Obama: The Bug in the Clinton Machine

While Barack Hussein Obama is in New York, out to make friends, he may actually be making enemies.

It's pretty risky. History shows that no one crosses the Clintons without paying dearly.

I'm sure Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton and company originally considered Obama's dreams of the presidency to be strictly a publicity stunt tied to his book tour, a harmless flirtation.

Obama's flirtation has moved out of the talking stage and into some heavy duty close contact.

Could Hillary be getting nervous?

From The New York Times:

Senator Barack Obama treaded onto Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s home turf last night to meet with prominent Democratic donors and feel out those who might prefer the sound of President Obama to President Clinton (as in Hillary, not Bill).

Amid intensifying presidential musings by Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama met with George Soros, the liberal billionaire philanthropist, and then some other donors last night at Mr. Soros’s offices.

One of the donors who met with Mr. Obama, and who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to offend Mrs. Clinton, said that he and several others had supported Mrs. Clinton’s Senate campaigns but were not committed to her as a presidential candidate.

That's so funny!

Now donors are leaking to The Times.

This donor needs to remain anonymous for fear that running to The Times might upset Hillary.

Hell hath no fury like Hillary scorned.

“I like Hillary a lot, but I’m also impressed with Obama — his message, the way he connects to people,” said the donor, a prominent New York business person. “It’s a little too early for Democrats to be certain that Hillary is the strongest bet for 2008. There are a lot of good people interested in running.”

Is this for real?

Are the big donors really ready to trust a man who has served in the U.S. Senate for only two years to be the Democrat Party's nominee?

It seems like quite a gamble.

Speaking to reporters last night after those meetings and a speech to a charity dinner, Mr. Obama called Mrs. Clinton a friend and ally and said that if he decided to run for president, it would not be based on his assessment of her.

“I think she is tough, I think she is disciplined, I think she is smart, and I’m not one of those people who believe she can’t win,” Mr. Obama said. “I recognize it’s fun to set these things up as a contest between the two of us. I would say half my colleagues in the Senate think they’re going to be the next president.”

While Obama speaks glowingly of Hillary, he seems to think that he's tougher, more disciplined, and smarter than her.

And although half his colleagues may be delusional about their presidential possibilities, they don't have the national media and late night talk show hosts fawning over them and encouraging them the way Obama does.

Mr. Obama’s reconnaissance mission came as Mrs. Clinton was accelerating talks about 2008 not only with New York elected officials, but also with some prominent donors whom she would like to lock in for a possible White House bid.

John Catsimatidis, a loyal Clinton donor, said he had recently received a phone call from Mrs. Clinton asking to have dinner before the holidays. He believes she wants to run for president and is moving to ramp up her Senate fund-raising operation for a White House campaign.

“I think they have a phenomenal political machine set up that’s far superior to any of the other candidates, or theoretical candidates,” Mr. Catsimatidis said. “Now they’re getting ready to put that machine to use.”

I bet Hillary is ticked off that Obama is the bug in the Clinton machine.

To that end, the Clinton team disclosed yesterday that they had a new national finance director lined up in case the senator decided to run. Jonathan Mantz, a fund-raiser for Gov. Jon S. Corzine of New Jersey and a former finance official for the Washington-based operations to elect a Democratic House and Senate, has agreed to work for her if she becomes a candidate. The senator is expected to make a decision this winter.

The Clinton team also announced that Phil Singer, a communications strategist for the Democrats’ successful takeover of the Senate last month, had agreed to play a similar role for Senator Clinton, should she run. Mr. Singer is a protégé of Senator Charles E. Schumer and was an aide on Senator John Kerry’s presidential campaign.

I'm so sick of these games.

There is no "if" Hillary becomes a candidate.

She's been a candidate since the day she decided to carpetbag her way into the Senate.

Derek Shearer, a former ambassador, a donor to President Bill Clinton’s campaigns and a supporter of Senator Clinton, said he believed Mrs. Clinton’s moves did not reflect concern about financial or political competition from Mr. Obama or others, but rather an orderly process of consultation.

“She’s very deliberate about these things,” Mr. Shearer said. “What most concerns her is, does she think she could win and really make a difference in the country.”

Yeah, right.

What concerns Hillary most is achieving her personal political goals.

She's not the Mother Teresa of Washington.

Supporters of Mr. Obama, a freshman senator from Illinois, described his New York visit as a combination of fact-finding and meet-and-greet as he considers whether to seek the Democratic nomination. They said, and political analysts echoed, that Mr. Obama acknowledged Mrs. Clinton’s home-state advantage in New York, but that there was surging interest and curiosity about Mr. Obama, an eloquent antiwar Democrat who, if successful, would be the country’s first black nominee for president.

Wait a minute--

Obama wouldn't be the country's first black nominee for president.

I thought Bill Clinton had that honor. He was the country's first black president, right? No?

I really find it stunning that this man, with only two years of U.S. Senate experience, is being touted as the Second Coming at this stage in his political career.

What has he done to warrant such attention?

It seems crazy to me that Obama is being considered to take the top spot on the Democrat Party's ticket.

The "surging interest and curiosity" is so superficial.

True, technically speaking, Hillary only has four more years of experience under her belt; but it can't be dismissed that she did play a major role in the Bill Clinton administration.

Although she's also a freshman senator like Obama, Hillary has done more than write a couple of books and deliver one important national speech.

Mr. Soros, an early supporter, was the host of a fund-raiser during Mr. Obama’s campaign for the Senate in 2004, but he has not publicly committed to any candidate for the 2008 race, said Michael Vachon, an aide to Mr. Soros. Mr. Obama’s staff asked to use the Soros space for last night’s meetings since it was near the Midtown hotel where the senator spoke at a fund-raiser for K.I.D.S. (Kids in Distressed Situations), which assists children living in poverty.

Soros is scary. He's a one man special interest group.

Why is his commitment to any candidate so newsworthy?

He has tons of money and he's willing to part with it to influence the American political scene and, in effect, the future of the Free World.

The fact that Obama's meeting with Soros is considered to be so significant exemplifies just how screwed up our system is.

McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform is a joke.

So is wanting to elect someone as inexperienced as Obama to be president.