and sorry I won't be able to format

first, SUSA shows a major shrinking in past week, from 54-40 to 50-44

other polls - all numbers clinton first, previous version in parens

ZOGBY   48-42
ARG     54(57)-41(37)
MD      48-43
Strat
Visions 48(49)-41(40)
Quin    51(50)-44(44)
Rasm    49(47)-44(44)
Suffolk 52-42

a couple of notes

Suffolk has a model of equal turnout betw Phila area and Pitts area - most people thing it will be at least 3-2 in favor of Phila, which favors Obama

not clear any of pollsters are accounting for the 300K+ additional registration, which people like Terry Madonna think will break close to 4-1 in favor of Obama

so unless you can describe your model of turnout, including by region, race, and age, it is hard to make an accurate prediction

peace

This is a national poll of "Democrats and voters who lean Democratic."

have seen this?!?

To put it mildly, Louis Farrakhan - antisemite, racist, demagogue -- is not one of my favorite people. What the heck is Ed Rendell doing heaping praise upon this guy?!?

Is Ed Rendell for real?!?

If your question is a rhetorical one, and your purpose here is to slam Rendell because he is a Hillary supporter, I think you're off base.

If your question is a sincere one, here is the background of this event:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/f...

P.S. Also, I may have misheard, but I didn't hear him praise Farrakhan. I thought those nice words at the beginning were aimed at someone else, but that is beside the point.

for praising the anti-Semite, racist named Louis Farrakhan.  I'd also like to hear the Clinton campaign repudiate Rendell's remarks.

points out, of course "George Stephanopoulos is uninterested."

First, Sullivan makes it clear that Rendell is praising the Nation of Islam, not Farrakhan.

You have changed that into praise for Farrakhan.

Are they one and the same? Do you believe the entire Nation of Islam is an anti-Semitic religion?

Second, you asked why Rendell was doing it. As the NYT article makes clear, there was a racial incident in Philadelphia and the city needed healing. That was why Rendell went to this event.

I'm not a Philadelphian, and I don't know the details. But I am for dialogue. So, I would ask, do you oppose dialogue over divisive issues with those who may have in the past expressed objectionable statements? Should Rendell not have associated himself at all with the NOI?

Can you point to the place on the video where Rendell praises Farrakhan? In fact,, he does not do so. As sully notes, he speaks only in praise if the NOI.

You say your purpose is to slam Rendell, not the candidate he supports, Hillary Clinton. You contend you'd "also like to hear the Clinton campaign repudiate" the remarks. Can you explain why you would slam a progressive governor of a key state for its own sake, but the Clinton factor would merely be a side issue?  

Finally, which part of the remarks should Clinton repudiate? The part about the NOI encouraging strong families? The part about NOI fathers remaining with their families? The part about the NOI being anti drugs in ghettoes? the part about being against racism? What, precisely, would you like her to repudiate?  

He's "only" praising the Nation of Islam. I feel much better now! ;)

Seriously, though, here's the ADL on the Nation of Islam.

The Nation of Islam (NOI), the oldest Black Nationalist organization in the U.S., has maintained a consistent record of racism and anti-Semitism under the guise of instilling African-Americans with a sense of empowerment since its founding in the 1930s.

Under the guidance of Louis Farrakhan, who has expressed anti-Semitic and racist rhetoric for nearly 30 years as NOI leader, the organization has used its programs, institutions and publications to disseminate its message of hate. Despite this record, the NOI has been given a measure of legitimacy by some political and media figures.

'Nuff said.

stay off of this slippery slope.

What about Democrat candidates hobnobbing with Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson? Or even David Dinkins?

I don't agree with everything Abe Foxman and the ADL says. For example, I don't agree with this statement of his about Barack Obama:

He's distanced himself from his pastor's decision to honor Farrakhan. He has not distanced himself from his pastor. I think that's the next step. One can now expect from Sen. Obama that he confront his minister.

I think I've been pretty consistent on this issue. And I think I've been pretty solid about pointing out that the idea that Jews need to worry about Obama is a canard.

Yeah, Farakhan is an ugly anti-semite. And he has greatly influuenced the NOI. But I can also appreciate that the NOI does many good things for the African American community and promotes many things with which I am in total agreement. And if, as the leader of a city -- of an entire city, black and white, Jew and gentile -- Ed Rendell got together with them and said some nice things about them to promote racial healing in his city, then I'm all for it.

He's got nothing to account for to me.

Even if there were no primary going on, I simply fail to understand why Ed Rendell would go out of his way to praise the Nation of Islam or Louis Farrakhan.  Here's Farrakhan from February 2006:

These false Jews promote the filth of Hollywood. It's the wicked Jews, the false Jews that are promoting lesbianism, homosexuality, [and] Zionists have manipulated Bush and the American government [on the war in Iraq]

I have a major, major problem with this.

"Farrakhan has referred to Jews, Palestinian Arabs, Koreans, and Vietnamese collectively as "bloodsuckers" and maintains that "Murder and lying comes easy for white people."

But you are conflating two things. Let's review:

1. I'll stipulate that Farrakhan is an anti-semite.
2. You accused Rendell of praising Farrakhan, and asked why would he do that, claiming that your purpose had nothing to do with thefact that Rendell was a Clinton supporter in PA.
3. I noted Rendell had not praised Farrakhan, and that his appearance at the event was in response to a racial incident in Philadelphia while he was mayor.
4. You cited Andy Sullivan in support of the fact that Rendell was, indeed, praising Farrakhan.
5. I pointed out that Sullivan said he was praising the Nation of Islam, and that while Farrakhan was a leader of the Nation of Islam, they were not synonymous.
6. You then cited the ADL as identifying the Nation of Islam as an anti-semitic organization.
7. I pointed out that I don't agree with all characterizations of the ADL, specifically citing some comments by Abe Foxman, the ADL's director, to the effect that Obama needed to dissaciate himself not only from objectionable thoughts expressed by his partor, the Rev. Wright, but from the man, an important spiritual advisor in his life, a position I have consistently attacked.
8. You then state, "I simply fail to understand why Ed Rendell would go out of his way to praise the Nation of Islam or Louis Farrakhan." First, the question has been answered -- it was to heal a racial rift in his community. Certainly you understand this. Perhaps you don't agree that a mayor ought to do this. Second, and again, Rendell did not praise Farrakhan, but he did praise positive community activities of the Nation of Islam.
9. To prove your point, you provide a series of comments detailing anti-semitic rants from Farrakhan -- all disgusting, but all irrelevant to the issue at hand.

Just to be clear, I'm not so much defending Clinton or Rendell here. I think these kinds of derivitive attacks are invalid when launched against Obama, and I think they are wrong when they are launched against Clinton.

There is a perfectly rational and acceptable reason why Rendell did what he did and said what he said, and I think you know it. Now, you may not agree with it, and I suppose there is a legitimate debate over whether his judgment in the matter was good or bad, but the Capt. Renault routine is a bit transparent, IMHO.

should think twice before picking up some stones.

Well, this is why I say stay off of this slippery slope.  What about Democrat candidates hobnobbing with Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson?  Or even David Dinkins?

Truth is, the left's slippery slope is matched and raised on the other side with consequences infinitely more dire.  'Kenny boy' Lay of Enron fame?  Shaking hands with Saddam?  Equipping the mujahadin in Afghanistan?  

Then there are those of us who think that hugging the loser-in-chief is a slippery slope infinitely worse than sitting on a 30 person board with Bill Ayers or interning at a Berkeley law firm in 1969.

Hillary And The Commies
by Marc Cooper  
HuffingtonPost.com
April 16, 2008

During Tuesday night's Pennsylvania debate, George Stephanopoulos didn't flinch from trying to smear Barack Obama by association with former 60's radical Bill Ayers. Too bad George didn't ask Hillary about her own summer spent working for a law firm run by Communists.

The facts: Obama met with former Weather Underground radical Ayers and his wife, former 60's SDS leader Bernardine Dohrn, at a 1995 Chicago meeting. From 1999-2002, Obama served on the board of a charity organization with Ayers that gave out a couple of grants. Now, I knew these Weathermen folks back in the 60's, and they were quite unsavory then. There were plenty of us who were in SDS at that time who thought the Weathermen were despicable. And, frankly, I have no particular affection for them now. I found Ayers' memoir, published in 2001, to be execrable.

But by the time Obama met them in the 90's, they had cleared their violent past with the criminal justice system, they had served their punishment, gone back to school and by then become legitimate and even respected educators, and players in Chicago liberal politics.

When Ayers and Dohrn were running amuck advocating violent revolution, Obama was literally eight years old.

Compare and contrast those facts with Hillary's own association with 60's radicals. In the summer of 1969, when Hillary was just entering Yale Law School, she went to work for the foremost radical law firm in, yes, Berkeley. Carl Bernstein recounts the episode in his Hillary biography of last year titled "A Woman in Charge."

This is what Bernstein told interviewer Jon Wiener last summer:

"That summer she went to work at the most important radical law firm in America at that point: Treuhaft, Walker and Bernstein in Oakland. They defended the Panthers. Two of their partners were members of the Communist Party--including Bob Treuhaft, who was married to Jessica Mitford. I talked to Bob Treuhaft not long before he died, and he said he was certain that Hillary came there because she subscribed to some of the kind of law they practiced and the kind of clients they defended. In her so-called autobiography, "Living History," she put in a couple of sentences about living in Berkeley with Bill that summer and working at that law firm, but she makes it sound like their work focused on postal rate increases. There's not a word about radicals."

Very little has been written about this episode. One piece, in a conservative paper, goes into great detail speculating on what cases the young Hillary Clinton might have been working.

I have no desire to flesh out any of this information as my position is simple. Every one deserves the best legal defense possible, and I have no problem with Hillary having worked for a law firm run by Communists and engaged in defending Huey Newton and other radicals accused of killing cops and other violent acts.

But the hypocrisy by Clinton on this matter and the acrobatic cherry-picking by Stephanopoulos are simply staggering.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Head on over to VB Dems and make a prediction!

http://www.vbdems.org/?p=2518