220 daily newspapers for Obama, include 46 switched endorsements

From "Editor & Publisher"

NEW YORK As the Obama-Biden ticket continues to lead in daily newspaper endorsements by roughly 220 to 90, what is most startling is the Democratic ticket winning over so many editorial boards that backed President Bush in 2004.

Obama has picked up at least 46 switchers -- including the Chicago Tribune and three of the top dailies in Texas -- and we suspect the total is much higher as we have not identified how every paper decided in 2004. Some have revealed they have never backed a Democrat for president, or at least for the past several decades or 100 years (the Joplin Globe in Missouri that to declare the latter).

Opie, Andy Griffith and the Fonz for Obama

Remember little Opie and "The Andy Griffith Show"?
Well, the actors for Opie and Andy decided to endorse Barack Obama for president. Ron Howard and Andy Griffith are southern folks, the former, born in Oklahoma, and the latter was born in North Carolina.


They, along with Henry Winkler (the "Fonz" of "Happy Days") essentially endorsed Obama on the adjacent pro-Obama video clip.

OBAMA: palling around with Republicans & foreign policy establishment

Gen. Colin Powell (ret.) is African-American, but race and partisan affiliation are not the only thing that influences his candidate choices. No, it is not incongruous that Powell is a Republican and is supporting Obama. The fact that other Republicans have also endorsed Obama should give pause to the arguments that only attribute Powell's endorsement to shared racial identity.

Oh, right-wing wingnuts,
you've got it wrong with the place of Sen. Barack Obama in his web of connections.
Obama: palling around with Republicans.

Let's look at the Republican support Obama enjoys, aside from Colin Powell:
John B. Anderson, the Illinois Republican congressman that ran for president as an independent in 1980. Former senators that entered the senate as Republicans: Lowell Weicker Jr. (Conn.), Lincoln Chafee (R.I.)
Former Congressmen that entered the House as Republicans: Jim Leach (Iowa), Pete McCloskey (Cal.)
----and Colin Powell, career-long Republican, who referred to the Republican Party yesterday as "my party"

Obama: palling around the the military and foreign policy establishment.

Powell is an African-American, but we don't only see him as an African-American. He is part of the military and foreign policy establishment. As the following people have endorsed Obama, we can say that these military and foreign policy establishment folks pall around with Obama ... they meet with and consult him ... :
Madeline Albright (former Ambassador to the United Nations, former Secretary of State), Zbignew Brezinkski (former National Security Advisor), Wesley Clark, Anthony Lake (former National Security Advisor), Donald McHenry (former Ambassador to the United Nations), Sam Nunn (former Chair of Senate Armed Services Committee), Bill Richardson (former Ambassador to the United Nations); and
Deputy Undersecretaries of Defense, Secretaries of the Navy and Air Force, a Vice Chief of Staff of Air Force, and high-ranking Army generals.

----and Colin Powell, former National Security Advisor, former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, former Secretary of State

NO, PUNDITS, IT IS NOT RACE THAT DROVE POWELL'S ENDORSEMENT. No one charged the above-cited individuals with racial solidarity in their endorsements; we sense an ugly double standard here, in the opposition to Powell's endorsement, by way of asserting racial solidarity as the basis for the endorsement.

UPI, February, on poll: Powell endorsement would carry great weight

Timely, though months in the past, from UPI, February 26, citing a Fox 5/Washington Times/Rasmussen Reports poll:

A poll indicated that a presidential endorsement by former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell would carry a lot of weight with U.S. voters.

The Fox 5/Washington Times/Rasmussen Reports survey released Tuesday said 22 percent of voters would look to Powell's blessings of a candidate before taking the word of U.S. President George Bush or former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

The pollsters saw the support for Powell's opinion as bipartisan with 28 percent of independents listing his endorsement as the best along with 24 percent of Republicans and 16 percent of Democrats.

---UPI, February 26, 2008.

Impact of Colin Powell endorsement of Obama

The pundits share my perspective:

The Colin Powell endorsement of Barack Obama will hurt John McCain the most with the Independents.
Let's look at what some pundits have said in an article at McClatchy Report, Washington Bureau:

"It was a devastating critique. He gave a convincing national endorsement. That's what made it so damaging," said Larry J. Sabato, the director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

John Avlon wrote very succinctly on Anderson Cooper's blog:

This is big - rarely do endorsements matter - but Colin Powell’s announcement that he is endorsing Barack Obama for president was a bombshell that will reverberate throughout the last 16 days of this race.
It is not the unprecedented sight of an incumbent administration’s former Secretary of State crossing party lines to endorse the opposition’s nominee. It is not just that Powell’s record of military and government service lends credibility to a candidate whose lack of executive experience and military service is a subject of doubt for many undecideds.
It is that Colin Powell has unparalleled credibility with Independent voters, and his performance on “Meet the Press” today reaffirmed why. He is thoughtful and measured, he puts patriotism and principle ahead of partisanship.

--and with some Republicans. Sadiq Green wrote in Digital Journal:

His crossover endorsement is Obama's biggest yet from a myriad of Republican political figures and it could allow even more right leaners to be comfortable supporting the Senator from Illinois.

As I noted, Powell's endorsement shores up Obama's national security and foreign policy credentials.

G. Terry Madonna said, "This is a huge endorsement, maybe the most significant endorsement he's got. . . . For undecided voters who are looking at their concerns about national security and defense, this is a plus."

The collateral impact will be greatest in swing states, or battleground or tossup states, such as Virginia, North Carolina, New Mexico, Colorado.

Susan MacManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa, said that Powell appeals to independents who are socially liberal, fiscally conservative and moderate on defense issues. Because they shun party labels, they are more swayed by personality, and Powell is a respected national figure. Independents make as much as 9 percent of voters in swing states.

Click your vote / prediction in the online poll at the upper right: how big will Obama's win be?

TRANSCRIPT: Fmr. Sec State, Gen. Colin Powell (ret.) endorses Barack Obama

Here is the earth-shaking endorsement by former National Security Advisor, former Secretary of State, retired head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell. Powell served under both President George H. W. Bush and President George W. Bush. He led the military during "Operation Desert Storm" in 1991. In as much as he has been political, he has always been a Republican. He spoke for George W. Bush's candidacy at the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. The conduct of the John McCain campaign and many people in the Republican Party clearly drove Powell to this decision.
Scroll to the bottom, to where he squarely addressed Tom Brokaw's question of any (racial preference in his endorsement. )

Today, he added to Barack Obama's legitimacy among moderates and Independents, by endorsing the Illinois senator in an exclusive interview with Tom Brokaw on "Meet the Press." More than anything, this endorsement undergirds Obama's legitimacy as a potential commander-in-chief of the military.

THE FOLLOWING IS THE TRANSCRIPT OF HIS ENDORSEMENT OF BARACK OBAMA:

I know both of these individuals very well. I’ve known John for 25 years, as your set-up said, and I’ve gotten to know Mr. Obama quite well over the past 2 years. Both of them are distinguished Americans who are patriotic, who are dedicated to the welfare of our country. Either one of them, I think, would be a good president.

I have said to Mr. McCain that I admore all he has done. I have some concerns about the direction that the party has taken in recent years it has moved more to the right than I would like to see it, but that’s a choice the party makes.

And I’ve said to Mr. Obama, you have to pass a test of ‘do you have enough experience?’ And do you bring the judgment to the table that would give us confidence that you would be a good president.

And I’ve watched them over the past two years frankly, and I’ve had this conversation with them.

I have especially watched over the last 6 or 7 weeks as both of them have really taken a final exam with respect to this economic crisis that we’re in and coming out of the conventions.

And I must say that I’ve gotten a good measure of both, and in the case of Mr. McCain, I found that he was a little unsure as to how to deal with the economic problems that we were having. And almost every day there was a different approach to the problem.

And that concerned me, sensing that he did not have a complete grasp of the economic problems that we had. And I was also concerned at the selection of Governor Palin. She’s a very distinguished woman, and she’s to be admired, but at the same time, now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven weeks, I don’t believe she’s ready to be President of the United States, which is the job of the Vice President.

And so that raised some question in my mind as to the judgment that Senator McCain made.

On the Obama side, I watched Mr. Obama, and I watched him during this 7-week period. And he displayed a steadiness, an intellectual curiosity, a depth of knowledge, and an approach to looking at problems like this and picking a Vice President that I think is ready to be president on day one, and also in, not just jumping in and changing every day, but show intellectual vigor. I think that he has a definitive way of doing business that would serve us well.

I also believe that on the Republican side, over the last 7 weeks the approach of the Republican Party and Mr. McCain has become narrower and narrower. Mr. Obama at the same time has given us some more broader inclusive reach into the needs and aspirations of our people. He’s crossing lines-- ethnic lines, racial lines, generational lines. He’s thinking about all villages have values, all towns have values, not just small towns have values. And I’ve also been disappointed frankly by some of the approaches that Senator McCain has taken recently, or his campaign has, on issues that are not really central to the problems that the American people are worried about. This Bill Ayers situation that’s been going on for weeks became something of a central point of the campaign, but Mr. McCain says he’s a washed out terrorist—well, why do we keep talking about him? And why do we have these robocalls going on around the country trying to suggest that because of this very, very limited relationship, that Senator Obama has had with Mr. Ayers, now Mr. Obama is tainted. What they’re trying to connect him to is some kind of terrorist feelings, and I think that’s inappropriate.

Now I understand what politics is all about, I know how you can go after one another. And that’s good. But I think this goes too far. And I think it has made the McCain campaign look a little narrower. It’s not what the American people are looking for.

And I look at these kinds of approaches to the campaign and they trouble me.

And the party has moved even further to the right, and Governor Palin has indicated a further rightward shift. I would have difficulty with two more conservative appointments to the Supreme Court, but that’s what we would be looking at in a McCain administration.

I’m also troubled by…what members of the party say, and is permitted to be said, such things as, ‘Well you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.’ Well, the correct answer is, 'He is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian, he’s always been a Christian.'

But the really right answer is, 'What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?'

The answer’s 'No, that’s not America.'


Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion he’s a Muslim and he might be associated with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who were serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture, at the tail end of this photo essay, was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son’s grave, and as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards, purple heart, bronze star, showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death, he was 20 years old, and then at the very top of the headstone, it didn’t have a Christian cross, it didn’t have a Star of David, it had a crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Ushad Sultan Khan. And he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11. And he waited until he could go serve his country, and he gave his life.

Now we have got to stop polarizing ourselves in this way. And John McCain is as nondiscriminatory as anyone I know, but I’m troubled about the fact that within the party, we have these kinds of expressions.

So when I look at all of this and I think back to my army career, we’ve got two individuals. Either on of them could be a good president. But which is the president that we need now? Which is the individual that serves the needs of the nation for the next period of time? And I’ve come to the conclusion that because of his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities, as well as his substance, he has both style and substance, he has met the standard of being a successful president being an exceptional president, I think he is a transformational figure, he is a new generation, coming onto the world stage, the American stage,

And for that reason, I will be voting for Barack Obama.

--transcript from groundreport.com

Following that formal endorsement statement, he responded to Brokaw regarding Obama's capability to lead the military.:

BROKAW:
I can already anticipate some of the reaction to this. Let's begin with the charge that John McCain has continued to make against Barack Obama. You sit there, as a man who served in Vietnam, you commanded a battalion of 101st, you were chairman of the Joint Chiefs, you were a national security adviser and secretary of state. There is nothing in Barack Obama's history that nearly paralyze any--parallels any of the experiences that you've had. And while he has performed impressively in the context of the campaign, there's a vast difference between sitting in the Oval Office and making tough decisions and doing well in a campaign.
POWELL:
And he knows that. And I have watched him over the last two years as he has educated himself, as he has become very familiar with these issues. He speaks authoritatively. He speaks with great insight into the challenges we're facing of a military and political and economic nature. And he is surrounding himself, I'm confident, with people who'll be able to give him the expertise that he, at the moment, does not have. And so I have watched an individual who has intellectual vigor and who dives deeply into issues and approaches issues with a very, very steady hand. And so I'm confident that he will be ready to take on these challenges on January 21st.
* * *

Again, we should remember, Powell cited the desperate moves by the McCain campaign and Republicans (... "my party" -Powell) as repelling Powell. McCain could have had this endorsement.

Note further, the points that Powell makes in dispelling any racial bias in his endorsement:
MR. BROKAW: And you are fully aware that there will be some--how many, no one can say for sure--but there will be some who will say this is an African-American, distinguished American, supporting another African-American because of race.

GEN. POWELL: If I had only had that in mind, I could have done this six, eight, 10 months ago. I really have been going back and forth between somebody I have the highest respect and regard for, John McCain, and somebody I was getting to know, Barack Obama. And it was only in the last couple of months that I settled on this. And I can't deny that it will be a historic event for an African-American to become president. And should that happen, all Americans should be proud--not just African-Americans, but all Americans--that we have reached this point in our national history where such a thing could happen. It will also not only electrify our country, I think it'll electrify the world. --transcript from raisingkaine.com.

--->> McCain has lost the moderates. In addition to vacating Michigan his campaign should vacate upper New England and the Middle-Atlantic states, the last bastions of moderate Republican Congresspeople.

IMMEDIATE ANALYSIS: On Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama

Gov. Colin Powell's endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama was mainly a rejection of the Palinization of the Republican Party.

For too many years, and with increasing intensity, we have been seeing the cultural conservatives becoming a more powerful, more incluential figure in the Republican Party. With the choice of Gov. Sarah Palin as Vice President, Sen. John McCain made it clear that he was tilting his hand toward the cultural conservative side of the party.

This saga has been a tragedy for Sen. John McCain. Here is the fellow that Independents, and even many Democrats, cited as a Republican that they felt very comfortable with. This was the Republican that people in the middle raised in contradistinction against the cultural conservatives.

This trip down the cultural conservative road marks McCain's following Buchanan in the path from the Republican Party of Richard Nixon.
Gen. Colin Powell (ret.), in his endorsement of Obama, did not reject John McCain as much as he rejected Sarah Palin, McCain's choice of Palin, and the low-road travelers of the Republican political machine. While Powell did upbraid McCain's reaction to the economic crisis as unwise, the majority of his indictment of McCain's candidacy dealt with the unclean direction of the McCain campaign and many Republicans.

Why did McCain choose Palin? He was grasping for the cultural conservative voters. But Palin embodies the cultural conservatives in a way that brings up too many embarrassing or unsettling hallmarks of cultural conservatives: her insistence of no quarter for abortions, even in the case of rape or incest (see her interview with Katie Couric), her belief that people shared the planet with dinosaurs (suggesting a literal reading of the Bible), her super-patriotism about God granting us fossil fuels.
Moreover, the selection must have tremendously offended the many Republican women that could have added strength to the ticket. Imagine the strength and wisdom that Condoleeza Rice or Kay Bailey Hutchinson could have added to the ticket.
The selection of Palin raises additional concerns about McCain. What is his conception of the role of the Vice President? However anyone wants to dress up the position, it is an understudy position. The understudy is someone hired to be ready to perform, should an actor be indisposed. The Vice President immediately steps in, in the event of the death or the temporary incapacity of the President. Now, we know that McCain's first choice actually was Sen. Joe Lieberman. Lieberman, despite plenty of mythology to the contrary, has a solid voting record on most issues, other than military policy. What was his reason for choosing Lieberman? Was it leadership qualities, personality? Was it related to whatever assumed demographic coattails a Lieberman role was presumed to bring along?
The VP pick is usually read as giving hints about the management or policy course that a candidate would take as president. Yet, the contrasts between Lieberman and Palin couldn't be more stark. Lieberman is a liberal; he would be useful for hoisting along moderates and some liberals to vote for McCain. Palin, as a conservative, is useful for shoring up McCain's conservative credentials and making conservatives a little bit more likely to forget about McCain's positions on immigration and campaign financing. The Vice President is supposed to, most of us would believe, carry on the ideological and leadership tendencies of the president. Just how would McCain govern, should he get elected? Along liberal lines, as the initial Lieberman choice suggests? -or as a hard-core, true-blue conservative Republican, as the Palin choice would suggest to us? The ideological direction of this latter choice is the direction that is turning off moderate Republicans, as Gen. Powell pointed out in his own view of the party's direction. This is not the Party of Teddy Roosevelt; this is the Party of Goldwater (recall his contempt for the United States' east coast, and his openly wondering if "just saw off the Eastern Seaboard and let it float out to sea"). (With Palin we get that eastphobia redux, with her paranoid, blaming snipe against "East Coast politicians.")

This election, should McCain lose, will result in a big shake-up and a long moment of self-reflection for the Republicans. They will need to loosen their strong ties to the cultural conservative right. As David Brooks noted, the Republicans have lost the affinities of many voters in affluent areas along the two ocean coasts. (See his column, "The Class War Before Palin.")
Columnists hypothesized earlier this year that McCain stood to lose the support of the anti-immigrant crowd. The Republican ticket this year stands to lose the support of many moderate thinking Republicans this year. The Palin selection sealed indecision that these moderates would have about the ticket. This Powell endorsement of Obama will finalize the flight of moderate Republicans from the party's ticket this year.
(Of course, EVEN MORE DAMAGING, we should note that this endorsement, with all of the weight of Powell's gravitas, will give further encouragement to Independents to also join the rush to Obama.)

FLASH: COLIN POWELL ENDORSES SEN. BARACK OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT

GENERAL COLIN POWELL (Ret.) SPEAKING ON NBC'S "Meet the Press":
[On Barack Obama]:
paraphrased, except where quotes are included.
"He has a definitive way of doing business that would serve us well."

The McCain campaign "has become narrower and narrower"

"This Bill Ayers thing has gone on for weeks."

I am uncomforable with the direction that some Republicans are taking language in this campaign. --Such as, "You know that he's a Muslim."
He's not a Muslim. He's a Christian.

I'm troubled that within the party we have all these people making these statements.

Barack Obama has the ability to inspire, he has led an inclusive campaign,
he has the rhetorical capabilities, which I think matter,
He is a transformational figure.

For that reason I'll be voting for Barack Obama.

Silverman endorses Obama; Cash: I'd be better VP than Palin

Sarah Silverman endorses Barack Obama, read, "Sarah Silverman on Olbermann's Countdown" on thenation online.

Comedian Sarah Silverman appeared on Countdown with Keith Olbermann this week to promote "The Great Schlep". . . .

-Marissa Colón-Margolies

Read singer Rosanne Cash's eleven points on why she'd make a better VP than Sarah Palin, from thenation online:

Her eleven points on The Nation site.

FLASH: NYC's Ed Koch endorses Obama

This is delicious: former New York City mayor Ed Koch has endorsed Senator Barack Obama for president, and he has cited Obama's foreign policy bona fides. For full disclosure, I am not a Koch fan; he's been too centrist in the past, witness his 2004 endorsement of George W. Bush. Yet, this endorsement, if properly disseminated, should aid Obama among undecideds, particularly in the Northeast.

Here are the highlights after Koch segues from his discussion of the 2004 presidential race:

So the issue for me is who will best protect and defend America.

I have concluded that the country is safer in the hands of Barack Obama, leader of the Democratic Party and protector of the philosophy of that party. Protecting and defending the U.S. means more than defending us from foreign attacks. It includes defending the public with respect to their civil rights, civil liberties and other needs, e.g., national health insurance, the right of abortion, the continuation of Social Security, gay rights, other rights of privacy, fair progressive taxation and a host of other needs and rights.

Here's the link to the Koch's complete endorsement statement, "Why I'm Voting for Obama-Biden", published by Real Clear Politics. Of course, he makes a strong case for Senator Joe Biden for vice president also.

Beschloss' cogent criticism of Hillary Clinton's speech

Tonight on the PBS pundit panel, house PBS historian Michael Beschloss gave a rather cogent criticism of Hillary Clinton's speech tonight at the Denver Democratic National Convention. He noted that Clinton's endorsement was unenthusiastic, and that it was generic. Paraphrasing Beschloss, it was the essentially the same kind of speech she would have given were Senator Chris Dodd the Democratic nominee.

She could have given a more pointed endorsement of Obama's platform, by selecting key points of his platform. She could have point by point assailed John McCain's platform. After this, she could have made a summation argument that underscored the profound differences between the opposing candidates. Instead, her endorsement was vague and general, not quite "tepid," but hardly enthusiastic.