I learned a new word this week, and it comes by way of the Boston Celtics.  Doc Rivers introduced this word to his team as a way of uniting them in a common cause: to win a championship.  So far it seems to be working.

None other than Nelson Mandela once described the Bantu word this way:

   "Obuntu (sic) recognizes that my humanity is bound up with yours."

The word also means justice and respect for every person.

Is it any surprise that Barack Obama has seemingly tapped into the spirit of Ubuntu during his historic run for the presidency?  I think it is the perfect description for how he has run his campaign.

Whoops.  Perhaps one who lives in a glass house should not throw stones.  It appears that the Clinton's respected Rev. Wright enough to invite him to the White House for a prayer breakfast back in 1998.

It's on several news outlets, Drudge Report included, along with picture.

What kind of damage will this inflict on an already floundering campaign.  Without the prospects of a new vote in MI and FL, and with her options dwindling, and with her temporary blip in the polls starting to erode, can the Clinton campaign take a hit this big.  Will she be able to give a speech to uplift and challenge America like the one Obama gave?

Time will tell.

While Obama currently leads in 5 out of 6 national polls, the one national poll that shows Hillary out in front has begun to show signs of that lead eroding.

Yesterday's Gallup poll had Hillary up by 7 points, her first substantial lead in a long time; today that lead is down to 5 points, just above the margin of error.  This is the first Gallup poll to have taken samples following the historic speech given by Obama on Tuesday.  One can imagine the poll growing even tighter in tomorrow's poll.

Does this cause concern for Hillary's supporters?  Even during a period where Obama has been beaten up by the press, Obama manages to minimize his drop in the polls, and as I mentioned, actually leads in 5 out of the 6 national polls released in the past few days.

Now with MI and FL unable to solve their revote problems, Hillary now faces a nearly impossible task of closing the gap with Obama in pledged delegates and popular votes.  Also, with more details coming out about Hillarys apparent lack of bonifide experience in handling foreign and domestic policy, and with the Lewinsky and file-gate problems being brought back up, can Hillary reverse the downward trend?

I remain convinced that the continuation of this race is detrimental to the success of the Dem Party in Nov.  Wouldn't it be better for all concerned to have this ticket merged right now?  Hillary certainly has her good points, along with some negatives; Obama certainly has his good points, and some negatives as well.  Wouldn't this team (my preference is for Obama/Clinton) do a lot better working together than working against one another?

Polls, they're everywhere!

With the 4-day daily tracking poll (two days of which were before Obama's historic speech on Tuesday) showing Obama continuing to lead Hillary in the national poll, one wonders what it will take for Hillary to regain the lead if she cannot do it following the Wright flap.

One also wonders what will start to happen in some of the state polls following Obama's speech.  All state polls released in the last day or two were taken before Obama's speech, hailed by most for being historic in scope and bravery.

Let the flames begin, but I can't imagine anything that the Wright flap ocurring, and even that hasn't put him behind.  Now that some of the info from the Clinton administration is starting to come to light, on wonders if it's not time for Hillary's numbers to start dropping.

Again, my mantra, time will tell.

So here's what came into my twisted little mind tonight.  I think we can all agree that based on the overwhelming support each of our candidates has received throughout this primary season, that both candidates should be on the ticket, if only out of fairness to the supporters.  

I know that the top spot is yet to be determined, but we have to look past that right now.  One of them will be the nominee for President, one will be VP.  Okay, now that that is settled, why can't both camps agree to stop slashing at each other and become a two-on-one team against McCain?

Obama and Clinton have each made all the points they can make about the other's qualifications, short-comings et.al., why not end this madness and have them start working off the same talking points against the Republicans and McCain?

Can't you see it?  In the morning during a press briefing, Hillary says something about McCain.  Later in the day, Obama references the comment and adds more to the heap.  Much later in the day, Hillary agrees with Obama and adds more fuel to the fire.  Now imagine this day after day, issue after issue.  Then add Bill in the mix, and then Teddy, all talking the same talk, all arguing against a McCain presidency.

I can't say how in the world this nomination is going to play out.  Who's to say whether pledged delegates will be enough or super-delegates or states won or which states or popular votes or anything else.  Someone is going to have to decide how in the world we can pick a nominee.  BUT until that time, why can't both campaigns agree to start working as a team?  By the time the issue is settled, the teamwork will be working so well that the transition into the official ticket and the campaign that follows will be seamless.

Can I hear a second?

Not to upset the new spirit of cooperation and conciliation between the two camps, but just to keep a tab on where things stand and how Obama's speech yesterday may have had a positive effect, the Rasmussen tracking poll out today (even with Saturday night's and Sunday night's numbers, which must have been favorable to Clinton, in light of the Wright flap)show Obama back up to 47% versus 42% for Clinton.

I know, polls don't mean anything, but it's always nice when one's candidate is on top, even temporarily, in a poll.  So, please, no flames, just, maybe, discussion on whether you think the worst is behind for Obama (my personal feeling is that he actually helped his cause by his thoughtful response to the Wright thing).

Let's try to keep it civil, huh?  We're going to need each other in the end.

Up until this very moment, I considered MyDD an alternative site to Dkos, a ying to its yang; that site is pro-Obama, this site is pro-Clinton; there was some back and forth arguing, some needling, some snarking, and maybe a bit more.  But, again, just this very moment, as I looked at the diary entries along the side of the page, all I could do was shake my head in wonderment.  How has the hatred grown to the point where the Dems here are attacking Obama as if he were George Bush?

I understand how a well-meaning Democrat can like one candidate a lot more than another; I can understand wanting to point out the strengths of one and the weaknesses of the other; I can understand gloating at polls that show one candidate up and the other down.  But how has it come to the point where the hate is palpable?

You do know, my fellow Democrats, that one of the two WILL be the nominee.  You do know that in order to take back the White House we are all going to have to come together.  Because of his pledged delegate lead, and his lead in the popular vote, and in the number of states won, Barack Obama is the front-runner.  In order for Hillary to win this thing, she will have to do it behind closed doors using the Super Delegates.  Even if she does get the nomination, the process she uses will disenchant all the Obama supporters who truly thought that this time would be different; many will stay home.  Many will vote for McCain.

Is this how it was supposed to be?  Wouldn't we all like to start at the beginning and do things entirely differently?  I blame the media, partially.  If Hillary had been Obama and Obama Hillary, this election would be over.  If Hillary had won Iowa, she would most likely have cruised to an easy victory.  If Hillary had won 12 states in a row, by incredibly wide margins of victory, the media would have wondered why Obama did not drop out for the benefit of the party.  But the media wanted coverage; they kept reminding us of the "come-back kid"; they wanted us to stay tuned, because no matter how far out the Clintons were, they can always come-back.  The love of ratings dictated that they had to nurse Clinton through the lean weeks of this race, in order to keep the people tuning in to the debates and the coverage.  Job well done, but at what cost to the Democratic Party?

So, thanks to the media, and to the ultra-right wing of the Republican party, and to originally well-meaning HRC supporters, a year old story about an old man's rantings have brought the Party to the brink of yet another defeat. Do we really want to continue this way?

Please, I beg of you, please let's all just stop.  We are in the same party; we all want the same things; we all want a Democrat in the White House.  Everything we are doing, at least on this and other websites, is killing our party; it's killing our chance to put a Democrat in the White House.

Here's the blunt state of the contest: Barack Obama will not quit; Hillary will not quit; Obama will be ahead in the pledged delegate count at the end of the contests; Hillary will try to use Super Delegates and other means to marginalize the pledged delegate lead.  Worst case scenario is that this goes all the way to Denver, there's a contentious floor vote where one side will be so upset at losing that they will walk away from the party -- at least temporarily.  Will they come back in time for the general election?  Some will; many will not.

There is only one solution and it needs to be done quickly.  The heads of the Democratic Party need to get Obama and Clinton, without any of their handlers, into a room with Al Gore, and several other power-brokers.  They will need to discuss this think into the wee hours of the morning, talk themselves out, shout, cry, throw things across the room, pull out their hair, and then when all parties concerned are exhausted and have finally come to their senses, the two will come out of the room, and announce that one or both of them is stepping aside as the candidate for the presidency and running instead as the other's VP.  Then they will explain the rationale for this decision in such a way as their supporters will be very comfortable with the decision.  Or they will announce that they both are dropping out and plan to tell their delegates to support Al Gore, or John Edwards, or John Kery, or whomever they decide upon.

If they can do this; if someone in the Democratic Party has the gumption to fix this right now, maybe, MAYBE, we can salvage this mess.  If not, there will be no happy ending to this story.  Even if my candidate Barack Obama can win the nomination by having the pledged delegate lead, he will fall in November because of the loss of the Clinton supporters.  The victory will be hollow for either candidate.

So I emplore you all here at MyDd, I emplore all at Dkos and any other Democratic-leaning blog-site, let's stop all this hate.  Please!  For the good of the candidates, for the good of the party, for the good of the country that can't take another Republican president.

What say you?

Much to the dismay of Hillary fans here, many of whom have been enjoying the small blip in her Gallup Poll statistics (all in the MOE, by the way), a new CNN poll shows that Obama, despite the worst intentions by the right-wing media and the Clinton machine, is still very much on top.  Here's the link:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/17/p oll.democrats/index.html

I guess the point here is that instead of the Clinton machine trying to destroy the Democratic Party's chances for victory in the fall by trying to raise Obama's negative numbers (to try and have his negatives reach her ultra-high negative numbers), they should instead be joining the Obamamania bandwagon and push to victory in the fall behind an Obama/? ticket.

I'm guessing, however, that the Clinton machine will keep trying to drive wedges between them and the Obama followers, all in the interest of gaining power for themselves. We shall see.