By Kevin Ross
It was March 20, 2007 and we still had not figured out how to enlarge photos or add embedded video. But we knew Barack Obama would forever change the face of politics. 3BAAS Media Group has been through a lot over the last 21 months. Yet the one constant has been that each of us was hoping and praying and truly believing in this biracial brother from Illinois.
After just seeing Barack and his wife Michelle vote, I couldn't help but feel a bit of nostalgia today. So under the hood, read the very first stories we posted on our site. And more importantly, VOTE! Not for Obama, but for the spiritual journey that our ancestors have taken in this place called America. We honor them today, and the tomorrow our children are racing towards!
By Bill Schechner
(CBS 5) OAKLAND Illinois Senator Barack Obama is closing in on Senator Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. One poll shows Obama trailing Clinton by just five points.With a tight eight-piece funk band establishing the mood, national and local press covering the event, the Senator from Illinois got set to deliver his speech at an appearance in Oakland on Saturday."All right…
This is a good looking crowd, too," Obama said to the crowd.When the history of the campaign is written, March 2007 will be the month Barack Obama undid, at least for the moment, the inevitability of the Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee despite her organization."She has the support of the most popular president in modern history, and it's still not enough at this point to make Obama be three paragraph's down in the news story instead of being right next to her in the same paragraph," said CBS 5 Political Analyst Joe Tuman.
Obama has overcome several obstacles. He is of mixed race, which some say therefore not a genuinely African-American candidate.The appearance of old-line national black political leader and now Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums at the Obama rally helped quiet that discussion, so does 10,000 people."His appearance in Oakland was one of the kinds of things he needs to do to shore up African-American voters as a block for him," Tuman said.The creepy and nasty attack ad now on YouTube, using an old apple ad, to portray Clinton as a controlling politician, while disavowed by Obama could have backfired.
Instead, it has brought nearly half-a-million showings.People in Oakland brightened a bit when asked about Obama. They said they thought he understood, and it was time for him. Outside a church on 14th Street, CBS 5 talked to Roshawna Tibbs, a 22-year-old registered voter."We need a black president. There are black secretaries. Black people working in the white house. Why not have a black president?" Tibbs said. "Is it a pride thing? I wouldn't call it that. I'd call it a fair thing." But Tibbs also said many people in her neighborhood said the system would never let it happen.
LETTER FROM WASHINGTON
By Steven Thomma, McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON - The most liberal member of Congress running for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination isn't Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio.
It's Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.
And the Republican candidate who's grown less conservative over his years in Congress? Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
Those are among the interesting findings in a recent analysis of votes by all the members of Congress who are running for president. They cut to the heart of debates going on among activists in both major parties: Can a liberal Democrat win a general election? Which Republican is ideologically pure enough to win support from conservatives?
The study, released this month by the National Journal, a respected inside-the-Beltway research report, will help voters cut through the spin and hype of TV sound bites in coming months and judge these candidates for themselves.
Unlike TV commercials that focus on a single vote, these rankings are based on comprehensive voting records. The 2006 scores, for example, were based on as many as 95 votes on such issues as federal spending, tax cuts, the war in Iraq, embryonic stem-cell research and border security.
On the Democratic side, the analysis of "lifetime" voting records shows Obama as the most liberal with a score of 84.3 after two full years in the Senate. The most liberal score possible was 99.
The lifetime liberal scores for the other Democrats:
-Kucinich, 79.4
-Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, 79.2
-Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, 78.8
-Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, 76.8
The rankings differ if you look only at their 2006 scores. That year Kucinich edged Obama by one point as the most liberal, and Clinton was the least liberal, as she sought re-election and prepared to launch her presidential campaign.
Their ideological purity also varies by issue areas.
Obama, for example, is more liberal on economic and foreign policy issues and slightly less liberal on social policies. Clinton and Dodd are most liberal on social policy questions, less so on economic and foreign policy votes.
Biden is most liberal on economics, much less so on foreign policy.
The most conservative member of Congress seeking the Republican nomination - based on lifetime voting records - is Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, with a score of 82.5. The most conservative score possible was 99.
Lifetime scores for the other Republicans:
-Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, 81
-Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, 75.9
-Sen. John McCain of Arizona, 71.8
-Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, 71.5
-Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, 51.7
The year-to-year scores can reveal consistency or change. McCain, for example, grew increasingly less conservative in recent years. He started with annual conservative scores consistently in the 80s when he first went to the Senate in 1987, dipped to the 70s during the mid-1990s, into the 60s in the late 1990s and into the 50s starting in 2004.
The GOP candidates' votes also reveal big differences issue to issue.
Brownback, for example, got a score of 53 on social issues for his 2006 votes and a 92 for votes on economic issues.
Hagel, too, got lower conservative marks for social issues and higher conservative scores for economic and foreign policy votes.
McCain got a 46 for social issues - left of center - and more conservative grades for economic and foreign policy issues.
For more on the National Journal scorecard, http://nationaljournal.com/voteratings/