As a boy, he watched his father, a money manager, navigate the Depression. As a financial manager, consultant and financial historian, he personally dealt with the recession of 1958, the bear markets of the 1970s, the 1987 crash, the savings-and-loan crisis of the late 1980s and the 2000-2002 bear market that followed the tech-stock bubble.
One of Peter Bernstein’s worries: ‘If Asia goes into a recession, God knows.’
Today’s trouble, the 89-year-old Mr. Bernstein says, is worse than he has seen since the Depression and threatens to roil markets into 2009 and beyond — longer than many people expect.

Mr. Bernstein, whose books include “Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk,” sees two culprits. One is the abuse of securitization — the trend for banks to hold fewer loans on their books and instead turn them into securities that were sold to other investors. The other is simply years of overborrowing by financial institutions and consumers alike.

Mr. Bernstein is hopeful that Federal Reserve intervention will prevent deflation and depression, but he says there is no guarantee.

Excerpts of a recent interview:
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WSJ: Aside from securitization, what were the main causes of the problem?

Mr. Bernstein: You don’t get into a mess without too much borrowing. It was sparked primarily by the hedge funds, which were both unregulated by government and in many ways unregulated by their owners, who gave their managers a very broad set of marching orders. It was a real delusion. It was like [former New York Gov. Eliot] Spitzer: “I am doing something dangerous, but because of who I am, and how smart I am, it is not going to come back to haunt me.”

When you think about how all of this will work out in the long run, we are going to have an extremely risk-averse economy for a long time. The lesson has painfully been learned. That’s part of the problem going forward. You don’t have a high-growth exit from this, as you’ve had from other kinds of crises. We won’t have a powerful start, where the business cycle looks like a V. Here, the shape of the business cycle is like an L, where it goes down and doesn’t turn up. Or like a U, a flat U. The reason for that is that people aren’t going to get caught in this bind again. They will tell themselves, “I’m too smart to do that again.” And everyone else is going to be saying the same thing. It is, in fact, going to be a wonderful environment in which to take risk, because there aren’t going to be any excesses.

I’m a child of the Depression, and I am thinking about what the early years were like after World War II. It took a very long time to get the memory of the Depression out of business decisions, and certainly banking decisions. I think this is going to be the same. The Fed, too, is going to be less decisive and is going to feel that what it should do is less clear. One of the things that gave people a sense that they could afford to take risks was the sense that the central bankers more or less know what they are doing. But I don’t think we are going to feel that way going forward.

WSJ: You said that it could turn out that the smart thing to do is to take more risk, because everyone will be so risk-averse. What kinds of investments do you see as the big winners coming out of this?

Mr. Bernstein: You could say: the things that have been beaten down the most, which would be real estate. But I think real estate is going to be under a cloud for so long, and you can’t buy real estate with cash, it is too much money. I think you should go with the stock market. If things are better, the stock market will go up, and if things are awful, the stock market is going to be way down. But it is a place where, if you want to take risks, you’ve got a wide range of choices. This is why I own stocks [in addition to other investments], because I don’t know where the bottom is going to come, and I want to be exposed to every kind of possibility I can think of. And, at least, if you pick the stock market and you are wrong, you can change your mind. There is some liquidity there. Stocks never became cheap, but they didn’t become crazy, the way other assets were.

WSJ: How long do you think this whole process will take, before we get back to normal?

Mr. Bernstein: Longer than people think. The people who think we will have turned in 2009 are wrong. There has to be a respite along the way. Nothing goes in one direction forever. But it will take longer than people think. If that weren’t the case, I would be talking entirely differently. I would be saying, “What an opportunity we have got.” And I just can’t believe that the opportunity is here yet. There is too much to unwind.

WSJ: Can you explain the reason you think it will take a long time?

Mr. Bernstein: We have to go back to a moment when people have the courage to borrow and lenders have the courage to lend. Until credit is going up instead of down, you can’t have growth. Housing has got to be a very important part of that; it always has been. You have to reach a point where somebody says, “This house is cheap, I am going to buy it,” or where some businessman says, “This is a great opportunity for us to expand our business. Everything is available to us.”

If Asia goes into a recession, God knows. The Iraq war and the whole situation with terrorism, we really don’t know where that is going to come out. There are so many things that have got to get buttoned down before you say that the future looks good enough to take a risk.

WSJ: What kind of indications are you looking for as signs that the economy is about to get better and that the stock market and the investment world are about to turn the corner?

Mr. Bernstein: Somehow, the housing trouble has to at least flatten out. As long as that is going on, I think the pressure on the credit system is going to persist. It is kind of the leading indicator. It is where the trouble started. We have to underpin the consumer. That is why this is different. That is why this is like nothing we have had before.

Before, it was investment that made the V at the bottom of the business cycle. I don’t see real investment turning enough without some sign from the consumer side. Maybe the foreign countries will do it for us. That is a substitute for consumption here. Maybe. But I think that they won’t do enough for us, and maybe will be too infected by us to do it. But maybe growth in Asia will help us. The Asian thing is tremendously exciting.

One Guy Who Has Seen It All Doesn’t Like What He Sees Now. Peter Bernstein has witnessed just about every financial crisis of the past century.

Peter Bernstein: Old Boy Witnesses Financial Crisis - One Guy Who Has Seen It All Doesn’t Like What He Sees Now. Peter Bernstein has witnessed just about every financial crisis of the past century.

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How did the rest of the American Idol contestants react when Ramiele Malubay was shown the door in the emotional results show? And what was it like to sit on the front row near the American Idol stage? What happens between the commercial breaks? The McMillan family of Rockwall found out firsthand, getting front-row passes from the Castro family to see last week’s show and hanging out with Jason in Hollywood. Read about their experiences at our TV blog. Also, see how Rockwall’s bigwigs assess Jason’s performance.

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Jason will join David Archuleta, David Cook, Carly Smithson, Kristy Lee Cook, Brooke White, Michael Johns and Syesha Mercado in Tuesday’s performance show on Fox where judges Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul will be sizing them up.

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It was a traumatic week for American Idol finalist David Cook. First, a big controversy broke out over if he had properly credited the source of some of the song arrangements that he performed on American Idol. Then, he was rushed to the hospital for heart palpitations and high blood pressure after his American Idol performance of Dolly Parton’s “Little Sparrow.”

However, things now appear to be looking up for David Cook. An American Idol producer and a former finalist have both spoken out in regards to Cook’s health situation, and it turns out things might not have been as serious as some in the media made it out to be.

American Idol producer Nigel Lythgoe vehemently denied reports that David Cook didn’t feel like giving his performance during the show. Lythgoe explained, “He had heart palpitations and high blood pressure towards the end of the show. He went to Cedars-Sinai, where he saw a private doctor, and he was given some medication to lower his blood pressure, and then returned to the hotel shortly afterwards.”

When asked if the pressure of Idol might have overcome David Cook, recently eliminated American Idol finalist Ramiele Malubay replied, “Well, I’m not sure. He had clearly announced that he had high blood pressure, but he was fine. He went to the hospital and he’s fine. And everybody goes about things totally different and we all break down in totally different ways. So I believe that my breakdown was crying every week for everyone leaving. That’s how I handled the pressure, just letting it all out.”

Not only is David Cook doing fine after his hospital visit, but it appears that the band Doxology is pleased with the credit he gave them during his sit down with Ryan Seacrest on the top nine performance show. In a statement from Doxology front man Luke McPherson, he said, “Re-imagining the Beatles is always tough. We worked very hard to do it in a fresh and new way. The band and I were thrilled to hear the mention tonight. We have to give a lot of credit to the folks at 19 Entertainment, and American Idol for working with our management; their mutual commitment to fix this issue was great; the support throughout has been amazing. And, most important we gotta give David Cook massive props. We all just wanted the same thing here, and that was simply to ‘right’ the situation from a few weeks back. David did that on Idol tonight and we thank him for that. Now, we’re excited to just move on and continue recording the new album we are working on.”

Iflove Broadcasting is your source for American Idol news. For other great American Idol news, please feel free to check out here: American Idol.

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The ‘08 race has revealed the weird science of the Democratic primary system — and the true problem with the long Obama-Clinton battle.

Forget buyer’s remorse — the real malady likely to be triggered by the never-ending Democratic presidential race is buyer’s confusion. It has already been seven weeks since a majority of Democrats cast their votes in the Woozy Tuesday Feb. 5 primaries, and even longer in fast-forward states like Iowa and New Hampshire. Those voters picked their candidates back in the innocent days when Bear Stearns was regarded as a pillar of Wall Street and Eliot Spitzer a pillar of rectitude.

Sixteen years ago, the last time the Democrats won back the White House, fewer than half the delegates had been selected by the end of March, with big-state primaries in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and California still on the docket. This campaign year the Democrats are already down to seeds and stems with 82 percent of the delegates having been chosen by March 11. This simple arithmetical fact — combined with the scheduling of the 2008 Democratic Convention six weeks later than in 1992 — is what gives such an air of unreality to the final installments of the Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton soap opera.

With the chances to rerun the outlaw Michigan and Florida primaries now at the vanishing point, it may be time to inquire about a do-over for the rest of America. This is not an argument for Clinton, who otherwise probably has too far to go and too few remaining primaries to get there. But after a week punctuated by Obama’s right-stuff response to wrong-way Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Clinton’s document dump of today-tea-was-served White House schedules, Democrats are being barraged with new information about the candidates long after most of them have made a binding decision on a nominee. It is akin to being given a subscription to Consumer Reports the day after you bought a new car.

The marketing of the Democratic race is made to order for this era of narrow-casting and the long tail on the bell curve. Unless you live in one of the eight states left to vote (Pennsylvania, North Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, South Dakota, Montana and Oregon) or are among the more than 300 or so undeclared superdelegates, your views no longer matter.

As a result, Bill Richardson’s endorsement of Obama on Friday was not really designed to sway voters. In the hollers of West Virginia, the Hatfields and the McCoys had not been asking each other, “I wonder which way Richardson is going to jump.” What Richardson’s blessing signified was that an ambitious politician with close ties to Bill Clinton (they watched the Super Bowl together) decided that his self-interest would be enhanced by choosing Obama rather than Hillary. Small wonder that the Obama campaign chortled in a press release that since the Feb. 5 primaries, 62 superdelegates have endorsed their candidate while only two have opted for Clinton.

With little room to maneuver, the Clinton campaign is gamely trying to use the polls to argue that the former first lady is more electable than a first-term senator from Illinois. As Mark Penn, Clinton’s pollster and chief strategist, argued in a memo to the press last Thursday, “The more that voters learn about Barack Obama, the more his ability to beat John McCain is declining compared to Hillary.” By cherry-picking state polls and probably exaggerating the lasting significance of Obama’s shaky past few weeks, Penn offers a blizzard of statistics to ice his preordained conclusion.

But claims like these are dubious nearly eight months before the November election — no mater which candidate is making them. Mark Mellman, who was John Kerry’s 2004 polllster but is neutral in the current presidential race, said, “A lot of things can happen between March and November. My own view is that either one of them would win in November because the fundamentals favor the Democrats. But you have no real way of knowing who would be stronger against McCain.” Mellman dismisses the far-in-advance horse-race polls that purport to measure how Obama and Clinton would perform against the Republican nominee: “People are very mediocre predictors of their own future behavior.”

The Democrats’ anti-momentum The ‘08 race has revealed the weird science of the Democratic primary system — and the true problem with the long Obama-Clinton battle.
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Pollster Andy Kohut, the president of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, is skeptical of claims that a slight downturn in Obama’s national poll numbers reflects the onset of buyer’s remorse. “I don’t see any signs of it,” Kohut said. He pointed to a CBS News Poll released last week that showed no significant change from February in the number of Democratic primary voters who would be “somewhat” or “very dissatisfied” if Obama won the nomination. “The way this ends, and to what extent it ends in what is seen as a fair way, will affect the way the Democratic voters look at these candidates,” Kohut said. “That will help determine how much buyer’s remorse — or perhaps the reverse of it — sets in following the end of the nominating-race season.”

There is always an inherent risk when a presidential candidate tries to premise claims to the nomination on poll numbers. Back in 1968, Nelson Rockefeller, trailing badly in the Republican delegate race, loudly argued all the way to the Miami Convention that the national polls proved that he would be a better GOP candidate than Richard Nixon. That desperation gambit ended abruptly when the final Gallup Poll before the Republican balloting showed Nixon scoring better than Rockefeller in trial heats against Democrat Hubert Humphrey.

But it is also shaky to argue — as many Obama partisans do passionately — that the pledged delegate totals from the primaries and caucuses should override any independent decision making on the part of the 796 automatic superdelegates (mostly members of Congress and the Democratic National Committee) who will ultimately provide the winning candidate with the margin of victory. Most Democratic voters will have chosen between Clinton and Obama back in February — and they could have changed their minds along the way. These votes were a valid expression of sentiment when they were cast, but they lose their potency as an expression of the pure popular will as they age. The gap between Super Tuesday and the Democratic convention (more than 200 days) is roughly double the time between the November election and the presidential inauguration. If the convention were really designed to be a rubber stamp of the primaries, why not vote right before the delegates arrive in Denver? What was the reason for such early voting? All the Democrats had a plane to catch?

In truth, there is little that is small-d democratic about the way that the Democratic Party chooses its nominee. In some states only registered Democrats can participate; in others, the party’s primaries are open to all voters regardless of ideology, so even Rush Limbaugh’s dittoheads could have their say. And which matters more in choosing a nominee, the Texas primary or the late-night Texas caucuses that were a cacophony of chaos?

Had Michigan and Florida worked hard and played by the (Democratic Party’s) rules, it is likely that Hillary Clinton would be a lot closer to parity with Obama had these rogue states held valid primaries. This is not to argue (as the Clinton campaign has done with more loudness than logic) that the results of these outlaw January contests should be honored. Rather, Michigan and Florida serve as reminders of the built-in flaws in the Democrats’ botched version of Decision 2008.

Politics is purported to be the art of the possible. But the only possible way of achieving clarity in this Democratic race for president is a clear-cut verdict from the final burst of primaries. If Obama holds his own in states like Indiana and North Carolina (both May 6), the race would be all but officially over. If Clinton, on the other hand, sweeps Pennsylvania (April 22) and follows up with solid victories on May 6, then the rush to judgment becomes a tiptoe on cat feet.

With more than five months to the Denver Convention, the problem for the Democrats remains the crazy-quilt schedule that caused far too many to vote too soon. That is the real buyer’s remorse — a front-loaded political calendar that has turned most partisan Democrats into now-irrelevant bystanders just when a real decision is needed.  Editing by Jessica Long

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 US Ponders: How deep is economic abyss? For months, Americans have been subjected to a sort of economic water torture — a maddening drip of bad news about jobs, gas prices, sagging home values, creeping inflation, the slouching dollar and a stock market in bumpy descent.

Then came Bear Stearns. One of the five largest U.S. investment banks nearly collapsed in a single day before the government propped it up by backing emergency loans and a rival stepped in to buy it for a paltry $2 per share.

To the drumbeat of signs that seemed to foretell a traditional recession, this added a nightmarish specter — an old-style run on the bank, customers clamoring to pull their cash, a stately Wall Street firm brought to its knees.

The combination has forced the economy to the forefront of the national conversation in a way it has not been since the go-go 1990s, and for entirely opposite reasons.

As economists and Wall Street types grope for historical perspective — which is another way of saying a road map out of this mess — Americans are nervously wondering about retirement savings, interest rates, jobs that had seemed safe.

They are surveying the economic landscape and asking: Just how bad is it?

They are peering over the edge and asking: How far down?

And the scariest part of all? No one can say for sure.

Even before the crippling of Bear Stearns, the U.S. economy was acting as a slowly tightening vise — an interconnected web of factors combining to squeeze Americans from all sides.

Take Jaci Rae of Salinas, Calif. She runs a company, Luco Sport, that sells golf bags and accessories. The merchandise is made with foam, which is based on petroleum, so record oil prices have taken a heavy toll.

On the other end, her clients are feeling the pinch, too, and cutting back. Sales to retail clients are an eighth of what they were a year ago. So Rae had to cut five of her 20 employees loose.

Now the company isn’t buying products as far in advance. With gas prices running high, she waits for shipping companies to pick up products from her headquarters instead of having an employee drop them off.

She is nickel-and-diming expenses at home, too. She eats in every night, has stopped going on road trips to visit her family, dropped her satellite dish and canceled her monthly Blockbuster movie rental.

“I want to make sure I have enough money to feed my family,” Rae says.

Signs of the pinch are showing up everywhere:

By the end of 2007, 36 percent of consumers’ disposable income went to food, energy and medical care, a bigger chunk of income than at any time since records were first kept in 1960, according to Merrill Lynch.

People are treating themselves less often. The National Restaurant Association says 54 percent of restaurants reported declining traffic in January, and the government says eating at home increased last year for the first time since 2001.

Financial planners say that more than ever, parents are calling for advice on how to deal with grown children who have moved back in with Mom and Dad after losing a job or just to save money.

Less trash is being set on the curbs of Mesa, Ariz., where surging home foreclosures are leaving more houses empty. That means fewer homeowners paying the city $22.60 a month for pickup. And William Black, the city’s solid-waste management director, says people aren’t throwing out as many appliances and bulk items, like furniture. They’re sticking with what they have.

On top of an economy that was already groaning under the weight of a downturn, Bear Stearns came down like an anvil.

It tied together so much of what’s wrong with today’s economy — the housing crash, the credit crunch and a loss of confidence among investors and consumers alike.

Understanding how things got so bad means rewinding to the start of the housing boom. Wall Street and the banks made it far easier for people with shaky credit to get a mortgage — known as a subprime loan.

Investors wanted a piece of the fast-growing mortgage pie, so there was plenty of money sloshing around the market to pay for the loans.

Financial firms sliced up the mortgages and sold them as complex investments, finding eager buyers among pension funds, hedge funds and more who were chasing higher returns and willing to overlook risks.

As long as housing prices went up, the strategy worked. When they began to crumble, so did financial stability.

The same people who made a financial stretch to buy their homes are now defaulting on the loans at alarming rates. Many are “upside down” on their loans, meaning they owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth.

Nearly 9 million households now have upside-down mortgages, and for the first time ever, aggregate mortgage debt is bigger than the total value of homeowner equity — bigger by $836 billion, according to research by Merrill Lynch.

The housing problem set off the dominoes: Surging defaults meant the mortgage-backed securities plunged in value. That dried up the money to fund new home loans, and lenders everywhere became tighter with credit.

Bear Stearns found itself in the cross hairs. Market rumors began to swirl about the size of its exposure to mortgage securities, whether it had ample reserves to cover potential losses. Clients and investors began to demand their money back.

“This problem begins with the fact that we underwrote mortgages sloppily, which means no one really knows what those assets are worth,” said Lyle Gramley, a former Federal Reserve governor and now an analyst with Stanford Financial Group. “That makes bankers very leery, and has resulted in a significant contraction in the availability of credit.”

The credit crunch means corporations can’t borrow as easily, so they are delaying big projects, which cuts into the job market. And many of the same companies were already smarting from the downturn in housing, which has made many Americans uneasy about their household wealth and caused them to scrimp on spending.

The last time the U.S. economy tilted into recession was 2001. And it was an entirely different animal.

Investors bore the brunt of that downturn as the stock market shook off the excesses of the late-’90s technology boom. Encouraged by their government — and fortified with tax rebates in their pockets — Americans kept spending.

Perhaps most importantly, there was no reason for anyone to doubt the stability of the financial system. There was no credit crisis to speak of, and the housing boom had yet to begin.

This time around, no one has declared a recession just yet: By the generally accepted rule, that takes two consecutive quarters of shrinking economic activity. The economy came close to stalling late last year but eked out small growth.

But the lack of an official declaration makes the pain no less real.

“I think the current financial crisis looks to me like the worst one since we got into the Depression,” says Richard Sylla, who teaches the history of financial institutions at New York University’s Stern School of Business.

Which is not to say this time will be anywhere near as bad — partly because, economists note, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is a student of the Depression and appears to be steering the Fed toward avoiding the mistakes of back then.

That may be why the Fed moved quickly to back up JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s lifeline loan to Bear Stearns when it neared collapse.

The Fed dusted off other Depression-era tools, too. It allowed securities dealers to borrow directly from the Fed, a privilege once restricted to commercial banks. And it announced it would lend up to $200 billion to investment banks in exchange for the banks’ beaten-up mortgage-backed securities.

The idea is to maintain confidence in the American banking system. If that fails — if more Bear Stearns episodes emerge — it could gum up the entire economy, historians note.

“No one would trust anybody else, no one would be willing to do business,” said Charles Jones, a finance professor at Columbia Business School. “And if that happens, the economy would feel that right away. So the Fed is doing what it can.”

Another key difference: Today, the United States is just one piece of a complex global economy. A century ago, an American financial crisis was America’s problem. Today, emerging economies provide an extra layer of insulation.

“People are still going to eat in China and India. They’re going to be buying clothes and cars and airplanes,” says Robert A. Howell, a distinguished visiting professor of business administration at Dartmouth. “So I think it’s a whole different ballgame.”

A better comparison might be the economic downturn that gripped the United States in the early 1970s, a time now widely remembered for long lines at the pump. Today gas is plentiful, but summer drivers face the scary prospect of paying $4 a gallon.

And as David Rosenberg, chief North American economist for Merrill Lynch, pointed out in an analysis this week, the parallels to the 1970s go much deeper than just the shock of record oil prices, which tripled during the 1973-1975 recession and have seen a similar rise in recent years.

Then as now, food prices rose along with energy. Then as now, declining home prices gave homeowners ulcers over equity. And the dollar, which held up fine in the 2001 recession, is falling now even more than it did in the early ’70s — 9 percent then on a trade-weighted basis, 14 percent in the last year, according to the Federal Reserve.

One other interesting difference: In the downturns between the ’70s and today, the baby boomers used their massive buying power to help spend the nation out of the slump. In the 1970s, they were too young. Today, they are focusing on retirement.

“The mid-1970s is the best template,” Rosenberg wrote, “if there is any.”

If the 1970s truly are a guide, there’s a lot farther to fall.

Back then, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 36 percent from its peak to its trough. Right now, the S&P 500 has only lost 15 percent from its record highs of October 2007.

Finding shelter from this downturn isn’t as easy as you might think. So-called private label products — no-name cereal or crackers usually far cheaper than brand names — are less of a deal because of soaring commodity prices.

Nearly 90 percent of chief financial officers of global public companies don’t see an economic recovery coming until 2009, according to a new survey by Duke University/CFO Magazine.

And that’s more than just crystal-ball gazing: If companies see a sluggish recovery, they won’t be taking any steps to build their payrolls soon and will remain cautious in how they allocate capital.

So what’s the way out?

Former Fed chair Alan Greenspan wrote in the Financial Times last week that the financial crisis — which he said would likely be the “most wrenching” in the United States since World War II — would end only when housing prices stabilize.

Already, the Fed has slashed interest rates. It has cut the closely watched federal funds rate, the overnight lending rate for banks, six times since September, from 5.25 percent to 2.25 percent — two-thirds of the cut coming in the last two months alone.

But the Fed can’t work alone. Upcoming tax rebates for millions of people and tax breaks for businesses may give a little relief, but economists think that something will have to be done soon to slow down the number of foreclosures, a cornerstone of the economy’s woes.

“We can’t have financial institutions not providing credit to the economy,” said Eugene White, a professor of economics at Rutgers University. “We have to stop that if we want to avoid a deep recession.”

Economists and market historians seem to agree that this is more than a typical, cyclical slump. And the X-factor that sets it apart — determining how deep the wounds from the mortgage mess really are — also makes it impossible to map the path of the downturn.

“Financial crises happen, but they always do blow over,” Sylla says. “It’s a question of how long.”

So in the meantime, Americans like Monica Nakamine are planning for a long road ahead.

The 37-year-old took a higher-paying job at a Los Angeles architectural firm, but has been putting the difference in her earnings right into savings. These days she’s dyeing her own hair, picking through sales racks when she shops and washing her dog herself, rather than getting him groomed.

And she’s considering some drastic actions in case things get worse — like moving to a cheaper city such as Austin, Texas, and getting rid of her gas-guzzling SUV for a hybrid sedan.

“Certainly I don’t want it to get any worse,” Nakamine said, “but I know it can.”

USA utter moans: When the economic recession ends on earth? Editing by Alice Liu

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Citing foreign policy differences, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), one of his party’s biggest critics of the Iraq war and a co-chair of Sen. John McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign, indicated Sunday that he is in no rush to endorse the Arizona Republican this time around.
As most GOP lawmakers are falling in line behind McCain, the party’s presumptive nominee, Hagel’s absence from the list of supporters has been highly visible.

“When I endorse someone, or when I work for someone, or commit to someone, I want to be behind that person in every way I can,” Hagel said on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. “I’ve obviously got some differences with John on the Iraq war. That’s no secret. I want to understand a little more about foreign policy, where he’d want to go.”
The senator added that the disagreement with McCain “certainly doesn’t put me in Obama or Clinton’s camp.”

Hagel, who had been mentioned as a possible candidate on a third party ticket, noted there is a growing frustration among voters with both parties.

“There are more registered independents today in America than Democrats or Republicans,” the senator noted, pointing also to low approval ratings for Congress.

I’ve been definitely impressed with Chuck Hagel’s stand on the war. I think that he is one of ourfiner politicians, be they from the right or the left, and hope there could be some way for him tocontribute, before leaving public office.

If you missed his interview with George Steph….. on ABC, it is online.

I love Chuck Hagel. Am very sorry he’s leaving politics at the end of the year. He’s the only Republican I have ever found so politically appealing.

last chance Chuck, to “pretend” you’re liberal. My guess is you’ll cave.

I have a lot of respect for Senator Hagel. If he came out and endorsed Obama I would be very happy.

For all the talk of Richardson, Sebilius, and Pelosi as possible running mates for Obama, I think if Hagel was on the ticket they would be unstoppable. Imagine that?!? Lieberman looks like me might be Johnny Mac’s VP choice so why not Obama/Hagel?

Except for his opposition to the war and a few other matters of foreign policy, Hagel is not far from the rest of the Republicans. Our foreign policy is horrible, but so is our domestic policy. I’d take Hagel as Sec. of State but not as VP.
Winning is not everything. If you aren’t prepared to deal with the aftermath of winning. We defeated Iraq in three easy weeks, but then didn’t know what to do. — If we had been honest, we would have gotten out before we created the mess we have. But after a team wins the White House, can they so easily resign and say, “Oops, sorry. I really didn’t mean it”? If not then one must start with a team that can work together and do the job.

Related posts

• USA utter moans: When the economic recession ends on earth? (1)
• The Democrats: long Obama-Clinton battle (0)
• Internet Talk on Reconciliation between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton (2)
• Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama Dream Ticket: The War Has Not Ended (0)

Democratic insiders say Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama once held warm feelings for each other, but their fierce White House fight is pushing their relationship to the point of no return.

Many say it’s already gone so far that any sort of union would come only if they thought the good of the party absolutely depended on it. Clinton has floated the idea of a dream ticket. But if Obama wins, the chances of it happening are nearly zero, strategists say.

The following views are not from the author of this site, just from internet friends. Sorry   �
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A. I am not an Obamabot. I am Indepedent who supports him since 2004 since I am tired of this country being torn into 2. It needs to come back together and Clinton trolls try to tear Obama down at every turn.

B. You are the name caller, I see if in your past posts, I am only defending myself.

C. You did not listen to what I posted earlier and just decided to reply whatever you wanted to.

D. It is terrible that we have not had an election without a Bush or Clinton since 1976. I don’t live in a duel monarchy.

E. I am not a sexist, I supported Elizabeth Dole in 2000 because she was qualified and any well qualified woman candidate if they ran, but Hillary is not qualified. She lies to the people and tears this country into 2. We are all Americans, whether Republican, Democrat or independent. She does not understand that, she demonizes others if they don’t agree with her
Your article makes it look like Hillary is not as “big a person” (honorable) as Obama. You add to any rift that might be there with your obvious male bias.. I think that article is irresponsible and you have very little facts to back up what points you do make.This is the sort of something from nothing that reporters are doing to hurt Hillary’s chances—what you really are doing is showing voters who might vote Democratic, just how biased and stuck in the stone age you are. Your male insecurities are plastered all over this article.

I for one am a Republican. I know of at least 100 of my friends who are Republican women (and quite a few fair-minded and balanced men I might add) who will be voting for Hillary. If Hillary does not get the nomination, these votes will go back to McCain.

So, this sort of story—these reading into the minds of folks by Michael Mcauliff– only hurt the entire Democratic party. It is you reporters that create the rift– you stoke it, create it, invent it, and surmise it. What is going on now is a contest –that is what it is supposed to be. You are trying to paint Hillary as a “controlling and super-aggressive” female (and we all know that is an unacceptable quality for a women–right). Subtle sexism is alive and well. It has been fanned for thousands of years and you fan, fan away some more.

The public, especially educated women and fair-minded men see all of this and it is outright painful to watch. I feel sorry for you. Can’t you write a story with more substance than this one? What a desperate writer you are. Pathetic!

My favorite Shrillary quotes:

“I think I’m probably the most transparent person in public life”

Um, yeah . . . probably not.

“The books and writing and words about me will continue to fill many archives and warehouses across the world”

I just thought this sentence was priceless . . . what else is there to say?

Obama has not paid his dues. Hillary is obviously the more capable choice for POTUS. You Obama-worshipping , koolade-guzzling fools will be more than sorry when McInsane ends up as POTUS. Then, we can listen to four more years of your crying, bitching, and moaning. No thanks. If Obambast ends up as the nominee….well, to quote an old line from Jethro Tull, as far as this election goes…”really don’t mind if I sit this one out.”

Are you a DLC like Hillary? So, you will just “sit this one out” and won’t go back to your parent party and vote for McCain. That helps enough. We will win without Limbaugh-Hannity Fu Fox Clan people.

It is the Republicans that nominate the one whose turn it is.

Me, I want my party to nominate a Democrat. There is only one left, and it ain’t Hillary.

when did POTUS become an acceptable abbreviation for the President of the United States? If you’re going to use that, then I can say IHUSHYSMF. Bonus point to anyone who can decode that!

Go ahead and sit it out. That’s what 20% or more of Obama supporters will do if Hillary is the nominee. She has fractured the Democratic party with her selfishness, and probably insured Karl Rove’s dream of a permanent Republican Majority for at least the next 20 years … assuming the country can survive 20 more years of neo-conism

see thats the problem we are all DEMOCRATS ( or have recently switched to become democrats so you can vote in this primary) Democratdoc - was just stating what he plans to do and it is his right as an American and sit it out. What is not very AMERICAN is too silence ones voice like in MI and FL. starboymikey is allowing POLLS and Threats to try to influence others. ( hey that sounds like the current administration) Look how far you have come, We need to stop this and talk facts and opinions and stop insulting each other. If you are willing to throw the Democratic Party under a bus then you Should not be in this PARTY.

I think Hillary lies a bit too much. Jeeeez.

She made all that shit up about Bosnia and Africa trip with Wilson. Man, those were whoppers. And, on top of that, she is consistently siding with the NeoCons.

I think I’ll go with Obama.

No way should Obama consider Clinton as his running mate! He should pick someone with solid foreign policy and defense credentials such as Jim Webb or Anthony Zinni. Bill Richardson wouldn’t be a bad choice either.
As for Hillary offering Obama the VP spot? Sorry Hillary, those who finish second get some nice parting gifts but not the nomination.

It really boils down to this…

Supporting Clinton nowadays is basically saying you have no faith in the future of your country, it’s people, or even in the ideas that this country was founded on. You are a cynic, and probably have a massive amount of personal baggage (latent racism, fear of change, separation anxiety) going into your decision.

Supporting Obama says you still believe in your country and all the positive ideals it stands for. You are an optimist, and it is that same mindset that got us through trials such as the Revolution, The Civil War, the Depression, and WWII. You believe that while our country is not perfect, you are willing to admit that and try to make it a better place, instead of living in the past, and therefore, living in fear.

Real patriots support Obama.

see yet another Obama supporter trying to fit people into little boxes.Stop putting labels on people, you are as bad as all those stupid polls out there.
Hillary is my inspiration
She is willing to fight for Americans
Hillary is fighting for Universal Health care
(Her plan allows Americans to get the SAME healthcare that is offered to the congress, we can keep our coverage if we are unemployed or switch jobs)
Hillary will not allow Health Insurance Companies to DROP people because they become sick or because they had health problems going in to the health care plan

Lets stop this RACE nonsense and put our EGO away and start think about what is BEST for this country and get back to REAL issues LIKE our Dying solders, Healthcare, death of our middle class, our economy, our education system,
Hillary is an Inspiration to us all !!!

Real patriots do not wear american FLAG PINS and they STAND in front of EIGHT flags not TWO and Real Patriots Deflect from real issues in the country that we can fix in out lifetime like the healthcare system, economic systems , educational systems. Real Patriots focus on Issues like skin color you know the thing you can not change. Real Patriots sit and listen to true criticism of this country on a weekly basis , like in a pew of a church for instance. Real Patriots can only look forward to that day where they can say “For the First Time in My Adult Lifetime, I Am Really Proud of My Country” while we are in an unjust war. So If you are looking for a REAL Patriot you know who to vote for:

Real patriots support Obama.

By “patriots” you don’t men war mongers? (1) The greatest patriot of all time was Hitler who loved his country so much that he attempted to take over the whole world. (2) George Bush is the next patriot whose extreme love for the country led us to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. (3) According to Bill Clinton, Hillary and McCain are the only two other patriots in this country who, with their lapel pins and hand on heart, will successfully attack Iran as Iran produces Al Queda ( because Shia produces Sunni terrorists) . This is television & radio Limbaugh-Hannity Fu Fox Clan.

Insider’s concerned? Would that be concern on the super delegates part? I’m not buying it because if they were they would doing something right now to stop this drama. Seems to me their only concern is about their political career’s. Bill Richardson had the gutts to make a stand I suggest the rest of you do the same. Time to chose a side.

Seems they are giving McCain support and it seems pretty strange. Why do you think they are doing this? Do they really support the policies of “bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” McCain.It they do, then why don’t they say so. Then we would know where they stand.

Really too bad for this country! We need both of these wonderful people opposing John McBush in some capacity. Kennedy and Johnson were not fond of each other. Nor were Ike and Nixon. One can always hope that the supporter for each of these candidates will be smarter than certain advisors and the media will stop deliberately spoiling for a fight. The media loves the noise and attention. The advisors just love the money. How about a little love for the country?!

Forget about reconciliation, any attempt at that would be a divisive sham. A wedge has been driven between both candidates, any shotgun marriage between the two will cause supporters on both sides to walk away and not vote.The nominee chooses the veep or civil war will win the day and lose the election.

The fix is in! The call won’t come from Dean, Gore, Edwards or Pelosi. Kennedy and Kerry will meet with Barry. Kerry will put his arm around Barry and say, “Barack, you’ve done better than anyone ever could have expected. You know … in 2004, when I was …” Kennedy will interrupt and say, “It’s over Barack. You’re the VP and you’ll be the nominee in 2016.” Obama will say, “Wait a minute! I’ve got the numbers.” Kennedy will respond, “Barack, there’s going to be a DOJ investigation. Now it can go away or you can push your candidacy into a blake hole.” Kerry will nervously laugh and say,” A black hole …. ha ha ha … good one, Ted.” Kennedy will say, “Shut up, John.”

hey you forgot to say Pelosi made it REAL CLEAR that there will be NO DREAM TICKET. So Obama just went back to his pew in Chicago and sat there remembering all those wonderful things Wright had said. (overnment tried to kill blacks with AIDS , churp churp chickens, God Ham America, Hillary aint no watermelon) haha
OBAMA 08!

I’ve got a surprise for Howard Dean if he tries to sell us Hillary as “THE ONLY WAY TO SAVE PARTY UNITY.”

I won’t vote for either of ‘em. If Obama somehow picks Hillary as the nominee, it’s game over. It means the whole thing was a set up, the Democrats have been taken over by the DLC (the Republican Wing of the party) and that John McCain and Joe Lieberman are going to be the next puppet-PRESIDENTS of the CORPORATE STATES OF AMERICA.

Have you noticed how these little “dream ticket” memes get injected into the blogosphere from different parts of the media? Some main stream, some internet…

THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO DREAM ABOUT AN OBAMA-CLINTON TICKET (in any order) ARE KARL ROVE’S KIN. I’m having none of it. If they try it, it’s FINLAND, or CANADA for me.

Obama-Webb (Gore, McKaskill, Richardson, Nepolitano) ‘08

Hillary is the better Candidate. She has plans on UNIVERSAL healthcare (Her plan allows Americans to get the SAME healthcare that is offered to the congress, we can keep our coverage if we are unemployed or switch jobs) that is huge for me. She has plans on Economic growth she IS the stronger Candidate. Obama is DRAGGING America to a Racial divide that barley exist and he did that to justify his 20 years of listening to a CRAZY black pastor. He is not electable!! America will not vote for someone who stands behind a person who preaches that we created AIDS to kill off Black People.!!! IT Will never Happen.

The pastor may not be as crazy as Hillary when she was in the same building/ room (see her newly released White House documents) at the time Bill and Monica were moaning in the the same bed, meaning virtuous act of menage a trois. Or, was she dodging sniper fire in Bosnia like the video shows? And Bill Clinton’s greatest patriot McCain’s spiritual adviser from Ohio also said the same thing that govt. is involved in Black genocide. By the way did you forget Hillary used to campaign for Republican party? She has in her blood: she is campaigning for McCain now (Limbaugh asked her to “muddy Obama”).

So what !!!!!!!!!!!!! they are really making ALOT of money off us now.
Hillary will not allow Health Insurance Companies to DROP people because they become sick or because they had health problems going in to the health care plan
If she is able to do that The Healthcare companies can become as rich as they like !!!!!
Lets stop this RACE nonsense and get back to REAL issues LIKE our Dying solders, Healthcare, death of our middle class, our economy, our education system,

America is the last industrialized nation to have universal health care.

If you want to preserve the role of for profit companies in providing insurance, then consider the the German model, where health care insurance is treated as a utility, and the companies are regulated as to the level of profit they can take.

Seeing how Hillary botched the health care initiative in ‘93, I think I’ll let Obama handle it this time.
PLease note that she tried to do this (clear throat) AS FIRST LADY!!!! and not as an elected official.. Second she wanted the government to pay for the health care services . The US was not then nor is now going to allow that to happen. THAT being said Hillary’s plan is the closesy thing we will get to UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE in this country at the present time.

Who on earth would ever want to work with her? Bad judgment, dishonest, mediocre. The superdelegates should put her out of her misery pronto. She and her husband are too classless to end her campaign, so the superdelegates should do it for her. The sooner, the better for the party and the counry.

Email the superdelegates who represent your state. I have emailed mine, encouraging them to speak out to other delegates even though my superdelegate, Ted Kennedy has already endorsed Obama. Write to any and all superdelegates with whom you might have some sway. Remember–the assumption is that statistically everyone who writes represents many people.

look i am going to pull an OBAMA
Who on earth would ever want to work with him? Bad judgment, dishonest, mediocre. The superdelegates should put him out of his misery pronto. He and his wife are too classless to end his campaign, so the superdelegates should do it for him. The sooner, the better for the party and the counry.
OBAMA 08!!

A. I am not an Obamabot. I am Indepedent who supports him since 2004 since I am tired of this country being torn into 2. It needs to come back together and Clinton trolls try to tear Obama down at every turn.

B. You are the name caller, I see if in your past posts, I am only defending myself.

C. You did not listen to what I posted earlier and just decided to reply whatever you wanted to.

D. It is terrible that we have not had an election without a Bush or Clinton since 1976. I don’t live in a duel monarchy.

E. I am not a sexist, I supported Elizabeth Dole in 2000 because she was qualified and any well qualified woman candidate if they ran, but Hillary is not qualified. She lies to the people and tears this country into 2. We are all Americans, whether Republican, Democrat or independent. She does not understand that, she demonizes others if they don’t agree with her

It’s so nice to see Clinton supporters wish death on their fellow Democrat Obama. Wait until the Republicans get a hold of him? Sorry but Hillary will have used up all the dirty attacks from the slime politics playbook by June. And so far none have worked, she’s still losing! This time the crap that the Republicans are gonna pull won’t win over anyone who isn’t already on the far-right. It’s time for Hillary supporters to make up their minds to accept Obama if he shall win the Democratic nomination. Yes, that’s right. This will require you to swallow your pride and act like an adult. Or maybe just ask yourself this: do you really want to see Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hanity, or Bill O’Reilly have their day? Do they deserve to have larger say in American policy than you? A vote for John McLame says: Yes I do!

billary is the polar opposite of romney who could have torn apart the repub party but saw the handwriting on the wall and for the greater good bowed out. if billary gets the nom the general election will make the goldwater & mcgovern debacles look like squeakers. she will have incinerated the party, and set back her sisterhood a generation. she goes on her merry way for the same reason a dog licks his balls. because she can.

The Democrats don’t NEED this to happen. And more importantly, America does NOT NEED this to happen. We NEED a DEMOCRAT in the White House. Any DEMOCRAT would be better than ANY Republican.
And DEMOCRATS - Please know that we are not the only ones on these sites. There are lots of no integrity Republicans on here pretending to be Democrats, saying nasty things in the name of Sen. Clinton’s supporters and Sen. Obama’s supporters. We more than likely are not fighting with fellow Dems, but trouble making Repubs who know that they don’t stand a chance as long as we are united and strong. So please know that Clinton supporters may not be calling Obama supporters names and Obama supporters may not be calling Clinton supporters names…it is more than likely the EVIL ones Republicans! United we win in November divided we fall and they know this.

your maybe right about the republican’s coming on here to encourage “the fight” on HUFF post and other blogs, but I am not one of them.

I am just extremely pissed that Obama and the Media have gotten away with their hatred towards Hillary by pointing to anything and everything they have done wrong, like her responsibility in Bill’s cheating, etc, etc.

If Obama changes his tune tomorrow and becomes inclusive by saying we need Hillary in this fight then I might respect him more and will try to get over my anger towards him to support the demo party. It’s that simple…

So…It’s the holy Barack who can’t forgive Hillary for doing what politicians do? Now THAT REALLY makes me wonder about his experience. Wait ’til the republicans get their teeth into him, he may wish he had a pit bull in his tender corner.

No, this guy is going to be like John Kerry…take the high road and let Grandpa McCain win another 4 years. The only good I can see coming from that is that at least this time when the economy falls apart the gnat-like attention span of the American people won’t be able to blame it on the Democrats…”course we’ll be in WWIII by then, so, who cares?

Ironic. Candidate Obama, the “uniting” candidate, won’t let up despite being neck and neck with Candidate Clinton. This plus any number of recent events coming to surface (those who sponsor or speak up for him, many of which seem to be involved in pretty nasty causes); if it’s Obama vs McCain, Obama is going to have an insurmountable uphill battle.
Maybe it’s for the best Candidate Obama played arrogant when turning down Candidate Clinton’s request. More true colors are revealed. A shame; I really liked the guy… but now, his actions and supporters are the ones unwittingly betraying him. I wonder why he’d let Farrakhan, the Black Panthers, this twerp of a pastor, and I hope there aren’t any other violence-loving rabble associations speaking up for him…
(google Black Panthers Obama, and you’ll find out — they donated money, got their name on his web site, and later their advertisement was removed. I wonder if they kept the money…)

Oh come off it for a second.
Clinton’s the one who is cynically offering Obama the VP spot when she knows perfectly well that it is almost mathematically impossible for her to win this nomination, and it is clearly impossible for her to win it without doing serious damage to the party and to our chances in November.
Stop pretending you once ‘liked’ the guy but he has since fallen out of your good graces. I don’t know for sure, but if you don’t like him now, I seriously doubt you ever liked him. HIs behavior throughout this campaign has been nothing but honorable - it’s Hillary who has been throwing desparate attack after desparate at him, hoping something will stick, trying to corral him into the ‘black candidate’ pigeonhole and having her surrogates play on people’s racial resentment. Nothing has worked. Gallup shows he has already rebounded from the Wright non-issue, and those who aren’t satisfied by Obama’s wonderful speech on that subject were never going to be satisfied to begin with.
And by the way, I see you bought into the Fox News propaganda hook, line, and sinker - that Black Panther page was put up by one mischief-maker of the millions of anonymous users who use my.barackobama.com. You could go on Barack’s site right now and put up a page like that, if you wanted to. That’s a community outreach site, and anyone can register there and put up a profile.

I have heard NOBODY mention a “reconciliation” scenario in which Obama is the presidential candidate and Hillary settles for veep. NOBODY! The Clintons’ idea of a compromise is that the guy in the lead turns over first place to THEM. If Obama thinks it isn’t such a hot idea, they have a hissy fit and send send their stooges all over the internet to talk about how blacks lack gratitude. (This is already happening). I guess they and their supporters actually believe that this would be a good deal for Obama and that for him to take it is just plain *rude. . Gotta wonder what planet they live on. where the creatures have brass balls this big.

It will be up to Hillary to lead some kind of visible reconciliation process and to campaign vigorously for Obama if he gets the nomination, but I don’t think either Clinton is capable of doing it., at least not convincingly. There was the slime of their campaign against Obama, plus both Clintons sat out the Gore and Kerry campaigns, probably the better to keep the seat warm for her. They will SAY that Gore didn’t want their services, and that is probably true, considering how badly they behaved with his philandering and her lying about it. But Democrats really ought to consider and ponder what it means to the Party’s chances when we have an ex-president and his wife who can’t or won’t campaign for other Democratic presidential contenders.

There is always 2012 to consider, and from the way the Clintons are running their campaign, I think that they want to destroy Obama’s chances not just for now, but for the foreseeable future. If he gets the nomination and wins, there go her chances for 2012, and by 2016 she will be almost as old as McCain is now. If McCain wins, there is a strong liklihood that he will be a one-term president. So, for purely selfish reasons, McCain is a better presidential choice than Obama for the Clintons to work to elect (if she isn’t the nominee) in order to hedge their bets. And that is EXACTLY what they are doing! It is another Lieberman deal in which a candidate is willing to use the Democratic party, then spit on it in order to get elected and afterwards.

When it comes to party loyalty, ithe Clintons’ is little to non-existant.. They have been pretty much creating their own third party anyhow, their corporate-based DLC. They even tried to get rid of Howard Dean and to marginalize the DNC, because the war opposition is centralized there and to get rid of it will make her war vote and support for Bush seem less egregious than it will in the war-profiteering-corporation-ridden DLC..

It is really sad that her supporters refuse to take stuff like party loyalty seriously just because the Clintons claim to be for the little guy and because they behave like the characters in a country-western song….it is all a charade, maybe even Bill’s philandering and her lying about it. Their loyalty is, as it always has been, to their corporate pals. Does anybody even bother to wonder anymore who pressured Bill into betraying his promise to not support NAFTA?

I don’t think having Hillary out there campaigning for Obama really helps. She is so polarizing within our party we are scard she may destroy our candidate as it is. Wait until she and Bill are out there in the general. I wouldn’t put it past her to secretly hope she can undermine Obama so she can run again in 2012. To be honest, I’m not sure she’s even a Democrat. The DLC is, to use both Paul Wellstone’s and Howard Dean’s phrase, “the Republican Wing of the Democratic party. Hillary and Bill are done for Democrats. There’s a reason they are called “ex-Presidents”.

People keep saying how Hillary has such a huge unfavorability rating and Obama doesn’t. I’d like to point out that as of today, March 23, according to Rasmussen, Hillary’s unfavorability rating is 55%, but Obama is very close at 51%. Guess what, McCain’s is only 42%. For favorability again McCain outperforms both democrats with 54% to Clinton at 42% and Obama at 47%.
The democrats need to understand the situation. Half of the party strongly endorses Obama while the other half strongly endorse Hillary. This isn’t about delegates, this is about how individuals will actually vote in November. There are many who say that they would not vote for the democratic ticket if their nominee wasn’t on the ballot. I’ve been told by some that they’d never vote for the ticket of their own candidate if the other one was the VP. We have to think about unity, and we have to think about bringing both halves together. The only way to do it is with both on the ballot. Neither Obama or Clinton can claim that they are unifiers at this point, if they were, then this wouldn’t be an issue. They both need to prove that they have it in them to put themselves above their egos and pick their challenger as the VP. Then all of us need to realize that a nominee can’t be a unifier unless we’re willing to be unified. We need to put all our anger and dissatisfaction with the other nominee away, and do what is best for the party and vote democratic.

So, Obama’s team hasn’t indulged in retaliation?

Ted Kennedy, Richardson and the entire Clinton Presidentiall team most all aligning with Obama and you don’t find any sour grapes in Obama’s message?
Richardson’s message over the weekend speaks volumes of the anger towards Hillary’s compaign. Richardson brought up the phone call to Hillary when he decided to go with Obama. Why did he hope to gain by going public with the so called “tone” of the conversation… See, for me that is the type of stuff that makes me dislike Obama. If you think he is fighting fire with fire then you fail to realize that Obama is no better then Clinton and yet you see a difference? I see a bully tactics (Obama) and a well known femal candidate. The media, the democrat elites and the so called educated prefer Obama. The rest that ae left over, support Hillary. This is why it is so emotional for the Hillary supporters, fellow democrats, that dislike Obama for his tactics. Obama is not going to get us when he most needs us in the fall.

How ridiculous. Ted Kennedy is cruel because he calls Bill Clinton on his “divisive” tactics? Bill Richardson is cruel because he honestly describes what the effects of Hillary’s “kitchen sink” strategy is doing to our chances in November? Obama is WAY better than the Clintons. He’s never attacked them, only defended his own position. In fact, he’s never done anything except set the record straight.

You are playing the victim because your candidate is the bully. No amount of spin is going to change the fact that the Clintons have set a new low for intra-party contests.

They have defined themselves by fear and smear. They are sleeping in the bed they made for themselves. May they enjoy a long vaction starting in late May.

That’s my point. The democrats have the opportunity to define this race and bring the whole country behind them. Let’s not blow it. With Obama, we’ll have the African American, the youth, and half of the upper middle class white male vote, and with Hillary we’ll have everyone else, plus the ticket would attract independents and republicans. The only ones we’ll lose are the far right, the Nader followers, the pro-war crowd, and the democrats that care more about being angry than about winning in November. Easy win.

Related posts

• The Democrats: long Obama-Clinton battle (0)
• Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama Dream Ticket: The War Has Not Ended (0)
• USA utter moans: When the economic recession ends on earth? (1)
• Chuck Hagel Disagree with Backing McCain on Political Camp (62)

Dream ticket? Dream on.

Democratic insiders say Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama once held warm feelings for each other, but their fierce White House fight is pushing their relationship to the point of no return.

Many say it’s already gone so far that any sort of union would come only if they thought the good of the party absolutely depended on it. Clinton has floated the idea of a dream ticket. But if Obama wins, the chances of it happening are nearly zero, strategists say.

How tough have things gotten between the two? Both say they were friends before the campaign started, and will be when it’s over. Even in public, however, it has not looked all that cozy.

“They’re both strong competitors, but I have no doubt that whoever wins, the other will be fully backing,” said New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, who supports Clinton.

Senate sources recalled how after Obama announced his presidential bid, he was extremely nervous about how Clinton would take it, and wanted to shake her hand when he returned to the Senate. They said she refused to acknowledge him.

Obama famously returned the favor at President Bush’s State of the Union address, turning his back as Clinton approached.

And the two leaders’ foot soldiers don’t sound at all confident of repairing the damage, though each side blames the other.

Obama insiders say if he loses, he’ll graciously work for Clinton. They doubt Clinton will do the same.

“The woman is a climber,” said one insider. “When you consider that she didn’t even have a plan for the day after Super Tuesday, you wonder if she has processed that she is behind and may stay that way,” the source said. “We will heal, but will she is the question.”

One source independent of the campaigns said Clinton staffers have been known to berate other senators’ aides if they work with Obama. “That’s pretty bitter,” the source said.

Both sides admit it wasn’t always that way.

Clinton still has a photo of Obama and his family in her office, and observers say that Clinton was among the first to realize his potential.

In late 2005, then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid’s staff came up with the idea of highlighting Obama and fellow freshman Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) to show the depth and diversity of the party. Some Democratic staffs questioned the idea, but when Clinton got wind of it, she stepped up.

“Hillary got it. She showed up and was delighted to take the role of spectator,” recalled a Senate Democratic strategist.

It’s not completely hopeless for the dream ticket dreamers. Just a couple weeks ago, the pair managed to sit and chat civilly about the race, and the next day Obama signed on to a piece of Clinton-sponsored legislation.

Roy Romer, an ex-governor of Colorado and Clinton-era party chairman, called the tone of the race “raw,” but said the antidote will ultimately be the party’s need, and the country’s.

“The party will go through some rough spots, but then it will come together and be united,” Romer said. “We’ve got to elevate [the discussion] to a higher level because this country is in trouble.”

The Following are just comments, not from the author, sorry

I agree with Aloha62. Also Lieberman try to get the Indp’s vote for McCain but Obama will do it fine with Indp’s voters.

Golly gee. If you were a class act like Obama, and were getting literally slandered by a masterful liar and deceiver like Hillary, would you wanna have dinner with her? NFW!!!

Are we even talking about this after Hillary pulled such stunts as “Shame on you Barack Obama” while she lied about her own backing of NAFTA? Or having that surrogate witch Ferraro continue to remind voters that (and this is my blunt view of what this is) Obama is a black man? Hillary makes Karl Rove look like a child with her downright demeaning lying. She is, in some ways, worse than Bush. So forget her, please!!!

The Hillary Clinton who has the cohones to say she “won” Michigan and Florida, and wants their votes counted, after she agreed that they would not. (Here I urge anyone interested to go to youtube and search for Hillary Michigan. There you will hear her back then, and see a concise discussion of what she is trying to pull.) Oh how I long for a commentator on CNN or FOX with the nerve of a Bill Maher, who would say to one of these liars like Hillary “You can’t be serious. I mean you are just a bald faced liar, and you think voters in this party are that stupid?”

I don’t know HOW Hillary and Obama could ever be on the same ticket because I don’t think eithers supporters will be on the same side. I know myself and I am not alone, will NEVER VOTE FOR OBAMA!!!! If Hillary is not the nominee, I will write her name in!! As a matter of fact, if she doesn’t get the nomination, she should run as an Independent because there are just as many passionate people who support Hillary as those who support Obama!

He’s going to win PA….you watch and see and, then we will see the end of Hillary. When that happens dont be surprised if she runs as McCains running mate. Thats how truly vindictive, mean and power hungry she really is and Americans will finally see her for what she is.

SD, Didn’t in the primary, won’t in the general election. That’s final. My vote will go for Hillary Clinton.

gideon: you are so right. Hillary is given about a 10% chance of winning the nom. The media, however, is doing the people a disservice by describing it as a close contest. It is really not. She’s already gone beyond anyone would have been allowed to stay in the race if her name was not a Clinton. As Gov. Richardson said today, the Clintons really feel like their entitled to the Presidency. I can’t see her getting out for the good of the party. The good thing is, Obama’s campaign now realizes that if she won’t get out, then they are going to make sure she is damaged. Notice she has been on the defensive the last couple of days. They have been hitting her hard. And

And there is plenty of stuff to go after her. The fact that she exaggerated her foreign and domestic policy experience, that she won’t release her tax returns, that they won’t release the list of contributors to the Clinton Library, that she lied about her support of NAFTA (thanks to the release of First Lady Papers,) that she lied about her role in the peace process of Ireland. She has been exposed. So the strategy is to paint her as “untrustworthy” and make sure she is damaged so she won’t be able to run for anything again. They have been hitting her the last couple of days. So if she doesn’t get out voluntarily, her stature will be diminished cuz they will start hitting her.

Good Question: However, there is no parity between whites and blacks in OUR country. A White church that had a similiar stance would be: “As a group, We hold most of the power and privilege and We need to make sure that no one else shares in our institutionally assurd power and privilege.”  Editing by Alice Wu

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