Davis was among a group of so-far-uncommitted Democratic “superdelegates” who were approached in the last day or so by the Clinton camp in the hopes of garnering their endorsement.

“He says that’s not true,” U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., told The Daily News about Davis’ refusal to meet with Clinton. “But that’s on the front page of The Hill. I told him he might as well go ahead and endorse Barack (Obama), because once Hillary sees that he’s a dead man anyway.”

Frosty ties
That sentiment from Cooper is the product of a long and famously sticky relationship he’s had with the former first lady, one that has been the focus of sporadic national media attention over the years. Before he came to Memphis Friday at the request of U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., to give a speech at the Shelby County Democratic Party’s Kennedy Day Dinner, Cooper talked at length with The Daily News about some of that history.

Cooper, the state chairman of Obama’s campaign in Tennessee, said his speech at the Holiday Inn-University of Memphis would focus on the 2008 presidential contest in general terms. But a look at his dealings with the first lady in the 1990s helps put his current political stance into context.

The year was 1993, and the focus was on comprehensive health care reform. The Clinton administration was mounting a full-court press in persuading congressional leaders to sign on to a health care bill championed by the White House.

Cooper had a health care bill of his own.

“They turned up their nose at my bill, and that’s fine. But then they constructed this secret 500-person task force to draft a whole new bill – and I knew it would go nowhere,” Cooper said. “So I went privately to the White House to warn (Hillary Clinton). No publicity. No nothing.

“She brought in a camera to record the meeting. And she has not released the memos on this meeting. She immediately declared war on me. I warned her we didn’t even have the votes (for her bill) in our subcommittee. She said, ‘We’re going to (politically) cut your legs off.’ I’ve never gotten such a cold reception as I got from her.”

Cooper said the first lady set up a war room to undercut Cooper, who was gearing up for a run at the U.S. Senate in 1994. And a former television news reporter from Nashville was tasked with leading that war room, he said.

“Bill Clinton couldn’t have been nicer to me during this period,” said Cooper, who still keeps an old photograph of himself that was taken during a visit to the first lady’s West Wing office in the White House during the 1990s. “I went running with him. I played golf with him. I was asked to hang out in the White House with him.

“I respect Hillary supporters because they haven’t had the chance to get to know her like I have. She does not have the political skills of her husband. Or Barack. You need somebody who can bring people together. She criticized my health care bill because it wouldn’t achieve universal coverage until 1998. Well, today we’d be celebrating the 10th anniversary of having every American with insurance.”

Still in it
The Clinton campaign, meanwhile, declined to respond to Cooper’s remarks. When asked, some of her prominent local supporters still affirm their commitment to her, despite a widening lead in the primary race for Obama.

Memphis City Council member Myron Lowery, one of the Democratic superdelegates from Tennessee already committed to Clinton, said he had not felt any recent pressure to shift his allegiance.

“I am still firm with Clinton. I made that commitment, and as long as she’s there, I will be there supporting her,” he said. “Right now I’ve made my commitment, and that’s where I am.”

Another staunch Clinton backer is former Tennessee Gov. Ned McWherter. He’s long been a close friend, sounding board and prominent backer of both Clintons.

Speaking with The Daily News, McWherter said Clinton’s political skills would be put to good use in reforming the nation’s current health care system.

“With her leadership and her knowledge of health care, I believe she could put a good health care program together and pass it in the House and Senate,” he said. “We can all talk about having a health care program, but to go to Washington and get legislation on the books and make it real – that’s a different proposition. And I believe Hillary possesses that leadership and has that commitment to develop and pass a health care bill for all Americans.”

Cooper, meanwhile, is insistent that the country needs to metaphorically turn the page by electing Obama as president.

“I was just with him. … It’s incredible the appeal he has,” Cooper said. “We walked from a townhouse near Capitol Hill up to the Capitol to vote. And kids were screaming. He’s like a rock star. It’s fabulous.

“Democrats would be crazy to throw this away. There’s like a million new voters registered in North Carolina and Indiana. Nobody else has been able to do that. The Clintons had eight years. You don’t get a do-over in American politics. They had eight good years. Now it’s time to turn the page. We need to change.”

Good article about Obama’s Chicago Political Roots

Sounds like the very thing Barack Obama was asked to do: separate.

Rev. Wright and, by extension, Trinity UCC was charged with being a racist and hateful in nature. The question the was all in the media was: Why didn’t he leave?

So, really, that’s a justification for so-called Black separatism. I mean, there is absolutely nothing that people can even imagine about Rev. Wright that even compared to the kind of racism and hate African-Americans faced during the formative years of the NOI.

Simply put, the very argument people made questioning Sen. Obama’s membership at Trinity justified Black Nationalism and separatism.

A funny twist on that Love It or Leave It stuff, huh?

This kind of stuff is said as the Bush years comes to a close. Years marked by the outrageous behavior of the majority of White Americans who bought into the blatant lies of the Administration (a majority of African-Americans, e.g., were always against the war). Lies that have caused serious consequences exacting untold human cost and somebody has the nerve to talk (ignorantly) about Rev. Wright and Min. Farrakhan.

Last I checked, neither Wright’s or Farrakhan’s so-called “crackpot” ideas were responsible for death of INNOCENT Iraqis or Americans. Last I checked, Barack Obama, quiet as it is kept, found something redeeming in the Afrocentric focus of Rev. Wright’s Trinity UCC. Funny how the politics of the day brought about Obama’s feigned epiphany.

Somehow, it wasn’t until his personal aspirations were supposedly on the line that he (Obama) realized how Black Liberation Theology purposely saw things through the lens of the oppressed and, more, it wasn’t until the attention of the cameras and White America was on him that he claimed to have a problem with that.

Somehow, the whole idea of Afrocentricism — which is about a specific cultural lens as it argues that we all have one; somebody else’s if not our own — was lost on him when the attention of the cameras and White America was on him.

Talk about “crackpot”…

Crackpot is Obama’s straw man argument:

“…he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress had been made; as if this country… is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past.”

Condolezza Rice used the term birth defect. Obama used the term Original Sin. Both concepts, by definition, mean that those subject to said “birth defect” or “Original Sin” are bound to them. You don’t grow out of or progress away from birth defects. Christ himself didn’t eradicate the Original Sin.

Crackpot is all internal contradictions in Obama’s self-serving rhetoric and all those who excuse that kind of bs in the name of America’s state religion and the unexamined “hope” of what a Black president would mean.

Obama camp: Clinton not looking for a deal

anyway published reports indicate a campaign can only give up to $2K to another campaign. So no need to worry about him being put in a position of offending his supporters by giving her money.

Terry had the most stupidest look on his face. He looked like he had been pimp slapped. *lol*”

So was terry stupid enough to think that would not come up – or did he forget his own darn book?

What is the point of your post?

re the Obama campaign delegate spreadsheet.

Ha! So, no wonder Obama is so serene. He’s had this whole thing planned from day one! Hillary lost even before she began. Empty suit, only gives good speeches, inexperienced, plagiarist…I’ve been wanting to do this for some time:

BWA HAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Today I became convinced she’s taking this to the convention floor no matter what. She’s got that strange glitter in her eye.

“Sunday, May 11, 2008
Bill Clinton earns a “Monica”
by John Aravosis (DC) · 5/11/2008 09:35:00 AM ET · Link
Discuss this post here: 76 Comments · reddit · FARK · Digg It!

Hillary and her husband are now out to destroy our nominee. You could argue that it kind of made sense when Hillary still had a chance (her kitchen-sink tactics were nasty, to be sure, they appeared to have crossed a line, but at least there was a logic to it when Hillary had a chance). Now that the race is over and Hillary has lost, her ongoing attempts to hurt Obama, to smear him, to make rural voters hate him, to convince America that a black man can’t and shouldn’t be president, make her little better than the Republicans she hated during the 1990s – people who were out to hurt her simply for the joy of inflicting pain.

Hillary won’t stop, and the Superdelegates won’t lift a finger. The powers that be in Washington have made clear that they’re okay with Hillary launching Rovian attacks on Obama for another month or more. Why? Because, you see, Hillary’s a frail thing. She really wanted to be president, and in her own mind, it was owed to her, and now she’s sad. So let’s just let her beat the crap out of our nominee with incredibly sleazy right-wing attacks for a good month, or maybe three, as a kind of electoral therapy.

Yeah, I don’t think so.

This election is too important. We have to stop John McCain. We have to restore civil liberties and respect for the rule of law. We have to restore our credibility on the world stage. We have to restore a balance in the Supreme Court. Hillary is jeopardizing all of that. And if our leaders right-wing sleaze game, then we’ll play the sleaze game along with her. If she wants to talk scandal, then we’ll talk scandal. The only way our leaders in Washington will intervene and put a stop to this mess is for it to become as big a mess as possible. Then so be it. No more pulling punches for Hillary on AMERICAblog.

So, we’re going to start a new metric here at AMERICAblog. Every time a Team Clinton player throws the kitchen sink at Obama – i.e., acts like a sleazy member of the vast right-wing conspiracy, rather than acting like a Democrat-first – we’re going to award them a “Monica.” For each outrage, we’ll award between one to five Monicas, depending on the severity of the Clinton sleaze.

(And if any of our more creative readers want to help us out, take a really good picture of Monica and turn it into a kind of award, maybe a seal of approval, a face with gold star points around it or something – you get the idea, just make it look fun – then email it to me.)

We start off today by awarding Bill Clinton three Monicas for saying on Friday that Obama mocks rural voters, knowing full well that, now that Hillary has lost the nomination, all he’s doing is hurting Obama in his battle against John McCain. Now that’s pretty obnoxious, trying to hurt the Democrats’ chances in the fall. And so, for being a petty jerk, for jeopardizing the fall elections even after his wife has lost the nomination, Bill Clinton earns himself 3 Monicas (we’re pretty sure they won’t be his last). Congrats, Bill!

And imagine, isn’t California the “biggest” state to win…..one of those Hillary says she does better in!!!!!!!! Gee, where is the mainstream media on this one???

Assuming Obama is nominated, every black leader in America — high and low — will have abundant time with reporters from national and international media, as well as local media.

For the first time, whites will see there are many Reverend Wrights and many admirers of Louis Farrakhan. New York City Councilman Charles Barron will restate his desire to see ebonics taught in public schools and America will be reminded of the black separatist desires of the Nation of Islam.

If that doesn’t cause jaws to drop, energetic talk about reparations will.

“Old-school politics has traditionally EXCLUDED millions of hard-working, blue collar Americans who aren’t white and who don’t necessarily succumb to conservative wedge issues of fear and intolerance.”

We found our voices!

Nice link.

Yes, Democrats should not placate to racist sentiment. Seems simple to me. And the idea that some in the party might ever consider such a backwards argument is sickening and all the more proof that a vote for Hillary is not the way to go.

My favorite part was this:

“Here’s my response – who gives a fuck about those racists?

Honestly – I don’t care if people in PA and OH are so racist that they won’t vote for Obama. We’ll just have to find votes for Obama elsewhere…and we will.

That’s EXACTLY why I’m for Obama in the first place. He’s brought new people to the process. We don’t have to rely on the old paradigm. . . we can make our own.

Now, I’m not gonna call all those people racist. But Hillary’s argument was racist. And anyone who buys into that argument needs to check themselves real quick.

The author was right. We wouldn’t accept a candidate who played off of anti-semetic fears to get the nomination. It’s called principle and integrity, of which, as spoofed in last night’s SNL skit, Hillary has none.

Old-school politics has traditionally EXCLUDED millions of hard-working, blue collar Americans who aren’t white and who don’t necessarily succumb to conservative wedge issues of fear and intolerance.

Obama woke a sleeping giant. Furthermore, Barack is getting the “stupid” out of politics. He’s talking to us like adults (how refreshing). He’s entrusted his political career in the HOPE that we, the American people, are smarter than we’re often given credit for. He’s appealing to our greater angels. And that only happens when you empower people from the bottom up.

It’s grassroots politics on steroids. . . such a beautiful thing!

Anyone who’s ever been involved in grassroots political organization knows just how beautiful this actually is. It’s building leadership from the ground up; sharing the power; and encouraging ordinary people to believe in themselves to do extraordinary things. Hillary doesn’t know anything about that.

Obama’s message: Yes WE can.
Hillary’s message: She’ll fight for you.

One message is inclusive and self-empowering in its approach to political action.

The other is passive in it’s loyalty to the power of one person.

It’s no wonder Obama won the nomination (yes, I am already speaking in past tense – this thing is over).

People are starting to come around. Slowly but surely. America is waaaaay bigger than NASCAR dads, soccer moms and blue collar voters. And, despite the Hillary spin, this country is waaaay bigger than WV, KY and rural PA.

New people. . . new issues . . . new approach. . . new voice. . . new HOPE. That’s what it’s all about.

And we don’t have to discriminate to get our point across, either. The tent’s big. There’s always room for more. And we’ll have plenty of room when the rest of those blue collar whites decide to come around.

Such a beautiful thang!

The name of the game is delegates….LOL

You all have got to watch the rebroadcast, if you missed it!

The most significant point is Tim taking a quote out of Terry’s book about him stating in the past, as party chairman that when States break the rules they should be punished…with their delegates being taken away!

Terry had the most stupidest look on his face. He looked like he had been pimp slapped. *lol*