From The Road
May 21, 2008 3:41 PM

Obama Returns To Florida, Focuses On General Election

By
Maria Gavrilovic
Topics
Barack Obama
(CBS)
From CBS News' Maria Gavrilovic:

TAMPA, FLA. -- On his first campaign stop in Florida since last August, Barack Obama failed to address an issue that is on the minds of many state Democrats - what to do with the Florida delegates. In the past he has said that the delegates will be seated at the Denver convention and that his campaign is currently negotiating some sort of an agreement with the party. However, at his largest rally ever in the state, the issue was noticeably absent.

Obama told supporters that his campaign has already reached a threshold in the nominating process. "Last night I was in Iowa because we marked a significant moment in our campaign where we achieved a majority of the pledged delegates that are assigned in this election," he said. "And, so, we are at the threshold of being able to obtain this nomination."

He vowed that the Democrats will be unified in November, and praised Hillary Clinton for the strides that her campaign has achieved. "She has broken through barriers and will open up opportunity for a lot of people including my two young daughters," Obama said.

The focus of Obama's remarks today clearly was the general election and John McCain. Obama hit McCain on his position on lobbyists and accused him of flip flopping on the issue. "I'll tell you that John McCain then would be pretty disappointed with John McCain now because he hired some of the biggest lobbyists in Washington to run (his) campaign."

The McCain campaign was quick to respond to the assertions, calling on Obama to disclose a list of lobbyists who work for his campaign. "It's absurd, despite his own rhetoric, Senator Obama still refuses to disclose the list of lobbyists advising his campaign. What is Senator Obama hiding?," McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds asked in a written statement to reporters.

Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the campaign does not employ anyone who is currently a federally registered lobbyist. "Anyone who was a former lobbyist had to file termination papers," Psaki said, "that has been the case since this beginning."

She said it is "ironic" that the McCain campaign has brought up the issue after five members of McCain's staff resigned because their lobbyist ties.

Add a Comment
by truthyness May 22, 2008 3:32 PM EDT
In a recent picture of Obama, he''s walking with a book in his left hand with his finger in between two pages as if to mark the page. The book is by Fareed Zakaria, entitled The Post-American World.....Post-American?? Post????
The idea here seems to be that as America''s power diminishes, we should set back and do nothing in the hopes that the rest of the world will like us so much that they''ll still let us be a world leader....a pretty wild liberal dream. This seems to go along with a lot of Obama''s ideas...like destroying our Nuclear Arms and them asking the rest of the world to destroy theirs as he said in the last debate he had with Hillary. No wonder he doesn''t want to debate Hillary any more. Open mouth and insert foot disease is not unknown to him. Perhaps the title of his next book.

Obama''s liberalism will lose him and the Democrates the White House.

America wants nothing to do with a POST American candidate.

Vote for America!! Vote for Hillary!!

(if not Hillary, then McCain)
Reply to this comment
by Lai K W May 21, 2008 10:58 PM EDT
He and his campaign suggested to split the pledged delegates evenly which means honour the delegates and screw the people who vote.

Now he knows that he would lose in the general election if, by any chance, nominated. He is begging at the door. A typical politician, aint he?

Let the people tell him FL and MI are not for the screwball who ignore their civil right of people.

All votes should be counted and all voices should be heard. This is democracy. How comes I have the feeling that the democratic party is against democracy; they ignore the poor and the working class; they stumps for the affluent. They don''t make sens.e
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