"Kennedy: 'Grass tops' vs. grass roots?" (video)

MSNBC (Chuck Todd), video (04:55).

Howie P.S.: More video (00:35) about shoes here.

Barack Obama

"JFK: If I had a daughter" (video)

MSNBC, video (01:18).
Howie P.S.: I have a daughter who is planning to live in a rural village in Latin America this summer and do volunteer work on a community project, so I can understand the sentiments of that famous father.

"The First Brilliant Move in the Vice Presidential Search"

Al Giordano:

Associated Press has a cryptic one-sentence report out:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Obama taps three people to lead veep search, including Caroline Kennedy.

Now, if only she’d pull a Cheney (the head of Bush’s VP search efforts who picked himself).

The signals sent with this move are multiple. They suggest a search for a running mate that is ideologically compatible, acceptable to the Kennedy wing of the party, that acknowledges the generational aspect of the change at hand, and, importantly, it brackets the disqualifying words uttered by one Veep aspirant late last month and looms as an ever-present reminder of vigilance regarding such unspeakable acts. Obama has picked someone in Caroline Kennedy who nobody is going to be able to push around. Nice.

Barack Obama

"Michelle Obama: Let's move past Wright, get back to issues" (with video)

CNN with video:

BOONVILLE, Indiana (CNN) -- Michelle Obama said Wednesday that her husband's move to distance himself from his controversial former minister has been "painful," but that she's pleased with the way he's handled the situation.

"I was proud of the statement he made yesterday," she said in an interview with CNN's Suzanne Malveaux. "It was a tough thing for him to do -- it's a painful situation to be in."

On Tuesday, Obama said he was "outraged" by comments the Rev. Jeremiah Wright made to the National Press Club in Washington on Monday. The candidate said he was "saddened by the spectacle" of what Wright said.

He said Wright, who officiated his wedding and baptized his children, seemed "not the person I met 20 years ago."

Earlier this year, fiery snippets from some of Wright's sermons began circulating on the Internet. They included statements in which he seemed to say that the United States had brought the September 11, 2001, attacks upon itself and that Democratic rival Sen. Hillary Clinton has an advantage over Obama because she is white.

During several appearances this week, Wright seemed to suggest the U.S. government might be responsible for the spread of AIDS and said Obama had only distanced himself from the minister for political reasons.

That wasn't the speech of a political opportunist," Michelle Obama said of her husband's widely praised speech on race relations, made when Wright's controversial sermons first came to light. "Barack has been trying to bridge gaps all his life."

She said it's time for the campaign to move forward from the controversy and return the focus to issues like the economy and health care.

"With all due respect, we're moving forward," she said. "Barack was so clear, and he's been so open about this issue, and he speaks for me as well."

Obama, a U.S. senator from Illinois, leads Clinton in overall votes, number of states won, pledged delegates and fundraising with only nine primary contests remaining. But the Wright controversy, combined with recent Clinton victories in states like Pennsylvania and Ohio, has threatened to stall his momentum going into the Democratic convention in Denver.

The interviewer later prefaced a question by saying she wanted to "turn the page" from the Wright controversy.

"No, you don't," Mrs. Obama replied.

In his race relations speech, Barack Obama said he rejected Wright's comments but could no more reject the man himself than he could the entire black community.

But on Tuesday, he said he found Wright's recent comments "appalling," saying the former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Illinois, had "shown little regard for me" and seemed more concerned with "taking center stage."

"It is completely opposed to what I stand for and where I want to take this country," he said.

Michelle Obama said she hopes that message gets through to the public and the media -- which has spent weeks keeping the controversy front-and-center in advance of upcoming primaries in North Carolina and Indiana.

"We're going to do our best to move forward," she said. "Barack and I and our campaign, we're going to, with everything in our power -- if allowed to by the press -- move forward."

The candidate's wife also said she believes Obama will eventually win the nomination.

"There's still an energy and a passion among his supporters," she said. "And people are coming on board every single day. So, yes, absolutely he can win. And, yes, absolutely I think he's the person that needs to lead this country."
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And, she said, the current controversies could lead to a much better place.

"Because it's through this limited struggle that we're facing ... if out of that comes something grander and we get in a place where we're a more unified nation, where people aren't focused on the small stuff, and we're looking at big picture -- brave, courageous approaches to our problems," she said. "And people, you know, are ready to roll up their sleeves and engage again."

Howie P.S.: Caroline Kennedy joined Michelle Obama for the television interview.
Barack Obama

"Obama for President Rally at UCLA " (video)

BarackObamadotcom, video (13:44):

Oprah, Caroline Kennedy, Michelle Obama, Maria Shriver at UCLA Rally. Full rally video (75:25) here.

Howie P.S.: Once again, Michelle rocked my world.Barack Obama

"Why Caroline Backed Obama"

Jonathan Alter (Newsweek)with video:

Her kids, her uncle, her father—and Obama's father—all played a role.--For all the attention paid to Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Barack Obama, the more crucial seal of approval may be the one affixed by Caroline Kennedy. An Obama TV ad that features her is already being widely aired in Super Tuesday states. If Caroline helps Obama cut into Hillary Clinton's base among women over 40 (especially Roman Catholic women), Obama aides believe her involvement could prove important to the outcome.

The behind-the-scenes story of Caroline's journey into the Obama camp features her three teenage children, her uncle—and a long-forgotten controversy from the 1960 presidential campaign. The complicated tale involves an angry Sen. John F. Kennedy, Vice President Richard Nixon's "truth squad," baseball great Jackie Robinson and a group of stranded African students trying to book passage to the United States—including Barack Obama Sr., father of the presidential candidate.

I've known Caroline since the 1970s, and with the help of a knowledgeable source have pieced together how she moved from neutral observer of the campaign to impassioned Obama supporter, shedding tears at American University on Monday as she witnessed a moment that, she believed, deeply fulfilled the ideals of her family.

"It was my father's spirit, living on in a meaningful, profound way," she said afterward.

For decades Caroline has dutifully campaigned for the Democratic nominee for president. But except for 1980, when her uncle Ted ran unsuccessfully for president, she has never involved herself in a party primary contest. She did not expect that 2008 would prove to be different, though her long relationship with the Clintons and her admiration of them left her open to possibly backing Hillary. During the Clinton administration she hosted a dinner party for the president and First Lady on Martha's Vineyard, went sailing with them and her family and stayed in irregular but friendly contact.

Like all Democrats, Caroline and her husband, Edwin Schlossberg, had admired Obama's keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention. But she didn't consider his possible presidential campaign seriously until Christmas 2006, when a friend of her older daughter, Rose, a Harvard sophomore, sat in her kitchen and described how Ivy League students were already organizing for Obama even before he officially declared his candidacy.

Declining invitations to fund-raisers, she and her 17-year-old daughter Tatiana slipped unrecognized into a speech Obama made last April to an African-American audience in New York. Obama didn't realize she had been there until after he left, and he quickly called her to make amends for not saying hello, which was the first time they talked. She saw him speak again at an event on Martha's Vineyard over the summer (when she also saw a Hillary speech) and at a September Obama rally in Manhattan's Washington Square Park, where she stood unobtrusively at the rear of a huge crowd.

Unlike some voters, Caroline wasn't immediately swayed by his oratory. Instead she watched the campaign closely, read Obama's position papers and his memoir, "Dreams From My Father," and talked to Rose, Tatiana and Jack, now 15, whom Obama on Monday described as "my greatest advocates over the last several months." Like Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, two other prominent supporters, Caroline credits her children with influencing her to take a closer look at Obama.

After Obama's big victory in Iowa, she spoke with the Illinois senator on the phone and pledged her support. Then, last week, Bill Clinton and his daughter Chelsea called her. Unlike Ted Kennedy's heated phone conversation with Clinton (which I learned of in mid-January from sources outside the Kennedy family), Caroline and the former president spoke cordially. But all along Caroline was talking much more frequently to Ted, with whom she is extremely close.

The Obama camp at first thought to send Caroline out to announce her support by campaigning with Obama on JFK Boulevard in New Jersey, but she decided instead to offer an op-ed piece to the New York Times, which she wrote on her own late one night, a few days before the Jan. 26 South Carolina primary. Before the article appeared she called Chelsea to tell her she was backing Obama.

One intriguing element of Obama's family history that resonated with Caroline was a long-buried story that was brought to her attention last summer. It drove home for her how history replays itself, how two generations of two families—separated by distance, culture and wealth—can intersect in strange and wonderful ways, and how people have no idea that their good deeds may come back to them someday.

Two weeks after he was nominated for president in July 1960, then-Senator Kennedy received a visit at his vacation home in Hyannis Port, Mass., from a Kenyan educator, Tom Mboya, who told him that more than 200 African students had received scholarships to American universities through the African-American Students Foundation but did not have the $100,000 for air transport. Despite efforts by Vice President Nixon (whom JFK would face in the November election), the Eisenhower State Department would not pay for what was described as "the African airlift."

With only weeks to go before the school year began, Kennedy quietly tapped his family's Kennedy Foundation, which agreed to raise the necessary funds privately. Upon learning this Nixon, seeking black votes, quickly convinced the State Department to reverse itself and offer the money, then arranged for one of his best-known African-American supporters, retired Brooklyn Dodgers star Jackie Robinson, to write a newspaper column praising him for coming to the aid of the African students.

But Nixon didn't stop there. Sen. Hugh Scott, who headed Nixon's campaign "truth squad," took to the Senate floor to denounce JFK for "plucking this project away from the U.S. government" in a "misuse of tax-exempt foundation money for blatant political purposes." Kennedy replied that this was "the most unfair, distorted and malignant attack I have heard in 14 years in politics."

When the truth finally emerged, Robinson wrote a column saying, "I don't mind admitting it—I was wrong." The airlift money came through from the Kennedy Foundation, and the students arrived. Barack Obama Sr. went to the University of Hawaii, where he met and married a young white woman from Kansas.

Their son, born the following year, arrived in the United States Senate in early 2005 and found that the antique desk he had been assigned on the Senate floor had once belonged to JFK, whose initials were carved inside. Obama learned only recently how his father's dream of studying in the United States had been fulfilled. A "young senator from Massachusetts" made an effort, Obama told the crowd at American University. "And because he did, I stand before you today."

The story captured why Caroline felt so satisfied by the symmetry of Monday's event. By Tuesday she was off to Colorado to begin campaigning with the man she believes is the true heir to her own father's legacy.

Barack Obama

"Obama: Clinton too similar to GOP candidates on Iraq"

Newsday:

Rallying in the west with an all-star cast including Caroline Kennedy, Barack Obama sharpened his criticism of rival Hillary Clinton as a divisive, old-school politician as they formally entered a two-day race six days before Super Tuesday's primary blitz.

As speculation swirled that Obama might get the endorsement -- and delegates -- of John Edwards, who hours earlier had dropped from the presidential race, Obama turned up the heat on Clinton by casting her as scarcely different from GOP White House hopefuls including new frontrunner John McCain.

He particularly slammed her muscular foreign policy platforms, including her initial vote for the Iraq war, which he has consistently condemned.

"It's time for new leadership that understands that the way to win a debate with John McCain or any Republican who is nominated is not by having the Democrats nominate someone who agreed with them on the war in Iraq," Obama told a cheering crowd estimated at 9,500, with thousands more in overflow areas, at a University of Denver arena.

Like Republicans, Clinton gave President George W. Bush "the benefit of the doubt" on contemplating military action in Iran and other hardline policies, Obama said. Yet she "actually differed with John McCain by arguing for exceptions for torture before changing positions when the politics of the moment changed," he continued sternly.

"Talking tough, and tallying up years in Washington, that's no substitute for judgement or courage," Obama said.

"It is not enough to say you'll be ready from Day One," he continued, borrowing the same line from Clinton's campaign that his new mentor, Sen. Ted Kennedy, had done earlier this week. "You have to be right from day one."

He also slammed Clinton for having appeared in Florida after primary polls closed Tuesday night to thank voters, after all Democratic candidates had pledged not to campaign there.

"We can be a Party that tries to beat the other side by practicing the same do-anything, say-anything, divisive politics that has stood in the way of progress," Obama said amid rowdy cries of "Boo!"

"Or," he added, "we can be a party that puts an end to it."

Obama received as much applause as Caroline Kennedy, who turned out to salute him with Denver Broncos star Rod Smith and former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart, a two-time presidential hopeful.

The willingness of the usually politically reclusive Camelot princess to stump with Obama in Denver and later Wednesday in Phoenix underscored the weight that American's most powerful political dynasty is throwing behind the Illinois senator, who is gaining on Clinton in nationwide polls. Ted Kennedy is to stump for Obama Thursday and Friday in New Mexico and California in an effort to boost his support among Latinos, where Clinton is seen as having an edge.

"Over the years, I've been deeply moved by the people who've told me almost all my life that they wished they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president," John F. Kennedy's daughter said in soft, gracious tones. "I felt that sense of longing is more profound today than it has ever been."

"Fortunately, there is one candidate who offers that same sense of hope and inspiration," she continued with a smile. "That candidate is Barack Obama."

Paying her homage, Obama said: "I am almost speechless."

Wide receiver Rod Smith, a native of Bill Clinton's home state of Arkansas, said he felt compelled to stump for Obama after he was lying in bed one night and heard him speak from South Carolina. "I thought to myself, Wow," Smith said. "I've got to be part of this."

Barack Obama

"Caroline" (video)

Video (00:30).

Howie P.S.: On a unrelated topic that I find hard to take seriously, "Obama denies SOTU snub."

Barack Obama

Caroline Kennedy: "A President Like My Father"

NY Times (op-ed):

OVER the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wished they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president. This sense is even more profound today. That is why I am supporting a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama.

My reasons are patriotic, political and personal, and the three are intertwined. All my life, people have told me that my father changed their lives, that they got involved in public service or politics because he asked them to. And the generation he inspired has passed that spirit on to its children. I meet young people who were born long after John F. Kennedy was president, yet who ask me how to live out his ideals.

Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and imagine that together we can do great things. In those rare moments, when such a person comes along, we need to put aside our plans and reach for what we know is possible.

We have that kind of opportunity with Senator Obama. It isn’t that the other candidates are not experienced or knowledgeable. But this year, that may not be enough. We need a change in the leadership of this country — just as we did in 1960.

Most of us would prefer to base our voting decision on policy differences. However, the candidates’ goals are similar. They have all laid out detailed plans on everything from strengthening our middle class to investing in early childhood education. So qualities of leadership, character and judgment play a larger role than usual.

Senator Obama has demonstrated these qualities throughout his more than two decades of public service, not just in the United States Senate but in Illinois, where he helped turn around struggling communities, taught constitutional law and was an elected state official for eight years. And Senator Obama is showing the same qualities today. He has built a movement that is changing the face of politics in this country, and he has demonstrated a special gift for inspiring young people — known for a willingness to volunteer, but an aversion to politics — to become engaged in the political process.

I have spent the past five years working in the New York City public schools and have three teenage children of my own. There is a generation coming of age that is hopeful, hard-working, innovative and imaginative. But too many of them are also hopeless, defeated and disengaged. As parents, we have a responsibility to help our children to believe in themselves and in their power to shape their future. Senator Obama is inspiring my children, my parents’ grandchildren, with that sense of possibility.

Senator Obama is running a dignified and honest campaign. He has spoken eloquently about the role of faith in his life, and opened a window into his character in two compelling books. And when it comes to judgment, Barack Obama made the right call on the most important issue of our time by opposing the war in Iraq from the beginning.

I want a president who understands that his responsibility is to articulate a vision and encourage others to achieve it; who holds himself, and those around him, to the highest ethical standards; who appeals to the hopes of those who still believe in the American Dream, and those around the world who still believe in the American ideal; and who can lift our spirits, and make us believe again that our country needs every one of us to get involved.

I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.

Barack Obama