QUOTE OF THE DAY

From NBC's Lauren Appelbaum (excerpt), quoting Barack Obama:

On Kucinich's assertion that the candidates in the Senate have failed their leadership test because the country is still in Iraq, Obama (although he did not address the topic during his speech to the conference until the last five minutes of his speech) now fought back. "With the respect to the war in Iraq, Dennis and I are the two people on stage, and I guess Mike Gravel ... who have been against this war from the start. The only difference between Dennis and I on this issue is that he believes we can unilaterally cut funding. It's just not true. We don't have the votes. We can't do that without an adequate number of votes. That's why my focus on my plan has been to begin a phased redeployment, have all our troops out by March 31st of next year. We need 16 votes in the Senate and a comparable number in the House to get that done. We are far more likely to get enough votes to impose a timetable than we are to get enough votes, at this stage, to cut off funding."

Howie P.S.: Governing is not just sound bites and rhetoric. There is a game (with rules) and losing doesn't always achieve your policy objective.