Thread: Who is Vera Baker ?

The rumors are swirling, but I never heard them. The first I heard of them was in this preemptive defense calling them smears. Larry Johnson is talking this up, but he isn’t the most reliable source … http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/10...idential-race/ however when Jammie Wearing Fool has info and predicts this will be a scoop I listen.

From Sharon Churcher’s preemptive defense piece: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worl...nned-wife.html

The woman was purportedly sidelined from her duties after Senator Obama’s wife, Michelle, became convinced that he had developed a personal friendship with her.

The allegations were initially circulated in August, just two weeks before the convention at which Obama finally beat his opponent for the Democratic Party nomination, Hillary Clinton.

The woman, now 33, vigorously denies the vicious and unsubstantiated gossip.

And some Washington insiders suggested that she was the victim of an 11th-hour attempt to smear Obama by die-hard Hillary supporters.

But now the rumours have resurfaced, suggesting that they may be coming from elements in the Republican Party.

Who is Vera Baker?

Some people in Chicago claim she was Obama’s Finance Director for his 2004 Senate campaign. FEC Senate campaign records show she was paid a pretty penny as “Finance Director”.

However, people familiar with Obama’s 2004 Senate campaign say Claire Serdiuk was Obama’s Finance Director. Looking through everything we can see online for that 2004 campaign, Claire Serdiuk is consistently listed as the Finance Director - because that’s what she was.

There’s no mention of Vera Baker…but Vera Baker was paid as the “Finance Director” too.

And then, suddenly, Vera Baker was relocated to New York.

Right around the time Michelle Obama got incredibly angry about something. We know it was hard to tell, because Michelle’s angry about something on a good day…but this was EXTRA angry.

And then, even more suddenly, Vera Baker was relocated to the island of Martinique, where she remains.

We hear it’s lovely there. They get lots of sunshine on Sundays. Paradise. A lovely place to read between the lines and ask lots of questions. All reporters should go there and feel inspired.

Ace: http://ace.mu.nu/archives/275417.php


After you read Churcher’s article take a look at today’s piece by Hill Buzz, which carries the nifty title, Who is Vera Baker and Why is She in Martinique? and seems to have similar story line sans the allegations of any romantic entanglements.

According to Hill Buzz: http://hillbuzz.wordpress.com/2008/1...in-martinique/

FEC Senate campaign records show she was paid a pretty penny as “Finance Director”.

However, people familiar with Obama’s 2004 Senate campaign say Claire Serdiuk was Obama’s Finance Director. Looking through everything we can see online for that 2004 campaign, Claire Serdiuk is consistently listed as the Finance Director - because that’s what she was.

There’s no mention of Vera Baker…but Vera Baker was paid as the “Finance Director” too.

And then, suddenly, Vera Baker was relocated to New York.

Looks like Kevin at Hill Buzz is stirring the waters in a clever way, but at least has FEC records to bolster the assertion that Baker served in a finance role of some sort with Barack’s campaign for the Senate. What is curious about the Churcher piece, which appears to be sympathetic to Obama by portraying him as the victim of an impending smear, is the note that a London law firm contacted the mail. They were threatened with a libel suit, so why the hell did they write the piece? If it is not news then why put it out and draw attention to an unnamed woman that is simply going to fuel the search for the woman in question?


Sweet Potato Pie? http://proteinwisdom.com/pub/?p=2032


Just remember…this is only a rumor until the media get off their behinds and actually investigate this. I heard another rumor that they plan on doing that the day after hell freezes over. We are not claiming this rumor to be true, only offering certain facts that raise serious questions we believe any unbiased media has the obligation to investigate. If only an unbiased media existed. Remember how the media played catch-up with the blogs on the John Edwards affair? It will be fun to see them repeat their mistakes if this pans out.


http://www.stoptheaclu.com/archives/...aker-recently/

It is true that Vera Baker had a business in Washington raising campaign funds. She was partners with another African American woman, Muthoni Wambu, Baker Wambu & Associates, a political fund-raising firm. Guess who Wambu works for now? Joe Biden. The Politico had a story about Baker Wambu’s business challenges in May 2007: http://www.politico.com/news/stories...875_Page2.html

That’s what happened when Muthoni Wambu and Vera Baker, both African-American women, set up their own fundraising shop, Baker Wambu & Associates, in 2000.

Though it was never its owners’ intention, Baker Wambu soon found itself a top fundraising firm for the Congressional Black Caucus. Their only non-black clients were Reps. Mike Honda (D-Hawaii) and Louise McIntosh Slaughter (D-N.Y.). Not a single white male politician linked up with the firm in its five years.

“We didn’t aim to be (a strictly CBC firm) at all. But we started to look and say, ‘Huh, that’s a good committee, that’s a big deal.’ … A lot of CBC members were really open to having a firm like ours raise money for them,” said Wambu, now deputy political director for Delaware Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s Democratic presidential campaign. “In many ways, they were overlooked as resources. Businesses hadn’t pitched to them.”

Here’s another little tidbit on Muthoni Wambu:

African American professionals can build prosperous careers in the capital city, especially those hoping to play a role in national politics. “There’s a mentality here that there’s enough for everyone; you’re not competing for what feels like a limited number of opportunities,” says 29-year-old Muthoni Wambu.

Like most Washingtonians, Wambu is a transplant. She left New York City’s Upper West Side to study journalism at Howard University and then networked her way into a political fundraising job with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. This was a new aspect of politics for Wambu, who soon discovered that it “brought together my strengths in a way that I’d never anticipated.”

In 2000, Wambu and Vera Baker, another Howard alum, started Baker-Wambu & Associates. The firm has raised over $3 million for the campaigns of members of Congress and other politicians. “Washington is the best place for our firm to blossom and grow, and one of the only cities where two 24-year-old African American women [could have built a successful business] with pennies and a dream,” she says.

Wambu moved to her neighborhood a few years back, when it was on the cusp of change, and has watched its value multiply over a relatively short period of time. She currently rents an apartment, but in the next year she plans to buy a house and is looking to spend around $400,000. During her 12 years in Washington, D.C., Wambu says that she also has seen the cost of living escalate.

Wambu’s job provides many opportunities to socialize– often with the nation’s most influential business and political leaders. “It is unique to find the number of African Americans that you see at these power restaurants, and [it’s] also extremely encouraging,” she says.

It will be interesting to see if Hill Buzz gets a nasty gram from Baker’s London lawyers. And, with rumors swirling that Republican investigators are on the scent, it is unlikely that this is the end of this story.


Jammie Wearing Fool: http://ace.mu.nu/archives/275417.php

Having now spoken to someone tracking the story, I can say:

1) It’s not just a silly little rumor.

2) It will break in some form shortly. The question is how prestigious an outlet breaks it. (PS, at best, it won’t be that prestigious, at least at first, but there’s a lot here so when someone finally touches, there is a good chance of an Edwards-like “Oh yeah, we were working on that too” pile-on.) Fire is being held as those who know the story try to get someone of import to break it; if they pass, it will be flooded out through secondary channels.

3) The story has a Fred Baron. Not The Fred Baron. But actually– an even better Fred Baron. The woman is “working” in the Caribbean drawing a salary from…. uhhh… let’s say from someone who is a big, shiny part of the dirty Chicago political machine. And it makes no sense that she’s doing her supposed “job,” for which she seems unqualified anyway, in the Caribbean, of all places. It’s unclear how she could possibly do this job at all, never mind from the Caribbean. And she’s been there for at least a year. (At least.) This isn’t some sabbatical or few months’ of “work” on an island paradise.

4) This woman was a major, big-time fundraiser. She raised x millions of dollars for various Democratic interests (connected to Obama) and then opened her own shop in DC. Since she was (as any fundraiser does) getting a cut of the take, this was a lucrative job. But she, for reasons unfathomable, suddenly shut the shop down and decamped to a little Caribbean island. And somewhere along the line got a “job” from her own Fred Baron. Which conveniently put her far away from Obama, Michelle, and the media.

5) Within hours of the Daily Mail article breaking, she called the Illinois hq of the Obama campaign. They wouldn’t talk to her.

Ace http://ace.mu.nu/archives/275402.php

I agree with Andrew Sullivan: Full disclosure.

Let's see this banished staffer's work records, pay stubs, and travel schedules. With an eye to seeing how those travel schedules may match up with The One's.

I'm a journalist. It's my duty to demand these answers. And I'll never stop.

HBO filmmakers get inside Obama campaign
By David Bauder, Ap Television Writer
Sun Nov 1, 1:49 pm ET

NEW YORK – Pivotal presidential campaigns are frequently defined in retrospect by documentaries.

"The War Room" chronicled Bill Clinton's political operation in 1992, adding a phrase to the political lexicon in the process. Alexandra Pelosi's "Journeys With George" captured the oddities of a national campaign on board George W. Bush's airplane in 2000.

The makers of "By the People: The Election of Barack Obama," which premieres Tuesday — Election Night — on HBO, wouldn't mind the same status.

"That was our hope — that we would create something for history," said filmmaker Alicia Sams, who made the documentary with colleague Amy Rice and a key assist from actor Edward Norton.

Rice was inspired by Obama's speech to the Democratic National Convention in 2004 and wanted to do a film about him as an up-and-coming political leader. Her friend Sams signed on, but they couldn't get their phone calls to Obama's office returned until Norton called on their behalf. He's still involved as a producer.

They got lucky. They wound up with a far more important story than they had dreamed about.

Even though they began filming nearly a year before Obama announced his candidacy in February 2007, being on the ground early didn't guarantee them anything. They were nearly shut down when the campaign began.

Obama aides like David Axelrod didn't want Rice and Sams around. He worried about leaks and whether the presence of cameras would cause people to act like they were in a reality show — concerns that proved amusing in retrospect. Access was a constant concern.

Iowa became their centerpiece. They stuck close to Obama through his early campaigning there, catching moments like a 9-year-old boy making phone calls to drum up support. After three hours of shaking hands, a weary Obama says, "It's like I've been through a wrestling match."

Through the crowds and contact, the filmmakers sense Obama catching on as he moved toward an impressive victory in the Iowa caucuses. The film introduces audiences to the people around Obama, not just top aides like Axelrod and David Plouffe, but the enthusiastic Ronnie Cho, Obama's Polk County organizer. Their discipline and meticulous planning were evident. It was the birthplace of a movement, and whether Obama eventually won or lost the presidency, Rice and Sams felt Iowa gave them a film.

"It was part of the story nobody knew," Rice said. "When he won Iowa, people started to pay attention."

Norton said the campaign's emotional restraint impressed him.

Obama is shown riding in an elevator after having just clinched the Democratic nomination and a film crew member remarks, "You must be feeling pretty good." The basketball-loving candidate just says, "You don't cut down the nets for the conference championship."

"He just seemed so unflappable and what you wondered was, `I wonder if behind the doors it's like the war room, you know, everybody's cussing at each other and they're furious," Norton said. "When you got around behind the private spaces with them, it was the same."

Obama saw a rough cut of the film and sent back word that he cried upon seeing the emotional reactions of his staff members to his election.

Cried? Rice doesn't quite believe that.

That's what makes extraordinary her footage of an Obama speech the night before the election, after he learned that the grandmother who helped raise him had died a day before seeing the ultimate dream come true. Rice was well-positioned to catch a tear trickling down Obama's face that night, a view that news cameras penned farther back missed.

On Election Night, Rice shadowed Axelrod and David Plouffe, the aides that once didn't want her around until she wore them down. She catches the emotional scenes of a headquarters where an implausible dream had come true. She followed the men to an elevator and into Obama's hotel suite as the campaign architects congratulated the new president-elect.

"Don't start crying," Michelle Obama says while hugging Axelrod.

While the film's release triggers memories of a historic night, it may not be well-timed for Obama.

It reaches TV screens less than a month after Obama's selection for the Nobel Peace Prize, a prize that left many Americans and even the president puzzled about what he had achieved to earn it. Difficult decisions with the war in Afghanistan and health care loom.

The documentary has a laudatory tone; after following Obama for two years both Rice and Sams said they voted for him. The film could leave Obama fans pining about potential yet unfulfilled and give opponents another example of the media fawning over the president.

"The reaction is going to change on any given day," Sams said, "and that's OK. What we want is the movie to stand the test of time."

___

Associated Press Writer Robert Merrill contributed to this report.

___

On the Net:

http://www.homeboxoffice.com/



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091101/...9maWxtbWFrZXI-

With all the fuss and bother about Newt's sex life ... I wonder why no one ever followed this story ?