Obama Related Music

6 Obama Songs and Lyrics to two Songs Featuring Obama. Everything you need to Barack and Roll.



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Obama's Economist

The Democrats, besides talking about a broader range of subjects, also have the freshest face among the top campaign advisers — Barack Obama’s lead economist, Austan Goolsbee, a 37-year-old star professor at the University of Chicago (who writes a monthly column for The New York Times). The two men met when Mr. Obama was teaching at the law school



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Obama files bill to help homeless veterans

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., introduced legislation on Tuesday to increase funding for housing and rental assistance programs for homeless veterans, including down-and-out service members returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan.



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Obama's Big Night

Democratic Presidential hopeful Barack Obama raised at least $700,000 in his whirlwind swoop through Manhattan, giddy fund-raisers said yesterday. In one evening, after taping "Late Show With David Letterman" on Monday, Obama schmoozed fat cats on the upper West Side, zipped down to SoHo for more flesh-pressing and ended the night at a third...



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The Politico: Ben Smith's Blog - Say What?

From Lee Bandy's column on that Carolina poll:"Mo Elleitlee (sic) a spokesman for the Clinton campaign, dismissed the latest South Carolina poll numbers.



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Obama On Joint Hillary Ticket: “Which Order Are We Talking About?”

Senator Obama was on "Late Show with David Letterman" last night to talk Iraq, family, his attempt to quit smoking cigarettes and the 2008 campaign. Although not as fiery as Letterman's showdowns with O'Reilly, it was still entertaining.



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Obama "The Natural" Political Cartoon

About.com

Barack Obama, in low-key mode, gains admirers

Adam Nagourney writes in the IHT:

COLO, Iowa: Senator Barack Obama is not big on what he calls red-meat applause lines when he campaigns in small communities like this one, just northeast of Des Moines. He does not tell many jokes. He talks in even, measured tones, and at times is so low-key that he lulls his audiences into long, if respectful, silences.

Obama beats Clinton in primary fundraising

Obama has raised more cash than Clinton for the Democratic primary in the first quarter .

ABC News has learned that the $23.5 million Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., raised for his presidential campaign for use in the primaries is more than that raised by the Democratic frontrunner, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.

Of the $26 million Clinton has raised in the first quarter of 2007 for her presidential campaign, approximately $20 million is to be used in the primaries and caucuses, sources told ABC News.

Clinton campaign officials cautioned that its campaign was still ascertaining how much of its $26 million raised is available for primary use.

Obama's Facebook Profile

Obama has just added some Personal Info to his Facebook profile. Here it is:

Personal Info

Interests:	Basketball, writing, loafing w/ kids
Favorite Music:	Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Johann Sebastian Bach (cello suites), and The Fugees
Favorite TV Shows:	Sportscenter
Favorite Movies:	Casablanca, Godfather I & II, Lawrence of Arabia and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Favorite Books:	Song of Solomon (Toni Morrison), Moby Dick, Shakespeare's Tragedies, Parting the Waters, Gilead (Robinson), Self-Reliance (Emerson), The Bible, Lincoln's Collected Writings
Favorite Quotes:	"The Arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." (MLK)

Obama wins Senate NCAA Pool

Obama's good judgment stretches to sports prognosticating. In his Monday Night Football opening, he predicted the Bears would go all the way—he was one bad Grossman game away from being right. Well now, according to the Boston Globe, Obama has won the Senate NCAA pool.

Asked in an interview which team he was rooting for in the NCAA men’s basketball championship – since Ohio State and Florida are both from swing states – Obama didn’t avoid the question.

”I have to admit I was for Florida because their win allowed me to win the Senate pool,” Obama said.

He wouldn’t say how much he won but he did say that 25 people each pitched in $5. But we don't know if he was the only winner.

Obama Raises 25 Million (23.5 Million for Primary)

This is truly remarkable. There is a strong chance that he surpassed the Clinton campaign's fundraising numbers for the primary. Here's the full letter Obama sent out to supporters:

Ten weeks ago, on an icy day in Springfield, we launched an audacious campaign to change our politics and lift our country.

Today, I have some exciting news to share about the phenomenal progress we've made. And I wanted you to hear it first.

I'm proud to tell you that, after the first quarter of the campaign, we've exceeded all of our hopes and expectations.

In less than three months, a staggering 100,000 Americans have contributed to our cause -- tens of thousands more than the number reported by any other campaign. That's on top of the hundreds of thousands who have attended rallies, started groups and shared their ideas and energy.

It's been a truly historic response -- a measure of just how hungry people are to turn the page on this era of small and destructive politics and repair our American community.

And because of that extraordinary base of support, we were able to raise an astonishing $25 million -- $23.5 million of which can be used to help us in the upcoming primary contests.

What makes this achievement even more noteworthy is that we did it without taking any money from PACs or federal lobbyists. Instead, we're counting on you; on folks across America who want to take their country back and steer us to a better course.

You've sent an unmistakable message to the political establishment in Washington about the power and seriousness of our challenge.

But for all the impressive numbers by which pundits will judge this campaign, we know that every step of our progress happens one person at a time.

One person sharing their story of why they decided to get involved in the political process, one volunteer deciding to have a conversation about the campaign with their neighbor, one donor owning a piece of this campaign for as little as $5.

I've been struck by how personal this campaign experience has been for so many of you.

You heard last week from Rashed, a veteran and father who made his first-ever donation to a political campaign because of his hopes for his daughter. This campaign is the story of hundreds of thousands of people like him -- people participating because they believe that politics can mean something again.

We've put together a small presentation about all we've accomplished together so far, and links to a few of the personal stories from people who donated to the campaign or hosted a community get-together this past weekend. You can see it here:

http://my.barackobama.com/wherewestand

I want to thank you for all that you have done so far. This milestone for our campaign proves something I learned as a community organizer long ago: that together a whole lot of ordinary people can achieve something extraordinary.

And we're only just getting started.

Thank you,

Barack Obama

Obama's Church

Obamapedia has some extensive coverage of the myth that Obama belongs to a black supremacist church. Marty Martin (see photo to the right) , a Lutheran pastor who is a "weekly contributer of sightings, a biweekly, electronic editorial published by the Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School," continues discrediting this misrepresentation:

Note: This is not an endorsement of Senator Obama as a candidate.

Note: This is not a non-endorsement of Senator Obama as a candidate.

Note: I don't do endorsements.

Note: This is not even about Senator Obama.

It is about Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, where the Senator was converted and is a member. Some editorials and the more strident TV networks and radio talkmeisters tell its story wrong, no doubt intentionally. Friendship for the church and its staff, and a desire to help set the church-reporting record straight, impel some comment here.

My sources for this Sightings are, of course, personal experience of the place and the people of Trinity — plus a dissertation and a book: Chicago Theological Seminary Professor Julia Speller's Walkin' the Talk: Keepin' the Faith in Africentric Congregations. I read the manuscript with care to write the foreword, and was familiar with the subject of the chapter on Trinity, since Speller was my dissertation advisee when she wrote a full-length work on the suddenly lime-lighted church. Not that it has ever been a shrinking violet, thanks to the energies of the people and the personalities on the staff, including the soon-retiring Pastor Jeremiah Wright. But now it's on the spot.

Trinity is the largest congregation in the whole United Church of Christ, the ex-Congregational (think Jonathan Edwards) and Reformed (think Reinhold Niebuhr) mainline church body. Trinity's rubric is "Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian." So far as I can tell Trinity shapes a kind of ellipse around these two "centers," neither of which makes sense without the other. This you would never know from the slanders of its enemies or the incomprehension and naiveté of some reporters who lack background in the civil rights and African-American movements of several decades ago — a background out of which Trinity's stirrings first rose and on which it transformatively trades.

So Trinity is "Africentric," and deals internationally and ecumenically with the heritage of "black is beautiful." Despite what one sometimes hears, Wright and his parishioners — an 8,000-member mingling of everyone from the disadvantaged to the middle class, and not a few shakers and movers in Chicago — are "keepin' the faith." To those in range of Chicago TV I'd recommend a watching of Trinity's Sunday services, and challenge you to find anything "cultic" or "sectarian" about them. More important, for Trinity, being "unashamedly black" does not mean being "anti-white." My wife and I on occasion attend, and, like all other non-blacks, are enthusiastically welcomed.

Heretical? Hardly. Harriet and I sometimes come home reflecting and remarking that Wright sounds almost literalist about biblical texts when he preaches. The large-print texts are before the worshipers, and Wright, taking up the Gospel message line by line, applies it to personal, cultural, social, and political life. He turns much focus on the family. Of course, he can be abrasive. Why? Think of the concept of "unashamedly": tucked into it is the word "shame." Wright and his fellow leaders have diagnosed "shame," "being shamed," and "being ashamed" as debilitating legacies of slavery and segregation in society and church.

Trinity reorients. Wright and company have had tussles with more traditional members and, at times, some in the UCC. I've known "Jerry" Wright since his student days, have often agreed and disagreed with him, and have found him never to be a preacher of peace when there is no peace — but "walkin' the talk" for him is also a message of peace.

More on Obama Fundraising

John McIntyre writes for Real Clear Politics

Of the major announced presidential candidates, it seems to me four of them (Clinton, Romney, Edwards and Giuliani) did what they had to in regards to first quarter fundraising. While Senator Clinton received some early favorable spin on the blowout $36 million headline number, the $26 million actually raised is not that impressive when compared to Obama's rumored $20 million-plus and Edwards' very solid 14 million. Sen. Clinton's number looks even worse when you break down the primary vs. general election cash and the relatively low number of individual donations -- fewer than McCain and way fewer than Obama. In fact, when you get beyond the headline number bandied about, Hillary's number was just OK (for someone who has been considered the prohibitive favorite and inevitable nominee) nothing more. The real story on the Democratic side continues to be the Obama campaign, especially if its figure does come in at over $20 million with more than 80,000 donors.

Experience Question

Obamapedia has worked hard to answer questions of Obama's experience with the article titled: Does Obama have enough experience to be president?

Here's one response to the article:
My mom said the same thing[ that Obama doesn't have enough experience]. Then I had her read this, and she's a full on supporter http://www.obamapedia.org/page/Does+Barack+Obama+have+enough+experience+to+be+president%3F
-Daley Gruen
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2231653698&topic=5981

That being said, as people continue to question Obama's qualifications, there is always room for improving the article. What do you think hasn't been covered? What could be added? Feel free to go ahead and improve it. Thanks.

Obamapedia Collaboration

Little Known Facts About Barack Obama
This page is perfect for collaboration. To improve it, all you have to do is add a fact.

1. In Indonesia, he was "introduced to dog meat (tough), snake meat (tougher), and roasted grasshopper (crunchy)." (Dreams from My Father)
2. Obama Music
3."I think the big difference between him then [when Obama was a community organizer] and now is how is dressed. Back then he was always in sweaters. Now, you never see him without a suit and a tie." Developing Community Project minister Rev. Michael Adams Link
4. "I've been known to have a serious Scrabble game" Obama Link
5. "He's a big basketball fan. He loves the Chicago White Sox. He follows the Chicago Bears." Zariff, Obama's barber at Hyde Park Hair Salon Link
6. "The Senator is especially fond our Tilapia, which is low in fat and perfect in grilling" waitress at Calypso Restaurant Link
7. Dreams from My Father, Obama's first book, won a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album in 2006. Link
8. "Barack choose a wide selection of movies. Sometimes it was foreign films, sometimes it was action movies." Owner of Kimbark Video

Continued... Please check it out and add what's not already there.

Tribunes Sources: Obama raises more than $20 Mil

The Chicago Tribune reports:

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), a relative newcomer to the national political scene, is expected to report that he has raised more than $20 million for his presidential bid during the same period, the first quarter of this year, according to three sources in and around his campaign.

After the general campaign donations are removed from Clinton's numbers, Obama may have outraised her for the primary.

Clinton officials acknowledged that Obama may come close to matching Clinton's fundraising prowess, although they repeatedly expressed happiness with their own effort...

But political professionals say it is possible that Obama may exceed Clinton's take for the primary season when contributions are sorted by use for the primary or the general election. That would be a blow to Clinton, who had hoped to muscle her Democratic opponents out of the race with an overwhelming war chest.

Clinton officials refused to say how much of the $26 million she raised could be used for her primary campaign, a figure that should be readily available.

Obamapedia Needs Your Help

Obamapedia seeks to consolidate arguments that support Barack Obama's 2008 presidential candidacy. And so far, we've brought together a good case to vote for Obama, but there are still many unanswered questions about Obama.

Remember: Obamapedia is a wiki. So, if you have time, read through a few Obamapedia articles, comment on them, and make a few improvements. Or even add your own article. Don't be afraid to mess around with someone else's work. If you screw up, there's a history of changes.

We each have our own reasons for supporting Obama. Let's put them down in one centralized resource that can be used to persuade those that still haven't decided on which candidate they're going to support.

Check out the full list of articles or How to Help Obamapedia

Any help is appreciated. (Even a digg)
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Kos Overreacts to Obama Comments

AP:

If President Bush vetoes an Iraq war spending bill as promised, Congress quickly will provide the money without the withdrawal timeline the White House objects to because no lawmaker "wants to play chicken with our troops," Sen. Barack Obama said Sunday.

"My expectation is that we will continue to try to ratchet up the pressure on the president to change course," the Democratic presidential candidate said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I don't think that we will see a majority of the Senate vote to cut off funding at this stage."

Kos of Daily Kos, a popular liberal blog, responds:

What a ridiculous thing to say. Not only is it bad policy, not only is it bad politics, it's also a terrible negotiating approach.

Instead of threatening Bush with even more restrictions and daring him to veto funding for the troops out of pique, Barack just surrendered to him.

Let me repeat that -- Obama just surrendered to Bush.

That is a serious charge from Kos. Is Obama surrendering to Bush? What's going on here?
Blake Dvorak from Real Clear Politics lives up to his blog's name, and clears up the situation:

It's tempting to take all this at face value and accept Kos' disappointment with Obama as genuinely substantive -- as opposed to genuinely political. But Kos, like the rest of the left, can read the field as well as Obama and so must know that what Obama admitted is nothing less than honest truth. Rather, what's upsetting to the left about this is that Obama isn't being a good partisan, much as the right has admonished Sen. John McCain for base-angering moves like the whole "Gang of 14" business with judicial nominations.

Obama's admission might have hurt the Democrats' negotiating position, as Kos suggests, if Bush was at all concerned that the Democratic leadership would cut off funds. But as much as that is the hope of the Democrats' antiwar base, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have never so much as intimated that's what they might do -- and even if they tried, they wouldn't have the votes.

So Obama was merely acknowledging political reality. Judging from the outcry from the leftwing blogosphere, he might try to be a little more nuanced in the future. But for now, Obama doesn't have to seriously worry about losing his antiwar base.

04 Bush Chief Strategist: 'Kerry Was Right' About Iraq

He said his decision to step forward had not come easily. But, he said, his disappointment in Mr. Bush’s presidency is so great that he feels a sense of duty to go public given his role in helping Mr. Bush gain and keep power.

Mr. Dowd, a crucial part of a team that cast Senator John Kerry as a flip-flopper who could not be trusted with national security during wartime, said he had even written but never submitted an op-ed article titled “Kerry Was Right,” arguing that Mr. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and 2004 presidential candidate, was correct in calling last year for a withdrawal from Iraq...

Mr. Dowd does not seem prepared to put his views to work in 2008. The only candidate who appeals to him, he said, is Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, because of what Mr. Dowd called his message of unity. But, he said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if I wasn’t walking around in Africa or South America doing something that was like mission work.”

He added, “I do feel a calling of trying to re-establish a level of gentleness in the world."

NYT Via Digg

Clinton's Fundraising Numbers

The Clinton campaign has announced that they've raised $26 million for her presidential campaign in the first quarter of 07.

What to know:

1.. The Clinton campaign is trying to make it appear like they've raised $36 mil. This number includes 10 mil raised in her Senate reelection campaign.

2. A smaller final number will be disclosed on 4/15. The $26 mil includes cash restricted to the general election.

3. MSNBC's Chuck Todd expected: "The gut says her number, minus general election money and the transfer will be in the low 30s." Her number with general election money is lower than some expectations.

4. The Clinton campaign had 50, 000 donors. BarackObama.com reports that Obama had 83, 531 donors, and that number may not be final.

The Obama campaign has yet to announce his numbers, but Clinton's numbers are good news for Obama supporters.