ConservativeINC

Sources close to both Obama and Clinton told ABC News that the New York senator is highly unlikely to allow her name to be formally submitted for a roll-call vote on the convention floor. The Obama campaign wants to avoid such a vote, since it would underscore the party’s splits and remind voters of the divisive primary campaign between the two Democrats.

The refusal to publicly announce her intentions is widely seen as a bargaining chip Clinton is holding on to as party officials negotiate logistics regarding her convention speech and other activities, according to several Democrats who are closely involved in the matter.

Clinton plans to hold a Web chat with supporters Thursday afternoon where she might clarify her convention role. In announcing the Web chat, she urged her supporters to continue to stay tuned to her Web site for updates about her convention activities.

But the very fact that details of her convention role remain unresolved less than three weeks before the Democrats descend upon Denver is a fresh sign of the difficulties the party will face at a convention when nearly half the delegates were chosen because of their support for a candidate who will not be the nominee.

“We will have this in hand for Sen. Clinton, should this be needed,” said Castner, who said that she’s already gathered about half the necessary signatures.

Castner said she and many other Clinton supporters will only feel as if their voices are being heard if they are allowed to vote for Clinton on a first ballot.

“It’s been a tradition since the late 1800s — it’s a nominating convention, you vote, you nominate someone, and you come out unified. I don’t see how alienating 1,800 delegates gives you party unity when we walk out of the stadium,” she said. “Hillary delegates feel like we’re not welcome, needed, or valued.”

“I cannot believe that Sen. Clinton, after putting in that much time, energy and effort, would just say, ’ Nah, take my name out,’ “ Castner said.

a recent AP poll found that only 6% of Americans would describe Obama as “liberal,” let alone socialist.

A careful reading of Obama’s first memoir, “Dreams From My Father,” reveals that his childhood mentor up to age 18 — a man he cryptically refers to as “Frank” — was none other than the late communist Frank Marshall Davis, who fled Chicago after the FBI and Congress opened investigations into his “subversive,” “un-American activities.”

As Obama was preparing to head off to college, he sat at Davis’ feet in his Waikiki bungalow for nightly bull sessions. Davis plied his impressionable guest with liberal doses of whiskey and advice, including: Never trust the white establishment.

“They’ll train you so good,” he said, “you’ll start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that sh**.”

After college, where he palled around with Marxist professors and took in socialist conferences “for inspiration,” Obama followed in Davis’ footsteps, becoming a “community organizer” in Chicago.

His boss there was Gerald Kellman, whose identity Obama also tries to hide in his book. Turns out Kellman’s a disciple of the late Saul “The Red” Alinsky, a hard-boiled Chicago socialist who wrote the “Rules for Radicals” and agitated for social revolution in America.

The Chicago-based Woods Fund provided Kellman with his original $25,000 to hire Obama. In turn, Obama would later serve on the Woods board with terrorist Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground. Ayers was one of Obama’s early political supporters.

After three years agitating with marginal success for more welfare programs in South Side Chicago, Obama decided he would need to study law to “bring about real change” — on a large scale.

While at Harvard Law School, he still found time to hone his organizing skills. For example, he spent eight days in Los Angeles taking a national training course taught by Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation. With his newly minted law degree, he returned to Chicago to reapply — as well as teach — Alinsky’s “agitation” tactics.

(A video-streamed bio on Obama’s Web site includes a photo of him teaching in a University of Chicago classroom. If you freeze the frame and look closely at the blackboard Obama is writing on, you can make out the words “Power Analysis” and “Relationships Built on Self Interest” — terms right out of Alinsky’s rule book.)

You can see why Obama was ranked, hands-down, the most liberal member of the Senate by the National Journal. Some, including colleague and presidential challenger John McCain, think he’s the most liberal member in Congress.

But could he really be “more left,” as McCain recently remarked, than self-described socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (for whom Obama has openly campaigned, even making a special trip to Vermont to rally voters)?

Obama’s voting record, going back to his days in the Illinois statehouse, says yes. His career path — and those who guided it — leads to the same unsettling conclusion.