Obama Shuts Out Bill Clinton; Dumps Party Unity

Original Link: http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/08/03/obama-shuts-out-bill-clinton-dumps-party-unity/

By Larry Johnson

Remember that Senator from Illinois? No, not Barack. I mean Abe. Unlike Barack–who is petty and small minded–Abraham Lincoln recognized the need for graciousness and charity in binding of the wounds of a nation wracked by civil war. So how tough can it be to calm the waters from a bruising Democratic primary in which no one died? Seems that task is way too difficult for Barack. Instead of promoting Democratic coalition politics and political unity, Obama has decided to ignore Bill Clinton. He won’t pick up the phone, not interested in advice, and apparently is too self-absorbed to realize that even Bill Clinton might have some value in a national election.

What does Obama think he’s doing? Is Obama waiting to fall far behind John McCain before he picks up the phone to ask Bill Clinton what he might do? Is he waiting before he’s behind in the swing states before the convention?

How does Obama propose to rally the Democratic Party base? Does he imagine that his personality to so attractive that he doesn’t need a united party? Instead of forging a unified party, he is building a cult of personality.

Supposedly, it will trump the tried and true ways of winning. Forget about putting together the alliances that have won in the past. Obama will simply stun us into dream-like worship and enthusiasm.

Attention, Obamabots! What if this is Obama’s game plan and there isn’t another one. What if the McCain campaign has him dead-on. What if the media can’t win it for Obama? Worried yet? Still in denial?

SEE the Washington Post.

With a negligible relationship with Sen. Barack Obama — he has spoken to him just once since the primaries — Clinton has been shut out of the Obama campaign almost entirely and does not know even basic things, such as the role he will play at the Democratic convention.

That projected surplus was a priceless gift to the White House. It offered the Bush administration ample scope for outlays on homeland security and other unforeseen priorities, and moderate tax cuts as well, all within a budget balanced over the course of the business cycle. Instead, the administration knowingly opted for outrageous fiscal excess - adding insult to injury with its phoney tax-cut sunset provisions, designed for no other purpose than to disguise the long-term fiscal implications. Eight years on, this startling record of fiscal irresponsibility has all but taken fiscal policy off the table as an available response to the slowdown.

The US economy had better have luck on its side. Luck is about all it has left.