I just wanted to send a congrats to all those who came out for and helped organize the Jefferson-Jackson-Obama dinner in Des Moines last Saturday.
The Iowa Caucus, more than any primary, is about organizational strength, about getting your people out in the evening to publically show their support.
And that's just what happened in Des Moines. A young and diverse crowd of nearly 3,000 Obama supporters made up a third of the entire crowd in that arena. That's a show of force, and that should make the other candidates (Democrats and Republicans) nervous ... young voters showed up in force for Obama, at least one from every county in the state.
Kudos to the supporters and kudos to the organizers for getting the word and tools out there.
At last we left our hero, President Bill Clinton was raking in huge popularity numbers all the way down to the bitter end of his eight years in the White House.
I spent at least seven of those eight years sitting in the tiny minority wondering, "What in the world do people see in this guy?"
Without getting into details and reliving that period, let's just say I wasn't a fan ... well, it goes much farther: My history book covers President Clinton in the "What happens if a president does absolutely nothing for eight years?" chapter.
But I know I'm in the minority on this one. Myself and the far, far, far right weren't fans, but everyone else has fond memories of his presidency.
But what has happened since then? Sen. Obama is gaining ground while simultaneously putting the back of his hand to that period, calling for a turn of the page from that type of politics and policy.
Even the media seems to be getting on board with the "Bash Bill" trend.
Is history proving my opinion of this Clintonian trouble right? I don't really know, but I must say that, as an Obama supporter, it is a relief to see that he doesn't have to walk the unwalkable tightrope of knocking Sen. Clinton without muddying the beloved President Clinton. That wouldn't have worked, so however this has happened, it makes me a happy man that he can do what's right: lumping them both together.
Well, my wife in a supporter of Sen. Clinton. I know, I know ... not everyone is perfect. She's irresistible in every OTHER way.
We have a basic rule in our house: No negative campaigning. It's hard. We'll end up watching the news, or in this weekend's case, "SNL," and it's really hard to avoid the wrong word, phrase or tone when talking about the other's candidate.
But her action is spurring my action, and vice versa. I was in Iowa last week going door to door in Dubuque for Sen. Obama. This weekend, it's my turn to stay home with our dogs while she goes to Iowa for a Clinton rally and fundraiser.
And because of that, I'm going to have to make sure I get back to Iowa again in a couple weeks, and then she'll go again, and so on and so on.
But the immediate problem is this weekend. It'll be painful to think that she's out there trying to get Clinton votes while I sit at home doing nothing. So my search is on over the next few days ... what can I do Saturday to counter-balance her day in Iowa?
And I imagine this will go on and on throughout the winter.
The pains of a mixed marriage, we say.
But while I don't support Clinton and some conversations have become awkward at home, I'm really enthusiastic about the fact that both of us are involved. Sure, I wish she was supporting Obama, but there is hope to be gained from all of this. We're in an interesting age group. We're on the old end of the "too young to vote in numbers" category, but on the young end of the "too old to be knocking on doors" category.
The fact that we're both out there knocking on doors and rallying support for this country's future gives me hope that there are similar couple out there like us getting involved in a way that might surprise a pollster.
Cheers.
No one home, on to the next address ... no one home, on to the next address.
That is largely how my Saturday afternoon went when I traveled to Dubuque as a part of the Sister City program. The last time I "did doors" was when I staffed a state assembly candidate in Wisconsin, simply taking notes on the conversations my candidate had with the homeowners.
But this is different in so many ways. The idea is to engage the residents about Sen. Obama, who isn't exactly standing next to you to answer policy questions that maybe you aren't well-versed in. I mean, I know where I stand but I'm supporting Obama because of character, not because of any one particular issue. In general, I disagree with half of the things all politicians say, so going to bat for Obama's policy initiatives wasn't going to me my strong suit.
But there I was knocking on doors, hoping I got a question up my alley. As the day went on, though, my concern turned from "do I know Obama enough" to "am I going to talk to anyone?"
I started to wonder if I had wasted my day. I know the pamphlets I left will have an impact and the handful I spoke with will remember "that nice guy from the Obama campaign" when they go to caucus (I hope!). But I was hardly engaging anyone in serious conversation, so I started to worry that this was a failed venture.
With one last address on my list, I stood checking my map and my view. "OK, I have one more person to get to today and they are four blocks up and around that hill," I said to myself. Sigh. Am I going to walk four blocks up hill (Dubuque, apparently, is the San Francisco of Iowa) to likely just leave a pamphlet in a door because no one's home?
My legs were urging me to just head for home, but my sense of pride and karma were telling me to get to that door.
Evelyn answered to door. And she likes the senator and his views on most issues, and thinks it's would be great for the country if he won. "So, will you caucus for him?" I asked eagerly. "I don't think so, I mean, maybe I'll vote for him in November if he makes it to the general election."
And this is where my day, my walking all became worth it. She was balking because she used to be very politically involved. She used to volunteer for campaigns with her husband and caucus each time. But some of the candidates she supported years ago turned out to be, well, let's just say ethically challenged.
She had been soured from the process.
In many ways, this was like looking in a mirror. She was older than me, and at about the same time she was souring from the process I was just starting to be old enough to understand it. And what did I think? I was so disturbed by all of it that I kept myself from getting involved in national politics -- and with the exception of my one Wisconsin assembly campaign, I stayed out of local politics, too.
Here, staring at Evelyn, I didn't have to think about Obama's views on Issues A, B and C. I didn't have to think about his record on Issues D, E and F.
What she needed to here was my story. And my story is one of someone soured by the political process. Then, Obama came along, and suddenly I'm spending my Saturday hundreds of miles from home knocking on doors. I'm blogging during the week, I'm trying to raise money, and I registered my name to be considered in my local community to get on citizen advisory committees here at home.
She listened and seemed really intrigued by my story and said that she'd give the caucus participation another consideration.
"I'm so glad I got to speak and commiserate with you today," I closed. "And I'll be looking for you on caucus night."
Evelyn made my drive worthwhile. I would have driven that distance just to go to her door ...
Obama's story is powerful, but so are the stories of his supporters, many of whom are getting involved for the first time.
This is a powerful movement.
As late as the hour may seem to those involved in this campaign, it is still pretty early. I mean, no one has voted yet, anywhere.
But when all is said and done, and the next president takes the oath a year from January, what will the legacy of this election be?
The openness of this contest has made it the most unique of my lifetime and I've been pleasantly surprised at how interested people are as early as it is. And many of these people are taking an interest without much of a track record of political involvement.
I've been off and on with my political action. I've always been interested in national and world affairs and politics. There's even tape of me from when I was in the early half of grade school talking about how I felt about nuclear weapons and the Reagan Administration's "Star Wars" program.
But my involvement has been off and on. I did constituent relations for the mayor's office in Milwaukee during college. Also during college, I worked as a campaign office manager for now-Assemblyman Pedro Colon, whose victory that year made him Wisconsin's first Latino legislator. That was a wonderful time, though I don't think I was much of a campaign office manager!
Since then, I've really done nothing but vote. I haven't written, campaigned or volunteered for government or campaign measures.
That changed when Sen. Obama decided to run for president. I signed up with his Web site, and slowly but surely have become more and more involved, from blogging here, to the Grassroots Fundraising effort and taking trips to Iowa with the Sister City program.
But when the campaign is over, those programs are over, too.
So I want to write to encourage people to think right now, right now when you're motivated and inspired, about what you want to continue to do to make this country and your community a better place.
I went to my village clerk's office and signed up to serve on citizen advisory boards, and I do have plans to run for office locally when the opportunity presents itself.
What are you thinking of doing? Start putting the infrastructure in place right now for what you will do when this is over. If you wait, it's possible that your drive will fade. So take action now and start moving the pieces around the board to figure out how you can serve after Electionm 2008.
Do you want to have a full-time blog, do you want to volunteer year-round with your community boards or political groups, will you continue to give money to causes ... will you run for office?
What has Sen. Obama inspired you to do next?
Now, the blood-thirsty media will say, "Well, Obama was stronger but it was far from a war on Hillary."
They say that as if it's a bad thing. It's bad for them, they want no holds barred for the ratings and ad revenue.
But what Obama supporters and smart politicos know is that a brutal attack will backfire, especially in Iowa where they really turn against those who talk too tough. (That killed Gephardt and Dean 4 years ago there ...)
What we needed last night was not a brutal, bloody Obama-Clinton battle. We wanted two things:
1. Obama to compare and contrast more directly his beliefs from Sen. Clinton's. HE DID THAT.
2. Clinton to get bloodied a bit on her support for the Bush Administration and waffling on issues. WE GOT THAT, TOO.
And what's great about No. 2 is that Obama didn't have to give her the broken nose -- my old friend Sen. Edwards did it for us. I'm a fan of Edwards. I voted for him in 2004's primary, and he's my second choice this time around.
But he helped Obama last night. He ripped Clinton, Clinton got flustered and tried to fight back, then Obama came in to clean up the mess by providing a clearer vision. To turn to a basketball analogy, Edwards was setting picks on Clinton all night, giving Obama a clear path to the hoop.
And could it have gone any better at the end? I mean, Obama and Edwards spent all night challenging Clinton on her double talk, only to have her double talk during the debate on the fiery issue of immigration. Now, I don't know if I'm with Dodd or with Obama when it comes to the driver's license issue, but I know this: I can't be for Clinton because no one knows where she stands.
And the fact that the stifling issue was a New York issue -- Clinton's "state" -- was even better because it brought back this general idea of her doing anything to get elected, even be a carpetbagger like when she moved to New York years ago. The perfect storm here.
Now, this debate performance isn't going to suddenly swing the polls, but what it should do is give undecideds more reason to give Obama a look so he needs to keep this up.
And for those looking at a broader picture about what the Democratic Party is all about these days, don't be concerned about the high national numbers for Clinton. She's at about 40 percent. Fine, Obama and Edwards are both in the 20s. Edwards votes won't be Clinton votes, and Obama votes won't be Clinton votes. If someone leaves Edwards or Obama it'll be to support the other, or one of the several other liberal members of this party. Edwards and Obama aren't losing votes to Clinton, they're losing votes to each other.
So, Clinton's at 40 percent, and the liberals in the party are at 40, too.
If Edwards wants to bail and give his supporters to Obama, that'd be great ...
I spent eight years as a newspaper news editor and I can tell you one thing for certain: The media isn't interested unless it sells papers or ad space.
And they certainly aren't interested in hard, serious discussions of policy and issues. They run poll story after poll story after poll story. And they even run stories about how the polls mean nothing, but they aren't perceptive enough to listen to their own reports and move away from being the Poll-Parazzi.
They want intrigue, not information. Hillary going on a big run in the polls is impressive and gets people all excited, so they run that over and over. Then, after awhile, that gets boring so they start pushing this "here comes Obama again" thing.
Bottom line is that this is all manipulated.
So, where does that leave us? Well, that question answers itself: It "leaves us." Us. We, the supporters. We the future voters who know the issues and the candidates and know why we support who we support. No one has voted, the polls are all over the place, money is flowing in and out ...
Let politics be politics, let polls and media pundits and Hillary Klinton (the K is for K Street) play politics. That's what she does best. But this isn't a game, this isn't about power. This is about improving our country and the world. This is about the our future and our children's future, not about her or her husband's legacy. This isn't about Obama, either. This is about us.
Let's make it about us by taking control of the process. Writing, grassroots fundraising, hitting the pavement. It's about us.
Watch the debate, write about it, tell your friends about it, tell strangers about it.
This campaign isn't Hillary's to lose or Obama's to win. It's OURS to claim. Take it.
If any of Hillary's thousands upon thousands of "ho hum, I guess I'll vote for Hillary, I think" supporters happen to be reading this post (not sure why they'd be on this site), but if you are I have a message for you: It should concern you that every single time Sen. Obama challenges Sen. Clinton on an issue, her campaign responds with "Oh, I thought Obama said he was going to be a clean campaigner."
That's what those in the journalism field call the "non-denial denial." Not once has her campaign defended her positions or gotten into policy discussions on this campaign. This goes back to the overriding issue for Sen. Clinton: politics. That is her No. 1 issue by far. Politics.
Sen. Edwards and Sen. Obama will challenge her directly on votes and policy positions and all she has to say is, "Boy, at my age, it's sure fun getting all this attention from the men in this field ..."
If she is serious about this campaign, about being president, then she hasn't shown it yet. And that's why she's the leader of the "ho hum" crowd when national polling is done.
Her ardent supporters are few, and many of those are those who agree with her and Bush on Iraq and Iran. Those aren't the kind of voters the Democrats should be courting because those aren't the kind of policies a Democrat should be supporting.
I wrote about it last week and the New York Times had a Page 1 column about it Sunday: Obama has to take it to Hillary, starting Tuesday at the debate, because the "ho hums" can be turned if they see the obvious differences between these candidates.
Go get her, Barack Obama. Those "ho hums" are waiting to be inspired.
There's a Democratic debate Tuesday and if it's anything like its predecessors, the Obama campaign is in trouble.
Our candidate has come out firing over the past couple weeks, bringing to life dormant supporters and raising the prospects of defeating the media's "inevitable" candidate, Hillary Clinton. But taking a commanding role in this upcoming debate, the first face-to-face meeting with Sen. Clinton since his tough talk, is a necessity to start the ball rolling to capture Iowa. Most polls show a statistical tie there, or a slight Clinton lead. But anyone who knows the Iowa Caucuses knows that most caucus goers there decide in the last 20-30 days before that big night.
That means that now is the time to turn their heads toward our candidate, so they will be ready to caucus for him in January. I believe that Hillary's lead in national polls comes from name recognition and a sense of inevitability. Her lead in New Hampshire has a lot to do with those same factors, given her proximity to New Hampshire in New York (similar to the positive response Guiliani is getting there on the Republican side).
So what does this tell us? It tells us that he needs Iowa. He needs Iowa.
And to get Iowa, he needs to show all those "ho hum, I guess I'd vote for Hillary, I guess" voters that there's a choice. Clinton controls the "ho hum" voters right now. And by their nature, they are waiting to be inspired. What will inspire them? Not Obama attacking Clinton while they are hundreds of miles apart. What will inspire them is Obama commanding a stage he shares with Clinton.
We all know he can do it. Read my "passive majority" blog and you'll know that I have admitted failing in my duties as an early Obama supporter. But I'm here down, awakened by Obama's strong words of a few weeks ago.
Now, we need everyone out there. Everyone with in earshot, to urge Illinois' favorite son to take it to the next level in that debate Tuesday. If we get loud enough, hopefully the word will get to him and his staff and let them know that we all have his back when he takes on the candidate with poll position.
I'm a student of the media. I'm a former journalist and a media junkie. All day that Tuesday, they will be talking about whether Obama is going to get his tough talk going while on stage with Clinton. Will he take the fight to her and make this a two-person race, or will he play it safe like he did in other debates?
After the debate, if he plays it safe, the story on the 24-hour networks will be "Clinton's solid performance solidifies frontrunner status." If he comes out firing, the story will be "Obama comes out firing, fights to close the gap."
We believe in you, Sen. Obama. Take her on. Take her on. We believe in your issues, in your experience, in your message and stature and skill. We believe you are the right person to change the course of this country.
Make us proud Tuesday.
This is a really simple point, so I'm going to keep it short. But please take my brevity as an attempt at clarity, not an attempt at over-simplifying.
I disagree with Sen. Obama. We all do! The only people who agree with a candidate all the time on anything are people on TV who make a living saying or supporting whatever a politician or party tells them to.
Remember the CNN show "Crossfire"? It was a battle of wits by people who haven't had an original thought in decades. Luckily for several of the regulars on that show, the show has been ended and they are now forced to use their own brains.
I disagree with Sen. Obama on many issues. I'm not sure I've ever agreed with a politician on any more than 50% of the things they say.
So, if you are someone saying, "I think Obama's a nice guy but I disagree with him on Issue A, Issue B or C," then I say give him a chance.
How? Why? Remember the issues from the 2000 campaign? We all debated and voted on the issues those candidates touted. But terrorism, illegal immigration and many of the issues that have come up since then were not debated or voted on.
That's the way the world works. Things happen, issues evolve and a president has to be able to intelligently lead on things they didn't intend to have as focal points.
So, how do I vote against someone I disagree with? Because I'm not voting on Issue A, B or C. I'm voting on the person and their track record for getting things done -- and more importantly, the track they took to get those things done.
The Senator gets things done by listening, learning and not feeling limited by any sense of a "oh, that's not how we do things" red tape. Do you agree that he, as president, should meet with Iran's president or Castro? Doesn't matter. Do you like his moxy? Do you like that he's not afraid to do what the people in Washington won't even consider. There are problems out there and U.S. leaders have self-imposed rules of engagement that make it impossible for new ideas to lead to solutions to old problems.
I trust Sen. Obama. I trust that when issues come up that no one is thinking about today that he'll take an open-minded look at it and won't handcuff himself from a solution.
I disagree with some of his issues, but I agree with the man. And that is worthy of my vote -- and yours.
I'm an Illinoisan, and that means I've had the pleasure of voting for Sen. Obama once already. When talk of a presidential run started, I wasn't sure if I thought he should get in. I wasn't sure if it was too soon, too much based on hype ... one Convention speech a presidential resume does not make.
But as time went on and candidates started hopping into the race, it became clear that there was a need for a candidate who would look at issues through the different eyes, eyes that are not blinded by partisans, polls or pundits.
I quickly became a supporter, created a profile on this campaign Web site, went to an organizational meeting about trips to Iowa and then ...
Then, it got quiet. I got busy with work, with family, with everything. And the campaign got quiet, too. The senator was hitting the streets trying to get out his message, but the hype had faded.
It seemed as if the campaign was mirroring my daily life. We both went out and got the job done, but little more. Sen. Clinton's lead continued to grow yet the campaign was business as usual, as was I.
"There will be time later to really get into the fray here," that's what I was thinking and what it seemed to this observer that the campaign was thinking.
I started to get frustrated. "Barack's going to lose this thing and it barely seems like he's putting up a fight," I'd say to myself. Then my frustration would turn to disappointment as I realized that that comment could apply to me, as well. What had I done? Had I done any of the things I told myself I was going to do when this all got started half a year ago? Where did I disappear to?
That all changed this past week. My frustration and disappointment was reaching painful levels when I turned on the MSNBC and saw Barack answer the question in this contest: Why should someone vote for you over Sen. Clinton?
I knew the answer but I spun around in my seat when I heard Barack answer it, calling out Hillary by name and equating her and her husband with the past -- the opposite of change.
Seemingly overnight, I was reborn. The proverbial fire in the belly was back in just that instant. The long, drawnout summer campaign is over, ladies and gentlement. Now is the time when people decide who to vote for. Now is the time to take that pent up energy and release it into this campaign.
Now is the time. And I'm moving again and I know others heard Barack's answer as a starting gun to those like me keeping all too quiet.
Sen. Clinton's passion for politics is no match for Sen. Obama's passion for progress through change. And there is no more powerful torch then the one leading the masses toward change.
Sen. Obama is carrying that torch.
I'm back on board. I will be heading to Iowa soon with a group from my town, I will be adding to this blog several times a week, I will visit the volunteer HQ in downtown Chicago and I will take advantage of any other opportunity I get to spread the senator's message.
I hope everyone reading this blog heard Barack's call this week, but if you didn't, hear it now: If we don't change our passive approach to a campaign, we won't get the change in this country that we so desire.
Come with me on this push to the nomination. Come with me.
And to you, Sen. Obama: Thank you for reigniting my spirit. I'm done following you and ready to stand beside you.
