Let’s Talk Obama

I have to say, this whole having audio on my blog thing is a dream come true. I absolutely love it. I try to pick relevant songs…but sometimes they will just be songs I just love.

But I want to use this space today to discuss some of the controversies surrounding Obama recently.

Let’s get right into it:

1. Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Trinity, and Obama as a secret muslim/Christian Zealot/Secularist (AKA the religious kitchen sink strategy, just throw every offensive term out there and see which one will piss off the most people)

This Rev. Wright certainly has some folks worried.

Instead of trying to deal with the hate that comes out of Fox News and Glenn Beck, I’ll just try and deal with the facts.

a) Senator Obama is a bible-believing Christian. Below is his testimony, which he described in a speech to the UCC convention in 2007:

“It’s been several months now since I announced I was running for president. In that time, I’ve had the chance to talk with Americans all across this country. And I’ve found that no matter where I am, or who I’m talking to, there’s a common theme that emerges. It’s that folks are hungry for change - they’re hungry for something new. They’re ready to turn the page on the old politics and the old policies - whether it’s the war in Iraq or the health care crisis we’re in, or a school system that’s leaving too many kids behind despite the slogans.

But I also get the sense that there’s a hunger that’s deeper than that - a hunger that goes beyond any single cause or issue. It seems to me that each day, thousands of Americans are going about their lives - dropping the kids off at school, driving to work, shopping at the mall, trying to stay on their diets, trying to kick a cigarette habit - and they’re coming to the realization that something is missing. They’re deciding that their work, their possessions, their diversions, their sheer busyness, is not enough.

They want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives. They’re looking to relieve a chronic loneliness. And so they need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them - that they are not just destined to travel down that long road toward nothingness.

And this restlessness - this search for meaning - is familiar to me. I was not raised in a particularly religious household. My father, who I didn’t know, returned to Kenya when I was just two. He was nominally a Muslim since there were a number of Muslims in the village where he was born. But by the time he was a young adult, he was an atheist. My mother, whose parents were non-practicing Baptists and Methodists, was one of the most spiritual souls I ever knew. She had this enormous capacity for wonder, and lived by the Golden Rule. But she had a healthy skepticism of religion as an institution. And as a consequence, so did I.

It wasn’t until after college, when I went to Chicago to work as a community organizer for a group of Christian churches, that I confronted my own spiritual dilemma. In a sense, what brought me to Chicago in the first place was a hunger for some sort of meaning in my life. I wanted to be part of something larger. I’d been inspired by the civil rights movement - by all the clear-eyed, straight-backed, courageous young people who’d boarded buses and traveled down South to march and sit at lunch counters, and lay down their lives in some cases for freedom. I was too young to be involved in that movement, but I felt I could play a small part in the continuing battle for justice by helping rebuild some of Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods.

So it’s 1985, and I’m in Chicago, and I’m working with these churches, and with lots of laypeople who are much older than I am. And I found that I recognized in these folks a part of myself. I learned that everyone’s got a sacred story when you take the time to listen. And I think they recognized a part of themselves in me too. They saw that I knew the Scriptures and that many of the values I held and that propelled me in my work were values they shared. But I think they also sensed that a part of me remained removed and detached - that I was an observer in their midst.

And slowly, I came to realize that something was missing as well - that without an anchor for my beliefs, without a commitment to a particular community of faith, at some level I would always remain apart, and alone.

And it’s around this time that some pastors I was working with came up to me and asked if I was a member of a church. “If you’re organizing churches,” they said, “it might be helpful if you went to church once in a while.” And I thought, “Well, I guess that makes sense.”

So one Sunday, I put on one of the few clean jackets I had, and went over to Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street on the South Side of Chicago. And I heard Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright deliver a sermon called “The Audacity of Hope.” And during the course of that sermon, he introduced me to someone named Jesus Christ. I learned that my sins could be redeemed. I learned that those things I was too weak to accomplish myself, He would accomplish with me if I placed my trust in Him. And in time, I came to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world and in my own life.

It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity one day and affirm my Christian faith. It came about as a choice, and not an epiphany. I didn’t fall out in church, as folks sometimes do. The questions I had didn’t magically disappear. The skeptical bent of my mind didn’t suddenly vanish. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt I heard God’s spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth and carrying out His works.”

It is a faith that he has written about in both of his books and that has been a palpable and verifiable agent in his life. His legitimacy as a Christian and legitimacy in reaching out to people of faith, including evangelicals, has the GOP and those who profit from using religion as a bludgeon scared. So they will try and condemn Obama and his faith. Evangelicals and born-again Christians especially should be weary when the media starts to make a man’s Christian faith deplorable…they’ve been saying the same thing about us for years.

b) Trinity and Rev. Wright

As you may have noticed above, Obama didn’t join Trinity after hearing one of the 2 or 3 clips that cable news has been playing of one of Rev. Wright’s sermons…no. It was his message on “The Audacity of Hope.” A sermon that, for Obama, spoke of how, with God, anything is possible.

A few points:

I have sat in the Chapel and heard ideas that I completely disagreed with, particularly when Pastor Al Cockrell was preaching. This only happened maybe five or six times, but I would be shaking my head when he’d say something I didn’t agree with. I didn’t feel compelled to express my disagreement. I didn’t feel it was my duty. I also didn’t feel like I had to leave the Church. I didn’t feel like I had to do this because my impression of Pastor Al was much different than that of the ideas he sometimes espoused. I have an overall opinion of Pastor Al that is very positive and I believe him to be a good and decent man of God who seeks to be grounded in the word of God.

Now, had I heard Pastor Al for the first times on one of those occasions he said something I disagreed with, I probably would have been hesitant to continue at that Church.

We are all imperfect vessels.

Now, after making this point, someone made the point to me that Trinity’s website had a mission statement that was deplorable and that, sure Rev. Wright may be ruthlessly characterized, but this stuff is on their website.

I looked at the website and this is the mission statement. You can view it for yourself here.

This is the “About Us” section.

The mission statement, to me, is not extreme or out of the mainstream at all. The two references to race are saying that they are not ashamed to be a black church and that they will work to eradicate color lines.

The about us section has that word that Glenn Beck loves to use to scare folks: liberation. As far as I can tell, the Black Liberation theology, in this context, simply is a theology that connects God’s will to the liberation of Blacks out of slavery. I don’t know about you, but I believe it was God’s will that blacks were freed.

Also, as Rev. Wright writes on the Trinity website:

“To have a church whose theological perspective starts from the vantage point of Black liberation theology being its center, is not to say that African or African American people are superior to any one else.”

So my first point is that, if you understand history and the Black Church, then there is nothing offensive on that website whatsoever. Let me remind you that the United Church of Christ is a 99% white denomination, and that 99% holds Trinity up as an example. Trinity is one of the most respected churches in Chicago. Rev. Wright is a respected theologian and scholar.

Secondly, the idea that members of the church are unwilling to separate the political values of their Reverend with his biblical teaching is not a sound one. Imagine if we carried that over. That would imply that every Christian who watched 700 Club voted for Giuliani. That would imply that every Catholic is against the war in Iraq. I’m only on my second point and I am having a hard time not just dismissing this “controversy” as the most manufactured, ignorant and just plain stupid thing I’ve ever heard.

However, I have more points…

Third, imagine if we held every statement of belief of a Church or personal belief of a Christian, and made all sorts of crazy insinuation and assumptions about how that person would act as a public official. For instance, my Church has a statement of belief on its website that says the following:

“We believe in the bodily resurrection of the just and the unjust, the everlasting conscious suffering
of the lost, and the blissful joy of the saved, which demand a literal Heaven and Hell.”
“We believe in the existence of a personal devil, the old deceiver, a liar from the beginning, who is still
working in the world to destroy the souls of men and that he and all his angels and all who receive not Christ as their Saviour will eternally perish in the lake of fire.”

“We believe that man was created in the image of God, that he sinned, and thereby incurred not only physical death, but spiritual death, which is separation from God; and that all human beings are born with a sinful nature and those who reach moral responsibility are sinners in thought, word, and deed.”

Now one can only imagine the types of assumptions about policies that one could make from those statements.

However, we know that there is a difference between the righteous reign and judgment of God and that of our own. We know that we understand humility. In other words, even if you find that a church that is almost all black supports black business and the betterment of black people, even if you find that to be surprising and reprehensible, to automatically carry those things over to Obama, even though he has never espoused such things, and THEN to carry over how he understands the mission and culture of his Church to how he understands his duties as President is foolish. He has been a U.S. Senator for years! He has a record! He won Iowa!

The choice is simple:

Do we want to choose our President by accepting the frames given to us by Keith Olbermann and Sean Hannity. Do we want to accept that our choices for President have come down to a war-mongering hot-head, and a racist, elitist, manchurian candidate?

And then, like idiots, we complain about the polarization of politics. It’s our fault! We’re too lazy to accept anything other than characterizations that are made to offend our sensibilities. We have 50-50 elections not because of policy differences, but because half of the country hates unpatriotic people more than anything else and half the country hates uncompassionate, racist people more than anything else.

We have a war in Iraq, our planet is in peril, a health care crisis confronting the most vulnerable of us, open borders, an economy in recession, crime in our communities…And we’re going to pick our President on the basis of a wikipedia-level knowledge of a Church in which a candidate has attended? We’re going to pick our President based on how his last name sounds?

People, wake up!

Finally, this whole bitter thing. I could write more on it, but here is the quick opinion:

Obama likes to consider how Americans think and what problems confront them. He is an intellectual who likes to think and discuss. He considered the thoughts and lives of Americans well in the UCC speech posted above, he did so poorly in San Francisco.

It was a campaign mistake. It was a political mistake. Other than the fact that Obama thinks that our country needs economic policies that work, it has absolutely no implications about Obama or the policies he’d enact.

I am done for now.

Thanks for reading.

I hope to do my entry on the April 9 forum in the next few days.

Feel free to comment if you have anything remotely insightful to say or ask.

 

Great Article About Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Nomination

Op-Ed Columnist

The Long Defeat

By DAVID BROOKS

Hillary Clinton may not realize it yet, but she’s just endured one of the worst weeks of her campaign.First, Barack Obama weathered the Rev. Jeremiah Wright affair without serious damage to his nomination prospects. Obama still holds a tiny lead among Democrats nationally in the Gallup tracking poll, just as he did before this whole affair blew up.

Second, Obama’s lawyers successfully prevented re-votes in Florida and Michigan. That means it would be virtually impossible for Clinton to take a lead in either elected delegates or total primary votes.

Third, as Noam Scheiber of The New Republic has reported, most superdelegates have accepted Nancy Pelosi’s judgment that the winner of the elected delegates should get the nomination. Instead of lining up behind Clinton, they’re drifting away. Her lead among them has shrunk by about 60 in the past month, according to Avi Zenilman of Politico.com.

In short, Hillary Clinton’s presidential prospects continue to dim. The door is closing. Night is coming. The end, however, is not near.

Last week, an important Clinton adviser told Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen (also of Politico) that Clinton had no more than a 10 percent chance of getting the nomination. Now, she’s probably down to a 5 percent chance.

Five percent.

Let’s take a look at what she’s going to put her party through for the sake of that 5 percent chance: The Democratic Party is probably going to have to endure another three months of daily sniping. For another three months, we’ll have the Carvilles likening the Obamaites to Judas and former generals accusing Clintonites of McCarthyism. For three months, we’ll have the daily round of résumé padding and sulfurous conference calls. We’ll have campaign aides blurting “blue dress” and only-because-he’s-black references as they let slip their private contempt.

For three more months (maybe more!) the campaign will proceed along in its Verdun-like pattern. There will be a steady rifle fire of character assassination from the underlings, interrupted by the occasional firestorm of artillery when the contest touches upon race, gender or patriotism. The policy debates between the two have been long exhausted, so the only way to get the public really engaged is by poking some raw national wound.

For the sake of that 5 percent, this will be the sourest spring. About a fifth of Clinton and Obama supporters now say they wouldn’t vote for the other candidate in the general election. Meanwhile, on the other side, voters get an unobstructed view of the Republican nominee. John McCain’s approval ratings have soared 11 points. He is now viewed positively by 67 percent of Americans. A month ago, McCain was losing to Obama among independents by double digits in a general election matchup. Now McCain has a lead among this group.

For three more months, Clinton is likely to hurt Obama even more against McCain, without hurting him against herself. And all this is happening so she can preserve that 5 percent chance.

When you step back and think about it, she is amazing. She possesses the audacity of hopelessness.

Why does she go on like this? Does Clinton privately believe that Obama is so incompetent that only she can deliver the policies they both support? Is she simply selfish, and willing to put her party through agony for the sake of her slender chance? Are leading Democrats so narcissistic that they would create bitter stagnation even if they were granted one-party rule?

The better answer is that Clinton’s long rear-guard action is the logical extension of her relentlessly political life.

For nearly 20 years, she has been encased in the apparatus of political celebrity. Look at her schedule as first lady and ever since. Think of the thousands of staged events, the tens of thousands of times she has pretended to be delighted to see someone she doesn’t know, the hundreds of thousands times she has recited empty clichés and exhortatory banalities, the millions of photos she has posed for in which she is supposed to appear empathetic or tough, the billions of politically opportune half-truths that have bounced around her head.

No wonder the Clinton campaign feels impersonal. It’s like a machine for the production of politics. It plows ahead from event to event following its own iron logic. The only question is whether Clinton herself can step outside the apparatus long enough to turn it off and withdraw voluntarily or whether she will force the rest of her party to intervene and jam the gears.

If she does the former, she would surprise everybody with a display of self-sacrifice. Her campaign would cruise along at a lower register until North Carolina, then use that as an occasion to withdraw. If she does not, she would soldier on doggedly, taking down as many allies as necessary.

 

Rev. Wright

First of all, great endorsement today from Gov. Richardson. My favorite part was his call for Hillary to recognize she can’t win and to get out of the race so Democrats can begin to look forward to and plan for the General.

So I just watched the full sermon in which Rev. Wright made the comments about “America’s Chickens are coming home to roost!” It is on Marc Ambinder’s blog.

Now to people who aren’t Christians, they may still find the Reverend’s comments offensive. The Rev. calls believers to examine their personal relationship with Jesus Christ. That is the point of his message. I am fine with the Gospel being described as controversial: Jesus was controversial. What I am not cool with is the church of Christian believers not defending Rev. Wright’s right to preach from the pulpit of Trinity and in some cases, Political christians have attacked Jeremiah Wright. Now whether folks like Tony Perkins think 9/11 happened because of gays, or because of America’s foreign policy, if Tony Perkins is more committed to the Bible than he is to the GOP he should keep his mouth shut on both accounts or he should have blasted Robertson and Falwell for their comments following 9/11.

I did not blast Robertson and Falwell and I will defend Rev. Wright. I believe that the nature of America is found in our good works…I believe the heart of America is good. Rev. Wright’s sermon indicates that following 9/11, he felt otherwise. While I, and Sen. Obama, disagree with him, when you get into the weeds of what he’s saying, it’s really a philosophical and academic case he is making, based in U.S. history of a scale many of those criticizing him have no clue about.

Political christians can do what they want, but Christian politicians, other Christians, and those of good conscience, should defend Senator Obama and not allow the media to once again bash Christianity and Christian leaders under the guise of journalism. Let’s judge our candidates’ on what they have said or think, and not on 10-second sound-bites of a black preacher shown over and over with the intent of scaring whites.

By the way, I would like to second the Obama campaign’s thank you to Chris Wallace. He is clearly a Republican-leaning journalist who is often harder on Democrats than he is on Republicans…but today, he was fair.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, here is the link.

 

Obama, Huckabee and other news

I have only liked three candidates in this Presidential campaign: Joe Biden, Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama. The last two have shown in the past two days that they (along with Biden) are the only candidates who had core convictions. Mike Huckabee did so here: (Go about 3:15 in)

I am so proud of Huck.

Obama, on the other hand, gave one of the most sweeping, substantive speeches of the last 50 years in American politics. It was an honest speech that showed why he is the man to lead this country. He could have pandered to whites who wanted him to disown his pastor and leave his church, but he didn’t. He could have called white suspicion naive and ludicrous, but he didn’t. It was a remarkable speech.

I am currently planning for the big April 9 event and doing some schoolwork, so I have not been able to blog as much as I would have liked. I can tell you what, if I had time, I would be blogging on:

1. If Hillary can donate 5 million dollars to her campaign, could she donate some money to her wardrobe!? If I have to see that bee looking pantsuit one more time, I swear…!

2. By the way, about Hillary, the only campaign she still has a chance of winning is the campaign to destroy the Democratic Party.
I don’t know how many Democrats think a continuation of the failed policy in Iraq, or a third-term for Bush, is better than Senator Barack Obama in the White House.

3. I love the black church. I think it is one of the best parts of our country. However, conspiracy theories aren’t helping no one.

4. Tony Perkins and the FRC should pay more attention to the Bible and less attention to the political fortunes of the Republicans in Congress. In my latest FRC Action Alert E-mail…I was sent a paragraph of Ken Blackwell criticizing Obama’s Pastor and Obama for being in favor of a liberation philosophy and socialism. None of which, to my knowledge, were discussed in his speech. This paragraph by Ken was FRC’s response to Obama’s speech. One would think that FRC Action would rather protect the black church, which is with them on the social issues, then castigate the church because it doesn’t vote Republican. In the lead-up to April 9, I will be blogging a bit more about why the Religious Right has been led astray and if they can ever get back on a path when their eyes are on the Lord, instead of power in D.C.

5. Buffalo Sabres are going to the playoffs baby! (knock on wood)

 

Let’s Talk Politics: Spitzer, Clinton and various other topics

Spitzer:

I think it is an awful thing to consider that Spitzer was weighing his options, considering if he would be able to survive. The man should have dropped out right away. He should be ashamed of himself. He is a disgrace to the office and he is a despicable man for dragging his wife out for a press conference.

What I find equally distressing is that we have heard, watched and read things that are questioning whether prostitution is bad or not. For the man or the woman. The man had a wife and three children. It was wrong. For some people, Spitzer pushing for a gay marriage bill would be more legitimate if he wasn’t simultaneously dishonoring his own.

It is a sad statement if the feminist movement has transformed into a movement which defends prostitution. I love the men who frame their support for prostitution or abortion as “a woman has a right to do whatever she wants with a woman.” And women embrace that as part of being a woman, expressing their femininity. When in actuality, it’s at least partially men who want to be able to have sex with anyone and without any consequences.

But I digress…

There is no such thing as privacy for a public official. I believe that the public and the press should stay out of some things, but for Spitzer to call his using a prostitute and breaking the law a private manner is pure folly. Public officials should be held to a higher standard.

Between this and Clinton, I have never been so consumed with disgust at political officials in my party.

Which brings us to…Clinton.

I have a lot to say on her.

1) Electability

Hillary Clinton’s argument is that she wins democratic voters, which are the voters we’ll need in November. And that Obama wins big cities, which Democrats will win anyways.

She also selectively picks out states, and makes the ludicrous claim that a primary victory correlates with general election performance. As I remember, Obama won Maryland, Wisconsin, Virginia, Louisiana, Missouri. All states with primaries, all swing states. See the Clinton’s have done with electability what they have with everything else since February 5. They have thrown the kitchen sink at Obama and at the voters. Throwing whatever crap they could against the wall and seeing if anything will stick.

But you see…here’s the problem…None of her arguments make sense. In the general, Democrats will back Obama. What is not certain is that the independents and Republicans that will back Obama will support Hillary. Actually, it is pretty certain…they won’t. In a Zogby poll, Clinton starts off the general with 47% of the country saying they would NEVER vote for her. That’s a ceiling of 53%.

Clinton supporters can be as delusional as they want about her general election prospects. They could pretend that she is as gifted of a politician as Bill. They could pretend that she will win the commander-in-chief argument against McCain. They could pretend that people won’t be affected by the possibility of both Clinton’s back in the White House. They could pretend that the Republicans won’t play as dirty with her as she has with Obama. However, none of these things will happen.

2) Florida and Michigan

First of all, let’s take Michigan off the table. Obama wasn’t on the ballot. When he signs a pledge, he means it.

With Florida, yes, Clinton has an advantage in the state. However, let’s not forget that she held fundraisers in the state, and that even before South Carolina she began to pander to Florida and Michigan. So her advantages in the states are partially due to her breaking the spirit of the pledge she signed, as well as her stabbing NH and Iowa in the back as soon as the cast their votes for her. The NH Union Leader told NH voters they had been duped.

I believe that there should be a revote. Clinton is going to lose. The writing is on the wall. Obama is and should support a revote, beat her in Michigan, and maybe that will shut her up.

3) Ferraro

The Clinton’s have repeatedly used surrogates to run a smear campaign. Ferraro’s comments are another step in that direction. They use surrogates to state explicitly what Hillary only says implicitly. Hillary talks about how Obama won Louisiana because of the pride of African-Americans, Ferraro goes on Fox News and says that he is in his position because he is black. That will get that blue-collar vote!

I am done with the Clinton’s. I am through.

I guess the one good thing about that is that the Democratic Primary Voters have spoken: And they are done with her too.

 

Hillary’s New Game

The contradictions in the new Clinton strategy are apparent to most and have been poured over and ranted about for the last few days. Hillary, who has no hope of legitimately attaining that which she believes she is entitled to, the Democratic nomination and the Presidency, has been simultaneously losing state after state, and proposing that Obama would be her VP. This is definitively Clintonian.

They try and play two or more different messages to win over opposed groups. They try and tell undecideds, superdelegates and their own supporters that Obama is unfit to be Commander-in-Chief, that he is unprepared and that he is too inexperienced. Then they tell those who are undecided but lean towards Barack that that black guy could have his shot in eight years and they should vote for Hillary because its her time 

A year ago I was an Obama supporter, but I liked Hillary. I would have never imagined that this campaign would have destroyed the Clinton legacy for me as much as it has. I am so sick of their excuses and their “for the moment” reasoning. They have no shame. Hillary has no shame. I can not trust someone who has fabricated convictions which can be thrown away and dismissed whenever the circumstances would call for it. It goes beyond politics with them. It is a pattern of behavior. 

Obama is going to win Mississippi tomorrow. He is going to be up by over 100 pledged delegates by the time all of the states have their say. He is going to be in the strongest position to beat McCain.

Senator Obama is the candidate for right now. He is the candidate we need. 

So, sorry Hillary. Bill has cheated you once again.

 

Liveblogging Kinda-Super Tuesday 11:40 pm

Hillary won Ohio. Her speech was her best election night speech in this campaign so far. Expect for her to say that “Turn hope into reality” in the next six weeks leading up to Pennsylvania. It is a good line. What is a dirty, poke-in-the-eye is her “Yes We Will” line. It is like giving the finger to the 50%+ of the party who supports Senator Obama. If she wants to tear apart this party, that was a good start.

Obama will win the most delegates out of Texas and word is that the campaign has 50 or so superdelegates in their pocket.

I expect the campaign to announce some of those this week.

 

Liveblogging Kinda-Super Tuesday 9:42 pm

Hillary won Rhode Island.

It looks like,  much to my chagrin, my predictions might turn out to be accurate.

However, Clinton’s path to the nomination is still difficult, if not impossible. She will have to win about 65% of the vote in the rest of the states to TIE Obama.

It looks like Obama’s going to get killed tonight and tomorrow by the unrealistic, ludicrous expectations the media set on this Tuesday.

 

Liveblogging Kinda-Super Tuesday 8:42 pm

The Ohio exits have Clinton winning Catholics and Protestants. This should not be happening. Clinton shouldn’t even be close to Obama among Protestants.

If you look at the exits, assuming they are accurate, it would be a miracle if Obama came within 5 points in Ohio. She won white men and woman, religious voters, killed him among voters over 60, those who thought NAFTA was a bad idea…I’m surprised it’s as close as it seems to be.

It will be interesting to see what happens in Rhode Island. I think RI will be more important than previously thought.

 

March 4: What’s going to Happen?

I don’t understand why the media is trying to play this like Obama has it in the bag…Ok…I do… It’s because they love writing the comeback story. But can’t they be honest? The polls have Clinton up anywhere from 6-14 points in Ohio, and they have Obama up about .6% in Texas.  Yet, somehow, even though he was down in Texas and Ohio by 20-30 points mere weeks ago, the expectations are set at him winning all four states tomorrow.

I think he will lose three out of the four. He will only win Vermont.

He will lose Texas by 1-3 points. He will lose Ohio by 4-8. He will lose Rhode Island by 6-10.

The Clinton’s have had a masterful couple of weeks of press. Her media appearances have been well-executed and she has been likable. The media has been afraid to call her desperate or as lashing out because the Clinton’s have effectively embarrassed the media into submission.

Obama will have to brave a week of stories claiming that every time he wins that the voters get doubts.

I think that if tomorrow goes how I predict it might…Clinton will have regained frontrunner status.

However, hopefully I’m wrong, and I have faith in the Obama campaign staff that they are prepared and will surprise me.

Regardless, it will be a very interesting night tomorrow.