Letters to the Editor
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Tax Returns
Do I understand correctly that the entire flap over tax returns relates to 2007 tax returns that aren't due until April 15th. For many of us (particularly those of us in partnerships), we haven't even yet received the documentation from our partnerships to file our tax returns yet. Is there any evidence that she has already filed a tax return for 2007? If she hasn't, what on earth is she supposed to release? Is the argument that she should do her return early? I'm just a bit puzzled about the controversy, and would appreciate anyone who has information indicating that she has already filed her tax return for 2007. In addition, what interesting has ever been in anyone's tax return. It seems a rather boring document for folks to be getting excited about.
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Luckycat.
The controversy is about her tax returns for the past 7 years (since 2000.) Presumably, 6 of those 7 are filed.
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ljwalker53: Voting records
You've managed to completely miss the point. YOU made the argument that Clinton missing a FISA vote was a moot point because the amendment was defeated. I asked you to explain what that means and your response was that I shouldn't question you because Obama has missed votes too.
Now you've got 5 examples out of the literally hundred of votes that come to the Senate floor where Clinton voted and Obama didn't. Great. But you still haven't addressed your original point that Hillary should not be held responsible for missing an important vote.
I've just spent a considerable amount of time on a Friday night trying to find a substantive difference in the voting records of Obama and Clinton and as much as I was hoping to find one, it just isn't there. I looked deeper, and the votes that you cite are not the votes that decided crucial policy or issues. They were votes that supplemented legislation or amendments that had already been presented, or that were largely symbolic. And again, by your own argument politicians should not be held responsible for missing votes that would have been defeated anyway.
I have heard that Obama had not held a Foreign Relations subcomittee meeting in his time as chair. I do think that this is a legitimate issue and I think that Obama should have to come up with a better answer for this than that he was running for president. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton has not manage to get passed any significant legislation in her 7 years in the Senate. Furthermore, the list of Clinton's legislative successes is SIGNIFICANTLY shorter than Obama's despite her self professed advantage in experience and her additional years in the senate. Don't believe me? You may have already seen this link: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/2/20/201332/807/36/458633
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Tax returns
"Do I understand correctly that the entire flap over tax returns relates to 2007 tax returns that aren't due until April 15th."
No. You are not understanding correctly. Obama has asked Clinton to release her tax returns from 2000 - 2006. She has refused.
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@ KcM: Your Math
As I have noted elsewhere, superdelegates will use pledged delegates as only one factor in their determination. As much as everybody would like to make it only about this, it just ain't so.
Another fact: Sen. Obama cannot win without superdelegates</> either, so it's disingenuous of his campaign -- and you -- to act as if his nomination is a done deal.
Still this fact: As I mentioned above, superdelegates will look at several factors when they make their determination and these numbers will shift, as well. Two of these important considerations are which candidate is able to draw core Democratic voters (e.g., blue-collar, working-class) and which candidate is best able to win Northeastern industrial states, South-Central states, moderate Southern states, and states with industries like coal (WV, IN), for example.
Barack Obama has not won any of these states, either in primaries or caucusus. So, where you see simple "math", I see complexities that even superdelegates are looking at right now.
And finally: Everybody is using these "pledged delegates" as proof positive that Obama will receive the nomination. However, many states that held primaries and caucuses have yet to hold their state conventions, where these "pledged delegate" totals will shift between candidates even before we arrive in Denver. That is no doubt what happened in California. We will see movement in these numbers from now until the convention.
"Reality" cuts many ways. It isn't a simple matter of pledged delegate totals=nomination for either candidate.
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@cpaige
Of course, we all can't be community organizers like Obama (who, as near as anyone can tell, never found a job for anyone other than himself).
I agree that we all can't be community organizers like Obama. It's a near thankless and difficult job, not well paid, not very rewarding. But apparently it's something that Hillary Clinton once found admirable or at least interesting, since "she wrote her undergraduate thesis at Wellesley College on the life and ideas of Saul Alinsky, the godfather of professional organizing" according to one of the articles below.
Maybe these will help you sort out what a community organizer actually does, as opposed to a job placement worker:
Obama forged path as Chicago community organizer
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/politics/ny-usobam0302,0,5627014.story?page=3
On the Streets of Chicago, a Candidate Comes of Age: As a community organizer, Obama was a pragmatic leader
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/070826/3obama.htm
Obama's Community Roots http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070416/moberg
Portrait of a pragmatist: As a raw community organizer in Chicago in the `80s, Obama preached reaching out to attain goals http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-0703300121mar30,0,7587027.story?page=1
Why Organize? Problems and Promise in the Inner City By Barack Obama (c) 1990 Illinois Issues, Springfield, Illinois
All of this community organizing -- reflected in his current grassroots campaign -- is what he did before Harvard, and is part of the experience that Mrs. Clinton discounts. In referring to her 3 A.M. ad, after noting that she hadn't made a "3 AM" decision herself, because only presidents have, she said, "The question is what have you done over the course of a lifetime to equip you for that moment." yet apparently only she and John McCain have had a lifetime.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou4JnWQsxKw&feature=related
Mrs. Clinton claims 35 years of experience, which means experience started to count for her at age 25.
Senator Obama was only 23 when he plunged into Chicago's South Side as a community organizer, 23 years ago. There's a lot of water under his bridge since then: Presidient of Harvard Law Review, the state senate, the U.S. senate, 11 years of elected office in all, marriage and children, yet he only has "a speech from 2002" according to Mrs. Clinton, as if he sprang forth into the world new and raw -- at 40.
That speech must really rankle.