The Agreement and the road ahead

 

The deal, which took two days of intense diplomacy by chief mediator Kofi Annan and Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, was struck after the two protagonists — President Kibaki and ODM leader Raila Odinga —  ignored the views of hard-liners in their camps to give Kenyans a coalition agreement that would see the Opposition share power with the government.

At an exclusive meeting in Harambee House, both leaders ceded ground to arrive at a power-sharing agreement that created the position of a prime minister who will exercise some authority on government.

Sources said that Mr Annan decided to deal directly with President Kibaki and Mr Odinga after realising that the two may not have been getting accurate briefs on the progress of the negotiations from their teams.

It is not yet clear what may have prompted President Kibaki’s change of heart over his earlier stated stand on the creation of a PM’s post which he had emphasised only hours before the deal was sealed on Thursday.

However, a source close to the President said on Friday: “A time comes when a leader must take the hard decisions on his own and what happened yesterday (Thursday) was one such moment. The President rose above party interests to make a decision for Kenya.”

Mr Annan with fellow mediators, Graca Machel and Benjamin Mkapa: Their work done, Wako is now the point of focus.

Chief mediator Kofi Annan leaves the country on Sunday as the task of transforming the historic Harambee House deal into law shifts to Attorney-General Amos Wako and Parliament.

Mr Annan, the man who for 41 days embodied Kenya’s hopes peace, leaves subsequent mediation efforts in the hands of former Nigerian foreign minister Oluyemi Adeniji.

The AG and four other lawyers, who are part of the Serena mediation process, will now draft the necessary Bills to amend the Constitution and accommodate the National Accord and Reconciliation Act 2008 signed on the steps of Harambee House into the country’s statute books.

Both PNU and ODM have scheduled meetings ahead of the opening of Parliament Thursday to marshal their troops behind the deal struck between President Kibaki and ODM leader Raila Odinga on Thursday, setting the stage for a major reorganisation of the government structure.

The five draftsmen are Mr Wako, Ugenya MP James Orengo, his Mbooni counterpart Mutula Kilonzo and the mediation team’s joint secretaries Karoli Omondi and Dr Gichira Kibaara.

The team will identify the sections of law that require amendment and how those that run counter to the Annan deal can be adapted to accommodate the new changes.

The team is expected to draft the necessary Bills in a manner that will require only minimum debate and publish them before the State opening of Parliament.

As the spotlight turned on the Wako team, representatives of the European Union and the African Union appealed to parliamentarians not to let Kenyans down but to ensure that the delicate process is completed.

After the signing of the accord, it is now necessary to amend certain sections of the Constitution to accommodate the establishment of the offices of prime minister and two deputies and define the character and functions of those offices.

The creation of the new posts is inconsistent with the current Constitution, hence the reason for the amendment. Lawyers who have scrutinised the agreement told the Sunday Nation that if enacted under the current charter, the Accord Agreement would be null and void.

It is expected that debate will start with the proposed changes to the Constitution before Parliament turns to those dealing with ordinary Acts of Parliament affected by the deal.

However, for the purposes of these Bills and the fact that the President has already convened the House earlier than anticipated, it is clear to every player that the two Bills are being given priority.

 

Kenya Today: Nationmedia.com

Obama's Grandmother Dreams

She dreams for electricity, water and a new road...

"What we hope is that with his Kenyan and Africa roots we will see some of the fruits of his power, like electricity, water and a new road"

Dreams from Obama's Grandmother

Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2008 By ROB CRILLY/KOGELO

Sarah Anyango Obama, step-grandmother of Barack Obama, outside her home in Kogela, Kenya.

Kate Holt / EPA

Several thousand miles and a world away, Barack Obama is campaigning to change American politics. But in the tiny farmstead where his father used to herd goats, his Kenyan relatives are praying for anything but more political upheaval. "We are spending sleepless nights praying that peace will prevail," says the 86-year-old woman whom the presidential contender calls Granny Sarah.

From the air, Kenya is a country on fire. Plumes of blue smoke rise from villages across the Rift Va...

The Obamas' home has been spared the violence that has wracked Kenya since President Mwai Kibaki was sworn in for a controversial second term two months ago. More than 1,000 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands more uprooted, forced to return to their tribal homelands as waves of political violence brought decades of ethnic tension into the open.

Outside the Obama home, calves are grazing on the thick green grass that grows here in one of Kenya's most fertile regions. Plowed fields stand ready to be sown with maize. And scrawny chickens peck for grubs in the shade of mango trees. Inside, Granny Sarah's simple sitting room is plastered with black-and-white photographs of Obama Senior — the stepson she raised as her own — alongside Obama Junior's campaign posters.

Her eyes sparkle as she talks of her pride at his success and how he will make a fine President. "He is very loving and very hardworking and never had to be told what to do," she says, pointing out a photograph of a young, gangly Obama with a sack of vegetables over his shoulder during his first visit to Kenya. "Even though he is very learned, he's a very good listener and respects the opinions of others." A chicken wanders in through the open door and Granny Sarah hauls herself out of her chair to shoo it away.

As she settles back down, Granny Sarah, a non-practicing Muslim whose real name is Sarah Anyango Obama, says: "The senior Barack was a great friend of President Kibaki and also with Raila Odinga, so if Barry becomes President of America he will be well placed to help find peace." (Violence broke out in Kenya after Raila Odinga, the leader of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement, accused Kibaki of stealing the election. It opened up tribal fissures that many thought Kenya had long ago moved beyond. On Feb. 28, after on-again-off-again negotiations led by former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, the two bitter rivals agreed to form a coalition government.) While there is simple pride at Obama's rise to prominence in the U.S., there has also been hope that his influence could go a long way toward calming the country's political turmoil. He has kept in regular touch with his relatives here for updates.

The Obamas live about an hour's drive — first on potholed asphalt roads then on a rutted dirt track into the village of Kogelo — from the city of Kisumu, the center of opposition support, standing on the shores of Lake Victoria. The population here is Luo, arch-rivals of President Kibaki's Kikuyu tribe. Angry mobs torched shops, bars and garages belonging to Kikuyu businessmen and forced their families to board buses for their tribal homelands in Central Kenya. In spite of the apparent political breakthrough in the capital Nairobi, the anger remains even if the mobs have been called off for now.

Every street corner in Kogelo hosts a political debate. It usually starts with a discussion of Kenya's crisis before moving on quickly to the chances of a Luo son moving into the White House. Maurice Kogode is the chairman of the grandly named Central Square Consultation Forum, which meets beneath a vast jacaranda tree. He says Obama's message of hope and change designed for voters in America also offers inspiration to young Kenyans. "Too many politicians here have an egocentric mind and they just won't give in," says Kogode. "They protect their own interests, not the majority."

In a country where politics has become a byword for corruption and tribal loyalty, Obama offers a different model, he explains. Instead of a leader who would use power to ensure his supporters get their turn at the trough, showering jobs, grants and contracts on family, he is seen by many as a President who would govern in the interests of all.

Not everyone sees it that way, though. A steady stream of would-be economic migrants has been arriving at Granny Sarah's door seeking an American visa. Almost every day she has to explain that the U.S. embassy in Nairobi is the only place that can make their American dream come true. (There's been a steady stream of journalists as well, so many that appointments now have to be made in advance before Granny Sarah will see them.) But even Granny Sarah admits to harboring secret hopes of a local windfall if Obama's momentum carries him all the way to America's highest office. "What we hope is that with his Kenyan and Africa roots we will see some of the fruits of his power, like electricity, water and a new road," she says simply in her native Luo language.

Dreams from Obama's Grandmother - TIME

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Obama’s Kenyan Roots - New York Times

 

Obama’s Kenyan Roots

Naka Nathaniel/The New York Times

The Obama home in Kogelo, Kenya. Published: February 24, 2008

KOGELO, Kenya

A barefoot old woman in a ripped dress is sitting on a log in front of her tin-roof bungalow in this remote village in western Kenya, jovially greeting visitors.

Mama Sarah, as she is known around here, lives without electricity or running water. She is illiterate and doesn’t know when she was born. Yet she may have a seat of honor at the next presidential inauguration in Washington — depending on what happens to her stepgrandson, Barack Obama.

Mama Sarah cannot communicate with Mr. Obama, who calls her his grandmother, because she speaks only her Luo tribal language and a little Swahili. Senator Obama’s Luo is pretty much limited to “musawa,” meaning “how are you?”

People around here are giddy at the prospect of a President Obama.

“I’m up at 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. to listen to BBC news and get the latest on the campaign,” said Nicholas Rajula, who describes himself as a cousin of the senator. “By the way, what’s the latest news about the superdelegates?”

You might think that all Kenyans would be vigorously supporting Mr. Obama. But Kenya has been fractured along ethnic lines in the last two months, so now Mr. Obama draws frenzied support from the Luo ethnic group of his ancestors, while many members of the rival Kikuyu group fervently support Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The Obamas are better off than most in the area, for Mama Sarah’s house has a tin roof — a step up from the mud huts with thatch roofs that are common in the village. Mama Sarah also has a cellphone, which she charges from a solar panel, and a radio that she uses to follow primaries in America.

But the poverty is unmistakable. Jane Raila, who says she is another relative of the senator, was hobbling barefoot with a homemade crutch, for she had been crippled by polio as a child. “We’re all very excited by the news from the U.S.,” she said. “We stay up late to listen to the news bulletins.”

Mr. Obama’s late grandfather is said to have been the first person in the area to wear Western clothes rather than just a loincloth. For a time he converted to Christianity and adopted the family name Johnson.

Later he converted to Islam, taking four wives. Senator Obama’s father, who apparently converted to Catholicism while attending a Catholic school, was also polygamous in keeping with local custom, taking an informal Kenyan wife who preceded Mr. Obama’s mother but remained a consort, according to accounts by local people and the senator himself.

The father, also named Barack Hussein Obama, was as much of a pathbreaker as his son. He went from herding goats in Kogelo to studying in Hawaii and at Harvard, even if his career as an economist was frustrated in part by ethnic rivalries.

Senator Obama barely knew his father and does not know his Kenyan relatives well. He has visited Kenya three times, most recently very briefly in 2006.

On his last visit, Mr. Obama visited two area schools that had been renamed for him. The intention in renaming the schools seems to have been partly to attract funding. One person after another noted pointedly that it was a shame that a school named for a great American should be so dilapidated.

Some of Mr. Obama’s innumerable relatives also see him as a meal ticket. They have made arrangements with a tour group to bring buses of visitors to have tea with Mama Sarah.

They are also trying to raise money from interviews with her. I had made arrangements to visit Mama Sarah weeks ago, and she had agreed to speak. But when I showed up, she said that her children had told her to keep quiet. Frantic phone calls. Fierce arguments. Hints that money might make an interview possible. I didn’t pay. I didn’t get the interview.

That’s O.K. Having seen the poverty in Kogelo, I’m less offended by the outstretched palms than awed by the distance that the Obama family spans.

Frankly, I worry that enemies of Senator Obama will seize upon details like his grandfather’s Islamic faith or his father’s polygamy to portray him as an alien or a threat to American values. But snobbishness and paranoia ill-become a nation of immigrants, where one of our truest values is to judge people by their own merits, not their pedigrees. If we call ourselves a land of opportunity, then Mr. Obama’s heritage doesn’t threaten American values but showcases them.

The stepgrandson of an illiterate, barefoot woman in this village of mud huts in Africa may be the next president of the United States. Such mobility — powered by education, immigration and hard work — is cause not for disparagement but for celebration.

I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground

Obama’s Kenyan Roots - New York Times

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Looking at ‘our’ Senator Obama in an African way

 

WHAT OTHERS SAY: Looking at ‘our’ Senator Obama in an African way
Story by CHARLES ONYANGO-OBBO
Publication Date: 2/21/2008

IN THE PART OF AFRICA WHERE  I come from, the older relatives (particularly in the village) used to judge the failings of children in a manner that was very unfair to their mothers.

If a child failed her examinations in school, they would say she is “stupid like the mother”. If she topped the class, they would say she takes after her father — or one of her paternal relatives.

They will say this with a straight face, even if it’s common knowledge that the father dropped out of school to become a businessman, and it’s her bright mother who graduated from university with flying colours, therefore the child probably takes after her.

If, in her rebellious adolescent years, she jumped over the fence to go to a party against her parents’ wishes, they would claim that “she is badly behaved like the mother”, or an aunt on the mother’s side.

But if she were an “obedient” child who helps out in the local church, then she would have taken after her father. Never mind that he is a hard-drinking bloke who hasn’t attended prayers of any kind for years.

This approach towards assessing children’s character and abilities allowed generations of, sometimes largely incompetent, African men to maintain some dignity and respect despite their many failures.

It also reinforced the patriarchal architecture of society by enabling the husband’s side of the marriage to look always better than the wife’s.

We tell this story because we have to comment on the stunning success that Senator Barack Obama is enjoying in his quest to be the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate in the US elections in November.

If he keeps up his present winning streak, then he is going to whip Senator Hillary Clinton to take the prize. And, though at this point it sounds too good to be true, opinion polls say that if the election were held today, Obama would beat the man who will almost definitely be the Republic Party candidate, John McCain, to become America’s first black president.

Senator Obama was born to Barack Hussein Obama, a good Kenyan man from Kogelo, Alego, in Nyanza, and an American mother, Stanley Ann Dunham.

When he came to Kenya in 2006, and visited his ancestral home (there was that memorable hug with his 85-year-old grandmother Sarah), they were the headiest days in Alego.

According to The Times, there are prayers aplenty for Obama’s good fortunes in Kogelo.

THE PAPER QUOTED HIS UNCLE, Said Obama, apparently not a particularly cosmopolitan gentleman, saying in apparent reference to leader Raila Odinga’s claim that he was cheated out of the presidency by President Kibaki in the December polls, a claim which the president vigorously denies, that: “Now we are praying for Obama’s success... even if we never get a Luo in Kenya’s State House, we may have one soon in the White House”.

Nyanza is, of course, nowhere near Illinois that Obama represents in the Senate, and Kenya is a far cry from the US. Still, he must be the most famous person with Kenyan ancestry in the world today, and could soon be the most powerful “Kenyan” to walk the earth.

So one wonders how the elders in my village would call this one; does his father’s genes, or his mother’s account for Obama’s success?

There are no rewards for guessing what his grandmother and relatives think, but after the post-election genocidal, ethnic fury, it has become that much harder to argue that the Kenyan blood flowing in Obama’s veins is what accounts for his success.

To the Americans, Obama’s case is clearly one of those where the child is the product of a strong-willed mother, and not a deadbeat dad. But it’s not too late for Kenya to settle this matter.

Look at it this way. Barely two months ago, Kenya, as The Economist put it, was an admirable example for Africa. After the disputed polls, many have been quick to write it off as “another African basket case”.

But now there are the Kofi Annan-mediated talks between the Government (Party of National Unity) and the opposition ODM, to resolve the post-election impasse through a “power” or “responsibility” sharing deal.

A settlement that allows Kenya to get back to work and to exorcise the  demons that plunged it into crisis might see the country being touted as the “comeback African nation” by the end of the year.

It might look unlikely today, but it’s not impossible. One would have said the same thing of  Obama a year ago.

A first-time senator with no experience in government or foreign policy; a black man in a country with a history of racism that is still fresh in the memory of civil rights activists, running against a Clinton. It looked like his goose was cooked.

Methinks if the country bounces back and gets on a high roll, and Obama wins the American presidency, it will be hard to deny that the Illinois senator has a

Nationmedia.com | Daily Nation | COMMENTARY | WHAT OTHERS SAY: Looking at ‘our’ Senator Obama in an African way

Clinton accuses Obama of weak resume

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton accused surging rival Barack Obama of having a weak resume and using borrowed rhetoric in his speeches as she tried to slow Obama's momentum at a crucial debate on Thursday.

Clinton, her political life on the line based on whether she can gain big victories in Texas and Ohio on March 4, went on the attack about halfway into an otherwise genteel debate that featured some differences on how to deal with Cuba without Fidel Castro in charge.

The New York senator ridiculed Obama for using uplifting rhetoric in his stump speeches that had already been used by a supporter, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

"If your candidacy is going to be about words, then it should be your own words," she said.

She said Obama's message was not "change you can believe in, it's change you can Xerox."

Obama, an Illinois senator trying to make no mistakes at the CNN/Univision debate and endanger his front-running status, said the fuss over the lines he used from Patrick was "silly season" politics.

Scolding Clinton, he said Democrats should not be spending time "tearing each other down" but rather "lifting the country up."

Obama has a growing lead in pledged convention delegates who will choose the Democratic candidate at the August convention.  Continued... 

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Obama and Clinton square off in Wisconsin

19 Feb 2008

By Steve Holland and Claudia Parsons

Clinton accuses Obama of weak resume | Politics | Reuters

Obama in Pictures

 

Politics in Wisconsin

 

Traditions aside, candidates stressing their ability to win

Barak Obama spoke at the Wisconsin Democratic Party Dinner Saturday. Most polls show him holding a narrow lead in the state. (Rick Bowmer/Associated Press)

Email|Print| Text size – + By Sasha Issenberg

Globe Staff / February 18, 2008

MILWAUKEE - Perhaps more than anywhere else in the country, voters in Wisconsin have for a century rewarded idiosyncrasy over ideological consistency, investing in candidates for state and federal office who project integrity, passion, and forthrightness - the same type of character-based appeal that has fueled the candidacies of Barack Obama and John McCain.

MORE POLITICAL COVERAGE

• Political tenor shifts in Wisconsin
• Obama goes to N.C. to meet with Edwards
• McCain says he won't raise taxes if elected
• Clinton camp hits Obama on credibility

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• Christopher Marcisz Watching democracy in action
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• McCain gains Michigan, Louisiana delegates
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• With "Yes We Can," Obama rides wave of enthusiasm
• Bill Clinton: Choose record not speeches

 

At the same time, the once reliably Democratic state in presidential elections - it has been blue since Michael Dukakis carried it convincingly in 1988 - has become more conservative, and George W. Bush came within thousands of votes of winning it in 2000 and 2004.

As a result, candidates campaigning in tomorrow's primaries in both parties are emphasizing a particularly un-Wisconsin trait: their ability to win in November.

In dueling, back-to-back speeches at a Democratic Party dinner Saturday night in Milwaukee, Hillary Clinton said she would be the best candidate to "go toe to toe" against McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, while Obama said that his opposition to the Iraq war would offer the clearest distinction between the two parties.

Most polls have shown Obama holding a narrow lead in Wisconsin. Clinton, running as a defender of the Democratic order, is counting on a conservative streak among the state's party regulars to surprise Obama and break his run of eight straight primary and caucus victories before Ohio and Texas vote March 4.

Wisconsin's political culture is not adapting easily to the ascendance of arguments about electability.

At the Saturday Democratic dinner, filled with activists and union leaders, a Democratic Party official began by saluting a former Republican governor and senator. Senator Russ Feingold offered praise for his legislative partner, McCain. And a congresswoman giving a rah-rah speech proclaimed Wisconsin as "a deeply purple state."

Across town the previous night, it would have been foolish to make any assumptions about the partisan leanings of a man wearing a fire-engine red fedora and two American flags in the pocket of his pinstriped gray suit - even if he sat at a table purchased by a Republican party boss at an annual Reagan Day dinner.

"I'm a flaming independent," said Alan D. Eisenberg, a lawyer, real estate broker and former Reform Party candidate for governor who was invited to the fish-fry banquet at American Serb Hall by his friend Bob Spindell, chairman of the local Republican Party. "Spindell draws me to McCain, my wife draws me to Obama. I also like Hillary."

The primary process rewards such wide-ranging indecision. Voters, including those who choose to register on Election Day arrive at polling places without a declared partisan affiliation and are offered a single ballot offering them presidential choices from both parties.

That open-endedness carries over into the general election, where ticket-splitting is common, according to state representative Thomas Nelson, a Democrat elected in 2004 to a Green Bay district that Bush won by twelve pointsContinued...

"I just observed the voters and how deliberative they were," he said, recalling that first race. "They had six races and each voter took a few minutes to go through it."

Both Democrats and Republicans say that mentality will offer an opening in November for McCain, whose liberal positions on the environment, his attacks on federal spending, and work with Feingold on campaign finance legislation have given him an unusually strong crossover appeal to Wisconsin Democrats and independents.

"There's a much stronger awareness about his positions than most of the other candidates, clearly because of his alignment with Feingold. People have admired his stance on campaign reform," said Alan LaFreniere, a retired corporate executive and Democratic party volunteer in Mequon, a Milwaukee suburb.

"There's a terrific opportunity here for McCain. He fits the mold of a Wisconsin independent," said former Senator Robert Kasten, a Republican who initially supported Rudy Giuliani and last week endorsed McCain, but struggled to describe what made his candidate such a good fit. "I don't know if it's possible to be a 'populist conservative,' " he mused.

Those attempting to categorize the political leanings of Wisconsin voters often fall back on a historical roll call of successful eccentrics, winners in a hundred-year war against the idea that electability can be easily characterized.

The Republican Party launched both progressive champion Robert LaFollette and anti-Communist crusader Joseph McCarthy, within a generation of each other.

Democrats produced William Proxmire, a legislative spendthrift who bestowed "Golden Fleece" awards on wasteful projects; Patrick Lucey, a governor who ran for vice president with a Republican on an independent ticket; and Feingold, who stood alone to his party's left by opposing the Patriot Act and to its right by voting for an impeachment count against Bill Clinton.

"It's a maverick kind of state - we like independents and fiscal conservatism," said Kasten.

McCain faces a continued primary challenge tomorrow from former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who has campaigned intensively in the state but took a detour to the Cayman Islands to give a paid speech just as a massive weekend snowstorm was scheduled to arrive in Wisconsin. Despite lagging in statewide polls, Huckabee could pick up delegates by carrying some of the state's western congressional districts, which are more rural and have a growing evangelical population.

On the Democratic side, Obama is counting on a coalition of urban blacks in Milwaukee, Kenosha, and Racine joined with white liberals around Madison who are drawn to his antiwar, reform message.

In addition to Wisconsin, Obama was also hoping to win tomorrow's caucuses in Hawaii, where he was born. He entered the week with a slight lead in pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention, according to an Associated Press count.

Obama, who has done well with white men in other states, may struggle to win over Wisconsin's Reagan Democrats, the blue-collar, white-ethnic voters who have long been guardians of the cultural status quo and have been Clinton's core supporters.

They received the Reagan name after the incumbent president visited Serb Hall in his 1984 reelection campaign, the first Republican ever to seek votes at a venue long associated with urban Democratic politics.

"You have a large constituency of people who vote against change," said John Norquist, a former Milwaukee mayor who represented the neighborhood surrounding Serb Hall while a state legislator. "They vote in Democratic primaries, but sometimes vote Republican in the fall."

Fighting over a confused electorate, the Democratic candidates have not stuck only to their electability arguments, and have engaged in some of their most unpredictably contentious campaigning in the past week.

Clinton and Obama explored issue differences over trade agreements, healthcare, and economic policy, but it was a matter of electoral protocol that elicited the pair's first exchange of negative ads this year: Obama's rejection of Clinton's offer to debate in Wisconsin.

© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.

• Political tenor shifts in Wisconsin - The Boston Globe

Obama rides momentum

 

Obama rides momentum before "Potomac Primaries"

By JoAnne Allen

WASHINGTON, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama is riding a burst of momentum into Tuesday's U.S. presidential nominating contests with a string of weekend wins, while Republican John McCain received praise from onetime rival President George W. Bush as he tries to woo conservatives.

Locked in a deadlocked state-by-state battle with Obama for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton replaced her campaign manager after Saturday's losses to the Illinois senator.

Obama, who would be the first black president, scored a win in Maine on Sunday after sweeping caucuses in Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington a day earlier.

"We have now won on the Atlantic coast, we've won on the North Coast, we've won on the Pacific Coast, and we've won in between those coasts," Obama said at a rally in Virginia Beach, Virginia after the Maine results were announced.

The Clinton staff shake-up came before the "Potomac Primary" on Tuesday when both parties hold contests in the U.S. capital and in neighboring Maryland and Virginia.

At a rally at a university in Bowie, Maryland, Clinton told the audience their choice "matters this year more than ever" and they should "pick a Democratic nominee who has been tested and vetted and can go the distance against John McCain."

Clinton, a New York senator who would be the first woman president, did not mention Obama's Maine victory nor did she discuss the staff shake-up.

Clinton named Maggie Williams, a top aide when she was first lady, to take over as campaign manager from Patti Solis Doyle, who was moved into the role of senior adviser.

Larry Sabato, a political science professor at the University of Virginia, said the shuffle indicated Clinton and her aides are concerned about the direction of her campaign.

"If you're the ocean liner of the Hillary Clinton campaign and you're trying to change course, this is how you would do it," he said. "All of the pieces are changing."

While Clinton may be in a bit of trouble, "It's not over," Sabato said, adding that if she does well in Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania, she could win the nomination.

Clinton and Obama have been about even in pledged delegates but well short of the 2,025 needed to win the Democratic nomination for November's presidential election.

Obama was leading in opinion polls and was expected to do well in Tuesday's balloting. Both Democrats and McCain, an Arizona senator, planned appearances across the region on Monday.

McCain took a short break from campaigning but received a vote of confidence as well as some advice from Bush as he tried to ease fears among conservative Republicans that McCain was too liberal.

"If John's the nominee, he has got some convincing to do to convince people that he is a solid conservative," Bush said on Fox News Sunday. "And I'll be glad to help him if he's the nominee, because he is a conservative."

Bush and McCain have been bitter rivals in past election battles and have had many disagreements over issues like prisoner interrogation and taxes.

McCain became the likely Republican nominee last week with the withdrawal of his chief rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Conservative Republicans are unhappy with the prospect of McCain as the nominee because of his voting record on such issues as taxes, immigration, stem cell research and campaign law reform.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee remains in the Republican race. He beat McCain in Louisiana and Kansas on Saturday and ran a very close second in Washington state.

Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, far behind in the Republican race, was a close third in Washington. (Writing by JoAnne Allen; edited by Chris Wilson)

© Reuters 2008 All rights reserved

Obama rides momentum before Potomac Primaries | Markets | Bonds News | Reuters

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The Swamp: Obama fires away at McCain

 

Obama fires away at McCain

By Mike Dorning

BANGOR, Me.—It’s Hillary Clinton that Barack Obama must compete against in caucuses and a primary tonight and again in caucuses here in Maine on Sunday.

But to listen to him talk, his mind is on John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee now that Mitt Romney has withdrawn from the race.

Obama began firing away at the Arizona senator moments after he walked up to the podium at the first event of the day, a media event on “tax fairness” in Bangor in which Obama promoted his proposal for a middle-class tax cut while excoriating the Bush Administration for tax cuts that the Democrat said benefit the rich.

Aiming for McCain’s reputation for steady, principled leadership, Obama pointed out that McCain had twice voted against those tax cuts in the Senate before championing their extension as presidential candidate courting the support of anti-tax conservatives.

“He said it went against his conscience to support tax cuts for the rich in a time of war and that it was an act of statesmanship to oppose them. A lot of us respected those words,” Obama said.

“But I think, as he rushed to embrace some of the worst aspects of the Bush legacy, some of the wheels came off the Straight Talk Express because now he supports making those tax cuts permanent,” he continued.

He followed up with a back-handed compliment that is increasingly creeping into Obama’s public remarks.

“I greatly respect Sen. McCain’s half-century of service to this nation,” Obama said.

Translation: Isn’t that what people say at a retirement ceremony? No, wait, a half-century? That sounds more like something out of a history book. And come to think of it, isn’t there a Democratic candidate who is always talking about “35 years of public service?”

For those who didn’t quite pick up on the implications of the young senator’s pleasant-sounding remark, as usual it came with a “but.”

“But what America needs right now isn’t a leader who embraces the failed policies of the past,” Obama continued. “What America needs is a new generation of leadership.”

At a raucous rally afterward that filled a 7,000 capacity arena in Bangor up to a packed nosebleed section and had the crowd clapping, stomping, jumping and shouting along with his speech, Obama wove criticism of McCain into his uplifting hope-filled stump speech.

Though he did mention his Democratic opponent by name at the rally, it was in the course of making the case that he would be the better candidate against McCain. The only boos at the rally were when Obama denounced a comment McCain made last month that he would be willing to stay in Iraq another 100 years if necessary to secure the country.

“When it comes to foreign policy, John McCain says he wants to fight 100-year war—a hundred years, as long as it takes,” channeling outrage from the crowd.

“That is not designed to make us safer,” he continued, shifting the crowd to cheers. “That is simply stubbornness. That is designed to try to make a bad decision look better.”

And that, surely, is a rallying cry that Obama hopes to still be making a hundred days from now—after the last of the primaries is over and the Democrats may have their own presumptive nominee.

The Swamp: Obama fires away at McCain