A very excited Katheryn Warner met Hillary Clinton tonight in Columbia, SC. Check out this video.

Congratulations, Obama!

“Did you notice he didn’t specify?” Clinton said when asked about the comment. “They never do. They hurl these charges, but nothing gets specified. I’m not taking the bait today. I did what I could to help Senator Kerry every time he needed me, and every time he asked me. He can support whomever he wants for whatever reason he wants. But there’s nothing for me to respond to.”

Another reporter asked what it said about Obama that it “took two people to beat him.” Clinton again passed. “That’s’ just bait, too. Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice, in ‘84 and ‘88. And he ran a good campaign. Senator Obama’s run a good campaign here, he’s run a good campaign everywhere.”

The reference to Jackson seemed a way to downplay today’s result in a state where a majority of voters are African American. Clinton was also asked today about charges of race baiting, and defended himself by citing testimony from John Lewis and Andrew Young, who marched with Martin Luther King. “I don’t have to defend myself on civil rights,” he said.
[BILL: ‘MY MESSAGE’ 99.9% POSITIVE - MSNBC - 01-26-08]

Kudos to WSMV (NBC-Nashville) for finally producing a state-wide poll on the candidates for President. Don’t even get me started on how disappointing it is that local media in Tennessee don’t do much polling. This poll was taken January 19-21.

Here are the results (click here for the PDF).

Hillary Clinton 34%
Don’t know yet 28%
Barack Obama 20%
John Edwards 16%
Other 2%
 
Don’t know yet 26%
Fred Thompson 25%
Mike Huckabee 24%
John McCain 12%
Mitt Romney 7%
Ron Paul 2%
Rudy Giuliani 2%
Other 2%

Now that would a ticket worth watching! Here is Barack Obama’s Top Ten Campaign Promises from Late Night with David Letterman.

When Barack Obama served the people of IL, he voted “present” on more than 100 votes. When Clinton and Edwards confronted him on his voting record in last night’s debate, Obama said not voting yes or no 100+ times was often part of his strategy to get things done.

EDWARDS: Can I just ask, though, before I do — I mean, I hear the back and forth on this one particular vote, but it is — I do think it’s important, and I mentioned this about Senator Clinton earlier, to be fair, about Social Security. I do think it’s important whether you are willing to take hard positions.

I mean, the members of the Congressional Black Caucus who are sitting in front of me right know they have to go to the floor of the House every day and vote on hard issues. And they have to vote up or down or not show up to vote — one of those three choices. What I didn’t hear was an explanation for why over 100 times you voted present instead of yes or no when you had a choice to vote up or down.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: I’ll be happy to answer it. Because in Illinois — in Illinois, oftentimes you vote present in order to indicate that you had problems with a bill that otherwise you might be willing to vote for. And oftentimes you would have a strategy that would help move the thing forward.
[CNN Democratic presidential debate - CNN.com - 01-22-08]

Last night’s debate was awesome. Here is a video clip showing when the sparks started to fly. In this clip, Hillary Clinton argued that the candidates’ record matters and preceded to go through Obama’s record. Obama fired back, for the record, that Clinton was a corporate board member for Wal-Mart when Obama saw people’s jobs go overseas. Clinton responded saying while she worked for America, Obama represented slum lords as a lawyer in Chicago.

I didn’t have time to make the other clips, but on health care, Clinton and Edwards both challenged Obama’s proclaimation that his plan is universal health care, demonstrating Obama doesn’t seem to really understand what universal health is or means. In another clip both Clinton and Edwards raised Obama’s voting record in IL where he voted “present” over 100 times to avoid making tough decisions.

I guess he got in. When Vince called close to 6 p.m., he said he was in a line of people, three deep, stretching for blocks. He sent this video into NashFlix.