Quotes to help unify the nation on the eve of Barack Obama's historic election victory.

"I didn't vote for him, but he's my president, and I hope he does a good job."--John Wayne, following Richard Nixon's defeat by Senator John F. Kennedy in the 1960 election.

"Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children…

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!…

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day — this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true."–The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., August 28, 1963, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement

From CNN:

November 4, 2008

McCain aides see 'no path to victory'

Posted: 7:23 PM PT

From CNN Correspondent Dana Bash

(CNN) — Two senior aides to John McCain see "no path to victory," given the night's results so far.

The two advisors, who were crunching numbers for the Republican contender, were responding to a question from CNN's Dana Bash, who has been covering the McCain campaign.

The aides asked not to named because the campaign is not commenting on internal discussions.

Three states that went Republican in 2004 have gone for Democrat Barack Obama, according to CNN projections — Iowa, New Mexico and Ohio.

In the American Political
System, the true winner of the Presidential Race
is not determined by simply adding up the vote
totals from each of the 50 states plus the
District of Columbia. No, each state and D.C.
hold its own presidential election and the
winner of each of those separate elections (all
held on the same day of course, the first
Tuesday following the first Monday in November
of a Presidential Election year), takes all of
what are called "Electoral Votes" in each state
and district. Main and Nebraska do it
differently where a portion of the electoral
votes goes to the presidential candidate who
wins each congressional district. Nationwide, a
candidate needs to win a total, from among the
states, of at least 270 electoral votes in order
to win the election to be the next President of
the United States.

The The Electoral College, as
the whole group of Electors nationwide is
called, is made up of 538 members from the 50
states and the District of Columbia. When
citizens vote for the presidential candidate of
their choice, in reality they are really voting
for a person called an "Elector" who is chosen
by the candidates' campaign organizations to
represent their candidate. For example, in
Washington State, which has a total of eleven
Electors, there are eleven people representing
the Republican candidate, John McCain, and
another eleven representing the Democratic
candidate, Barack Obama. If a majority (or even
a plurality-but that's another story) of the
state's voters choose Obama, then all eleven of
Obama's chosen representatives become that
state's official Electors. So, what happens
then? On the first Monday following the second
Wednesday in December, the Electors meet in each
state (not as a national group, but as
individual state groups), and formally cast the
"real" votes for President and Vice-President.
The official Elector's votes are then sent to
the House of Representatives where the President
of the Senate (usually the incumbent
Vice-President), officially reads the results
and declares the winner.

The rules governing the
Electoral College are found in the United States
Constitution in Article 2, Section 1, and in the
12th Amendment. Electors meet on the first
Monday following the second Wednesday in
December , which, in 2008, is December 15. These
dates are set by law in the US Code, at 3 USC
7.

ABC News reported on the night of August 22 that:

The United States Secret Service has dispatched a protective detail to assume the immediate protection of Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., a source tells ABC News, indicating in all likelihood that Biden has been officially notified that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, has selected him to be his running mate.

Joe Biden ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2004, but never advanced to the point where he received Secret Service protection.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The University of Illinois at Chicago said Friday it is releasing records of Barack Obama’s service to a nonprofit organization linked to former 1960s radical William Ayers.

Supporters of John McCain have been trying to exploit the tie between Obama and Ayers, with a McCain fundraiser donating nearly $2.9 million for an independent ad focusing on Ayers. Ayers’ Weatherman group took credit for bombings that included nonfatal blasts at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol four decades ago.

The records of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an organization that Obama chaired and that Ayers co-founded, will be made available to the public Tuesday, UIC said in a statement.

On Monday, National Review magazine posted an online article saying the university had initially declared that the records were open to inspection but that the university subsequently reversed its position.

On Tuesday, the university said that there had been a misunderstanding about the status of the collection.

The unidentified donor of the records notified the university about the absence of a signed ownership agreement last week.

The donor’s only concerns regarding the collection are due to personal information that could include names, confidential salary information and even Social Security numbers, a university spokesman said at the time.

In its latest statement, the institution said that it now has legal authority to allow public access to the material.

In the 1990s, Ayers was instrumental in starting the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which was awarded nearly $50 million by a foundation to help reform Chicago schools. Ayers is now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Obama and Ayers have other ties.

Ayers held a meet-the-candidate event at his home for Obama when Obama first ran for office in the mid-1990s. Ayers and Obama live in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood.

Ayers and Obama served together on the board of the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based charity that develops community groups to help the poor. Obama left the board in December 2002.

The new ad sponsored by American Issues Project says that Obama and Ayers served together "on a left-wing board. Why would Barack Obama be friends with someone who bombed the Capitol and is proud of it? Do you know enough to elect Barack Obama?"

According to documents filed Friday with the Federal Election Commission, the ad is being financed by Harold Simmons, a billionaire financier from Texas, who is listed as one of 235 fundraisers who raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for McCain’s presidential campaign.

Simmons also was one of the top contributors to Swift Boat Veterans and POWS for Truth, the group that aired ads questioning 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry’s service in Vietnam. Democrats have blamed those ads for helping George W. Bush defeat Kerry.

Simmons donated $3 million to the Swift Boat group.

One of the board members at American Issues Project, Ed Failor Jr., was a paid consultant for McCain’s campaign in Iowa last year.

In April, Obama said he "deplored" Ayers’ actions in the 1960s and that "by the time I met him, he is a professor of education at the University of Illinois. We served on a board together that had Republicans, bankers, lawyers, focused on education."

Associated Press writer Jim Kuhnhenn contributed to this report.

Throughout the night, reports came in that other leading possibilities, including Evan Bayh and Hillary Clinton, reported that they were not the vice-presidential picks.

MICHELLE OBAMA: The potential first lady addresses Democrats at the convention after a rocky summer as the target of conservative attacks. She was harshly criticized by Republicans for her comment that for the first time in her adult life she was proud of the United States — a comment the candidate later said was merely an expression of her pride in high voter interest. The criticism of Michelle Obama led the candidate earlier this year to call for opponents to "lay off my wife." In recent weeks, Michelle Obama has worked to soften her image, talking about raising two daughters in an interview in Ebony magazine and making a June appearance at an Ohio nursing home. Barack Obama’s half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, and Michelle Obama’s older brother, Craig Robinson, also will have roles in the convention.

HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI: The nation’s first female speaker of the House, Pelosi opens the convention. Pelosi has represented the San Francisco area in Congress since 1987. Since taking the gavel last year, Pelosi has steered a divided House through an economic stimulus package and opposition to many of President Bush’s initiatives, including an override of Bush’s veto of the 2008 farm bill. But so far she has failed to achieve a top goal since Democrats regained control of the House: halting U.S. combat missions in Iraq. The failure has led to criticism of Pelosi by liberal activists.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY: The Massachusetts senator is the subject of a five-minute recorded tribute. Diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor and recently completing radiation and chemotherapy, one of the nation’s best-known Democrats has been keeping a low public profile. The video tribute will be introduced by his niece, Caroline Kennedy.

FORMER PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: The former president and Nobel Peace Prize winner from Georgia addresses Democrats on the convention’s opening night. Some in the GOP sees Carter’s early support for Obama as an opening. Republican presidential nominee John McCain has said that if Democrats see a McCain presidency as a third term for Bush, then an Obama victory would be tantamount to a second term for Carter, who lost his 1980 re-election by a wide margin to Ronald Reagan.

SEN. CLAIRE McCASKILL: The Missouri Democrat was the first woman in the Senate to endorse Obama. She spent a week this summer on a bus tour of swing-state Missouri in support of Obama’s candidacy. McCaskill endorsed Obama just after he lost New Hampshire’s Democratic primary to Hillary Clinton, a politically risky move at the time.

REP. JESSE JACKSON JR.: The son of the civil rights activist has represented the Chicago area since a special election in 1995 and is a national co-chairman of Obama’s presidential campaign. In 2004, Jackson was an early supporter of Sen. John Kerry for his party’s presidential nomination. Party leaders say Jackson’s speech will "tell Barack Obama’s life story."

FORMER REP. LEE HAMILTON: Now president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Hamilton is a prominent Obama supporter from Indiana. After more than 30 years in Congress, Hamilton retired in 1999. He was a top Democrat on the Sept. 11 commission and co-chairman of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. Hamilton’s April endorsement of Obama helped the candidate’s camp answer the question — "Who do you want to answer the phone at 3 a.m.?" — posed by the Clinton campaign.

NANCY KEENAN: The president of NARAL Pro-Choice America angered some female voters in May by endorsing Obama, even though Clinton was still in the race. Keenan praised Clinton but said the group was endorsing Obama when it became clear he would win the Democratic nomination.

JERRY KELLMAN: The Chicago native hired Obama in the early 1980s as a community organizer for Chicago’s Developing Communities Project and is often cited as a mentor to Obama.

TOM BALANOFF: The president of the Illinois Service Employees International Union also burnishes Obama’s labor credentials. Balanoff has praised Obama’s votes against trade deals such as the Central America Free Trade Agreement.

REG WEAVER: Weaver leads the nation’s largest teachers’ union, the National Education Association. The teachers’ union did not endorse Obama until June, after Obama secured the Democratic nomination. "As long as (Clinton) was a viable candidate in the Democratic nomination process, many of our members felt a passionate need to return the loyalty she has earned over decades of support," Weaver wrote at the time.

RANDI WEINGARTEN: Weingarten is president of the American Federation of Teachers. The 1.4 million-member union endorsed Clinton last October but now backs Obama. Despite support for Obama from both teachers unions, not all educators are happy with Obama, who has spoken in favor of performance-based merit pay for individual public school teachers.

LISA MADIGAN: Illinois’ attorney general has at times been mentioned as a candidate to replace Obama in the U.S. Senate for the remaining two years of his term if he wins the presidency.

DAN HYNES: Like Madigan, Illinois’ comptroller has been mentioned as a possible Obama successor in the Senate. Hynes unsuccessfully challenged Obama for the 2004 Democratic Senate nomination but has since been a major Illinois supporter of Obama’s.

ALEXI GIANNOULIAS: The Illinois treasurer was backed by Obama, an endorsement that helped the banking heir win his seat. In return, Giannoulias helped Obama win support among Greek voters in the Chicago area and has raised more than $250,000 for Obama.

MIGUEL DEL VALLE: Chicago’s city clerk rounds out Monday’s group of Illinois officials talking up the candidate from their home state.

JOHN HICKENLOOPER: Democrats salute host city Denver with a speaking slot for the city’s Democratic mayor.

Source:

http://news.yahoo.com/story//ap/20080822/ap_on_el_pr/convention_speakers_monday_2

Paris Hilton, the bikini-clad celebrity debutante, today aired a video response to John McCain’s unauthorized use of her image in a campaign commercial. Hilton’s video, released on the website Funny or Die, compares John McCain to other older Americans, such as the Golden Girls, Colonel Sanders, Larry King, and Yoda, before then cutting to an image of the white-haired Republican candidate. Paris Hilton, whose…Read Rest of the Story

Rumors of an Edwards affair with Hunter have surfaced before, but this, if confirmed, would be more than a rumor. Video is said to exist of Hunter entering a hotel room, and then of Edwards leaving the same room later.

John Edwards is married, and his wife, Elizabeth is battling an incurable form of cancer. Edwards suspended his presidential campaign in January, after defeats in the early primaries and caucuses. He has endorsed Barack Obama, and has been mentioned as a possible vice-presidential candidate, a role he played in the 2004 election. Any talk of Edwards running on a national ticket as the veep again, is now sure to end whether this hotel tyst story turns out to be true or not.

Guard Confirms Late-Night Hotel Encounter Between Ex-Sen. John Edwards, Tabloid Reporters–FOX News

John Edwards’ Concession (text and video) Speech–Jan. 30, 2008

As of Sunday 2/10, 5:45 PM

Statewide Results 2008 Precinct Caucuses:

Number of Precincts Reporting =93.3 %

McCain =25.4 %

Huckabee =23.8 %

Paul =20.7 %

Romney (suspended campaign)=16.7 %

Other 1.0 %

Uncommitted 12.3 %

Source: Washington State Republican Party: Caucus Results