Obama pledges new generation of leadership

[Dee]

Obama pledges new generation of leadership (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/usreport_usa_politics_obama_dc)

Sat Feb 10

SPRINGFIELD, Illinois (Reuters) - Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama, citing the legacy of Abraham Lincoln, pledged on Saturday to bridge the partisan gridlock in Washington, end the war in Iraq and transform American politics as the first black U.S. president.

Launching his 2008 White House campaign outside the building in where Lincoln began his fight against slavery with a famous 1858 speech that declared "a house divided against itself cannot stand," Obama said it was time to "turn the page" to a new politics.

"Let us begin this hard work together. Let us transform this nation," Obama, 45, told a cheering crowd of supporters in Springfield, Illinois, who braved sub-freezing temperatures outside the old state capital building.

"By ourselves, this change will not happen. Divided, we are bound to fail," he said.

Obama, a rising party star and the only black U.S. senator, said the United States had overcome many difficult challenges, from gaining its independence to the Civil War to the Great Depression.

"Each and every time, a new generation has risen up and done what's needed to be done. Today we are called once more -- and it is time for our generation to answer that call," he said.

Obama's candidacy has intrigued Democrats looking for a fresh face and sparked waves of publicity and grass-roots buzz about the first black presidential candidate seen as having a chance to capture the White House.

He has vaulted quickly into the top tier of a crowded field of Democratic presidential contenders along with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and 2004 vice presidential nominee John Edwards.

(more ...)

[DaveM]

I suppose it's a logistical impossibility, given the realities of "red states", but I certainly would like to see a Clinton/Obama or Obama/Clinton ticket. If there's a "new direction" out there, we'd certainly find out what it is in short order.

Of course, I'd also like to see requirements for voting other than having a body temperature. But that's just me.

[Wildflower Fever]

I'm definitely not a Hillary hater, and I'm a Bill supporter, but I feel Obama is a candidate that more closely aligns with my image of a true democrat. I don't know if it's simply a ploy to win over red-state swing voters, but I feel Hillary's become too much a centrist for my liking.

[lucille]

Well Obama has pissed our Prime Minister off with his policy of withdrawing troops from Iraq. So that alone is a good thing. The PM has pissed me off for years.

[Oak Kitten]

Yes, Lucille, I saw that comment from your PM about the terrorists "praying for Obama to win." Twit.

I watched his announcement, and I was very impressed by him. Now the press is on his case saying that his public comments are long on themes but short on specifics. He responded, "It's not because that information is not out there - it's because you in the media are more concerned about reporting about how I look in a bathing suit."

Touche, Barack.

By the way, he looks GREAT in a bathing suit - but in a very intellectual and substantive way. . .

Oak

[lucille]

Our defense minister was asked today whether we would leave our troops in Iraq if the US withdrew, and his articulate answer was umm errr um umm - that is a hypothetical question.

The interviewer suggested there had been a lot of hypotheticals over the last few days and the interview ended.

[Dee]

Obama draws contrast with Clinton over Iraq war (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/070212/us/politics_usa_politics_obama_dc)

AMES, Iowa (Reuters) - Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama drew a contrast with rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on the Iraq war on Sunday and said it was unclear how she planned to end the conflict.

On the day after he formally launched his 2008 White House bid, Obama said on a campaign swing through Iowa that even before the war began it was possible to see the dangerous consequences of a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

"Even at the time, it was possible to make judgments that this would not work out well," the Illinois senator told reporters, indirectly contrasting his stance with presidential rivals Clinton and John Edwards, who both voted to authorize the war in 2002.

Clinton, now a war critic who has promised to end the conflict if she wins the White House, has been criticized by some Democrats for her 2002 Senate vote on authorization and for not renouncing the vote.

Edwards, the party's 2004 vice presidential nominee and a former senator from North Carolina, has called his vote in 2002 a mistake.

Obama was not in the Senate at the time of the vote but opposed the war from the start. He has proposed a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq to be completed by the end of March 2008, and he told reporters he was uncertain how Clinton intended to end the conflict.

"I am not clear to how she would proceed at this point to wind down the war in a specific way," Obama said when asked to evaluate Clinton's Iraq stance.

"I have tried to consistently present a responsible course of action that recognizes our national security interests in the region but would allow us to start redeploying our troops," he said.

Clinton came under pressure again on Saturday during a campaign trip through New Hampshire to explain her 2002 Senate vote.

"Knowing what we know now, I would never have voted for it," she said, adding she was not casting a vote to authorize preemptive war but intended to give President George W. Bush the authority to send inspectors back in to Iraq.

"I do not believe that most of us who voted to give the president authority thought he would so misuse the authority we gave him," he said.

Obama, a first-term senator and former Illinois state legislator, has quickly jumped into the top tier of a crowded Democratic presidential field along with Clinton and Edwards.

His early opposition to the increasingly unpopular war is a centerpiece of his stump speech, drawing big cheers on a two-day swing through the state that traditionally kicks off the presidential nominating fight.

He repeatedly said voters should demand a clear plan on how to end the war from all the Democratic candidates.

(more ...)