Obama for America

"We may congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearing its end.
It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood. . . .
It has indeed been a trying hour for the Republic; but
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes
me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war,
corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places
will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong
its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth
is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.
I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety
of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war.
God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless."

The passage appears in a letter from Lincoln to (Col.) William F. Elkins, Nov. 21, 1864.

I just watched one of the most effective documentaries that I've ever seen, called "Iraq for Sale" by Robert Greenwald, independently distributed via Brave New Films. This is the official web site:

http://iraqforsale.org/

Ignore some of the more sensationalist computer overlay effects. This is all about the journalistic content.

    The  majority of the interviews are not with academics, "liberal" journalists, nor politicians, on any side of any fence. Most of the content is television news footage, and interviews with people directly involved in the Iraq war -- contractors, soldiers, and their families. Most of them are traditionally Republican voters.

A new type of test has been developed, that can detect your true feelings, better than you can rationalize them. It is called the Implicit Association Test or IAT. It was created by sociology and psychology experts at Harvard, who hosts the main site for the tests online: Project Implicit. The current Featured Task is the Presidential Candidates task. I took the test, and Barack Obama ended up way up on top, John McCain was down in the lower middle, and both Hillary Clinton and Mike Huckabee were dead last.

I just created a letter that the Barack Obama campaign can share with any "Super" Delegate. I wanted to share it with anyone who could take the time to read it here:

To whom it may concern,
    I am writing in support of Barack Obama, and against the "Super" Delegate system as a whole. The only way I could understand such a system, working for the democratic process, is to serve as a "tie breaker" when a 3rd or 4th "spoiler" candidate is splitting the vote (usually by splitting hairs in policy debates). Even then, controlling 20% of the vote is not necessary for simple tie-breaking. Being able to throw votes early is never democratic. "Spoiler" candidates are a symptom of "one person one vote" style polling systems, which are really insufficient to convey the true thoughts of any electorate. A ranking style voting system would be much better. Even an instant run-off system would be an improvement.
    Super-Delegates are all we have now, so the individual voter, like myself, is left to appeal to you directly, as a Super-Delegate. It offends me to learn that my party is not as transparent as I hope all government will soon become. It offends me that your vote apparently counts more than my own. We are ostensibly equal, as citizens, in all other rights. I thought "Democratic" and "democracy" shared the same root, and I am dismayed to now find that this thought may be incorrect.

    As I understand it, Super-Delegates are supposed to represent "the will of their constituents". Right now, the popular vote is showing Barack Obama to be the better representative of that "will". Super Delegates may also serve to thrust someone to the lead, who doesn't poll as well within their own party, but who would do much better in a multi-party national election. If that is the reason for Super-Delegates, then that means they should all nominate Barack Obama for President. By all measures, Barack Obama has greater appeal to Independents, and even to Republicans, than any other candidate. Just ask any member of my parents' immediate families! Nearly all of them were registered Republicans until this Primary season, when they changed party affiliation, just so they could vote for Barack Obama! None of them are interested in voting for Hillary Clinton, ever. Some of them are still on the fence about John McCain, despite his support for the Iraq war. He is simply a better reformer than Hillary Clinton.

    Hillary Clinton is a divisive figure by all accounts. She is currently the best Democratic representative of an old, failing guard. My personal dissatisfaction with politics has not been limited to 8 years of Rove-Cheney leadership, using a dynastic puppet named Bush. My dissatisfaction really started with the 1992-2000 Republican Congressional leadership, using a puppet named Clinton. Of course, thanks in part to Jack Abramoff, now we all know who the real puppet masters are, and have always been: the lobbyists. Hillary Clinton has shown herself to be a swift and servile dynastic puppet as well, directly to those same masters. She serves the will of her lobby supporters, not individual people like myself, and not this great nation. Lobbies are not citizens, and are not even completely composed of citizens. I can only assume any Super-Delegate who nominates Hillary Clinton serves those same masters.
    In direct contrast, Barack Obama is funded only by the people, individually. He and John McCain both work for the people, individually, when they both work towards campaign finance reform. Hillary Clinton works only for herself, and her pay masters. Any Super-Delegate who thinks they have more sway with Hillary Clinton, than her lobby supporters, is living in a fairy-tale.

    If Barack Obama is not the Democratic nominee for President this year, I may have to contemplate voting a Republican into Presidential office, for the first time in my voting career. I really feel the need to vote for the candidates most likely to bring campaign finance reform to the system -- central reform which effects all other policies. My Republican-since-birth family would agree, unfortunately. When they were just beginning to see the light of true progressive politics in their midst, I fear they may see that light struck down -- by Hillary Clinton and her "Super", UN-Democratic, Delegates. The thought that a lobby servant like Hillary Clinton, or her Super-Delegate followers, would serve real democracy is a fantasy. We would all much rather see REAL democracy in action, and REAL change, with REAL progress. The only REAL candidate, for all those goals, is currently Barack Obama.

Thank you,
Jared Hardy
proud Democratic voter since 1994

I believe in looking at both sides of any argument, and looking at all available facts. So I was researching why Hillary thought she might be able to beat McCain in November, and found this Blog post link on her campaign's front page:

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/blog/view/?id=33969

    The arguments here amount to Hillary beating the dead (or at least nearly dead) horse of "experience" claims, which obviously won't fly against a candidate with deep government experience like McCain -- especially if you count his long military service record, on top of his public service. They also discounted the polls that are now showing Obama to be the only consistent winner against McCain, in national polls. The only evidence they attempt to cite is "margin of error." Their blog comments are full of the same self-congratulatory crud such heavily moderated (read: censored) sites are prone to. I tried to comment on the article myself, with the top 3 links  from Google below, but I kept hitting this error page:

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/_base/error/?aspxerrorpath=/blog/view/Default.aspx