2008 Primaries Thread 2: THE QUICKENING

When Clinton first came to Washington in 1993, one of her first steps was to join a Bible study group. For the next eight years, she regularly met with a Christian "cell" whose members included Susan Baker, wife of Bush consigliere James Baker; Joanne Kemp, wife of conservative icon Jack Kemp; Eileen Bakke, wife of Dennis Bakke, a leader in the anti-union Christian management movement; and Grace Nelson, the wife of Senator Bill Nelson, a conservative Florida Democrat.

Clinton's prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or "the Family"), a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and military leaders dedicated to "spiritual war" on behalf of Christ, many of them recruited at the Fellowship's only public event, the annual National Prayer Breakfast. (Aside from the breakfast, the group has "made a fetish of being invisible," former Republican Senator William Armstrong has said.) The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God's plan.

Clinton declined our requests for an interview about her faith, but in Living History, she describes her first encounter with Fellowship leader Doug Coe at a 1993 lunch with her prayer cell at the Cedars, the Fellowship's majestic estate on the Potomac. Coe, she writes, "is a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God."

The Fellowship's ideas are essentially a blend of Calvinism and Norman Vincent Peale, the 1960s preacher of positive thinking. It's a cheery faith in the "elect" chosen by a single voter—God—and a devotion to Romans 13:1: "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers....The powers that be are ordained of God." Or, as Coe has put it, "we work with power where we can, build new power where we can't."

That Obama response on Huffington Post is good and quite persuasive when read in full. However, my worry is that this little storm in a teacup won't be decided by long, reasoned arguments and statements of fact - it will be decided by soundbites. Obama needs a strong soundbite to counteract the inevitable YouTube clips. I'm not sure if condemning the statements is going to do it. Sadly, this campaign season has been marked by lots of silly statements that got blown out of proportion and only died down when someone quit the campaign. Now obviously Wright was never in the campaign and he's now retired, so maybe that won't be necessary this time, but it seems like the pattern so far has been that condemning the statements hasn't been enough.

The concept of the Elect = WASP Entitlement 101 xpost

In a rare Senate appearance yesterday, McCain failed to attract support for a halt to pork-barrel spending, losing on a 71-29 vote. An angry McCain told voters today that he was only “doing the Lord’s work” but unfortunately was doing it “in the city of Satan”: mccain83.jpg

Later in Springfield, Penn., McCain told voters: “We were voting on major issues of profound consequences with no discussion, no debate and 10 minutes to vote.

“Anyone who had the misfortune of watching it will know how hard it is to do the Lord’s work in the city of Satan,” said McCain, who has served four-terms in the Senate.

you should feel honored that i didnt react the same way to '-- max' that i would to '-- StanM'

-- deej, Friday, March 14, 2008 9:48 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

?

http://www.dia.uniroma3.it/~sperduto/images/peace.jpg

Sure, no problem - I just didn't know.

That Hillary Bible Study is almost as funny as what will happen when they ask her who came to pray with Bill post-Monica.

He act like he making decisions. He could barely speak! He could barely fuckin’ speak!

uh pot calling the kettle black here

btw DMX is a fucking moron and his music sucks

He got blood on his dick cuz he fucked a corpse.

Anyone who had the misfortune of watching it will know how hard it is to do the Lord’s work in the city of Satan,” said McCain, who has served four-terms in the Senate.

lol the reporter sounds quietly incredulous that this man has been in DC so long.

God hates earmarks?

I mean, really? Is that in the Bible somewhere?

God loves earmarks. Ever heard of tithing?

btw DMX is a fucking moron and his music sucks

-- Shakey Mo Collier, Friday, March 14, 2008 9:53 PM

lol stfu

eh I never liked him

next controversy, plz. this one is already played out.

DMX interview could not have come at a better time thank u maxxx <3

Obama releasing his response through the Huffington Post seems like a good strategy.

He's also going to appear on Olbermann, Hannity & Colmes, and AC360 I think.

hannity & colmes?!!

yeah this is what I hear.

I dunno if that's such a good idea

obama's christian god will surely protect him, much as he protected daniel in the den of lions, amen

I think he sent it out to a bunch of outlets, not just HuffPo. Some dude on CBN has posted it with "Obama has sent us a statement here" blah blah blah.

I dunno if that's such a good idea

it's about time he appeared on one of the wingnut shows! If he's in good form, he'll destroy Hannity as casually as Hitchens did last year.

HuffPost lists it as "Obama Exclusive", so I would think that any attempt to put credit elsewhere is just to avoid mentioning the site. (This is why it's a neat strategy for Obama: Drudge, for example, never links to Huffington Post.)

ben smith @ politico links to some additional rezko details (not sure how "new" they are) that obama stated in a recent interview. they don't indict him in any wrongdoing, so it didn't really change much about the situation. just perhaps that rezko donated more to his earlier campaigns than was perhaps known:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0308/Your_Friday_Rezko.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-obama-rezkomar15,0,2968927.story

Indicted Chicago businessman Antoin "Tony" Rezko was a more significant fundraiser for presidential candidate Barack Obama's earlier political campaigns than previously known. Rezko raised as much as $250,000 for the first three offices Obama sought, the senator told the Tribune on Friday.

Obama also said for the first time that his private real estate transactions with Rezko involved repeated lapses of judgment. The mistake, Obama said, was not simply that Rezko was under grand jury investigation at the time of their 2005 and 2006 dealings. "The mistake was he had been a contributor and somebody involved in politics," he said.

In an extensive interview that he hoped would quell the lingering controversy over his relationship with Rezko, Obama said that voters concerned about his judgment should view it as "a mistake in not seeing the potential conflicts of interest."

dunno if this will get any traction. but there's likely an obama strategy to getting this out now - along with all the earmark details he released - so that he'll be able to hit clinton harder on the transparency issues, esp. the tax returns, white house papers, etc.

oh and jeremiah wright is no longer on the religious council of the campaign.

As long as he didn't pardon Rezko, he's got one up on the Clintons...

(This is why it's a neat strategy for Obama: Drudge, for example, never links to Huffington Post.)

I don't get why this is a neat strategy at all. Wouldn't you want this message disseminated to as many people as possible, not just people who read liberal blogs?

i was wondering the same thing

Because it's news that Fox can't ignore.

Apparently MSNBC/CNN and not Fox doing best ratings-wise during the 08 campaign. This might be good background when analyzing who goes after what. As for Drudge, how soon we forget OMG TURBAN PHOTO and Obama people have not.

lol @ Sean Hannity saying Obama should resign from his senate seat.

lolololol why

Because of THE TERRIBLE DISGRACE?

Of his former pastor once saying some stuff!

Greta Van Sustren has an unfortunate face.

sean hannity should resign from life

It's kinda great that whenever something goes wrong with his campaign Obama immediately just goes on TV everywhere giving his own take on it rather than just releasing a statement and hoping it'll just go away by the next news cycle. It's somewhat refreshing.

the 2nd part of his interview on AC360 was amazing.

This whole attempt by people to paint Obama as this "post-racial" figure had bothered me for a while now, because there are still issues that we have to get over as a country and as a people.. his words were very profound.

great discussion going on on CNN right now.

this kind of needed to happen.

this fits again:

It may take from now until November to repudiate every supporter or potential supporter who has said or done something regrettable but it will be time well spent.

hopefully Obama's pastor is voting for Hillary

or McCain

is there a joke somewhere in there

Any link to AC360?

Obama is conducting himself well right now but I'm worried about the blog comments all over the place from shills, freepers and others who don't realise how racist they're being, or are delighting in having a vent for their bigotry. This should make all of us ill. They think Obama is prevaricating somehow, they can't put a finger on why they can't trust him but they're glad to have the perfect excuse not to. I mean, it's all very well for us to say these critics share a communal brain cell and lack a spelling dictionary but they are all coming out of the woodwork at once. RAIIIIIID! What Obama is going through right now is proof that people whites will identify as black still have to work twice as hard for half as much, and are expected to be very grateful for that, if not to personally go around and thank whitey one by one for being so fucking magnanimous. Everyone else who isn't some shade of brown isn't expected to offer more than token thanks to the larger society for achieving things through individual hard work or the institutional assistance all Americans are entitled to.

im real worried about this, this shit has some traction
did the obama campaign really not know/think these speeches wouldn't air?

they did know, everyone who was following this early on knew that eventually this would become big, but I guess they didn't think it would cause THIS MUCH of a reaction. He already "denounced and rejected" some stuff Wright said and tried to distance himself from him way back in 07.

suzy otm, I'll try to find the AC360 vids for you.