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Originally posted by Devil King
Well, according to the CNN delegate tracker, if the remaining three primaries were to proceed with the following numbers, PR being generous with Mrs. Clinton, Hillary would have to win something like 98% of the remaining unpledged super-delegates.

So, PR is projected to go something like 75/25 for Mrs. Clinton. And if SD and MT follow trend with the states surrounding them, they'll go something like 65-70/35-30 for Obama. At that point, Mr. Obama will be only a hand full of delegates away from 2026. And I really can't see that many sD's going for Mrs. Clinton.

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"Hillary Clinton's Nuclear Option" Ned Barnett

Most pundits are telling Senator Hillary Clinton that it's all over but the shouting. The math is against her. However, the math is also currently against Senator Obama—neither candidate can earn the needed majority in the remaining primaries. The decision will be made by the Democrats' superdelegates, who are not obligated to decide whom they support until the convention. And they are empowered to change their allegiance at any time, based on their "read" of what's best for the party.

This means that until the first ballot in Denver in August, Hillary still has a chance.

Conventional wisdom among those who pretend to know why Senator Clinton is hanging in there say she's waiting—and hoping for—an Obama scandal that will make Reverend Wright look like a footnote. Because Senator Obama is so little known among the public, they've got their fingers crossed that some scandal that's worse than Reverend Wright will surface, and surface soon enough to persuade the superdelegates that Obama can't win.

The "sitting and waiting" strategy is out of character for the politically-savvy Clintons. It's possible they may be shell-shocked from the primary campaign's insane roller coaster ride. However, once they have caught their breath, they may decide that the prize is worth exercising Hillary's "nuclear option"—in effect, using surrogates to nuke Senator Obama so thoroughly that they will create that Obama Can't Win scandal out of what is already out there.

In this option, Clinton surrogates—those public figures who are obviously in the tank for the Clintons, such as Lanny Davis and Paul Begala, as well as those who are not so obviously affiliated with the Clinton campaign—will carry out the "nuke Obama" strategy on Senator Clinton's behalf, leaving her hands clean and her reputation unsullied.

What constitutes the Nuclear Option?

Senator Obama has gotten such a near-universal pass on his background that there remain potentially troubling elements to his career and life-story. Bringing these forward now and painting them in the worst possible light could have a "death by a thousand cuts" impact on the largely untried Senator from Illinois, who has already shown that he's not at his best in responding to harsh and unexpected criticism. Keeping Senator Obama dodging and ducking and bobbling defenses creates two opportunities:

• Senator Obama's background will deliver that one "deal-killer" issue that will turn the superdelegates away from their popular favorite, or
  
  
• The weight of unanswered criticism will collectively convince the superdelegates that Senator Obama can't win, and that the Party needs a win more than it needs Obama

Both options are long shots, to be sure, but there may be enough out there with which to criticize Senator Obama to make the nuclear option at least plausible. Some might even say that the nuclear option campaign has already begun with Paul Begala's public pronouncement that the Party Can't Win by relying on white eggheads and African-Americans, a bombshell he dropped on CNN in a "debate" with Democratic strategist Donna Brazile.

What are the issues that could be included in the Nuclear Option? Here is a sampling:

• Comb the archives of Trinity Church for a DVD that shows both Reverend Wright making yet one more of his offensively over-the-top statements . . . and showing Senator Obama in the congregation, listening to his preacher. Senator Obama skirted responsibility for Wright, in part, by claiming that "I never heard him say that." Prove this defense wrong and it will not only tie Obama to Wright, but will paint him as a lying politician, and one not particularly adept at lying.
  
  
• Comb sources for home video of a speech that Senator Obama gave in conjunction with unrepentant Weatherman domestic terrorist Bill Ayres, and in this way, tie Senator Obama more tightly to this radical who's helped to kill Americans on American soil. Senator Obama has persuaded the media that he and Ayres are just neighbors, but video that would show them sharing a platform as allies could shake that excuse—and Obama's credibility. With such a thin track record, the hope he is offering the Party and the American voters rests on a thin reed of credibility.
  
  
• Assuming that Tony Rezko is found guilty in his fraud trial, find some way to pressure prosecutors to offer Tony Rezko a sentencing deal in exchange for offering incriminating testimony that will tie Senator Obama far more closely to this shady political fund-raiser (currently in the midst of a bribery trial). The Rezko story has been largely overlooked by the media. Few voters understand the nature of the Rezko/Obama connection. But this Chicago politics as usual story of sordid minor-league corruption will further shake the Senator's image of electability.
  
  
• Push forward another story that has been largely ignored by the media: Senator Obama's radically permissive position favoring "birth control abortions," on-demand, for minors, and his related view that babies, including his own future grandchildren, are "punishments." As explained in American Thinker—one of the very few political media which even noted this statement—in late March, Senator Obama said:
  
  "Look, I got two daughters—nine years old and six years old. I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."
  
  This is a position that would prove widely unpopular among moderate "values" Democrats and most independents in a general election with a pro-life candidate, this issue could be a political deal-breaker.
  
  
• Comb Senator Obama's voting record in the Senate and in the Illinois legislature and find every issue he's voted for (or against) that - if the vote were known - would make moderate Democrats and Independents uncomfortable with the Senator. Where possible, find video showing Senator Obama advocating these politically extreme or unpopular positions, making it hard for the Senator to deny that he was "in the pew" when those issues came up for consideration.

These five possibilites, along other issues that cast a bad light on Senator Obama, constitute Senator Clinton's "nuclear option." These issues have been largely ignored, minimized or "put to bed" by the national mainstream political media, including media opinion leaders ranging from the New York Times to CNN, MSNBC and the broadcast news networks. However, these same issues can be advanced by Clinton surrogates in a way that will force the media to take another look . . . and force the super delegates to re-think their ultimate choice.

That is Senator Clinton's last chance. She has the opportunity, she has the strategy, and she and her advisors have the savvy to see how to raise these (and other) issues without leaving finger prints. Independently, these individual issues are unlikely to be deal-killers, but taken together, they might give Democratic Party superdelegates reason to reconsider Senator Obama, and favor Senator Clinton.

Senator Obama may declare victory on May 20th, but he may not have an easy three months until the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

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"Obama was 'quite religious in Islam': Contemporaries, records dispute campaign claim that he was never 'practicing Muslim'" Aaron Klein

Jerusalem—Was Sen. Barack Obama a Muslim? Did he ever practice Islam?

The presidential candidate officially rejects the claims, but the issue of Obama's personal faith has re-emerged amid conflicting accounts of his enrollment as a Muslim during elementary school in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation.

Widely distributed reports have noted in January 1968, Obama was registered as a Muslim at Jakarta's Roman Catholic Franciscus Assisi Primary School under the name Barry Soetoro. He was listed as an Indonesian citizen whose stepfather, listed on school documents as "L Soetoro Ma," worked for the topography department of the Indonesian Army.

Catholic schools in Indonesia routinely accept non-Catholic students, but exempt them from studying religion. Obama's school documents, though, wrongly list him as being Indonesian.

After attending the Assisi Primary School, Obama was enrolled—also as a Muslim, according to documents—in the Besuki Primary School, a public school in Jakarta.

The Loatze blog run by an American expatriate in Southeast Asia who visited the Besuki school, noted, "All Indonesian students are required to study religion at school and a young 'Barry Soetoro' being a Muslim would have been required to study Islam daily in school. He would have been taught to read and write Arabic, to recite his prayers properly, to read and recite from the Quran and to study the laws of Islam."

Indeed, the Israel Insider online magazine points out in Obama's autobiography, Dreams From My Father, he acknowledges studying the Quran and describes the public school as "a Muslim school."

"In the Muslim school, the teacher wrote to tell mother I made faces during Quranic studies," wrote Obama.

The Indonesian media have been flooded with accounts of Obama's childhood Islamic studies, some describing him as a religious Muslim.

Speaking to the country's Kaltim Post, Tine Hahiyary, who was principal of Obama's school while he was enrolled there, said she recalls he studied the Quran in Arabic.

"At that time, I was not Barry's teacher but he is still in my memory" claimed Tine, who is 80 years old. The Kaltim Post says Obama's teacher, named Hendri, died.

"I remember that he studied mengaji (recitation of the Quran)," Tine said, according to an English translation by Loatze.

Mengaji, or the act of reading the Quran with its correct Arabic punctuation, is usually taught to more religious pupils and is not known as a secular study.

Also, Loatze documented the Indonesian daily Banjarmasin Post caught up with Rony Amir, an Obama classmate and Muslim, who describe Obama as "previously quite religious in Islam."

"We previously often asked him to the prayer room close to the house. If he was wearing a sarong (waist fabric worn for religious or casual occasions) he looked funny," Amir said.

The Los Angeles Times, which sent a reporter to Jakarta, quoted Zulfin Adi, who identified himself as among Obama's closest childhood friends, stating the presidential candidate prayed in a mosque, something Obama's campaign claimed he never did.

"We prayed but not really seriously, just following actions done by older people in the mosque. But as kids, we loved to meet our friends and went to the mosque together and played," said Adi.

Obama's official campaign site has a page titled "Obama has never been a Muslim, and is a committed Christian." The page states, "Obama never prayed in a mosque. He has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ."

But the campaign changed its tune when it issued a slightly different statement to the Times stating Obama "has never been a practicing Muslim."

An article last month by the Chicago Tribune seems to dispute Adi's statements to the L.A. Times. The Tribune catches up with Obama's declared childhood friend, who now describes himself as only knowing Obama for a few months in 1970 when his family moved to the neighborhood. Adi said he was unsure about his recollections of Obama

But the Tribune found Obama did attend mosque.

"Interviews with dozens of former classmates, teachers, neighbors and friends show that Obama was not a regular practicing Muslim when he was in Indonesia," states the Tribune article.

It quotes the presidential candidate's former neighbors and 3rd grade teacher recalling Obama "occasionally followed his stepfather to the mosque for Friday prayers."

Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, notes the Tribune article—cited by liberal blogs as refuting claims Obama is Muslim—actually implies Obama was an irregularly practicing Muslim and twice confirms Obama attended mosque services.

In a free-ranging interview with the New York Times, Obama described the Muslim call to prayer as "one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.”

The Times' Nicholos Kristof wrote Obama recited, "with a first-class [Arabic] accent," the opening lines of the Muslim call to prayer.

Israel Insider's Reuven Koret notes the first few lines state:

"Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme!
Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme!
I witness that there is no god but Allah
I witness that there is no god but Allah
I witness that Muhammad is his prophet . . ."

Some attention also has been paid to Obama's paternal side of the family. His father, described in some reports as an atheist, polygamist and alcoholic, was buried in Kenya as a Muslim. Obama Sr., also named Barack Obama, had three sons with another woman who reportedly all are Muslim.

Obama's brother Roy is described as a practicing Muslim.

Writing in a chapter of his book describing his 1992 wedding, the presidential candidate stated: "The person who made me proudest of all was Roy. Actually, now we call him Abongo, his Luo name, for two years ago he decided to reassert his African heritage. He converted to Islam, and has sworn off pork and tobacco and alcohol."

Still, Obama says he was raised by his Christian mother and repeatedly has labeled as "smears" several reports attempting to paint him as a Muslim.

"Let's make clear what the facts are: I am a Christian. I have been sworn in with a Bible. I pledge allegiance [to the American flag] and lead the pledge of allegiance sometimes in the United States Senate when I'm presiding," he told the UK's Times Online earlier this year.

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May 29, 2008
Pelosi prepared to 'step in' to end race
Posted: 12:30 PM ET

From CNN Ticker Producer Alexander Mooney

Pelosi says she is prepared to 'step in.'

(CNN) – Hillary Clinton has hinted that she is prepared to take her fight to fully seat Florida and Michigan all the way to the party's convention in late August, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says that's not going to happen.

In an interview with her hometown newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, the California Democrat said she is prepared to "step in" if the presidential race does not resolve itself by the end of next month.

"I will step in," Pelosi told the paper. "Because we cannot take this fight to the convention…It must be over before then."

Pelosi, who will serve as chair of the convention, has largely stayed on the sidelines during her party's prolonged primary race. But the House Speaker has said Democratic superdelegates should not overturn the pledged delegate winner, and has warned of irreparable harm if they do so. Barack Obama officially won the majority of pledged delegates in last Tuesday's primary contests, though it's been clear for several weeks Clinton could not overtake him in that category.

Pelosi also indicated she opposes the Clinton campaign's desire that both Florida and Michigan's delegations be fully seated at the convention. The party stripped both states of their entire delegations last year after they moved their presidential primaries ahead in the nominating calendar.

Pelosi said she agreed the two states should be seated in some way, but said only "in a way that is not destructive to any sense of order in the party."

"If you have no order and no discipline in terms of party rules, people will be having their primary in the year before the presidential election," she said. "So there has to be some penalty."

The Democratic National Committee's Rules and Bylaws Committee meets Saturday in Washington to consider exactly how to seat both states. It's likely the committee will vote to meet the rule-breaking states halfway — a move that will help Clinton close the delegate gap with Obama but not overtake him.

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Originally posted by Schecter
looks like pelosi will prove a bit useful at long last. if clinton has her way this shit will continue for 3 more months.

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Originally posted by lord xyz
That reminds me of the time when I first disliked Hillary (in like 2007 or Iowa).

She staged questions.

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Originally posted by Strangelove
Clinton herself had nothing to do with it.

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Originally posted by lord xyz
I'm sure she has to be involved for it to be staged. And if not, that's still not good.