Free Republic

The presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, the Democrat frontrunner, is facing a wave of defections by supporters to Barack Obama, as an aura of “inevitability” about her nomination fades. With Oprah Winfrey, the talk show host and Obama enthusiast, challenging former president Bill Clinton for star power on the campaign trail, the coronation of Hillary has been put on hold. A few days ago, Helen Quarles peeled off the Hillary for President bumper stickers from her car and replaced them with Obama ’08. “I didn’t think anybody could turn me away from Hillary,” said Quarles, who worked as a volunteer...

In classic Liberal Democrat style, Senator B. Hussein Obama said if elected he plans on direct talks with the Muslim Terror supporting nation of Iran and plans on giving them cash in exchange for not killing us because that has worked so well in the past, right? From IHT.com: If elected president, Senator Barack Obama would meet with Iran’s leaders and offer economic inducements and a possible promise not to seek “regime change” if Iran stopped meddling in Iraq and cooperated on terrorism and nuclear issues. In an hour-long interview on Wednesday, Obama made clear that forging a new relationship...

Barack Obama, the Democrat aiming to become America's first black president, has condemned Republican slurs about his background after a leading candidate confused him with Osama bin Laden. In what aides claimed was a slip of the tongue, the former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney accused the Illinois senator of urging terrorists to converge in Iraq — as the al-Qa'eda leader did in a tape released this week. In the midst of criticising Democrats' foreign policy, he said: "Actually, just look at what Osam — uh — Barack Obama, said just yesterday. Barack Obama calling on radicals, jihadists of all different...

Sen. Barack Obama,D-Ill, delivers a speech at a campaign stop in Lexington, Ky., Sunday, Aug. 26, 2007.

Nine years ago this week, Al Gore warmed up his run for the presidency by making a visit to Motown and speaking to the Detroit Economic Club. I covered that speech and recall that Gore was entering hostile territory. Detroit, an SUV boomtown in those days, was deeply skeptical of the vice president, who famously called for the death of the internal-combustion engine. ---SNIP--- My, how times have changed. This week, Sen. Barack Obama attempted to fuel his presidential run with a scalding speech to the Detroit Economic Club, castigating Motown's big wheels for driving our dependence on foreign oil....

Barack Hussein Obama stumbled during the first Democratic debate

Why are so many people saying that U.S. Sen. Barack Obama could become the first black president? If by that they mean that he would become the first African-American president -- meaning his father was from Kenya and his mother from Kansas -- it would make sense. But I don't think that's what people mean. Despite the deaths of legal segregation and Jim Crow, apparently most Americans still embrace the one-drop rule. F. James Davis, a retired professor of sociology at Illinois State University, defined the one-drop rule as the belief that any person with ''any known African black ancestry''...

Perhaps it isn't fair to Barak Obama that the Illinois GOP declared 2004 as Their Nominate-A-Mongoloid Year when they contended against his rise to the US Senate. After all, Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Harry Reid of Nevada have both beaten back very serious opposition and proven they can beat a quality opponent in a tight Senatorial Election. Barak Obama? He spent 2004 as a grown man fighting out the T-Ball World Series. How bad were the GOP candidates he ran against? So bad that.... We'll start with Jack Ryan. If you were to type "Ryan, Illinois, sex-scandal" into...

MANCHESTER, N.H. – With standing room crowds chanting for the star to show, Sunday's Democratic fundraiser could have been a rock concert. But it was only Sen. Barack Obama's first visit to the nation's first primary state. If Senator Obama should jump into the Democratic presidential primary, where he is now ranked just behind Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York in recent polls, Democrats in the land of retail politics wonder if there's a living room big enough to hold the throngs who'd come to hear him. "Right now, he's a rock star. Getting 1,500 people out on a...

Maureen Dowd is worried that the Republican smear machine is at it again, attacking Barack Obama by using…his middle name. It seems Ed Rogers referred to Obama by his full name on "Hardball" a while back, setting off indignation among some on the left. I don't know why it came to Rogers' mind, but it is true I included Obama's middle name in an NR story (not available on the web) in early November: "Obama has joked that he worried his political career was over after 9/11 because his name sounded too much like Osama. In fact, it's better than...

Barack Obama is to Christianity what Michael Jackson is to heterosexuality. He might be one, but he’s not the poster child for the cause. You know, when I watch Obama and the other overtly ideological southpaw’s queue up to play the Christ card, it takes me back to Kerry in ’04 when he tried to convince gun owners and hunters that he’s a Nimrod. The fact is that if evangelicals didn’t represent a president-making voting block, they would get the same attention from our liberal brethren as Ugly Betty at a Playboy party. Since evangelicals swing a big stick, the...

Maureen Dowd plays the false indignation card in her pay-per-view column of today, What’s in a Name, Barry?The gist: those mean Republicans are trying to tar the rising star of the Democratic party [legally-mandated descriptor] by making malign associations with his moniker. The GOP's latest mischief - letting people know that the middle name of the junior senator from Illinois is "Hussein." Bunk. Any possible shock value in the Barack Hussein Obama handle has already largely faded. And this being a nation that likes to see itself as open and accepting, I'd say that, should he stay in the race,...

CONCORD, N.H. - Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, who is mulling a presidential bid, will make his first visit to New Hampshire next month. The Illinois senator will join the state's Democrats on Dec. 10 for a belated celebration of their big win in the midterm election. Obama has traveled to Iowa, site of the leadoff presidential caucuses, but New Hampshire hasn't been on his itinerary. Obama has gotten encouragement to seek the presidency in 2008 from fellow Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, who sent a letter to political supporters this week encouraging them to sign a "Run, Barack, Run" petition. "Barack...

Rising black star of Democrats connects with evangelicals IN THE latest sign that the “God gap” between Republicans and Democrats is narrowing, one of America’s biggest evangelical churches will this week welcome Senator Barack Obama, the rising African-American star of the Democratic party who has become a leading contender for the 2008 presidential elections. Obama will appear on Friday at the Saddleback church in Lake Forest, California, where at least 20,000 conservative Christians gather each week for services led by Pastor Rick Warren, the evangelical author of the bestselling inspirational book The Purpose Driven Life. At first glance Warren and...

NBC5.com Obama Urges Gradual Withdrawal Of Troops From Iraq Senator Careful Not To Set Specific Timetable UPDATED: 1:13 pm CST November 20, 2006 CHICAGO -- Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, who is contemplating a run for the presidency, on Monday called for a "gradual and substantial" reduction of U.S. forces from Iraq that would begin in four to six months. Speaking to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the Illinois senator envisioned a flexible timetable for withdrawal linked to conditions on the ground in Iraq and based on the advise of U.S. commanders. Obama also called for intensified efforts to train...

When Sen. Barack Obama slipped into Sen. Robert Byrd's Capitol office one day last year, he was seeking counsel from an elder who had been in the Senate since before Obama was born. Senators these days, Byrd cautioned the young Illinois Democrat, become fixated on the White House. "I remember the advice," Obama said matter-of-factly in an interview with The Associated Press last week. "The importance of senators staying in the Senate." Obama has been in the Senate less than two years. Now he is thinking of running for president. Presumptuous? "In a country of 300 million people," he said...

CHICAGO --Responding to a newspaper report, Sen. Barack Obama said Saturday that arrangements he had with a political fundraiser accused of shaking down companies might have raised the appearance of impropriety. Antoin "Tony" Rezko, whom Gov. Rod Blagojevich has described as a friend and a fundraiser, has pleaded not guilty to charges that he plotted to squeeze millions of dollars in kickbacks out of investment firms seeking state business. He also has pleaded not guilty to obtaining a $10.5 million loan from General Electric Capital Corp. through fraud and swindling a group of investors. Photo/Tony Dejak

Sen. Barack Obama may have thought a wrought iron fence would give him all the separation he needed from indicted Wilmette businessman Antoin "Tony" Rezko. But before everything is said and done, our star senator is going to wish he'd done a lot more a lot sooner to distance himself from his longtime political supporter.

Obama in '08 Might Bring GOP Smiles By Peter Brown Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois is the flavor of the month among Democrats who are seeking an alternative to Sen. Hillary Clinton for president in 2008. As much as the Republicans would like to see Sen. Clinton as the Democratic nominee, believing she is quite beatable, they probably wouldn't be upset to see Obama as their opponent either. Actually, they might even like running against him better. (snip) Among those who know who Obama is - a minority, and disproportionately those who would fit the definition of political junkie --...

Why Not Obama? By Richard CohenTuesday, October 24, 2006; A19 Ancient Rome had a term for a certain political process: cursus honorum , the honors race. It was, I am told by Anthony Everitt in his new biography, "Augustus," the process by which politicians moved up the ladder. Along the way, they were evaluated until, finally, some made it to the top. Nowadays, the system is different. All you have to do is appear on "Oprah."I am referring, obviously and insidiously, to Barack Obama, who announced Sunday that he might run for president. This followed, of course, the aforementioned...