if the two camps can get past the rancor of the primary season." Several of Obama's finance officials "say that if Mrs. Clinton drops out of the race, they will invite her top fund-raisers to join his national finance committee at a meeting in Chicago on June 19."
A broad range of media outlets ran analysis pieces on why Sen. Hillary Clinton lost her bid for the Democratic nomination after starting the campaign as the overwhelming favorite. The Wall Street Journal in a front page story blames Clinton herself, saying, "The bottom line is this: She called the biggest plays, and she got them wrong." ABC World News said Clinton "is inextricably tied to the past. And too many voters couldn't imagine her leading the nation into the future." Tad Devine, Democratic strategist, said, "Hillary Clinton decided to run as the candidate of experience and also to run on the record of the Clinton Administration. Both of those things looked backward." Other pieces, such as those run by Bloomberg News and the Financial Times, blame Bill Clinton, while McClatchy places the blame at the feet of ousted Clinton strategist Mark Penn.
The Washington Post reports in a front-page story that Obama triumphed by running an "insurgent" strategy that focused on states, venues, and issues that Democrats often ignore, while the Los Angeles Times reports in a front page story that Obama's victory was "a triumph of charisma and soaring oratory -- two of the oldest commodities in politics -- fused with a thoroughly modern campaign that harnessed the Internet like never before." ABC World News said Obama "embraced the one message that was mattered this year" "change."
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Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke yesterday spoke to the International Monetary Conference in Barcelona, Spain, giving his view of the current and future US economy. Whereas heretofore the Fed had seemed willing to risk a bit of inflation to avoid a collapse of the US economy, those days seem to have come to an end. In a front-page story, the Wall Street Journal reports that in "an unmistakable break from what traders have long viewed as a U.S. policy of benign neglect toward the weak dollar," Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke made "a rare public declaration on currencies," saying that "the dollar's steep fall has led to worrisome inflation and stressed the Fed's vigilance on the issue." His statements, "amplifying signals previously sent by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson," led to the dollar rising "against the euro and Japanese yen, and strengthened a conviction among some traders that the dollar's long slump may be ending." The Financial Times says Bernanke "surprised markets" with his "radical break with the US central bank's practice of not commenting on the dollar, a privilege traditionally reserved for the US Treasury secretary." In a story on the front page of its "Money" section, USA Today reports Bernanke said that the Fed's interest rate policy is "well positioned to promote moderate growth and price stability over time," which, according to USA Today, "signals that the central bank...is done cutting rates for now." The AP adds that Bernanke said that "until the slumping housing market and falling home prices show 'clearer signs of stabilization,' there will continue to be threats to improved economic growth."
In a front-page story, the Washington Post reports that economists say "the nation is at risk of a self-reinforcing cycle of inflation like that experienced in the 1970s" because "prices have been soaring long enough and fast enough" that people are planning for inflation. The Christian Science Monitor says "the dominance of the dollar has enabled the US to live beyond its real means for decades," but "with the jump in the price of oil and the tumble in the dollar, the psychology of world financial markets and perhaps central bankers is changing."
The AP reports House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman said yesterday that he is "seeking more documents from the CIA leak probe because of significant disclosures to the FBI by Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff and new details about Cheney's role in the scandal" in former White House press secretary Scott McClellan's new book. According to the Washington Post, in his interview with the FBI, Cheney's former chief of staff Scooter Libby said it was "possible" that Cheney "instructed him to disseminate information" about Wilson.
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In an address at the annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington yesterday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "escalated the Bush administration's anti-Iran rhetoric," says the New York Times, adding reports Rice accused Iran's "government of pursuing nuclear weapons and calling any dialogue with its leaders pointless until they suspend the country's enrichment of uranium." The Times notes that "the tone of her speech...was unusually sharp, taking oblique aim at Senator Barack Obama and other Democratic leaders who have called for the United States to engage Iran diplomatically." According to the AP, Rice said "there's no point in talking to Iran unless the clerical regime changes its behavior and gives up its suspected nuclear weapons ambitions." USA Today runs a brief report on Rice's remarks.
In a counterpoint to Rice's speech, the Financial Times reports Vice Admiral Kevin Cosgriff, commander of the US Fifth Fleet "the top US naval commander in the Middle East" -- "says contacts between the US and Iranian navies would be useful once Tehran stopped sponsoring violence inside Iraq." In an interview, Cosgriff told the Times "that the US and Soviet navies had benefited from contacts during the Cold War," and when "asked whether similar contacts between the US and Iran navies would be useful," he said: "I think they would."
Ahmadinejad Says Israel Will "Disappear." The New York Times reports Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme clerical leader, "vowed Tuesday that his country would pursue a peaceful atomic energy program and had no interest in nuclear weapons, calling them expensive and useless." Also yesterday, AFP reports that while attending the UN food summit in Rome, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "slammed aggressive US policy in the Middle East on Tuesday, while insisting that the state of Israel will 'certainly' disappear." Ahmadinejad also "taunted" President Bush, "saying he was keen to attack Iran but would end his term in the White House without having done so." The Los Angeles Times notes that at Rome's City Hall, "Jewish groups were joined by Italian politicians from a wide array of parties and Iranian exiles. It was an unusually diverse gathering, and Gianni Alemanno, Rome's right-wing mayor, announced that he was dimming the eternal lights of the City Hall plaza (designed by Michelangelo) for 15 minutes Tuesday night in protest of Ahmadinejad."
US-Iraq Security Deal Worries Iran According to the AP, "A proposed US-Iraq security agreement is shaping up as a major political battle between America and Iran." The agreement, "which both sides hope to finish in midsummer, is likely to be among the issues discussed this weekend when Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is due to visit Iran -- his second trip there in a year." His party has "sought to calm worries by insisting that the deal would not allow foreign troops to use Iraq as a ground to invade another country -- a clear reference to Iranian fears of a US attack."
The AP reports Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told AIPAC that while "there is still a chance to frame a deal between Israel and the Palestinians this year...the goal is admittedly ambitious." The New York Times notes that "in the past President Bush and Ms. Rice have both spoken of sealing a deal by the end of the year, rather than simply pursuing one." According to the Washington Times, "Top Palestinian negotiators complained Tuesday that continuing Israeli settlement construction on contested land was undermining chances of a peace deal this year." Meanwhile, the AP reports Israeli Prime Miniset Ehud Olmert's visit to Washington "is being overshadowed" by his "legal troubles at home, where a corruption investigation has decimated his popularity ratings and fueled growing calls for his dismissal." The Financial Times is reporting the Palestinian Authority "has urged the European Union to refrain from 'upgrading' its ties with Israel, arguing that the country systematically violates human rights and its international commitments, including to the EU itself."
The Wall Street Journal reports from Seoul that Defense Secretary Robert Gates "said the US had no evidence that North Korea was helping countries other than Syria develop nuclear capabilities." His comments, the Journal notes, "were part of a generally upbeat assessment of conditions on the Korean peninsula," where the defense secretary "said the security situation was stable enough that he favors allowing the 28,500 American military personnel serving in South Korea to live with their spouses and children once appropriate housing and educational facilities can be constructed on US bases." The New York Times says such a move "would...reverse decades of Pentagon policy for South Korea." The Washington Times also notes Gates' comments. Meanwhile, McClatchy reports, "Food shortages are gripping North Korea amid signs that some of its citizens may already be starving to death, experts and rights activists said Tuesday." While the Bush administration "is resuming food aid to North Korea...experts said the bulk of US food aid will arrive too late to help critical pre-harvest food shortages that intensify by the day."
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Jay Leno: "The good news -- the whole voting process ended tonight. ... The bad news -- the 2012 Democratic primary starts on Thursday."
Jay Leno: "Hey, did you hear about that tribe they found in Brazil? It seems they have never been contacted by the outside world. Although they live in Brazil, they had no participation or representation in the political process there. They're kind of like delegates from Michigan and Florida here."
Conan O'Brien: "The Associated Press reported today that Barack Obama has won enough delegates to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination. ... As a result, Hillary Clinton will concede sometime in the next 30 years."
Conan O'Brien: "A new article in 'Vanity Fair' magazine hints...that former President Bill Clinton may have had an affair with actress Gina Gershon." The "article also hints that John McCain may have had an affair with Estelle Getty."
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