The dreaded event has happened. John McCain has pulled ahead ever-so-slightly in the polls. We need to fight back. The honeymoon is over and now it is time to roll up our sleeves and get the hard work done of connecting with the voters. We need to let the American people know that with a McCain presidency they will see corporations rule for another four years, health care given short-shrift, an extention of failed policies of the Bush administration, with a commander-in-chief so prone to anger as to risk more pointless US military operations that will kill our sons and daughters. Enough is enough: we need Republicans out of the executive branch.
Vote Obama.
There is very little expected to happen over the next few weeks in the American political arena. The current electoral map will probably not show very much activity as the Olympics captivate the media and the candidates more-or-less take a break from the high-profile newsmaking that has characterized much of this campaign. The opposition has settled into a pattern of criticizing the youth, novelty, and popularity of our campaign by spending millions to spread the hateful message of the Celebutantes Attack Ads while emphasizing a "drill, drill, drill" message that is transparently pandering to the lowest common denominator in American politics. Meanwhile, we are on the ground registering voters and trying to connect with people about issues that matter to them whether it be Yucca Mountain in Nevada or the loss of 30,000 DHL jobs in Ohio.
There are two things that we as Barack Obama supporters should keep doing over the next few weeks of dolldrums:
1. Keep registering voters: as MANY as possible.
2. Remind those people who you talk to why this election is so important. Talking to people about the issues will make it clear to them and to us how essentially everybody is on our side: health care, civil rights, economic justice, the environment... My tagline is: "We are all Democrats". This cannot be emphasized enough.
Also, we should plan on supporting a seed-change in Congress and in state and local elections whenever possible. Gaining seats in the House and Senate for the Democrats is expected, but there are places where we should be making real inroads in the polls but have not yet succeeded. Republicans are actively talking about hunkering down to Congressional elections. They are proud of the stunt that the radical right representatives pulled when they refuses to leave for the August recess in order to pretend that offshore drilling was the most important issue of all time. They are taking a tack that they hope will distract from the facts that they are losing politically and have what can be best described as whithering mainstream support. Distracting the voting population with platitudes and appeals to greed and fear are their answer to a message of change and reform.
We can easily establish a proud alternative to these shrill whiners and has-been politicos. All we need to do is hold our heads up high and challenge those we meet and greet to think forward: toward the future and a more just, clean, transparent, and accountable government that can begin to fix the excesses of the nightmarish Bush years.
From Hillary Clinton's blog: http://blog.hillaryclinton.com/
Please share this with all the Hillary supporters you may know.
Are you truly supporting Senator Obama and encouraging your supporters to do the same or are you just saying what you have to?
by JR4Hill at 8/7/2008 12:46:53 PM
Answer: Let me first say, I am so grateful for all the support that I have received. To answer your question, I am completely committed to helping Senator Obama become the next President of the United States and urging all of you to do the same. We share a commitment to universal healthcare, bringing an end to the war in Iraq, and getting back to an economy that works for working families again. I believe so strongly that if we want to see real progress in our country and finally break away from the failed policies of the past eight years, we need a Democrat in the White House. I am going to continue to do whatever I can to help Senator Obama and Democrats across the country win in the November.
by Senator Clinton at 8/7/2008 1:15:38 PM
Here is an interesting graph I got from fivethirtyeight.com
What this says is that Obama is doing better than John Kerry did in 2004 with every group but one: democrats! We can probably guess why: a brusing primary and a divided party that has not quite unified. It is important that you talk to your democrat friends and let them know how important and real the distinction between McCain and Obama is. The true Democrat who believes in the principles of human rights, labor rights, stewardship of the environment, and protection of civil liberties should not have a hard choice to decide which candidate best embodies these principles.
Yesterday, Gallup published a disturbing poll that had Obama winning among registered voters but losing among "likely" voters. This means that Obama's supporters are judged by Gallup to be far less-likely to actually vote for him than McCain voters.
While we may bristle at this thought, consider this: many of Obama's supporters and democrats in general are facing an uphill battle to get their voices heard in any election. With the current "purges" of Democratic voters from the rolls happening across the country and the historic denial of voting rights to people in urban areas, not to mention the stolen elections of 2000 and 2004, it is small wonder that it is more likely for a McCain voter's vote to actually COUNT than an Obama voter.
What we must do is two things: We must ensure that as many people as possible are registered to vote and that they stay on the rolls. Then we must ensure, on election day, that people are treated fairly and given the opportunity to cast their ballot. Obama voters may be hard-pressed for time, may have employers telling them that they cannot go to the polls because they have to work. We need to try to eliminate such abuses and electoral tamping, but when they do happen, we need to let people know that they can document the abuse and someone will help them.
Fortunately, Obama knows that this is the sad history of this country when it comes to elections. He has taught courses on it at the University of Chicago Law School. We need to make sure that all of his supporters know that this is probably the NUMBER ONE issue of the election. If we can ensure that every voter has the opportunity to vote in this election and we can make sure that every vote is properly counted then we will win this election.
People love an underdog. Consistently, McCain has been quoted as saying "I like being the underdog." Of course, this "underdog" position cuts both ways, but let me explain why we need to be careful of McCain's vantagepoint.
On July 26 1988, Michael Dukakis was leading then-vice president George H. W. Bush a whopping 55% to 38%. We know what the punchline was then. Mid-July 2004, John Kerry led horror-in-chief George W. Bush 54% to 43%. What happened to both of these campaigns was a complete loss of that advantage due to devastating attacks levvied by the rightwing in the form of Willie Horton and Swit Boat Veterans for Truth. Attack ads work in this country and Democrats have always shied away from them.
McCain knows the effect an attack ad can have first hand. It happened to him in South Carolina in 2000 when a careful campaign was derailed by a surrogate attack on McCain's character. You may notice that McCain's current tactic right now is to attack Obama's character. Character assassination is a tried-and-true method of getting enough "underdog support" to end up winning in November. Karl Rove understood this all too well. Though McCain pretended to want to avoid that kind of acrimony, he's a Republican politician like any other who will do what it takes to seal the deal.
Fortunately, for Obama, a lot of the possible attack-angles have already had exposure. That doesn't meant that the Republicans won't happen upon the right combination of fear, lies, and hatred to remove the 49% to 40% advantage currently seen in the national polls. We should come to expect this sort of activity by now. It is important to make sure everyone you know is aware of this tactic so that we don't succumb to it. If we can get people to respond to Republican attacks by saying, "That's just the same old tactics they always use", then we can truly insure against a swing in favor of McCain's underdog strategy.
The other thing that we must do is turn out voters. We need to make sure that people get excited and stay excited about this election. Democrats win national elections through getting people to vote because, as I always say, everyone is a Democrat. Republicans win elections by getting people to stay home except for the few sheeple who have the resources, time, and enthusiasm to consistently tilt for them no matter how low the turnout. Obama's registration campaign needs all the help we can give it. That is our insurance against front-runner backlash. That's how we'll get Obama into the White House.
John McCain seems trapped in an ideology rooted firmly in a Cold War era Domino Theory foreign policy while espousing an anti-New Deal domestic policy that makes him look so out-dated and old-fashioned as to be almost absurd. To hear John McCain describe the world, the United States is the paragon of righteousness and protector of all that is good, wholesome, and real. There are two problems with this sentiment: one) the last eight years have ruined the modicum of credibility the US had on the world stage in terms of standing up for basic rights and freedoms. Now we have the spectres of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis and Afghans that loom large in the eyes of the global community. two) there are approaches and ideas that we need to respect in the rest of the world rather than impose our own designs.
John McCain wants it to be 1946 without the Soviet Union or the United Nations. It simply isn't that way. We need a president who will be respectful of the world and work to strengthen internationalism while at the same time standing up for human rights, fair wages, health care, and an end to the deplorable evils of bigotry and intolerance domestically and the world over. John McCain just wants America to "win". We are living in a post-"America First" era. We are living in a place where what happens in India affects me and what happens in Kansas affects someone in Afghanistan. Realizing the responsibility of ourselves to all of humanity is a big task after decades of self-serving rhetoric being adopted by all political parties in this country, but I am confident we can move beyond this narrow-mindedness and enter into a global society without the ideological baggage of anachronistic Republicans.
Barack Obama is demonstrating this new and better way to look at the world right now as he visits the Middle East and Europe. America should elect him as president and follow his lead.
Link to NY Times article I encourage you to read this editorial and the attached essay by the federal interpreter who worked in the concentration camps of Iowa where Guatemalen detainees were forced to confess to crimes they did not commit. The parallels to Nazism are unmistakeable. I believe that the current administration needs to be tried for their crimes against humanity.
Now, some of you may find this post to be upsetting, but I'm upset and I need to have a place to air my grievances about this candidate. Please help me if you think you can.
I supported Senator Clinton through the primaries. All my Obama-supporting friends told me that Obama was a better candidate because he was more progressive. Well, here today Senator Obama voted yea on FISA, a horrible "compromise bill" meant to shield phone companies who participate in illegal wiretapping organized by an executive branch going out of control.
I'm having a hard time justifying supporting this presumptive nominee who seems to oppose our Democratic party vision of dismantling this administration's legacy of fearmongering and its attempts to erode our civil liberties.
These feel like really dark days. I wish someone would show me a light. Part of me feels like I should write Hillary and ask her to try to convince some of the superdelegates that are committed to personal rights to support her. I'm trying to build my support for Obama, but it is difficult when things like this happen.
Senator Obama said in his support of the "compromise" FISA bill, "Given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as president, I will carefully monitor the program."
Mr. Obama, what are these "legitimate threats" that we face that are so incredible that we need to enact legislation that is contrary to the 4th Amendment?
Mr. Obama, part of the reason we are supporting you is because eight years of a president who promised to "carefully monitor the program" has left us with a system where the separation of powers is a joke. If there is a legitimate threat that the government wants to act upon, let them get a search warrant from a judge. This is a judiciary decision. Giving the executive branch this kind of power is worse than a farce.
Please stop supporting this bill.
Bush was quoted in his current trip to England: "“We didn’t realize, nor did anybody else, that Saddam Hussein felt like he needed to play like he had weapons of mass destruction. It may have been, however, that in his mind all this was just a bluff.”
It's about time to get someone competent in the White House. Did John McCain not realize it either? Even with all that so-called "foreign policy experience"? His staunch support of the war seems to be based on a lie that the world is somehow more secure now with Iraq occupied by US troops.
Wake me from this nightmare! Vote Barack in November!
When Tom Daschle was leaving the Senate, he gave an interview where he described meeting Bush for the first time. Daschle recalls that Bush said, "“There’s only one real word for my energy policy, and that’s drill.”
Now McCain seems to have bought this boneheaded Bush policy hook-line-and-sinker.
Gas prices are horrific now. They're hurting people all across the country who are dealing with the recession. But we need to look carefully as to how to responsibly handle the energy crisis. Alternative energy sources can be developed that are sustainable, environmentally sound, and clean. However, Bush and McCain seem obsessed with the idea that we can "drill" our way out of our problems. The newest arugment that this duo is making is that we have to increase off-shore drilling.
Off-shore drilling is an intensive practice that requires the construction of enormous platforms, disrupts ecosystems, and returns fossil fuel energy sources that are non-renewable, heavily polluting, and the cause of some of the worst ecological disasters we have ever known. In the meantime, Bush's administration has cut funding to research and development of alternative energy sources and technologies and there is no indication that McCain will reverse this trend.
If you want to live in a polluted, doomed to bust, energy-starved world that is depedent on invasive, old technologies of the past, then by all means support the Republican energy policy of the drill.
But I won't be joining in on this madness.
McCain wants to cut taxes and here's how:
1. A reduction in the corporate tax rate to 25 percent from 35 percent
2. Immediate tax breaks for corporate investment
3. An outright repeal of the alternative minimum tax
4. Doubling the value of exemptions for dependents to $7,000 from $3,500
Only the last one arguably might have an effect on lower and income Americans. The rest of it is more handouts for the rich and additional corporate welfare.
Much has been made about the social conservative "values" that many orthodox religions adhere to. It is generally assumed that such values cannot align with progressive programs of the Democratic Party. This is not true: in fact such reasoning is an example of the inappropriate mixing church and state.
One can be personally opposed to many things due to one's religion, but that doesn't mean those personal religious preferences should be imposed upon the rest of society. Should everyone be forced to pray in a certain way? Should everyone be forced to keep kosher, fast on Fridays, or go to church on Sundays? I think most people would answer "no", even if they believed personally that their religion required that. Your religion may say who can or cannot participate in worship services or church governance. That does not mean that you want people to stop participating in democracy.
The same thing is true for abortion rights and gay marriage. If you believe that your religion demands that abortions should not occur or that homosexuality is a "sin", you can still oppose making abortion illegal and support civil marriages for gay people. It's a matter of not mixing ecclesiastical law with civic law. In the same way you don't want to discriminate against the practices of people who aren't in your religion, we should also support not discriminating against those whose opinions on these issues differ. At issue is the fundamental human right of freedom. Since both the right to privacy and the right to love whomever you choose are basic rights and freedoms, we should protect them no matter what personal religious preferences we may have.
I think he makes a very strong case for this. The Iraq War that was planned and executed by this criminal administration was not only illegal, but, perhaps more importantly, the damage it has brought upon our world is breathtaking in both its scope and in its heinousness. I believe that the current administration should be held accountable for the acts of violence they orchestrated and the power they abused.
I am proud that Barack is opposed to the warmongering that has been perpetrated by this administration. While I imagine that impeachment will probably not occur, I am hopeful that there will be full disclosure during Barack's administration as to how the current administration committed so many horrors. I would like to see the lot of them convicted for perpetrating war crimes.
While Barack Obama has enjoyed a lot of positive press in the media, there will come a time when the media will turn against him making the so-called "Jeremiah Wright scandal" look like a walk in the park. "Popular sentiment" is easily manipulated by trumped-up accusations and scandals that sometimes are so preposterous as to be almost are unworthy of comment. John Kerry learned the hard way in the last election, though, that lies which go unanswered sow the seeds of discord and cause swing voters to "distrust" candidates in ways that are very hard to overcome by "taking the high road". I encourage Barack Obama to tackle these issues as they come up head on.
More than this, what needs to be done is a concerted effort to convince people to think for themselves. It is important that the space that the media gives for negative messages do not work their way into the consciousness of voters. There is no need for us as a country to revisit the failed horror of Reganomics or Bush's "compassionate conservativism".
Let's not be content when people suffering without health insurance hold the belief that universal coverage would be bad for them. Let's not be content when people suffering from losing a job argue that Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy should be maintained. The Heritage Foundation and the Republican bobbleheads are good at going out in force to offer the "counter opinion" to the truth. They are good at confusing and confounding. It is important that we do not let them get away with these tactics. We need to hold them accountable for their lies.
Roughly one year ago, I attended the AFL-CIO debate in Chicago. Beforehand there was a tailgate for the supporters of different candidates. Joe Biden had the best spread but there was a palpable sense of excitement as Barack Obama showed up one hour before the event and gave his stump speech. Even those in Biden's tent could tell that his candidacy was something special and unique.
The debate showcased the similarities between Democrats and showed how important the strength of union was in America. Famously, a retired worker made an impassioned plea for health insurance describing in teary detail his plight since his health insurance was cut by the company from which he retired. It was clear that the social net simply doesn't exist. The government needs to step in and take care of the issues that corporations are too greedy to address properly.
I remember thinking at that debate that every one of the candidates standing on the stage would have made an excellent president and I wished that each would get his or her chance to fix the problems with America. I'm happy to support Barack as the first one in what hopefully becomes a dynasty of Democratic administrations.
When I was campaigning for Hillary in Texas, I witnessed firsthand the extraordinary organizational effort that the team supporting Barack Obama had achieved. The community support was dramatic and overwhelming including volunteers who had been canvassing neighborhoods for months, had gone door-to-door explaining Texas' arcane political process, and greeted people on election day in ways that made them feel truly excited to be voting for Barack. Hillary's campaign was under-funded and not as well managed. We saw that they had a table and so we went and got ourselves one too. The rivalry made for some tense moments between the Hillary and Barack campaigners, but ultimately we agreed that we were on the same side.
One thing that is undeniable is the diversity of the Democratic party. We are truly the only national party that encompasses all people. Diversity is our strength, but it is only our strength if we can unify against the greed, nativism, fear, and neo-Conservative fascism that is being offered by the Republican party.
I am a supporter of Barack Obama because eight years of the most disastrous presidency in our nations history need to be followed by a dynasty of Democratic presidents who can reorganize the government to doing the job of the government. Hurricane Katrina's devastation and our government's inability to respond to it is a lesson: we need a competent executive who will place competent leaders in positions of power to make sure that such horrors never happen again. The health care crisis that most Americans are experiencing means one thing: we need a competent executive who will enact the policy changes necessary so that citizens are not left to get seriously ill and die due to lack of insurance or under-insurance. Our lack of diplomacy at all levels of foreign affairs needs an executive who will make it a priority to re-establish the United States as a global discussant rather than an arbitrary maker-of-war.
The person who is best able to accomplish these tasks is Barack Obama. John McCain will only perpetuate the lies, corruption, and social ills that plague our country.
It is time to wake up from the Republican nightmare.
