The end of the primary season

This is it. The day of the final primary elections for 2008. After today, the voting will be over - and Democrats have voted in 50 states (and a few territories, commonwealths, and the Democrats Abroad).

Now we turn our attention to vice-presidential picks, John McCain's record, and the fall campaign -- as well as the challenge of uniting our party.

Which leads to an interesting question. Will Hillary Clinton concede the race? The AP thinks so. Update: TPM says the AP is wrong.

Discuss.

  • backbeat, woman (unverified)
    (Show?)

    A bigger question - will Wyden finally endorse Obama?

  • opportunity (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Senator Clinton has an opportunity to display class, leadership, and loyalty to the principles that both she and Senator Obama espouse.

    I'm hopeful that she'll counter the childish ranting of the poisonous minority of her supporters who have ignorantly threatened to support the anti-choice, war-happy, Senator from Arizona, as Senator Obama officially secures the nomination.

    The stage is set for Senator Clinton shine brightly in the next week and secure her place in history as a champion for the Democratic Party and the principles for which we stand.

  • Katy (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Childish ranting? Kinda seems to me the childish ranting has come from the Obama supporters on this site.

  • (Show?)

    Katy, I think each side tends to ignore the obnoxious postings on their own side and the opposite on the other. There has been lots of ranting by Clinton people, or people purporting to be such. And from Obama people.

    I am not sure, it may be that more of the anti-Obama ranting is from non-regular participants on BlueOregon & may be from out of state -- but in terms of Clinton's national support that would mean that there are people going around to blogs where they aren't usual participants to post that stuff.

  • (Show?)

    Katy, gotta support Chris' take on this one. I've been hearing all kinds of wild rumors as facts and outright personal attacks from both sides.

    I've also gotten an earful from inside the Clintonista camp about always undocumented dirty tricks perpetrated by the Obamaniacs, secret videos in the hands of Republican 527s, and documentation of other sorts that will be unleashed against the hapless Boy Wonder the minute that Clinton is thrown under the bus.

    I'm hoping that you and your allies will display the same tolerance as the large majority and yes there are some glaring exceptions of the Blue Oregon regulars that are supporting Obama.

  • (Show?)

    Oh, Yeah. One more thing. I'm voting for Wednesday.....

  • (Show?)

    Hillary's campaign -- and our competitive Oregon primary -- will put us in a stronger position for the fall. The grassroots enthusiasm and massive influx of new voters into the democratic party will be of great help to us. We're lucky Oregon got to weigh in when it counted and the Clinton folks should be proud of their efforts, especially here. Even though she came up short, Hillary was a fierce competitor who forever shattered the idea that we can't elect a female president. That's a tremendous historic accomplishment.

  • joel dan walls (unverified)
    (Show?)

    This seems significant: The McCain campaign, as predicted, is already using Hillary's "commander in chief test" line to attack Obama.

    How can she be VP when this is running on an endless loop? Too bad. I still think she'd bring a lot to the ticket. But the baggage seems awfully heavy....

  • (Show?)

    Jesus, the woman is a sociopath. She's lost the race conclusively finally, and yet here we have no concession, the "day one" argument, the lie about winning the popular vote, count the votes that I said earlier shoudln't count...WTF?

  • DH (unverified)
    (Show?)

    I am not surprised at HC's speech tonight. Disappointed but not surprised.

  • Rick (unverified)
    (Show?)

    OK, the coast is clear. Its safe to endorse now Ron!

  • Katy (unverified)
    (Show?)

    TJ, Thanks for illustrating my point!

  • (Show?)

    OK Katy. Point taken, but he was one of the exceptions that I mentioned........

  • (Show?)

    thanks katy--I thought I encapsulated Hillary's childish rant last night fairly well...

  • jallen (unverified)
    (Show?)

    Michelle Obama thesis was on racial divide By: Jeffrey Ressner February 23, 2008 09:51 AM EST

    Michelle Obama's senior year thesis at Princeton University, obtained from the campaign by Politico, shows a document written by a young woman grappling with a society in which a black Princeton alumnus might only be allowed to remain "on the periphery." Read the full thesis here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

    "My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'blackness' than ever before," the future Mrs. Obama wrote in her thesis introduction. "I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my white professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong. Regardless of the circumstances underwhich I interact with whites at Princeton, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be black first and a student second."

    The thesis, titled "Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community" and written under her maiden name, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson, in 1985, has been the subject of much conjecture on the blogosphere and elsewhere in recent weeks, as it has been "temporarily withdrawn" from Princeton's library until after this year's presidential election in November. Some of the material has been written about previously, however, including a story last year in the Newark Star Ledger.

    Obama writes that the path she chose by attending Princeton would likely lead to her "further integration and/or assimilation into a white cultural and social structure that will only allow me to remain on the periphery of society; never becoming a full participant."

    During a presidential contest in which the term "transparency" has been frequently bandied about, candidates have buried a number of potentially revealing documents and papers. In Hillary Rodham Clinton's case, there's been a clamoring for tax records, White House memos and other material the candidate's team has chosen to keep from release. The 96-page Princeton thesis, restricted from release by the school's Mudd Library, has also been the subject of recent scrutiny.

    Earlier this week, commentator Jonah Goldberg remarked on National Review Online, "A reader in the know informs me that Michelle Obama's thesis ... is unavailable until Nov. 5, 2008, at the Princeton library. I wonder why."

    "Why a restricted thesis?" asked blogger-pastor Louis Lapides on his site Thinking Outside the Blog. "Is the concern based on what's in the thesis? Will Michelle Obama appear to be too black for white America or not black enough for black America?"

    Attempts to retrieve the document through Princeton proved unsuccessful, with school librarians having been pestered so much for access to the thesis that they have resorted to reading from a script when callers inquire about it. Media officers at the prestigious university were similarly unhelpful, claiming it is "not unusual" for a thesis to be restricted and refusing to discuss "the academic work of alumni."

    The Obama campaign, however, quickly responded to a request for the thesis by Politico. The thesis offers several fascinating insights into the mind of Michelle Obama, who has been a passionate advocate of her husband's presidential aspirations and who has made several controvesial statements, including this week's remark, "For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country." That comment has fueled debate on countless blogs, radio talk shows and cable news for days on end, causing her to explain the statement in greater detail.

    The 1985 thesis provides a trove of Michelle Obama's thoughts as a young woman, with many of the paper's statements describing the student's world as seen through a race-based prism.

    "In defining the concept of identification or the ability to identify with the black community," the Princeton student wrote, "I based my definition on the premise that there is a distinctive black culture very different from white culture." Other thesis statements specifically pointed to what was seen by the future Mrs. Obama as racially insensitive practices in a university system populated with mostly Caucasian educators and students: "Predominately white universities like Princeton are socially and academically designed to cater to the needs of the white students comprising the bulk of their enrollments."

    To illustrate the latter statement, she pointed out that Princeton (at the time) had only five black tenured professors on its faculty, and its "Afro-American studies" program "is one of the smallest and most understaffed departments in the university." In addition, she said only one major university-recognized group on campus was "designed specifically for the intellectual and social interests of blacks and other third world students." (Her findings also stressed that Princeton was "infamous for being racially the most conservative of the Ivy League universities.")

    Perhaps one of the most germane subjects approached in the thesis is a section in which she conveyed views about political relations between black and white communities. She quotes the work of sociologists James Conyers and Walter Wallace, who discussed "integration of black official(s) into various aspects of politics" and notes "problems which face these black officials who must persuade the white community that they are above issues of race and that they are representing all people and not just black people," as opposed to creating "two separate social structures."

    To research her thesis, the future Mrs. Obama sent an 18-question survey to a sampling of 400 black Princeton graduates, requesting the respondents define the amount of time and "comfort" level spent interacting with blacks and whites before they attended the school, as well as during and after their University years. Other questions dealt with their individual religious beliefs, living arrangements, careers, role models, economic status, and thoughts about lower class blacks. In addition, those surveyed were asked to choose whether they were more in line with a "separationist and/or pluralist" viewpoint or an "integrationist and/or assimilationist" ideology.

    Just under 90 alums responded to the questionnaires (for a response rate of approximately 22 percent) and the conclusions were not what she expected. "I hoped that these findings would help me conclude that despite the high degree of identification with whites as a result of the educational and occupational path that black Princeton alumni follow, the alumni would still maintain a certain level of identification with the black community. However, these findings do not support this possibility."

    © 2008 Capitol News Company, LLC

    <hr/>
open discussion

connect with blueoregon