Unify America? Obama had better start with the Democrats

Michael Tomasky in Washington The Guardian, Monday June 2 2008 Article historySo this is what party unity sounds like. Alice Huffman, a member of the Democratic party's rules and bylaws committee, which met on Saturday to decide the fates of the Florida and Michigan delegations, was explaining herself. She had just sought to allow all of Florida's delegates to vote at the Democratic convention in August, despite the disputed scheduling of the state's presidential primary. But that motion failed, and she was explaining to her 29 fellow committee members and the rest of us in a Washington hotel ballroom why she was now - in the interest of party unity - going to support a second motion that would seat the delegation at half strength.

A woman in the audience yelled: "You just took away votes!" Huffman: "We gave you some back, too. We will leave here more united than we came."

The room, or that portion of it dedicated to Hillary Clinton's advancement to the White House, burst into mocking laughter. She tried to keep talking.

A man yelled: "Lipstick on a pig!"

Huffman countered: "Please conduct yourselves like proper men and women."

At a later point, committee member Everett Ward was trying to speak. A woman in the audience yelled, apropos of what I'm not sure: "What about Iowa? New Hampshire? South Carolina?" Another woman countered: "Shut up!"

At the end of the evening, the committee member Don Fowler leaned into his microphone to thank the co-chairs, James Roosevelt


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/02/barackobama.hillaryclinton

she is not without some responsibility for the current level of vitriol.....

what? clarification of your meaning please :shrug:

What is left of Camp Clinton (a few insiders and a small posse of dead-enders) is going to continue to lob hate-bombs and lay snares and other obstacles throughout the GE & Obama's presidency and proclaim their tactics as reasons why they feel that Obama is not a uniter. :crazy:

He said he could unify this country. Period.

There were no if's , but's or maybe's.

He can't and he won't. He can't even get his two 20 year pastors united with him.

I see, so since he didn't specify "I can unify the country unless a bunch of hateful pricks with hurt feelings insist on making shit up and taking their marching orders from Hannity and Rush", then no matter what venom fellow "democrats" spew at him, he should be able to unite the country...

Sorry I asked :crazy:

anything else.

you are pathetic, now he has to be responsible for the crazy cathoclic too??? :wtf:

"....The biggest challenge, I think, is always maintaining your moral compass."

Friends and advisers, such as the Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Roman Catholic Church in the Auburn- Gresham community on the South Side, who has known Obama for the better part of 20 years, help him keep that compass set, he says.

"I always have felt in him this consciousness that, at the end of the day, with all of us, you've got to face God," Pfleger says of Obama. "Faith is key to his life, no question about it. It is central to who he is, and not just in his work in the political field, but as a man, as a black man, as a husband, as a father.... I don't think he could easily divorce his faith from who he is."

Another person Obama says he seeks out for spiritual counsel is state Sen. James Meeks, who is also the pastor of Chicago's Salem Baptist Church. The day after Obama won the primary in March, he stopped by Salem for Wednesday-night Bible study.

"I know that he's a person of prayer," Meeks says. "The night after the election, he was the hottest thing going from Galesburg to Rockford. He did all the TV shows, and all the morning news, but his last stop at night was for church. He came by to say thank you, and he came by for prayer.".." http://www.suntimes.com/news/falsani/726619,obamafalsani040504.article

And this is from the complete transcript of the interview--
http://falsani.blogspot.com/2008/04/barack-obama-2004-god-factor-interview.html

GG:
Do you still attend Trinity?

OBAMA:
Yep. Every week. 11 oclock service.

Ever been there? Good service.

I actually wrote a book called Dreams from My Father, it’s kind of a meditation on race. There’s a whole chapter on the church in that, and my first visits to Trinity....


"...GG:
Do you have people in your life that you look to for guidance?

OBAMA:
Well, my pastor is certainly someone who I have an enormous amount of respect for.
I have a number of friends who are ministers. Reverend Meeks is a close friend and colleague of mine in the state Senate. Father Michael Pfleger is a dear friend, and somebody I interact with closely.


GG:
Those two will keep you on your toes.

OBAMA:
And theyr’e good friends. Because both of them are in the public eye, there are ways we can all reflect on what’s happening to each of us in ways that are useful.

I think they can help me, they can appreciate certain specific challenges that I go through as a public figure...


These people have been friends and advisers to Obama for the majority of his adult life. If he had no idea what made up the foundation of their beliefs until just now

I would have to question his judgment.

:eyes:

She's the one who stirred up this "stolen victory" crap. She needs to make it right.

Don't worry, I won't hold my breath.

she still would be behind in delegates..

A Hillary supporter here finding fault with Obama because of rude and ignorant Hillary supporters at the RBC meeting. Laughable.

The author of the piece is correct. She DID get her supporters worked into a tizzy - and it'll be her responsiblity to work them out of it. Barack's job is to be magnanimous and inclusive. He's holding up his end of the deal.

like to blame the fate of Michigan and Florida, due to their own actions on one candidate. I doubt one of those women will ever vote for Obama. Let them be to vote for whoever they want. I'm so tired of threats and extortion from so-called Democrats.

But not with all of the DINO moles for the GOP.

Get behind the candidate who has been nothing but stellar towards whats-her-name.

Me and and a bunch of others, not so much.

I'll stop this just as soon as she's gone.

Suck it up, get behind the candidate and let's go whip the Republicant's.

My first vote ever went to JFK. Raised in a totally D household.

and I had plans to attend!

Saying that Obama gets others to slime her when referring to the Pfleger controversy. So yea, I will blame Bill because of his ridiculous and unfounded statements.

We should all be mature enough to pull ourselves up and unite
and we shouldn't need Obama to be our baby sitter.
We need to unite now and it's up to each of us. Right now.
Are you Fired UP ?

I swear to freaking GOD I'm sick of hearing that garbage. He's been a class act the entire campaign, so unity shouldn't be that hard. Honestly, Hillary has an obligation to encourage her supporters to get behind Obama.

Obama will be a unifying candidate--IF Hillary supporters are interested in joining in the good fight in the first place. If they're going to continue with their take-all-my-toys-and-go-home tantrum, then no candidate on earth can bring them into the fold.

(sorry about that dupe.. too fired up I guess : - )))

Let's Go Democrats!

Maybe brought back some memories. Tough day here - I needed some giggles.

There is obviously a small minority of Hillary supporters that will not be satisfied until she is handed the nomination. Since that's not going to happen there is no "uniting" them. It's like asking Obama to unite with Bush and the neo-cons. It'll never happen.

so I'm told

that is why he has already placed a call to Hillary, which couldn't be easy, and made sure it was covered on the msm. He is starting the process with the lead person causing much of the divisiveness, and I am betting he will find a way to get her past this.

That has always been the necessary first step to unity.

Baby steps to be sure, but I have a feeling things will start to gel back together soon. We can't afford to remain divided with McSame running.

she should be in charge of repairing the damage from day one.

We know damn well he can't do it.

She's the one that opened up the Pandora's box of hate.

my selective snip/

But at the same time, we've been hostage to the Clintons' inability to come to grips with the fact that Hillary was going to lose. Her final descent into rancid demagoguery about Florida and Michigan, comparing them to Zimbabwe and likening the "cause" of seating the states at full strength to the civil rights movement was, for some observers, the last straw. It was a rules dispute over two states that broke the rules; no one was jailed or lynched, and if anyone disenfranchised the voters of those two states, it wasn't the Democratic party or Obama, it was the political leaders of the states themselves.

We have no idea whether the fuming Clinton partisans at Saturday's meeting represent thousands or millions. But however many of them exist, the fact is that Clinton worked them into this lather - Eve Fairbanks of the New Republic filed a stomach-turning report for her magazine's website on some of the things said about Obama outside the hall - and Clinton is responsible as things move forward for working them out of it. That means, for starters, ending her quest soon and letting her backers know that she's not fighting on to the Denver convention.


a fair snip/

But an even greater responsibility falls on Obama as the nominee. Losers have to be gracious, but winners have to be magnanimous. He has a little trouble with magnanimous. He also has few women in his campaign's higher brain trust. He needs to show that he takes the frustrations of Clinton's supporters seriously. And since it seems highly unlikely that he'll offer her the vice-presidency, he'll have to find creative and interesting ways to reach out to Clinton voters.

Remember unity, one America, we're all our brothers' and sisters' keepers - the fundamental premise of the Obama campaign to begin with? Now would be an excellent time for him to put those principles into action.

I would love to read her article about the post RBC hearings.

"the Country be damned, it's all about the Clintons."

Boy, 2012 is going to be fun.

Republicans who want a better America that he needs to bring in.

Obama had not won, we'd really be better off as a party. A Clinton/Obama ticket works, an Obama/Clinton ticket doesn't work. Just about everyone knows this.

But we play the hand we're dealt.

Hillary's the one who'd better start unifying Democrats.

:crazy:

But the onus to encourage unity is on Hillary.

That doesn't reflect well on his ability to lead. Putting the onus on Hillary makes him look even weaker.

as representative.

I suppose not.

and make a strong statement of support that gives her supporters reasons to support Obama. He can't do that.

OK, Spiderman. :eyes:

of conciliation with HRC supporters without effort from Senator Clinton herself. It just doesn't work that way in the real world.

So I guess that makes him part of the unreal world. :crazy:

Can't seem to get that tune out of my head today for some reason. :)