NPR: MoveOn.org Endorses Barack Obama

MoveOn.org Endorses Barack Obama

MoveOn.org, the liberal political action group best know for its anti-Iraq war position, threw its weight behind Sen. Barack Obama today. The endorsement comes after the group's membership voted 70.4 percent in favor of backing Obama, while 29.6 percent wanted to support Sen. Hillary Clinton.

"The group, with 3.2 million members nationwide and over 1.7 million members in Super Tuesday states, will immediately begin to mobilize on behalf of Senator Obama," MoveOn.org officials said in a statement.

Obama accepted the endorsement, saying "In just a few years, the members of MoveOn have once again demonstrated that real change comes not from the top-down, but from the bottom-up. From their principled opposition to the Iraq war - a war I also opposed from the start - to their strong support for a number of progressive causes, MoveOn shows what Americans can achieve when we come together in a grassroots movement for change."

The endorsement from the group comes the day after the National Journal 27th Annual vote rankings listed Obama as the most liberal member of the Senate.

The Republican response to the MoveOn announcement hits a theme that we're likely to hear frequently if Obama wins the Deomcratic nomination:

"It's no surprise MoveOn.org would endorse the newly crowned 'most liberal' member of the Senate," Republican National Committee spokesman Alex Conant says in a statement e-mailed to reporters. "Obama may claim to unite the country, but he's only uniting the extreme-left wing of the Democratic Party. In an attempt to woo MoveOn.org, both Obama and Clinton voted against troop funding. Considering how MoveOn.org was originally founded to defend the Clintons, this must be a blow to Sen. Clinton. Coming after the Kennedy and Kerry endorsements, today's news begs the question: Why are those most familiar with Clinton's record rejecting her?"

1:14 PM ET | 02- 1-2008 | permalink

Comments (Send a comment)

Obama is like an American Idol contestant. Everybody is star struck. But he's just copying Hillary on policy and trying to keep up. And his arrogance is beginning to annoy people. He's not the second coming of Christ, folks. He's just a very ambitious egotistical preacher who thinks he has all the answers. Just watch. All the media slobbering and the celebrity gushing will backfire. Linking him to moveon.org and Ted Kennedy will backfire because voters will think he's too extreme. Plus, he only has one speech which is getting pretty old. Hillary completely dominated him in the debate, even though they let him go first every time and gave him softball questions and attacked her, as usual. If the Democratic party can't figure out that Hillary will be the best president and get behind her, we're going to end up with another eight years of Republican fascist libertarians controlling the country. Wake up, guys!

Sent by SB | 2:36 PM ET | 02-02-2008

For all the democrats who support Hillary Clinton, I respectfully submit that Obama is our best chance at beating the republicans in November. Perhaps undeservedly so, but the Clintons are incredibly divisive politicians. Republican turnout has been low relative to the democratic turnout, but if Sen. Clinton were to receive the nomination, conservatives (and many independents I might add) will come out in droves to oppose her. Indeed, many polls show that 45% of the voting population will never vote for Sen. Clinton. Therefore, the Republican candidate will merely have to push a few percentage points worth of independants to his side to win. And, if the Rep. candidate is John McCain, that should be a realtively easy task, given that independants are his strongest constituency. Moreover, even if she is wins the election, I think conservatives will become even more recalcitrant, and Sen. Clinton will not be able to accomplish her ambitious agenda. From a purely pragmatic perspective, Sen. Obama, is the democrat's best chance to win in a general election.

Sent by Henry Mascia | 11:14 PM ET | 02-02-2008

Remember that Senate vote to condemn MoveOn.Org? Obama did what he did best, he avoided the vote, while Hillary voted against it.

This is how MoveOn.Org repaid Hillary. How ironic!

Sent by Xi Chen | 2:16 AM ET | 02-03-2008

I totally agree that Obama is the IT man right now. The media loves him, hates the clintons and boy does it show. Across the board the Wash Post, CNN you name it have had amazingly slanted news coverage. I am not saying Obama is not a good candidate but Hillary is awesome and she is getting creamed in the press. Liberal friends of mine in my neighborhood are all jumping on the Obama bandwagon (many supported Hillary or stayed neutral up until this latest craze for him) because he makes them feel good. If he gets the nomination-which looks plausible--hope he can handle the heat from the R's

Sent by nancy | 8:20 AM ET | 02-04-2008

The media (including NPR, though others may disagree) is totally skewed toward Obama. As a Hillary supporter, it was interesting to hear NPR commentators last night try to minimize Hillary's victories. Whenever Hillary won a state, it was usually "not much of a surprise," while whenever Obama won a state it was "a blow to the Hillary campaign." I like Obama a lot, but there really is a bias.

By the way, Alex Conant misused the phrase "begs the question," which actually refers to circular logic. Figures.

Sent by BTQ | 3:54 PM ET | 02-06-2008

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