Las Vegas Sun

SantaCruz and Truth:

A group of people organizing to help themselves is a good thing.

Looked at their website, and I find people rallying around Christian ideals committed to helping themselves and their community.

Please note, it is Hillary's people who continue to play the race card, and it was Hillary who started it on Jan 7.

Obama has nothing to gain by playing the race card, I think African Americans get that he's black.

Hillary does have something to gain, though, and that is that she could play off of white racist fears to pull people toward her.

Here's the history:

On Jan 7, Hillary made a comment about Martin Luther King.

This comment offended a number of people, and a media storm started brewing as a number of people started discussing it. Obama's campaign was silent.

On Jan 11, someone obtained a memo from Obama'a SC office that had quotes from different articles discussing race. The last quote was on Jan 11, and it was posted on Tyra Banks web site the same day.

Nobody knows how the memo was obtained. It's possible that someone called Obama's office and asked if they had a list of articles that had been discussed in the media.

That's it. That's the sum total the Obama campaign involvement. It had little influence over peoples' opinions.

But, Obama couldn't claim his campaign was innocent, so he took responsibility and shut down the discussion.

For a history, see:
http://backpedals.blogspot.com/2008/01/r...

How is Obama a uniter?

Look at his work while Republican's have been in control of both the State and US Senates.

From the State Senate, he worked with Republicans to pass the health care act. He worked with the police force to pass difficult legislation for video taping interrogations, and logging the race of people stopped to monitor racial profiling. He passed the Gift Ban Act, Illinois toughest ethics reform bill since the Watergate era.

In the US Senate, he passed the Lugar-Obama bill to stop nuclear and conventional weapon disarmament. He passed the Coburn-Obama bill for transparency in federal spending.

From the Time article, this is what people have to say:

http://www.time.com/time/politics/articl...

On Obama's KidsCare initiative:

Obama was elected to the Illinois state Senate in 1996, when Democrats were in the minority....
John Bouman, president of the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, said Obama's work helped make the program more consumer-friendly. He also said Obama was often willing to give up credit for the legislation if that helped win Republican support.

"It tells you something that as a relatively junior member in the minority party, he was an important negotiator," Bouman said.

On Obama's police work:

When Democrats gained a majority in the Senate, Obama's political mentor, Senate President Emil Jones, gave him high-profile assignments, including two contentious issues involving police — videotaped interrogations and racial profiling.

Police weren't happy about recording their interrogations of murder suspects or having to study racial bias in traffic stops. Initially, they opposed both pieces of legislation.

Ultimately, police groups endorsed both bills and they won unanimous approval in the Senate.

One of his Republican colleagues was so wowed that he has appeared in an Obama campaign ad...

The US Presidency is not a Chief Operating Officer position. Look at the power that the President has, look at the difference between Bill and George. Bill shut down the military, cut back on government, raised taxes, and balanced the budget. George went a typical direction for Republicans and directed money toward his oil and war buddies.

The Presidency IS about vision, not about filing papers. We need a leader with vision, to take us in a new direction.

Obama has that vision, Obama has been successful passing legislation, Obama has been right on the important issues, Obama brings people together to get things done.

Hillary can't do any of these things. She doesn't know how, that's why she hasn't passed any important legislation. That's why, in just the past for months, she's angered women, men, blacks, whites, youth, and Muslims.

Obama knows how to lead, he knows how to get people to work together. Hillary does not.

I've seen the argument to give Hillary her turn. This assumes that she will be elected.

Hillary has a machine, but the Republican's have been building up a campaign to run against her since 2000. 51% of the people will vote against her, already.

Compare Obama and Hillary in how they work with other people, and it explains why Obama is successful in leading and better at passing legislation.

Obama has passed successful legislation, Hillary has not.

Obama is humble, he gives more credit than is due, and includes everyone he can. Hillary takes too much credit for work she has done (SCHIP).

Obama wants to hear all sides, Hillary shuts people out (her failed health care)

Obama is a concensus builder, Hillary is a statesman (lectures). .

Obama gives us hope, Hillary tears it down.

Obama is the better candidate to get things done. He has shown this by being right on the issues, and by passing successful legislation that has required difficult work with opposing parties.

Please, look deeper than giving someone a turn.

I like Hillary, she must have lots of spunk to keep doing what she does.

Hillary isn't very good at what she does, though.

She hasn't produced any good legislation in the Senate.

That indicates that she won't be good at getting legislation through as a President either.

Legislation Passed in US Senate

* Lugar-Obama Act for reduction of conventional and nuclear weapons world wide
* Coburn-Obama Transparency Act transparency in federal spending, found at http://www.usaspending.gov

* Cosponsored the Healthy Kids Act of 2007 and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) Reauthorization Act of 2007 to ensure that more American children have affordable health care coverage.

* Obama worked to pass a number of laws in Illinois and Washington to improve the health of women. His accomplishments include creating a task force on cervical cancer, providing greater access to breast and cervical cancer screenings, and helping improve prenatal and premature birth services.

* As a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, Obama passed legislation to improve care and slash red tape for our wounded warriors recovering at places like Walter Reed. He passed laws to help homeless veterans and offered an innovative solution to prevent at-risk veterans from falling into homelessness. Obama passed legislation to stop a VA review of closed PTSD cases that could have led to a reduction in veterans' benefits. He passed an amendment to ensure that all service members returning from Iraq are properly screened for traumatic brain injuries

* Congo
* Darfur

* Introduced Patriot Employer Act, August 2007, to reward companies for keeping jobs in the US

* As a member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee, Obama helped pass legislation in the recent improvements to the Higher Education Act to increase the maximum Pell Grant award to $5,10.

* Obama passed legislation with Senator Jim Talent (R-MO) to give gas stations a tax credit for installing E85 ethanol refueling pumps.

* Obama sponsored an amendment that became law providing $40 million for commercialization of a combined flexible fuel vehicle/hybrid car within five years.

* Congress ethics legislation passed by Obama and Feingold that ending subsidized corporate jet travel, mandating disclosure of lobbyists' bundling of contributions, and enacting strong new restrictions of lobbyist-sponsored trips

* Obama has introduced and helped pass bipartisan legislation to limit the abuse of no-bid federal contracts.

Obama in the Illinois State Senate:

* Welfare legislation

* Created the Earned Income Tax Credit program that gave over $100 million in tax cuts for families throughout Illinois over 3 years.

* Expanded early childhood education

* Enlisted the support of law enforcement officials to draft legislation requiring the videotaping of interrogations and confessions in all capital cases.

* Passed, with U.S. Sen. Paul Simon (D-IL), the toughest campaign finance law in Illinois history. The legislation banned the personal use of campaign money by Illinois legislators and banned most gifts from lobbyists.

* Barack Obama sponsored and passed legislation that expanded health care coverage to 70,000 kids and 84,000 adults.

Obama as a lawyer:

Civil Rights Lawyer, Miner, Barnhill & Galland:
-litigated employment discrimination,
-housing discrimination, and
-voting rights cases

Constitutional Law lecturer at the University of Chicago.

Obama's work as a community organizer:

Community Organizer, 1985

He sought to improve living conditions in poor neighborhoods plagued with crime and high unemployment

* Moved the Chicago Housing Authority to remove asbestos in housing
* Established a job-training center
* Worked in the streets on voter registration to help elect President Clinton
* Registered 150,000 people to vote