Thanks to murderous Mao (he killed more than Hitler and Stalin) & his loyal Red comrades, Tibetan Buddhism came to the West following the 1959 “liberation.”

Given that 50 years have passed, the last generation of born-and-raised-and-trained in Tibet teachers is getting long in the tooth. So get thee to a nunnery or monastery–or an urban meditation center, or a luxurious rural retreat–and dip your toes in enlightenment.

The Buddhists won’t mind if you’re just window-to-the-soul shopping…a pioneer (along with Alan Watts and Suzuki Roshi) in transmitting Buddhism to the West, Chogyam Trungpa (author; founder of Naropa University) wanted his best-selling Shambhala book to be sold in every grocery in America, right by the tabloids.

Though he warned against “spiritual materialism“–using religion to perfect the Self, and brace up the ego–he wanted the wisdom of Buddhism to be available, and made practical, to Rabbis, Reverends and Heathens alike.

So here’s my Top 10 Buddhist Teachers You Can Study With list. I’ve disqualified charlatans, egomaniacs, promising youngsters who have yet to prove themself…and those who you can’t really study with because they’re too famous to actually study with (Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh), in private meditation retreat all the time (Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, Dzongsar Khentsye Rinpoche), or rarely in the West (The Karmapa, Khandro Rinpoche).

If I’ve forgotten or overlooked anyone, I’ll be happy to add them to the must-check-out list if I get a groundswell of vicious comments.

1. Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche ~ he’s young but not too young, experienced, thoroughly Westernized (though exotically Tibetan, heritage-wise), a great teacher and frequently accessible at programs around the US, Europe, Canada, even South America. But because he’s a rising star, you’ve got to make an effort if you want personal training.

2. Pema Chodron ~ though Pema is a best selling, accessible, wise, safe teacher, and Oprah loves her…I nearly disqualified her because she’s no longer frequently accessible. But she’s just too good to overlook. So check out her teaching schedule, and connect with her before she retires or goes into retreat.

3. Sharon Salzberg ~ like Pema, she’s a best-selling author and accessible teacher. While less magnetizing than Pema, she’s deeply experienced and warm-hearted. With her partners-in-crime Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield, she teaches mostly out of the Insight Meditation Centre in Barre, Mass.

4. Ponlop Rinpoche ~ like Mipham Rinpoche and Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche (below), a young, well-trained teacher who belongs to the first generation of Tibetan Buddhist raised and trained in the West. He’s got an avid, small community–perfect if you want personal attention and training.

5. Joan Halifax Roshi ~ a strikingly-lovely, wise and venerable American Zen teacher, she’s based out of her Upaya Zen Center in New Mexico, and works with the yoga community extensively. A superstar.

6. Dr. Reggie Ray ~ while he’s been caught in that “I’m American yet folks treat me like a guru vortex” that’s chewed up and spit out Osel Tendzin and Richard Baker Roshi before him, Reggie is like Pema a magnetic, accessible teacher. Unlike Pema, he’s got a small community with whom he works closely. Perfect if you want personal attention and training.

8. Norman Fischer ~ I don’t know him at all, being mostly a Tibetan Buddhist trained boy myself, but he’s got a stellar reputation for integrity.

9. Robert Thurman, Dr. Judith Simmer-Brown, Dale Asrael, Frank Berliner ~ alright, I’m cheating–combining four in one–but if you’re college-age, you can find the last three professors (and other gems, too) at little Naropa University. Dr. Simmer-Brown is an expert in feminism, or the feminine principle in Buddhism, Ms. Asrael is wise and kind, Mr. Berliner is deeply serious, knowledgeable, caring, and impossibly good looking–the Marlboro man of Buddhism

As for superstar Robert Thurman, he teaches at Columbia, and is perfect for those who want to connect with the Dalai Lama’s teachings.

10. Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche ~ like Ponlop Rinpoche, if you’re looking for a small community, personal attention and deep study, he’s perfect for you. If however, like me and most, you’re looking to simply inject a little mindfulness and awake-ness and peace and sanity into your daily life, stick with the superstars listed above.

The basic point: meditation is good for you. As Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche says, we here in the West get that we have to train our bodies if we want ‘em to be healthy. But what about our minds? We ignore them. So get thee to an eco meditation cushion, if only for a few minutes each morning before the day’s madness ensues…and if you need a jump-start of inspiration or a little training, check out one of the above.

In a Post-ABC News poll last month, nearly nine in 10 whites said they would be comfortable with a black president. While fewer whites, about two-thirds, said they would be “entirely comfortable” with it, that was more than double the percentage of all adults who said they would be so at ease with someone entering office for the first time at age 72, which McCain (R-Ariz.) would do should he prevail in November.

But the good news may stop there. “As Sen. Barack Obama opens his campaign as the first African American on a major party presidential ticket, nearly half of all Americans say race relations in the country are in bad shape and three in 10 acknowledge feelings of racial prejudice,” according to the same poll.

Overall, 51 percent call the current state of race relations “excellent” or “good,” about the same as said so five years ago. That is a relative thaw from more negative ratings in the 1990s, but the gap between whites and blacks on the issue is now the widest it has been in polls dating to early 1992
More than six in 10 African Americans now rate race relations as “not so good” or “poor,” while 53 percent of whites hold more positive views. Opinions are also divided along racial lines, though less so, on whether blacks face discrimination. There is more similarity on feelings of personal racial prejudice: Thirty percent of whites and 34 percent of blacks admit such sentiments.

Moreover, the Post reports in a separate story that Obama’s historic primary victory “has also sparked an increase in racist and white supremacist activity, mainly on the Internet, according to leaders of hate groups and the organizations that track them.”

Neo-Nazi, skinhead and segregationist groups have reported gains in numbers of visitors to their Web sites and in membership since the senator from Illinois secured the Democratic nomination June 3. His success has aroused a community of racists, experts said, concerned by the possibility of the country’s first black president.
“I haven’t seen this much anger in a long, long time,” said Billy Roper, a 36-year-old who runs a group called White Revolution in Russellville, Ark. “Nothing has awakened normally complacent white Americans more than the prospect of America having an overtly nonwhite president.”

Watch the American News Project’s recent piece exploring the phenomenon of “white nationalism”:

Even excluding his support in caucus states, Paul received a few more than a million votes in the Republican primary, finished second in five states including Pennsylvania and Oregon and continued to draw votes well after he’d effectively withdrawn from the race.

His campaign also tapped into the potent new vein of online fundraising, punctuated by the so-called “money bomb” day when his supporters, unaided by his campaign, managed to pump $5 million into his coffers in 24 hours.

It’s a support base that could make the difference in a close election, and while there’s no guarantee that his supporters will turn out at the polls for GOP standard-bearer John McCain, one thing seems clear: Despite their overlapping anti-Iraq war positions, Barack Obama will not make major inroads among them.

Paul’s campaign says he is unlikely to endorse anyone. Absent that endorsement, many of his campaign officials expect Paul’s votes will splinter — and the names of Libertarian candidate Bob Barr and Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin come up at least as frequently as does Obama’s.

“I would be very surprised to see many people going for Barack Obama,” said Jesse Benton, Paul’s campaign spokesman. “Barr will pick up some, but the majority will go Republican or stay home.”

“Obama’s probably getting the least support from Ron Paul supporters,” said Marianne Stebbins, Paul’s state coordinator in Minnesota. “Fewer will vote for Obama than Bob Barr. There will be some because the war is such a big issue, but they can also vote for Barr.”

Paul’s unique mix of views, which included privatizing social security, allowing states to legalize medicinal marijuana, opposition to abortion rights, enhanced border security and opposition to environmental regulation attracted a rabid following of supporters to his campaign. Their activity online — one popular conservative blog banned pro-Paul comments after being inundated with them — and their campaign donations delivered Paul from obscurity to the top tier of Republican candidates. He raised $17.75 million in the last quarter of 2007 — the most money of any Republican.

The organizing success led to strong finishes in many primaries, particularly among younger voters. In Iowa, for instance, he attracted just 10 percent of the vote overall, but took 21 percent of the vote among caucusgoers younger than 30.

While it had little impact on his base of political support, Paul found himself the subject of widespread criticism when racist remarks published in the 1990s in the Ron Paul Political Report, a newsletter he’s distributed for decades, came to light in January. Unsigned articles — which Paul denies having written or even read and says he disagrees with, but some of which had personal details that corresponded to his — in the newsletter bearing his name attacked blacks, gays and pro-Israel groups. One article claimed that “order was only restored [after the 1992 Los Angeles riots] when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks.”

“I don’t see Ron Paul supporters voting for Obama,” said David Hart, Paul’s Montana state coordinator. “They recognize Obama’s positions are diametrically opposed to things we believe in.”

For some Paul supporters, the only way they can see supporting McCain is if the presumptive GOP nominee reverses his core positions on foreign and economic policy.

“Unless McCain does make changes in his platform,” including abandoning his support for the Iraq War and renouncing deficit spending, “I don’t think [Paul supporters] will be voting for him,” said Hart, who hopes to attend the Republican Convention as a delegate for the state. “They will more likely be voting for the Constitution Party or Bob Barr.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of the disaffected Republicans would cast their vote for Bob Barr because he’s much more conservative than John McCain,” said Jeff Greenspan, Paul’s Nevada state coordinator.

Although Paul is often called a libertarian, his supporters seem to be significantly more conservative than most libertarian-leaning voters, who were nearly split between Bush and Kerry in 2004.

Paul “tapped into anti-war, socially conservative voters,” explained Brink Lindsey, vice president for research at the libertarian CATO Institute.

“A lot of [Paul supporters] are going to vote a straight Republican ticket,” said Jean McIver. “A number will vote Republican for everything but the president.”

Others, though, will vote for McCain as the lesser of the two evils with a chance of taking the White House. “A lot of [Paul supporters] are in a quandary over McCain,” said Jean McIver, Paul’s Texas coordinator. “Some will vote for McCain because they don’t want Obama to win.”

Paul’s campaign officials also complain that his supporters have felt shunned by the Republican Party, particularly at state party conventions where they have often come out in large numbers. In Nevada, the state party attempted a rule change that Paul supporters say was intended to tamp down the large number of them running for positions at party delegates. In states where the primary is non-binding, such as Montana, Paul’s grassroots activists who have been elected to attend the RNC still may cast their ballots for him.

And Paul is holding his own rally in Minneapolis during the convention.

“A lot depends on how Republicans treat people who come to support Ron Paul,” said Benton.

The McCain campaign says they will reach out to Paul’s voters on a personal level and that they will win them over. “Unlike Barack Obama, John McCain does not believe that government is the answer to every problem,” said McCain spokesman Joe Pounder. “At the end of the day, Ron Paul supporters will find that their positions align more often with John McCain.”

But the Obama camp also hopes to pull in some of Paul’s voters by appealing to the same discontent with mainstream Republicans that drew them to Paul. “We think disenchanted Republicans and independents will choose Barack Obama over John McCain for the same reason they chose Ron Paul over John McCain … a war that has made us less secure, a debt that will burden our children and grandchildren and degraded our Constitution, and instead of change, John McCain offers more of the same,” said Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan.

But some Paul supporters are concerned not only that Obama does not share their domestic positions, but also that he is not anti-war enough.

“Obama’s voted for continued funding of the war,” said Debbie Hopper, Paul’s Missouri coordinator. “His foreign policy isn’t noninterventionist, as we believe it should be.”

“He’s very much into supporting the war effort even though he says he’ll withdraw,” said Hart of Montana.

Left-leaning independent candidate Ralph Nader — whose views on activist government domestically are diametrically opposed to Paul’s — has attempted to get in on the potential Paul-supporters vote bonanza. Nader issued an appeal to Paul’s voters immediately after Paul dropped out, saying, “there is a clear choice for those who want to support a candidate who will stand up against the war and stand up for personal liberties and privacy.”

But Nader’s plea seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Not one of the Paul activists interviewed for this article mentioned Nader.

“I sure haven’t heard anybody talking about him,” said Hopper.

Source: POLITICO.com

Here’s the scenario: Obama racks up huge margins among the increasingly affluent, highly educated and liberal coastal states, while a significant increase in turnout among black voters allows him to compete — but not to win — in the South.

Meanwhile, McCain wins solidly Republican states such Texas and Georgia by significantly smaller margins than Bush’s in 2004 and ekes out narrow victories in places such as North Carolina, which Bush won by 12 points but Rasmussen presently shows as a tossup, and Indiana, which Bush won by 21 points but McCain presently leads by just 11.

One possible result: Even as the national mood moves left, the 2004 map largely holds. Obama’s 32 new electoral votes from Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado and Virginia are offset by 21 new electoral votes for McCain in Michigan and New Hampshire — and despite a 2- or 3-point popular vote victory for Obama, America wakes up on Jan. 20 to a President McCain.

According to Tad Devine, who served as the chief political consultant for Al Gore in 2000 and as a senior adviser to John F. Kerry in 2004, “it certainly is a possibility. Not a likelihood, but it is a real possibility.”

Some observers, such as Joseph Mercurio, a political consultant and pollster who worked on Sen. Joe Biden’s Democratic primary bid, see this as unlikely given the dramatic increase in Democratic Party enrollment and President Bush’s near record-low approval rating.

Also skeptical is Nate Silver, a political cult-favorite blogger whose statistical model — which factors in population change since electoral votes were last allocated in the 2000 census — shows McCain as more likely than Obama to lose the Electoral College while winning the popular vote.

But others, pointing to the competitiveness of the last two elections, predict that this will be another such tight race. If they’re proven correct, this would be the fourth in the past five elections, making for the most closely contested run of presidential contests since those spanning the popular vote-Electoral College splits of 1876 and 1888.

Hank Sheinkopf, president of Sheinkopf Communications and an adviser to Bill Clinton in 1996, warns that such a split “is anything but impossible.” While he gives Obama a slight edge in the general election “because he doesn’t have George Bush riding with him,” he predicts that “Obama’s going to get big votes for a Democrat in the Southern states, but not enough to win any new electoral votes. So it’s a distinct possibility that he could lose the entire South, split the Midwest” and end up not as president but rather as the second coming of Al Gore. When asked the odds of this playing out, he offers “50-50.”

Devine points out that Bush’s strategy in 2004 “was predicated on massive base turnout” that pushed up margins in safe states. He doesn’t “expect the McCain campaign to be directed the same way — using issues like gay marriage on the ballot to get the base to the polls — so McCain won’t have the same forces at play to drive out the popular vote.”

Recalling the impact of Ralph Nader’s third-party run in 2000, Devine also wonders if Bob Barr’s Libertarian run might play out differently, costing McCain popular — but not electoral — votes, while producing another popular-electoral split.

Lloyd M. Green, who served as research counsel to George Bush in 1988, also rates Obama a slight favorite and predicts that, if the Democrat does win, he’ll do so with “even larger margins in New York and California than in the last several elections [in 2004, Kerry won the two states by a combined margin of a little more than 2.5 million votes], and yet with all that margin run-up in safe states, this will end up a tight general election.”

In a sentiment also expressed by Sheinkopf and Green, Devine sees little chance of this happening if Obama wins the popular vote by more than 4 points. “But if he gets it by two or three points, it is plausible,” he said. “Absolutely.”

Green, who sees “about a 20 percent chance” of Obama winning the popular voting while losing the Electoral College, doesn’t expect anything resembling a blowout: “Given that the only clear and clean majorities [since 1992] were in 1996 and 2004, … this election will have the ferocity of all recent elections.” It’s a tough trend to buck, he argued, noting that “Americans traditionally change their religious affiliations more often than their party affiliations.”

Source: POLITICO.com

Jonathan Mantz, Clinton’s national finance director, notified donors about the meeting by e-mail Tuesday and urged them to attend and to contribute to Obama, who clinched the Democratic Party’s nomination on June 3.

Two people closely involved with Clinton’s fundraising said the meeting had taken on added urgency after several of her money “bundlers” complained that they felt their concerns weren’t heard during meetings last week with Obama campaign officials in New York and Washington.

Both individuals spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the meeting.

Among other things, the donors want to make sure Obama knows that in order to get their help he needs to help Clinton pay down her campaign debt. As of the end of April, Clinton had more than $20 million in debt, a figure that likely increased by the time she suspended her campaign June 7.

Obama cannot use his campaign money to help Clinton with her debt, which includes at least $11 million of her own money. But he can encourage his donors to contribute to her campaign.

The two fundraisers who discussed the meeting said many donors also are furious that Obama’s campaign hired Patti Solis Doyle as chief of staff to Obama’s eventual running mate, calling it a slap in the face to Clinton and an implicit acknowledgment that she would not be on the ticket with him.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton said no inference about the selection of a running mate should be made from Solis Doyle’s hiring.

“This was a long and hotly contested fight, so obviously there are some strong feelings about how it turned out and what needs to happen moving forward,” he said. “But we’re confident that the Democrats are united in their desire to defeat (Republican) John McCain.”

Clinton and Obama will meet with two different groups of donors at the Mayflower a week from Thursday. One larger group will include donors who raised $250,000 for Clinton’s campaign. A more intimate session will be reserved for about 30 fundraisers who collected $1 million or more.

“The challenge is reaching out to donors to ask them for money for a candidate that they’ve been on the opposite side of for a year and a half,” said Alexander Heckler, Clinton’s Florida finance chairman. “However, we have to take a deep breath and realize that we need to all work together and have a Democratic president elected.”

Another Clinton fundraiser suggested there was no rift, noting that a vigorous primary contest had just ended.

“The Obama campaign has reached out to the Clinton people,” said Hassan Nemazee, Clinton’s national finance co-chairman. “I think this is a process that is being undertaken and hopefully we will be in a position to assimilate the Clinton fundraising operation and the Obama fundraising operation together in the near future.”

“The reality is that we’re two weeks from the day that the last primary was held,” he added. “It takes a little while for staff to talk to each other, for lay organizations to talk to one another. It’s taken a while to get the candidates available.”

Heckler said he has been working with Obama’s camp and said he and Obama’s Florida finance chairman, Kirk Wagar, have been speaking daily to discuss fundraising strategies.

Separately Tuesday, Obama met in Washington with most members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, many of whom had supported Clinton. Obama acknowledged that he still has work to do to win Hispanic votes.

All the caucus members who attended the meeting pledged to support Obama, according to several members who spoke privately afterward.

Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas said he told Obama he had worked his heart out for the former first lady and would work just as hard for Obama’s election.

___

Beth Fouhy reported from New York. Associated Press writer Suzanne Gamboa contributed to this report.

The essay discusses some recent rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court, which narrowly struck down some of the Bush administrations attempts to subvert the Constitution. Readers will appreciate that Robin’s writing is more concise than mine, but I would like to add a few observations of the subject…

Basically, four of the nine total justices on the Court, including the three who are by far the youngest, are virtually guaranteed to give President Bush a blank check to abuse his authority in any way he chooses. Among the other justices, the youngest, David Souter, will be 69 in September.

Justice Stevens is 88, and the others are in their early to mid seventies. The president we elect this coming November will almost certainly have at least two vacancies to fill among the five justices on the Court who are now willing to rule that President Bush is not above the law. If the next president is reelected in 2012, he will almost certainly be able to create a substantial makeover of the Supreme Court.

There are some good Republican appointees on the Court. Justice Stevens was appointed by President Ford. Justice Kennedy was appointed by President Reagan. Justice Souter was appointed by President Bush Sr. These men are not political liberals, but they are good judicial conservatives in that they largely leave their personal politics at the door when they are listening to and deciding cases.

Unfortunately, the three most recent Republican appointees (Thomas, Roberts, Alito) have been political right wingers who have reliably voted (along with Justice Scalia) to advance right wing political causes. I am not questioning their credentials, nor would I necessarily object to any one of them being on the Court. What I find dangerous, however, is having political right wingers becoming a majority of the Court.

President Bush has demonstrated both ignorance of the Constitution and contempt for the law. He has said, in effect, that as commander-in-chief, he can do anything he wants, without any legal restraints, as long as he can plausibly claim the motive of protecting national security. Four of the nine members of the Supreme Court, including the two that he appointed, fully back him up on this.

While I do not believe that John McCain, if he becomes the next president, would abuse his authority in the same manner as the current president has, I did not think that President Bush would, either. In addition, Senator McCain has basically pledged that, if elected, he would appoint right wing judges to the federal courts at all levels, including the Supreme Court. In effect, while “President McCain” might not trash the Constitution and the law the way President Bush has, he will be giving himself license to do so, whether he exercises it or not.

Had Senator Clinton won the Democratic nomination, I would not have been happy about voting for her in the general election, but I would still have voted for her. If nothing else, I think it is extremely important that the next few Supreme Court vacancies are not filled by right wing judges. It is obvious that many Clinton supporters are upset that their candidate did not win the Democratic nomination.

Many of them expressed an intention of voting for McCain, or sitting out this presidential election. While I fail to see that Senator Obama did anything improper toward Senator Clinton in their contest for the nomination, I can understand the disappointment on the part of Clinton supporters.

To those Clinton supporters who refuse, or at least are reluctant, to support Obama in the general election: think about the Supreme Court. The next president will be either John McCain or Barack Obama.

The winner of this election will likely be a major influence on the Supreme Court (and the courts in general) for the next 30 years. In many ways, the rights of ordinary Americans are at stake. Remember this in November.

Source: eyesonobama.com

The survey of two dozen countries, conducted this spring by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, also found a growing despondency over the international economy, with majorities in 18 nations calling domestic economic conditions poor.

In more bad news for the U.S., people shared a widespread sense the American economy was hurting their countries, including large majorities in U.S. allies Britain, Germany, Australia, Turkey, France and Japan.

Even six in 10 Americans agreed the U.S. economy was having a negative impact abroad.

Views of the U.S. improved or stayed the same as last year in 18 nations, the first positive signs the poll has found for the U.S. image worldwide this decade.

Even so, many improvements were modest and the U.S. remains less popular in most countries than it was before it invaded Iraq in 2003, with majorities in only eight expressing favorable opinions.

Substantial numbers in most countries said they are closely following the U.S. presidential election, including 83 percent in Japan _ about the same proportion who said so in the U.S.

Of those following the campaign, optimism that the new president will reshape American foreign policy for the better is substantial, with the largest segment of people in 14 countries _ including the U.S. _ saying so.

Andrew Kohut, president of Pew, said many seem to be hoping the U.S. role in the world will improve with the departure of President Bush, who remains profoundly unpopular almost everywhere.

“People think the U.S. wants to run the world,” said Kohut. “It’s not more complicated than that.”

Countries most hopeful the new president will improve U.S. policies include France, Spain and Germany, where public opposition to Bush’s policies in Iraq and elsewhere has been strong. Strong optimism also came from countries where pique with U.S. policies has been less pronounced, including India, Nigeria, Tanzania and South Africa.

Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon have the strongest expectations the next president will worsen U.S. policies, consistent with the skepticism expressed on many issues in the survey by Muslim countries. Japan, Turkey, Russia, South Korea and Mexico had large numbers saying the election would change little.

Among those tracking the American election, greater numbers in 20 countries expressed more confidence in Obama, the likely Democratic nominee, than John McCain, the Republican candidate, to handle world affairs properly. The two contenders were tied in the U.S., Jordan and Pakistan.

Obama’s edge was largest in Western Europe, Australia, Japan, Tanzania and Indonesia, where he lived for a time as a child.

The U.S. was the only country where most expressed confidence in McCain. Besides the countries where he and Obama were tied, McCain’s smallest gaps against his rival were in India and China, where neither man engenders much confidence.

The U.S. is seen as the world’s leading economic power by 22 countries in the survey. Yet in 11 countries, more think China will replace the U.S. as the world’s dominant superpower or has already done so than predict that will never happen.

At the same time, China’s favorable ratings have edged downward since last year, with widespread worry over its military power, pollution and human rights record. The survey was taken during China’s crackdown on unrest in Tibet, but before last month’s earthquake in China.

The poll also found:

_Sixty percent or more had favorable views of the U.S. in South Korea, Poland, India, Tanzania, Nigeria and South Africa. One in five or fewer had positive impressions in Egypt, Argentina, Jordan, Pakistan and Turkey.

_Nine in 10 in South Korea and Lebanon say their economies are in bad shape, while eight in 10 Chinese, seven in 10 Australians and six in 10 Indians say theirs are strong.

_Hillary Rodham Clinton, who lost the Democratic nomination to Obama, generally was rated higher than McCain overseas but lower than Obama.

_There is growing pessimism that a stable democratic government will take hold in Iraq, with majorities only in Nigeria, India and Tanzania predicting success.

_Only in the U.S., Britain and Australia do most want U.S. and NATO forces to say in Afghanistan.

_Iran is viewed mostly negatively. Even the eight countries in the survey with large Muslim populations have mixed views. In six of those eight, Muslims oppose Iran getting nuclear weapons.

The polling was conducted from March 17-April 21, mostly in April, interviewing adults face to face in 17 countries and by telephone in the remaining seven. Local languages were used.

The number interviewed in each country ranged from 700 in Australia to 3,212 in China. All samples were national except for China, Pakistan, India and Brazil, where the samples were mostly urban. The margins of sampling error were plus or minus 3 percentage points or 4 points in every country but China and India, where it was 2 points.

Source: huffingtonpost.com

Obama appears at the close of this week to have overcome one of his first hurdles — a furor among labor and activist leaders over his choice of a campaign director of economic policy.

On another potentially dangerous front — building a general election foreign policy team — there is less danger of hostile reaction to the integration of Hillary Clinton advisers into the Obama organization.

Obama’s most provocative move in terms of economic policy has been to hire Jason Furman, who runs the relatively centrist Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution as his staff director for economic policy.

Furman brings with him, as an unpaid adviser, his mentor and the founder of the Hamilton Project, former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, as well as former Treasury Secretary and Harvard President Lawrence Summers.

Both men have advocated pro-business policies and balanced budgets, and have been criticized by liberals who seek more government spending.

At the same time that the economy flourished during Rubin’s and Summers’ tenure (1995-2000) – per capita income rose from $22,153 to $25,469 in inflation-adjusted dollars; median family income rose from $53,349 to $59,398; and unemployment fell from 5.6 to 4.0 percent – both Treasury secretaries were accused of acceding to Wall Street pressure to eliminate deficit spending at the expense of the poor and unemployed.

The Furman appointment faced a flurry of criticism from such figures as AFL-CIO president John Sweeney and blogger-author David Sirota, leading to a substantial bloc of liberal Democrats quickly stepping in to quiet the discontent.

Furman pointedly noted that his circle of advisers will include economists viewed favorably by organized labor and its allies, including University of Texas professor James Galbraith and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich.

Also backing Furman were New York Times columnist Paul Krugman who wrote:

“Furman is a very good guy, with a solid track record as a progressive…my sense is that Jason Furman has become a proxy target for some Obama supporters who, now that the Great Satanness has been defeated, are suddenly starting to have the queasy feeling that their hero might be a bit of a …. centrist.”

Other Furman supporters include SEIU president Andy Stern, who told The Huffington Post, “I am completely convinced after hearing from the campaign that Jason will serve Obama’s interests and priorities not his own. And Jared Bernstein’s involvement is also a good sign.”

Bernstein, of the pro-union Economic Policy Institute, has been added to the list of those to be consulted by the Obama campaign. Bernstein said in response to a Huffington Post inquiry:

“The concern that’s surfaced in the last few days maybe comes down to: will Obama be pro-worker in ways that we haven’t typically seen from Jason, [University of Chicago economist and top Obama adviser] Austan Goolsbee, and Rubin, but have seen from EPI types like me? Obviously, I think so and that’s what I’m doing there … It’s a work in progress but I very much like what I’ve seen so far.”

Robert Reich was more cautious in his comments: “My hope is that Jason proves to be an honest broker, and that the views of Bob Rubin & company are balanced by other views and voices within the Party.”

While the Furman controversy reflects the intensifying dispute on trade and globalization policies within the Democratic Party, intra-party tensions over foreign policy and the post-defacto-nomination directions taken by the Obama campaign have not yet been seriously exacerbated — although all bets are off if differences over withdrawal from Iraq begin to surface.

The Obama campaign is reaching out to such Bill and Hillary Clinton stalwarts as former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, and one of her top aides, James Rubin.

In the international relations policy arena, sources in and out of the Obama camp described a more subtle process taking place, as Obama is forced to decide which Clinton experts to add to the team, and at what level in the hierarchy.

“While there are exceptions on both sides, one of the key differences between the Clinton and Obama foreign policy gurus is generational. And this generational split has significant consequences,” one knowledgeable expert said, speaking on background. “In the main, the senior folks in the Clinton administration (1993-2001) went with Hillary, while many of the less senior people went with Obama.”

Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy advisers came of political age during the Cold War, in many cases during in the Carter administration, and tend to see the world in terms of states and state conflicts, this source said. In addition, many of Hillary Clinton’s top advisers “spent eight years dealing with Saddam [Hussein's] intransigence in the 90s,” making them more receptive to the arguments for invading Iraq.

Conversely, this expert argued, many of the Obama advisers are post-Cold War theorists who tend to see the world in terms of failed states, the influence of technology, food crises, non-state actors like Osama bin Laden, the spread of nuclear weapons, and the uneven distribution of the benefits of globalization.

Albright has already voiced her willingness to help Obama, and she is expected to play a significant role — in part because she is not viewed as a competitor for a major post in an Obama administration, and in part because she has hosted many gatherings of foreign policy experts that have included many of those now in the Obama camp.

Two other top Clinton advisers, former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke and former national security adviser Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger, face more difficulty in gaining entry to the Obama camp, according to sources.

Holbrooke, who is known to have sharp elbows, reportedly does not get on well with two of Obama’s key advisers, Anthony Lake, national security adviser in Bill Clinton’s first term, and former assistant secretary of state Susan Rice.

While Berger has many supporters, he also damaged his reputation by pleading guilty to unauthorized removal and retention of classified terrorism documents from the National Archives in 2003. He was fined $50,000, lost his security clearance for three years, and was placed on probation for two years.

The likelihood that neither Holbrooke nor Berger will be absorbed into the Obama foreign policy staff or the advisory structure at a high level actually works to lessen the probability of divisive Democratic conflict on this front.

Source: huffingtonpost.com

Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger leveled the first blow, introducing Republican John McCain’s wife at a fundraiser this week as someone who is “proud of her country, not just once but always.”

Obama wasn’t mentioned by name, but the audience got it.

The dig signaled the start of what Democrats expect will be a concerted effort to cast Michelle Obama — and, by extension, Barack Obama — as an unpatriotic radical. It also pointed out the urgency to define Michelle Obama to general election voters before the opposition goes too far in doing it for her, strategists said.

“We live now in an era where everything and everyone is fair game,” said Douglas E. Schoen, who was a pollster and adviser to former President Bill Clinton from 1994 to 2000.

“It is certainly the case that Teresa Heinz Kerry was probably not an asset in John Kerry’s campaign, at least publicly, and the jury is still out on how the public will view Michelle Obama.”

Despite being a steady presence at her husband’s side on primary election nights, and sitting for occasional media interviews, Michelle Obama remains an unfamiliar figure to most voters, strategists said. When she campaigned in recent months, it was almost always alone and in small settings.

The most sustained attention she received on cable news shows was for her controversial February statement leaving the impression that she wasn’t proud of her country until this year.

“There is no reason to expect her to have a brand. But the campaign needs to start doing that,” said Erik Smith, a Democratic strategist and aide to former Rep. Richard Gephardt during his 2004 presidential campaign. “Defining Michelle Obama goes a long way in defining Barack Obama. I am sure it is a campaign priority.”

Indeed, when the campaign launched a website today to combat rumors about Barack Obama’s patriotism, his religion and his family, the first entry dealt with his wife.

Other efforts are on tap. She joins the candidate Friday for a roundtable in Ohio with senior citizens and appears as a guest host next week on “The View,” the popular daytime talk show, giving her access to friendly, high-profile platforms. Campaign aides said they are “staffing up across the board,” including for Michelle Obama — a move that Schoen said reflects the need to “manage the image and utterances of the spouse.”

The heightened scrutiny “requires a level of staffing and attention to detail that goes beyond what spouses have typically gotten,” Schoen said.

Most voters likely won’t decide which candidate to support based on wives. Only 22 percent of respondents in a Rasmussen Reports survey released Wednesday said their perception of the spouse is very important to how they vote. But the more people learn about her, the more people understand her husband, strategists said.

The Rasmussen survey showed Michelle Obama, at this point, as a more polarizing figure than Cindy McCain. Forty-eight percent of voters hold a favorable impression of the presumptive Democratic nominee’s spouse, while 42 percent view her unfavorably, including a “startling” 25 percent with a very unfavorable opinion, Rasmussen wrote in its release.

Cindy McCain earned a favorable assessment from 49 percent of voters and an unfavorable review from 29 percent, including 10 percent who held a very unfavorable opinion.

Michelle Obama receives lower ratings than first lady Laura Bush did during the 2004 campaign but fares better than did Heinz Kerry, whose numbers dropped as Election Day drew closer. Obama is drawing comparisons to another presidential spouse: Hillary Rodham Clinton, who, like Obama, was 44 years old, was Ivy League-educated, earned more money than her husband and raised a child in the spotlight. Clinton also became a lightening rod for the conservative right.

But unlike 1992, the debate isn’t a proxy battle about the traditional bounds for women. Obama, to a greater degree than Clinton, makes her family life the centerpiece of her public image, talking frequently about family-work life balance and her two young daughters.

This time, the criticism is rooted in a combustible mix of race and patriotism.

The Obama campaign and PolitiFact, an independent fact-checking website, have debunked chain e-mails in the last month claiming she advocated racial separatism in her college thesis. Long the domain of rumors about her husband, the e-mails also focused on her February remark: “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country.”

Michelle Obama later clarified her statement, saying that her pride was in the political process and that she was “absolutely” always proud of the country.

The Tennessee Republican Party picked up on the remark, however, and posted a Web video last month that juxtaposed her statement with average voters claiming pride in their country.

The video reaped considerable national media attention and drew a sharp response from Barack Obama (“Lay off my wife,” he said at the time). He did the same last week when he was forced to respond to rumors of a video showing his wife using a derogatory term for white people.

“There is dirt and lies that are circulated in e-mails, and they pump them out long enough until finally you, a mainstream reporter, asks me about it,” Barack Obama said to a reporter who asked about the purported video, for which there is no evidence to support its existence. “That gives legs to the story. If somebody has evidence that myself or Michelle or anybody has said something inappropriate, let them do it.”

His comments followed a month of chatter from conservative pundits that the video’s release was imminent. The fact that Barack Obama was personally pressed on the matter is said to be a reason why the campaign launched the website, which states on the front page: “No Such Tape Exists.”

Chris Lehane, a veteran of Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, said the Obama campaign faces a choice similar to the one they faced with Hillary Clinton. As she, too, became a target of Republicans, “we made the decision to put her out there and not go into the bunker,” Lehane said.

The campaign gave her “an entire support system,” including more than a dozen aides, he said. By the late summer, attacks on Hillary Clinton at the Republican National Convention backfired as polls showed the criticism had turned off moderate and independent voters.

“They are going to try to make her a focal point of the campaign,” Lehane said of Michelle Obama. The McCain campaign will likely avoid attacks, but independent expenditure groups “will take selectively used phrases, manipulate and exploit them.”

The biggest concern for McCain, said a Republican media consultant, “will be controlling renegade county chairmen and people who have a tendency to be less disciplined about the right thing to say.”

“This is an area where people have to be extremely careful,” said John Brabender, who is serving as an informal adviser to the McCain campaign. “Voters have grown to believe that spouses are often well off-limits.”

Campaign aides said they expect Michelle Obama to maintain her schedule of several days a week on the campaign trail, at least until her daughters finish the school year. They view her as Barack Obama’s best character witness, introducing him as a father and a husband, and making connections with other women, particularly as the campaign attempts to lock down Clinton voters.

Tucker Bounds, a McCain spokesman, said the Arizona senator is “committed to running a respectful campaign” that is focused on the issues. Bounds, however, did not respond to a request for comment on Eagleburger’s remark.

“She is more likely to be an issue during the slow summer months than the real campaign after Labor Day,” Brabender said. “It is a distraction that campaigns can just not afford.”

Source: politico.com

We also have Hillary to thank for putting issues of gender and power back into American politics.

As an intelligent and formidable opponent to Obama, Hillary brought the debate to a higher level.

I’ve enjoyed every minute of the debates between Obama and Hillary—all the mud slinging aside.

But why didn’t the most qualified person for the job become our Democratic nominee? Sexism alone can’t explain it all.

Did She Just Say That?
Strategic blunders and hurtful, sometimes stupid remarks—did she have to invoke Bobby Kennedy’s assassination?—did nothing to make her likeable to voters.

And the misspeak about her helicopter landing in “sniper fire” in Bosnia? And why did Bill liken Obama to Jesse Jackson? In the last eighteen months, the Clinton campaign sometimes felt like nails on a chalkboard, even for the staunchest of Hillary supporters. Make them stop!

Bush Clinton Bush Clinton
History has not been on her side either. When Nixon resigned from office (Bush II’s popularity is not much better than Nixon’s right now), the country wanted change. When Bush leaves office, the country will again want a sense of change.

The proposition of Bush Clinton Bush Clinton is not something many Democratic voters can stomach. Hillary was fairly or unfairly dubbed part of the “Clinton machine”—which brought little comfort to Democratic voters, despite how similar her policies were to Obama’s.

The Power of the Web
Hillary failed to gather the viral power of the Internet like Obama did, and as a result, lost with a lot of younger, more Web-saavy voters. (Her frequent request at the end of speeches to log on to her Web site: “Go to www …” sounded hollow and might not have resonated with younger voters. It’s a minuscule point, but no one under the age of thirty-five says “www” aloud anymore.)

Media Bias
The media’s obvious dislike of her had a snowball effect, too. The bias against Hillary got bigger and bigger as the months wore on. A Gallup poll suggests that many voters felt the media was harder on Hillary than Barack or John. In the last two months, the media kept telling her it’s time to quit and resented her defiance. (If the tables were turned, I doubt the media would have pressured Obama to quit.)

The nation’s major newspapers, blogs, and mainstream television networks have little love for Hillary. Some voters bristle at a powerful woman, too—if you’re too soft, you’re considered weak and if you’re too hard or aggressive, you’re considered a bitch. Powerful women are always walking a tightrope, no matter how qualified and deserving of the job.

Moving On
But it’s time to move on. As Obama becomes the Democratic nominee, pundits are talking furiously about where Hillary’s eighteen million supporters will go as if we voters are disinterested little children who will wait and be told which line to get into. The pundits will tell us that feminists are angry that she did not win and that we women will then vote against Obama. Ouch!

Perhaps there is a small minority of Democratic women who are disinterested in the issues and will vote for McCain instead, but the majority of Hillary supporters are apt to vote for Obama now.

I can’t imagine that anyone seriously interested in Hillary would suddenly rally around an anti-choice Republican who does not seem concerned about the forty-seven million uninsured Americans or the rising numbers of American soldiers who are committing suicide.

The assumption that even a sizable segment of Hillary supporters are pissed off and will vote against Obama—or worse, will need the security of McCain in an age of terrorism—is patronizing at best, misguided at worst. We Hillary supporters are not so mercurial.

Hillary’s female supporters are practical. And although many of us—myself included—were invested in seeing the first qualified woman run this country, we’re not so stubborn to leave the Democratic party in the dust, are we? Barack Obama’s platform is very similar to Hillary Clinton’s. We’re excited about Obama—but more important, we’re hopeful of our nation’s future, too.

Source: divinecaroline.com