A tipster with knowledge of Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) presidential campaign planning hints that an official announcement may be made on the Chicago-based Oprah Winfrey Show this week.NY Times:
The Oprah schedule for Wednesday, January 17 says to "check back later" for more details on the show. Since all shows are taped in advance, this suggests something is up.
Meanwhile, the Chicago Tribune profiles Obama's inner circle. "The political professionals who are Obama's closest formal advisers are careful, deliberate counselors, wary of unnecessary risks and no strangers to campaign street fights. The informal coterie is a multihued collection of high achievers, men and women who are friends and intellectual peers."
Viewed with suspicion by elements of her party because she has not explicitly repudiated her October 2002 vote authorizing military action against Iraq, Mrs. Clinton, who was in Baghdad on Saturday, has been trying to shore up her credentials as a critic of the war without exposing herself to charges of indecisiveness or flip-flopping of the sort that so damaged Senator John Kerry in his unsuccessful race against Mr. Bush in 2004.
(snip)
Among Democrats, opposition to Mr. Bush’s plan highlighted the political threat Mrs. Clinton faces from the left. John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina who voted for the war in 2002 but who, unlike Mrs. Clinton, later renounced his vote, sent an e-mail message to his supporters urging them to oppose Mr. Bush’s action.
Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, who joined the Senate in 2005 and thus escaped the Iraq vote that has come to haunt Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Edwards and Mr. Kerry, used the platform of Senate hearings to lacerate the Bush Iraq policy and affirm his own opposition to the war.
Their actions offered an obvious contrast with those of Mrs. Clinton, who put out a measured statement opposing the troop increase but has stayed away from the Senate vanguard opposing Mr. Bush’s latest strategy.
(snip)
Last year, Mrs. Clinton took a leading role in criticizing Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the secretary of defense, over his management of the war. Over the past two years, she has voted in favor of resolutions calling for a phased withdrawal of troops without setting fixed deadlines.
Even though Mrs. Clinton has never gone as far as Mr. Edwards and Mr. Kerry with a renunciation of her 2002 vote, she has subtly expanded her position recently in recognition, her advisers said, of how much that vote accounted for the resistance to her among some Democrats.
In a little-noticed interview on the “Today” show just before Christmas, Mrs. Clinton made a significant addition to her standard remark about the 2002 vote. Asked if she considered the vote a mistake, she responded: “Obviously if we knew then what we know now, there wouldn’t have been a vote, and I certainly wouldn’t have voted that way.”
The last eight words are new for her.
Some Democrats suggested that Mrs. Clinton’s trip this weekend was intended to give her an opportunity to move further away from that vote and against the president’s policy.
“I will be spending time with the Iraqi leaders and sitting down and trying to get my own personal assessment of what their intentions are, what do they intend to do to take responsibility for their own security,” she said in the interview. “If they’re not going to step up and try to bring some stability and end the violence in Baghdad, I don’t care how many troops the president sends — it’s not going to be successful.”
"Senator Edwards Previews Address at Riverside Church" (video, 2:39)
"On Sunday, January 14th, Senator John Edwards will speak at Riverside Church in Harlem in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. In his address, Edwards will speak about the the Iraq war escalation. Watch the video for a preview."
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