Bill Clinton has tons of respect for Jimmy Carter. But he doesn’t agree that racism is a driving factor behind angry opposition to President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform agenda.

Like Carter, Clinton is a former Democratic governor of a Southern state who has spent years battling entrenched racism against blacks.

“I sympathize with where President Carter’s coming from. If you’re a white southerner and you’ve fought these battles a long time, you’re super-sensitive to any kind of discrimination based on race,” Clinton, a former Arkansas governor, said in an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Carter, a former Georgia governor, raised the issue of race after U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina shouted “You lie” at Obama during the president’s healthcare speech to Congress this month. Thousands of conservatives also rallied in opposition to the president at demonstrations in Washington.

“I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man,” Carter told NBC News.

Obama, the first black U.S. president, later said he believed some opposition had to do with race. But he denied Carter’s charge that racism was a leading factor.

Clinton sounded a similar note.

“Some of the extreme Right who oppose him on healthcare also are racially prejudiced,” said Clinton, who lost his own bid to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system during his first term as president.

“But I believe that if he (Obama) were not an African-American, all the people who are against him on healthcare would still be against him,” he said.

“What’s driving them is: they don’t want healthcare. They don’t want the government, one more time, to take care of people who are left out or left behind. They are philosophically or emotionally — or whatever — opposed to it,” Clinton added.

Clinton said he hopes the current debate will move the United States closer to universal coverage. He would specifically like to see greater use of electronic medical records, better management of chronic diseases that account for the bulk of healthcare costs and a system that encourages care over costly medical procedures.

As for his own foray into healthcare reform, the former president said it all came down to the strength of the Republican opposition led by former Senator Bob Dole of Kansas.

“Senator Dole decided that he wanted to kill all forms of healthcare and he had 45 votes, so he could lose four and still have a filibuster. That’s what really killed healthcare reform,” Clinton said.

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Photo credits: Jim Young/Reuters (Clinton and Obama); David Mercado/Reuters (Carter)

With jazz great Herbie Hancock and Congressman John Lewis at her side, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hosted a State Department ceremony on Thursday to mark the departure of a cultural delegation to India to commemorate civil rights leader Martin Luther King’s trip there 50 years ago.

King and his wife, Coretta, traveled to India in 1959 to study the life and works of India’s legendary nonviolent independence leader Mahatma Gandhi. King adopted many of Gandhi’s principles of nonviolence to the U.S. civil rights movement in the early 1960s.
 
Clinton said she was “jealous” of the trip by the delegation, which includes Hancock, civil rights veteran Lewis, King’s son, Martin Luther King III, and Alabama Congressman Spencer Bachus. The group will travel to New Delhi and other sites associated with Gandhi.

Hancock said the philosophy of cooperation, communication and harmony espoused by King and Gandhi “are also essential elements of every jazz band.”

Clinton, meanwhile, said the delegation was “exactly what the State Department should be doing even more of.”

“Jazz is not just about music,” the newly installed diplomat said. “As secretary of state, I’m improvising every day.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Tim Parker (Herbie Hancock and trumpeter Roy Hargrove play at Powell Symphony Hall in St. Louis on Sept. 28, 2001)

Today marks the end of the Bush stock market.

He has presided over the evisceration of more than $4.6 trillion of U.S. stock market wealth as measured by the S&P 500.

By comparison, the S&P 500 gained more than $9 trillion in value under the eight years of Bill Clinton's administration.

Slightly more than half of Americans say Caroline Kennedy has what it takes to serve in the U.S. Senate, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Poll. 

Kennedy, 51, is campaigning to fill the New York senate seat held by Hillary Clinton, who has been nominated for Secretary of State.

The only person who gets a vote is New York Gov. David Paterson, who will appoint any replacement for Clinton. 

Kennedy, a lawyer, has been involved in education issues but has never held office. She has name recognition and membership in an American political dynasty. Her uncle, Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, is one of the most powerful members of the Senate. 

But is Caroline Kennedy qualified to a senator?

Fifty-two percent of Americans say “yes” and 42 percent say “not” qualified, according to the poll of 1,013 adults published on Monday. 

Which raises the question, what exactly qualifies anyone to be a senator?

The U.S. Constitution lists only three qualifications: 

-you must be at least 30 

-you have to be a U.S. citizen for nine years

-you have live in the state from which you are elected 

That’s it. 
    
For the record there have been 180 senators appointed since 1913 to seats vacated by death, expulsion or resignation.

Some have had family connections — like Muriel Humphrey of Minnesota and Jean Carnahan of Missouri, widows appointed to fill seats to which their husbands were elected.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Brian Snyder (Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg at John F. Kennedy Awards ceremony at Harvard in November)

Nancy Kivlen of PUMA (”Party Unity My Ass”) explains why she plans to vote for John McCain if Hillary Clinton doesn’t receive the Democratic nomination. This video is from Mike Smith, one of the contributors to Reuters Inside the Tent.

Reuters Inside the Tent has more than 40 delegates and other attendees in Denver and St. Paul, equipped with video cameras to capture the conventions from the ground up. Smith is not a Reuters employee and any opinions expressed are his own.

Click here for a full list of contributors at the Democratic National Convention. We’ll be moving to St. Paul for the Republican National Convention next week.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

ROSEBURG, Oregon - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama appears ready to put his opponent, Hillary Clinton, into the past tense of the grueling primary campaign.

When asked on Saturday at a rally in Roseburg about party unity, the Illinois senator acknowledged people’s concerns about the length of the nominating process but assured them that Democrats would come out united in the end.

“It was pretty tough and hard fought,” he said about the primary season, describing the former first lady as a “formidable opponent.”

“She was relentless and very effective.”

Was? Note the use of the past tense.

Obama has not wrapped up the nomination and Clinton is still campaigning hard in the remaining primary states.

But the Obama campaign has shifted its focus, at least partly, onto a general election against Republican John McCain. Obama stopped in Michigan and Missouri this week and intends to campaign in Florida and Iowa next week, all of which are states that have already voted and will be crucial to a Democratic win in the fall.

Clinton is seen winning Kentucky on Tuesday while Obama is expected to take Oregon, at which point the campaign predicts he will have more than half of the pledged delegates needed to help secure the nomination. Superdelegates — party leaders and elected officials with the deciding vote in this close race — will follow from there, his camp believes.

Clinton has said she will stay in the race until there is a nominee. The last nominating contest is on June 3. 

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Photo credit: Reuters/Richard Clement (Obama waits to speak as he is introduced at a town hall campaign event)

LORETTO,  KENTUCKY  -   Sen.  Hillary Clinton, campaigning in rural Kentucky, on Saturday blasted critics telling her to drop out of the presidential race as America’s advantaged and well-heeled trying to tell the rest of the nation what to think and do.

“All those people on TV who are telling you and everybody else that this race is over and I should just be graceful and say, ‘Oh, it’s over,’” she said in Loretto, Kentucky. “Those are all people who have a job. Those are all people who have health care. Those are all people who can afford to send their kids to college. Those are all people who can pay whatever is charged at the gas pump.

“They’re not the people I’m running to be a champion for,” she said after touring a bourbon distillery. “I’m running to be a champion for all of you and your children and your grandchildren.”

Clinton, facing calls to quit in favor of Democratic frontrunner Barack Obama, has adopted a populist appeal in her bid for her party’s presidential nomination, especially as she has sought support in the rural Midwest and South.

As her campaign accused Obama of being an elitist, she drank a shot of whiskey before a crowd of photographers, posed with the driver of a large pickup truck to oppose high gas prices and campaigned at a farm equipment dealership and an auto race car hall of fame.

Recent primaries have shown Clinton faring better among voters with less education and less income in rural areas than Obama who is doing better among more affluent, more educated voters in more urban areas.

Later on Saturday, at Kentucky State University in Frankfort, Clinton continued in the same vein.

“I think we have a problem because too often, folks who are sitting in Washington or on TV sets tell people what you’re supposed to think and what you’re supposed to do,” she said, “and I don’t believe that’s the best way that America can work. The strength of America comes from our people.”

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Photo: Reuters/Chris Keane (Clinton supporter in West Virginia )

CHARLESTON - While Democrats fret over the lengthy nomination battle and pundits wring their hands over whether Sen. Hillary Clinton should pull out, the candidate is out campaigning as if all those political storm clouds were not hanging over her head.

On Tuesday, as West Virginia voters headed to the polls, Clinton stopped to greet people at an outdoor flower market in Charleston. She was met with enthusiasm, especially from older, white women who have proven to be a pillar of her support.

“West Virginia is behind you, darling,” one woman shouted.

Clinton shook hands, posed for pictures and cooed over babies as shoppers lined up to meet her. Shouts of “She’s here, she’s here” rippled through the market.

“I’m so excited. I just voted and here you are,” Julie Watkins squealed to the candidate. The 42-year-old social worker said she had to rush off to take her grandmother to vote.

Another supporter, Mary Lou White, cupped a lit cigar in her hand as she met the former first lady.

“I told her to keep fighting. That’s what you do,” said the 69-year-old plant vendor from Kenna, West Virginia, afterward.

Clinton stopped to eat a cup of Espresso Oreo ice cream from Ellen’s Homemade Ice Cream stand.

“I’m an equal opportunity ice cream eater,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever eaten ice cream I didn’t like.”

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WASHINGTON - Hillary Clinton got a rapturous response from a mostly female audience at a fundraiser on Wednesday evening. Many in the audience urged her to stay in the race for the Democratic White House nomination against rival Barack Obama. 

But at least two demonstrators dissented, standing and interrupting her speech before being led out of the room. 

Clinton, a senator from New York, was not thrown off.  “I welcome that,” she said, saying strong opinions were part of the American birthright. “It’s who we are.” 

The former first lady, who disclosed earlier that she loaned another $6.4 million to her campaign, said she hoped the protestors made another kind of contribution in addition to disrupting her remarks.  “I hope they paid to come.”

CARY, N.C. - A double standard that treats men and women differently still exists in the race for the White House, Hillary Clinton told an audience on Saturday.

The former first lady recalled Hollywood dancing stars Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and the famous saying that Rogers did everything Astaire did but “backwards and in high heels.”

“I do think that there is still something of a double standard,” she said in North Carolina. “I think there is a certain element of that.”

“I’m not running for president because I’m a woman,” she added, “but I’m very conscious of the fact that my being a woman sends an incredible message of possibility, not only to our daughters but also to our sons. It says in our country, we have consistently expanded the circle of opportunity. We have broken through so many glass ceilings.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Chris Keane