As much as Rev. Bernice King bugs me, I have to say that her speech is bringing tears to my eyes. This is pretty big. I’ve had this aura of nonchalance about Sen. Obama’s advancement through the primaries. Yes, I got the big import that a black man is being taken seriously. As much as Sen. Clinton could (and should) trumpet her candidacy, as I and others have pointed out, it was never hard for the American public to accept her as a viable candidate. In fact, she announced the frontrunner before she even through her hat into the ring. For whatever reason, I never thought that I wouldn’t see a black person or a woman as president of this country. Yes. That’s how much I took that idea for granted.

Wow…this is finally hitting me.

As my previous post noted, Michelle Obama’s speech served in part to show that black families are normal and that black women, in particular, are not the militant angry bitches “white” America perceives us to be. I cried, because no matter what I tell people, they think that I’m an exception. They don’t understand that black women are getting educated at faster rates and achieving higher degrees. That won’t change the mind of entrenched racists and frankly, that’s fine with me. I just know that I live in a country where this is possible. The Obama’s mention that often, “Only in American is Barack’s story possible.” That is very true. As much as the policies and actions of this country annoy or shame me, I can never turn my back on this country for that simple reason. I read reports of how black in Australia, France or England are treated and I know that there’s no hope for them. The idea of having several black leaders to look up to isn’t really going to happen, let alone have one black person become the leader of one of those countries.

Here I stand on the edge history.

I think of my grandfathers and grandmothers and how hard they fought for this country, for their rights as black people. I think in particular of my maternal grandmother, who I was close too. I remember in 2004 in the middle of Barack Obama’s speech on the convention floor, she called me from across the country and held back tears as she said, “That child is gonna be our first black president.” My grandmother passed in early 2005. Throughout this entire process I thought of her. I wondered what she would have said about a lot of things. One thing I don’t have to wonder about her level of activity in the campaign. I know my grandmother would have done what she could to work to get Obama elected.

I’m proud to be able to bear witness to this day.

Plurk Page is here.

You can watch on CSPAN.org.

Here’s a nice little (13:39) video of Sen. Obama thanking his staff for their hard work throughout the primary campaign:

AP just went live with this most awesome headline that will only topped in Nov. when Obama wins the presidency:

AP tally: Obama effectively clinches nomination

Fuck yeah!

The tally was based on public declarations from delegates as well as from another 15 who have confirmed their intentions to the AP. It also included 11 delegates Obama was guaranteed as long as he gained 30 percent of the vote in South Dakota and Montana later in the day. It takes 2,118 delegates to clinch the nomination.

I can’t wait for tonight.

Tonight…tonight’s the night…that we get rid of that woman…

LOL!

Over at TPM, there’s a report from AP that Clinton will concede should Obama reach the delegate number.  But, uh…get this:

Obama is 40 delegates shy of clinching the nomination, but he is widely expected to make up the difference Tuesday with superdelegate support and votes in South Dakota and Montana. Once he reaches the magic number of 2,118, Clinton will acknowledge that he has secured the necessary delegates to be the nominee.

The former first lady will stop short of formally suspending or ending her race in her speech in New York City.

She will pledge to continue to speak out on issues like health care. But for all intents and purposes, the two senior officials said, the campaign is over.

The hell?

The lady is bent on making me embarassed for her.  But hopefully, this means Bill Clinton will finally STFU.

One more thing to add to the list of crazy the Clinton’s are doing: Clinton cited Karl Rove as a reason to stay in the race. Not like bringing him up like he’s the boogeyman, but…

“Just today I found some curious support for that position when one of the TV networks released an analysis done by - of all people - Karl Rove, saying that I was the stronger candidate,” said Clinton. “Somebody got a hold of his analysis and there it is.”

Yikes.

*****

That’s desperation…that makes this morning’s stupid memo from the Clinton’s campaign this seem brilliant. See, the Clinton’s released a memo that said that Sen. Obama better not declare victory in Iowa tomorrow night. Only problem is that declaring victory was never the plan. In fact, for the past week Obama has been shutting down all talk of declaring victory in Iowa and this morning news all over the place held that the Obama campaign was not going to Iowa for a victory dance.

But “facts” and “reality” have a funny way of avoiding the Clinton’s like they were Republicans or something. 3 hours after all the news reports and blog reports of Obama NOT declaring victory were posted, the Clinton’s released a intellectually deficient memo demanding Obama not declare victory in Iowa. The more cynical among us believe the Clinton’s did that so that win Obama, as planned, does not declare victory in Iowa they can puff up their chests for their deluded supporters and say, “We did that.”

Idiots.

******

I’ve been reading a lot about all the sexism Sen. Clinton has endured and her supporters are laying it directly on the feet of Obama in some fucktarded twist of logic. Ironically, many of these women make incredibly racist remarks regarding Obama, but I guess grrrl power supersedes bigotry in this case. It’s impossible to talk about the sexism from the media and ignorant assholes that Clinton has received without mentioning the racism that Obama has received not just from the GOP and the media, but more importantly from the Clinton’s and their supposed Democrat supporters. One quote from a white woman supporting Clinton blew it off, as “there’s more of us (women) than them (black people), so why make us mad?” You know, that’s their mindset right? If anything, this election has vindicated my view on old school, white, intellectual feminists. I never thought much of them before and as I’ve mentioned, I know that when they talk about women, they’re not including me. Still, considering how much I’ve been dismissed because of that view, it’s nice to proven right. But I’m not going to get into that.

We can see the double standards at work here. I’ve mentioned how Clinton plays that annoying girl on the schoolyard who hits a boy because she knows that boys shouldn’t hit girls, yet whines the boys want to ignore her. Hillary Clinton gave a talk at a women’s group back in April and no one batted an eye. Yet, we know that Obama couldn’t be seen speaking to the NAACP or at Tavis Smiley’s Strokefest State of the Black Union, because of his skin color. Clinton talks about women all the time in her speeches; she mentions old women who want to vote for her so they can see a female president before they die or moms bringing their daughters to see her because she could be president. Yet, I’ve seen or read many of Obama’s speeches and we don’t get stories of old black men telling Obama they’re voting for him because they want to see a black president before they die, we don’t get stories of moms bringing their sons to see him because he could be president. And if he did tell those stories, do you think the bigots on news sites and blogs would let that slide? Do you think the media would let that slide? Booman put into words exactly what I’ve been trying to say the past 5 months:

My overall view is that Hillary Clinton succeeded in convincing the American people that she was the presumptive frontrunner, which means that people were able to picture a woman president without much resistance. That frontrunner status was so ingrained that I think it actually hurt her campaign, as people rejected a coronation. Meanwhile, the black community displayed a lot of resistance to the idea of a black president. This was evidenced by the slowness with which they rallied around Obama. Prior to his victory in the overwhelmingly white state of Iowa, the polls showed Clinton running even or ahead among blacks in South Carolina. In other words, Obama had a harder time getting people to accept the idea of a black president than Clinton had getting people to accept the idea of a female president.

The Clintons have consistently tried to convince people that a black man is unelectable (whether they sincerely believe it or not), while the Obama campaign has never to my knowledge tried to convince people that a woman is unelectable. The Clinton campaign has used a million and one excuses for their losses, including that certain states have too many black people in them. The Obama campaign did not make the converse argument to explain why they lost any states until West Virginia.

emphasis mine

Remember this the next time people tell you that voting against Clinton is sexist. I would say include “voting against Obama is racist”, but the only people I see saying that are Clinton supporters, so I’m going to assume it’s a talking point of the Clinton’s campaign.

You’ve probably heard that the California Supreme Court has overturned the ban on gay marriage (YAY!) and since it’s an election year, we get to hear what the candidates said. I think that the LGBT community will appreciate Obama’s statement:

Barack Obama has always believed that same-sex couples should enjoy equal rights under the law, and he will continue to fight for civil unions as President. He respects the decision of the California Supreme Court, and continues to believe that states should make their own decisions when it comes to the issue of marriage.

Did you hear it? Ha! It was loud, huh?

Sweet.

Back at the nursing home, McCain babbled something into the speakerbox:

John McCain supports the right of the people of California to recognize marriage as a unique institution sanctioning the union between a man and a woman, just as he did in his home state of Arizona. John McCain doesn’t believe judges should be making these decisions.

Uh…the only problem is is that the CA Surpreme Court was responding to a suit. How the hell can a decision be made in a suit without the judges?

John McCain = nitwit.

NARAL endorsed Sen. Obama today and in bizarro world that made EMILYs List mad.  They went and played the Evan Bayh card:

“I think it is tremendously disrespectful to Sen. Clinton — who held up the nomination of a FDA commissioner in order to force approval of Plan B and who spoke so eloquently during the Supreme Court nomination about the importance of protecting Roe vs. Wade — to not give her the courtesy to finish the final three weeks of the primary process,” said Emily’s List president Ellen Malcolm. “It certainly must be disconcerting for elected leaders who stand up for reproductive rights and expect the choice community will stand with them.”

You got that? Malcom, president of EMILYs List, is mad that NARAL chose to give an endorsement as things are winding down.

<blank stare>

Are you kidding me?

Maybe Ms. Malcom forgot why EMILYs List is around. Their stated goal is to help underfunded and unknown female pro-choice politicians get elected. Besides being female and pro-choice, exactly how was Clinton underfunded and unknown? Did NARAL put out a statement shaming EMILYs List for not living up to their mission statement?

It’s bullshit like this that makes me glad that I stopped donating to EMILYs List.

Yawn.

So, I don’t care for Edwards or his wife…so anything he says, blah, blah, blah…ya know?

What I do find interesting is that now that he has endorsed Obama, it brings Obama’s total of former Democratic presidential rivals endorsing him to 3.  Clinton has exactly 0 endorsements from the Field of 8. Obama has received the endorsements of Sen. Edwards, Sen. Dodd and Gov. Richardson.  Rep. Kucinich, Sen. Biden and Crazy Old Man Gravel have not endorsed.

Gah…it’s still a PITA to post because this script that makes it impossible to post.

Anyway…

So far North Carolina has been given to Obama, as expected and Indiana is still “too early” to call, but should be a Clinton win if polls bear out.

IOW, nothing exciting for tonight.

Over at The Field, Al Giordano gives us some levity on what we’ve come to expect on these primary nights.