Though am not Supporter, He's Sailing Smooth!

[*jr]

Hillary Clinton has been losing her enthusiastic supporters to Obama’s campaign because use of stupid uncalculated campaign attacks. She had to fire three high level campaign staffers who were implicated sending emails about Obama's past.

This article explains all. I think the likelihood of Obama winning the primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire (he’s leading in the polls both states) can transcend to other closely followed primaries too, like North and South Carolina and Georgia which can bring shock wave throughout the nation and can bring about something never witnessed in any presidential campaign in the history of the Unite States. Of course I am John Edwards supporter in the primaries, but I am very impressed with the Obama campaign thus far. Here is the article. ENJOY!

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Barack Obama seizes his chance

By Toby Harnden; The Telegraph
Last Updated: 2:41am GMT 15/12/2007

Clumsy slurs from Hillary Clinton's campaign have seen Barack Obama pull past her in the race for the White House. Toby Harnden describes how the senator hit fighting form

It was the moment that Barack Obama became the front-runner in the race for the White House. As he waited at a private terminal in Washington airport to board his charter plane to Des Moines for Thursday's Democratic debate, an aide to Hillary Clinton approached him. The former First Lady would "like to have a word".

The two senators work in the same building - the Capitol - and had been criss-crossing the early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire on the same bleak roads. They sometimes stayed at the same hotels - though, by design, never at the same time.

But apart from the briefest of pleasantries, the rival candidates for the presidency had not spoken for almost a year. Back in January, on the day Mr Obama's presidential ambitions became clear, Mrs Clinton had ignored his outstretched hand.

Mrs Clinton, about to turn 60, had based her campaign on the idea that she would make history as the first woman president. But this upstart, nearly 15 years her junior, could trump that: as the son of a white woman from Kansas and a former goatherd from Kenya, he would be the first black president. Her contempt for this impertinence was never far from the surface.

Although taken aback by the overture, Mr Obama hesitated only briefly before assenting. On the tarmac, where their planes had been parked alongside each other, they talked for 10 minutes.

Startlingly, Mrs Clinton wanted to say sorry. The New York senator told her colleague from Illinois that he probably wanted to "hear from me" that comments by Bill Shaheen, a senior Clinton campaign figure, suggesting that Mr Obama might have been a drug dealer, were "unauthorised and inappropriate".

But Mr Obama stood his ground. The Harvard graduate and former civil rights lawyer, who first came to national attention with his eloquent address to the Democratic convention in 2004, had come to realise that not only was he Mrs Clinton's equal, but that now he had the upper hand. And, with the unpopularity of President George W Bush and low poll ratings for the Republican candidates, Democrats believe - with some justification - that whoever wins their nomination will already have one foot in the White House.

Of course, only a fool would write Hillary Clinton off with less than three weeks before the first votes are cast. The Clinton machine is formidable, but a month ago it would have been unthinkable that the then overwhelming favourite for the nomination would have deigned to grant - let alone request - an audience with Mr Obama.

A series of mistakes had pushed her into what was beginning to look like freefall. Mr Obama is narrowly leading the pack in Iowa, which holds its caucuses on January 3, and Mrs Clinton is in danger of falling into third place behind John Edwards, a former senator with a fiery, populist message.

In the second-voting state of New Hampshire, Mr Obama has also edged ahead, and Mrs Clinton's lead in the national polls is eroding by the day. A loss in Iowa could spell disaster: the packed primary schedule, culminating on February 5 when more than 20 states vote, offers little time for a recovery.

Individually, the errors might not have been more than minor turbulence on her path to the White House. A press release had comically accused Obama of overweening ambition because he had written an essay entitled "I want to be President" at the age of five. Two Iowa volunteers had separately forwarded emails stating that Mr Obama was a radical Muslim who was part of an Islamist plot to destroy the US. Mr Obama had established his campaign as one of "hope"; Mrs Clinton's was fast becoming the campaign of cynicism.

Then came something that could not be brushed under the carpet. Mr Shaheen, a national co-chairman of Mrs Clinton's campaign, told a reporter that Mr Obama would be easy meat for Republicans, who would raise the issue of drugs and ask, "Did you sell them to anyone?" Mr Obama's use of drugs as a youth was old news, but the suggestion he had been a dealer took people's breath away. The smear smacked of orchestration or, at best, a nod and a wink from above.

It was also counter-productive. In 1992, Bill Clinton had wriggled out of allegations that he had smoked pot with the defence that he "didn't inhale". When Mr Obama was asked this year if he inhaled, he responded that "that was the point" - reinforcing the feeling that he was about authenticity rather than artifice.

Hillary Clinton had already abandoned her plan to remain above the fray. Two weeks before the debate, she said she would "much rather be attacking Republicans", but had decided to strike back against Mr Obama and Mr Edwards. "Now the fun part starts," she said. This played into Mr Obama's hands. Since February, he had been preaching the need for a "new kind of politics", drawing a line under two decades of bitter partisanship - decades in which the Clintons have played starring roles.

While Mrs Clinton has been stumbling, Mr Obama has hit his stride. After months in which he seemed almost disdainful of the grubby realities of campaigning - the phone calls to donors, the sucking up to self-important county officials in Iowa, the 24/7 press scrutiny - it was now as if he finally believed it might all be worth it.

The talk-show host Oprah Winfrey attracted the headlines when she appeared at four rallies last weekend, but more significant were his soaring speeches, which transcended race and party. He was being called, it seemed, to greatness.

In Cedar Rapids, at the height of an Iowan snow and ice storm, Mr Obama was white-hot. "We're at a defining moment in our history," he told the crowd of 8,000. "We've got this window that doesn't open that often, maybe once in a generation."

It was almost as if Mr Obama had woken up to the possibility that he could become the next president. "We might just win this thing," he cried out, addressing himself as much as the cheering crowd. "Who knew? We might shock the world."

Again and again, he struck at the foundations of Mrs Clinton's candidacy - the sense of entitlement, the presence of a Bush or a Clinton in the White House since 1988, the trench warfare with Republicans. "We don't just need candidates who are focused on how to win," he said. "We need leadership that focuses on why we should win."

Perhaps the fatal flaw of Mrs Clinton's campaign is her husband. On the campaign trail, Bill Clinton is adored by Democrats but talks endlessly about himself. Her implicit claim to be striking a blow for feminism is undermined by his presence, which reminds people that without him she would be nothing.

And while Bill's 1992 campaign was about a new generation taking over Washington, his wife's seems - to modify his slogan of 15 years ago - to be about building a bridge back to the 20th century.

Tensions between the Bill and Hillary camps are heightening as the going gets tougher. Privately, her aides fret about the potential for fresh revelations of her husband's infidelity. And Bill's easy rapport with voters provides a ready contrast with Hillary's awkwardness, reminding Americans that if he has an heir in his ability to connect to crowds on campaign trail, it is not his wife, but her would-be nemesis.

While Mr Obama has journeyed to remote rural areas and answered hundreds of questions, Mrs Clinton has sought refuge in canned speeches and stage-managed "meet and greets" in diners. Her aides were caught planting easy questions in Iowa - an act of sacrilege in a state that cherishes its role as a laboratory for retail politics.

Mark Penn, her beleaguered chief adviser, remarked on Thursday that "change is as much about perspiration as anything else" and only Mrs Clinton had "the experience to bring about change".

The signs are, however, that many Iowans aren't buying this triangulated slogan. And it was noted that even as Mr Penn hailed the "positive campaign" Mrs Clinton had run, he still managed to drop the word "cocaine" into a primetime television interview.

Mr Obama, by contrast, is the candidate of inspiration and aspiration. In Oprah's words, he is "the man who I know knows who we are, and knows even better who we can be".

After accepting the apology on the tarmac, Mr Obama flew to Iowa for one of his best debate performances yet. The most telling exchange came when he was asked how his presidency would be a break with the past when he had so many of Bill Clinton's former aides in his foreign policy team.

Mrs Clinton let out her notorious guffaw, known as "the Cackle". "I want to hear that," she said. But Mr Obama was ready. "Well, Hillary, I'm looking forward to you advising me as well," he said, freezing her smile.

After nearly a year of being the underdog, the mantle of front-runner was already sitting easily on his shoulders.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... ama115.xml

[*jr]

Hey, even if you are not Obama supporter like me, the article is well written and says so much about Hillary's ridiculous negative campaign tactics against Obama and everyone else who is running against her, including my candidate John Edwards.

[*jr]

Boston Globe endorses Barack Obama

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/edito ... ack_obama/

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This is major endorsement for Obama. New Hampshire primary is right after Iowa and The Boston Globe can very well carry sway in N.H. voters. Huge rebuff to the Clinton's

[Niya]

Karl Rove and his crew is supporting Obama,so that he can have the Ralph Nader effect on the democratice vote thus ensuring Repbulican victory.

[biko]

a monkey can only swing as far there are branches to swing from.

[*jr]

Niya,

Obama is polling higher against all three Republican front runners; Guilliani, Romney and McCain. If anything Rove would rather see Hillary get the Dems nomination. Hillary is the one Democrat that Republicans love to hate. They will have a field day with her nomination, no doubt.