I am sending this to just about everyone in my address book.
I know that many of you receiving this have been life-long Republicans, and others are independents as well as Democrats. Despite your party affiliation or your current leaning for your November 4th vote, I am going to ask just one thing, for you to read the attached document. It is the speech that Barack Obama delivered in Nevada this afternoon. It talks at length about the current economic crisis and its implications – worth the read just to see this in simple terms!
For weeks I have been struggling to put together an e-mail that I could send out that lays out the policy priorities of Barack Obama, as well as some for the other side – without offending! Then I read this speech and knew I had to share it. This speech covers most of the major policies Barack would like to implement, though much is left out – particularly how he will end the war in Iraq where we are spending $10 billion dollars a month.
While there are other things I want to add, especially since I know there are so many smears, lies and distortions out there, I am going to say little, and just give you the links to factcheck.org (an independent source) http://www.factcheck.org/ and fightthesmears.com (an obama site that lays out the facts) http://www.fightthesmears.com/. You also could write me with any questions you have.
I do need to say a few things though:
-- Barack Obama does not accept any money from lobbyists or pacs (and, on the day he won the nomination, made the Democratic Party stop taking them too)
-- Barack Obama’s biography is amazing – a little bit more than community organizing that the Republicans, for some reason, view in disdain (the stellar campaign he is running, is, by the way, based on community organizing principles!) Barack was the first African American President of the Harvard Law Review. He was a Civil Rights lawyer for a time, and has taught Constitutional Law in Chicago for many years (before and during his 8 years as a State Senator). Go here for a brief bio: http://www.barackobama.com/learn/meet_barack.php
-- Barack Obama does in fact have an impressive bi-partisan legislative record in both the Illinois State Senate and the US Senate – these relate to criminal justice, transparency in government, and non-proliferation of nuclear arms, among others. Go here for Barack’s legislative record:
I am voting FOR Barack Obama, not against anything else, though if Barack was not the Democratic Candidate, I could easily see myself voting against John McCain because of his policies, many of which continue Bush’s failed domestic and foreign policies. John McCain supports:
-- continuing the war in Iraq at any cost (despite that even the Iraqi gov’t and the Bush administration are working on a withdrawal plan)
-- continuing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy (despite how he railed against them when they were first proposed)
-- giving an additional $300 billion in tax cuts to corporations (including approximately $4 billion MORE to Exxon Mobil)
-- privatizing social security
-- deregulation of banks, insurance etc (and recently suggested ‘doing for healthcare what Congress did for the banking industry’)
-- waterboarding
There is also John McCain’s very political choice of Sarah Palin as his VP. For those of you who have not seen the interviews Sarah Palin did with Katie Couric, here are the links: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4479049n and http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4476649n and http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4476721n
In the words of Jack Cafferty, (paraphrased) “If the thought of Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the Presidency doesn’t scare the hell out of you, it should.” Many very conservative people – George Will (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/02/AR2008090202441.html ), Kathleen Parker (a well respected conservative columnist that writes on the National review: http://townhall.com/columnists/KathleenParker/2008/09/26/the_palin_problem ) and David Brooks ( http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/opinion/16brooks.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin , to name a few – feel that Sarah Palin is supremely unqualified to be VP.
Finally, I will leave you with this link http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/06/09/ST2008060900950.html that compares the Obama tax plan to the McCain tax plan (done by the Washington Post).
Thanks for reading, and I hope you will check out some of the links I have provided.
After you’ve done all your own research, if you are inclined to own a piece of this campaign which does not accept ANY money from lobbyists or pacs, you can donate to my fundraising page at: http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/MarysHope - any amount will suffice, I myself have given a few hundred dollars since January, all in increments of $10, $15 and $25.
P.S. Barack is a Christian, he was sworn in on a bible, and he salutes the flag! To confirm or debunk the various things you will receive/have received in your inbox, go to factcheck.org and/or fightthesmears.com.
An informed electorate is important – please share this with your friends and family!
For more info on these and other policy points, visit BarackObama.com. http://www.barackobama.com/index.php (check out the ‘Issues’ tab)
You can also check out the page devoted to Republicans for Obama at: http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/gophome
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back little Wednesday as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and flattering praise on her credentials to be vice president. In some cases, the reproach and the praise stretched the truth.
Some examples:
PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."
THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."
PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform _ not even in the state senate."
THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.
PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."
THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.
Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.
He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.
MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of the nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.
THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state _ by population.
MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.
THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.
FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."
THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.
FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right _ change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington _ throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."
THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.
___
Associated Press Writer Jim Drinkard in Washington contributed to this report.
ANSWERS TO THE QUIZ 1) How long did the Hundred Years War last? 116 years 2) Which country makes Panama hats? Ecuador
3) From which animal do we get cat gut? Sheep and Horses 4) In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution? November 5) What is a camel's hair brush made of? Squirrel fur 6) The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal? Dogs 7) What was King George VI's first name? Albert 8) What colour is a purple finch? Crimson 9) Where are Chinese gooseberries from? New Zealand 10) What is the colour of the black box in a commercial airplane? Orange (of course) What do you mean, you failed? Me, too. Pass this on to some brilliant friends, so they may feel useless too.
On April 4th, the Field ( http://ruralvotes.com/thefield/?p=1007#comment-13752 ) presented a challenge from Debra Kozikowski, a superdelegate to " Convince me why I should deliver my superdelegate vote to Senator Obama or for the minority here who support Senator Clinton." Here is my post in response:
Deb,
Thank you for this opportunity. I would like to first give you a bit of my background. I am a 49 year old white female from Upstate NY and an Independent (missed the OCTOBER deadline for re-registering). I have a BA in political science and masters in public policy yet have pretty much ignored politics for the last 7 years. I was so devastated by the 2000 election, my words could not begin to express. What I held as our last bastion of integrity - the Supreme Court, let me down and left me demoralized. I considered myself without an 'elected' president for the next four years and was seriously taken aback by the re-election of Bush, who now I at least recognized as our President. I still would not watch him or listen to him or to much of anything about him. I stopped watching national news shows and relied on Charlie Rose, Lehrer and the like for news.
I had not seen much of the 2004 democratic convention (though I caught snippets – the reason was mostly due to a career change in 2003 and being in the 2nd year of my fledgling plant nursery in 2004). So it was on election night 2004 that I first saw and heard Barack Obama. As I watched his victory speech, I sat there (by myself) saying out loud “ Who the hell is this guy and why isn’t he running for President?” I read and listened to everything I could about him and about a possible run, and signed up on his website right after he declared. I wrote him that day, thanking him profusely, telling him my story and how he had given me hope (before knowing this was such a core theme to his campaign).
I have been brought to tears by this man on several occasions – and perhaps not by things you would expect. I am a strong, independent woman – single mom for 20 years (never married) and have weathered my share of adversity – anyone who knows me well would never use the word ‘soft’ to describe me! Yet, the hope that I have for this country, the belief that we could be all the things I used to think America stands for, is so overwhelming at times that it does turn you soft. The many people from around the world who are apparently holding out this same hope just contributes to the feeling (not only do we have dozens of countries represented on the Obama blog, but they often link to articles and videos from their countries showing how this movement has taken hold not only here in America but all across the world.)
I am generally rather good with the written word, but whenever I try to express what Barack inspires in me, what he makes me feel is possible, I start tripping over my words! It is something at my core, and, since I was only 6 when JFK was killed, I have no such personal experience to compare it to. I will leave you with my ‘short’ list for the practical reasons I support Barack (as posted on my profile at BarackObama.com):
Why I support Barack Obama: How may I count the ways???!!!!! Here is my short list: Why I support Barack 1. does not take pac money, accountable to American people 2. has done ethics reform, believes in transparency 3. middle class tax cuts ($1000 to each family) 4. invest in schools, training, green industries 5. will tie minimum wage to inflation 6. end war in iraq 7. rebuild infrastructure 8. college tuition credits 9. universal health care (NOT mandated) 10. no taxes for seniors earning less than $50,000 11. close guantanamo, no torture (taught constitution) 12. unifier, reaches across the political divides 13. affordable day care, paid sick leave 14. address global warming 15. will improve US standing in the world
If you have not seen them, I would recommend watching several of Barack’s speeches (others have noted good ones, i.e. the New Hampshire speech, also love his speech when he declared – am assuming you have seen the 2004 convention speech). Perhaps after reading all these posts, you will see and hear in them what we see and hear (BarackObamadotcom on YouTube has a great selection).
Respectfully,
Mary Abrams
PS – regarding those posts that say they will vote for McCain I would like to say that I once said that too, now I just realize I will write in Barack if he were not to get the nomination. But I would like to point out to you that many of us who support Barack are/were Independents and Republicans so I feel your conclusions drawn above about the building of the party are incorrect. I might add, that most Barack supporters I have heard from who say they would vote McCain (and this would include dems, repubs & indies) do so not because of the investment they have in Barack but because they simply do not want the scandalous Clintons back in the White House. This is not bashing. I am old enough to recall the 90’s VERY clearly and, with all due respect, anyone who can discount the many scandals then and the ones that continue just because they belong to a particular party is not doing any service to the country that party is supposed to serve.
People who complain that Barack Obama lacks experience must be unaware of his legislative achievements. One reason these accomplishments are unfamiliar is that the media have not devoted enough attention to Obama's bills and the effort required to pass them, ignoring impressive, hard evidence of his character and ability.
Since most of Obama's legislation was enacted in Illinois, most of the evidence is found there -- and it has been largely ignored by the media in a kind of Washington snobbery that assumes state legislatures are not to be taken seriously. (Another factor is reporters' fascination with the horse race at the expense of substance that they assume is boring, a fascination that despite being ridiculed for years continues to dominate political journalism.)
I am a rarity among Washington journalists in that I have served in a state legislature. I know from my time in the West Virginia legislature that the challenges faced by reform-minded state representatives are no less, if indeed not more, formidable than those encountered in Congress. For me, at least, trying to deal with those challenges involved as much drama as any election. And the "heart and soul" bill, the one for which a legislator gives everything he or she has to get passed, has long told me more than anything else about a person's character and ability.
Consider a bill into which Obama clearly put his heart and soul. The problem he wanted to address was that too many confessions, rather than being voluntary, were coerced -- by beating the daylights out of the accused.
Obama proposed requiring that interrogations and confessions be videotaped.
This seemed likely to stop the beatings, but the bill itself aroused immediate opposition. There were Republicans who were automatically tough on crime and Democrats who feared being thought soft on crime. There were death penalty abolitionists, some of whom worried that Obama's bill, by preventing the execution of innocents, would deprive them of their best argument. Vigorous opposition came from the police, too many of whom had become accustomed to using muscle to "solve" crimes. And the incoming governor, Rod Blagojevich, announced that he was against it.
Obama had his work cut out for him.
He responded with an all-out campaign of cajolery. It had not been easy for a Harvard man to become a regular guy to his colleagues. Obama had managed to do so by playing basketball and poker with them and, most of all, by listening to their concerns. Even Republicans came to respect him. One Republican state senator, Kirk Dillard, has said that "Barack had a way both intellectually and in demeanor that defused skeptics."
The police proved to be Obama's toughest opponent. Legislators tend to quail when cops say things like, "This means we won't be able to protect your children." The police tried to limit the videotaping to confessions, but Obama, knowing that the beatings were most likely to occur during questioning, fought -- successfully -- to keep interrogations included in the required videotaping.
By showing officers that he shared many of their concerns, even going so far as to help pass other legislation they wanted, he was able to quiet the fears of many.
Obama proved persuasive enough that the bill passed both houses of the legislature, the Senate by an incredible 35 to 0. Then he talked Blagojevich into signing the bill, making Illinois the first state to require such videotaping.
Obama didn't stop there. He played a major role in passing many other bills, including the state's first earned-income tax credit to help the working poor and the first ethics and campaign finance law in 25 years (a law a Post story said made Illinois "one of the best in the nation on campaign finance disclosure"). Obama's commitment to ethics continued in the U.S. Senate, where he co-authored the new lobbying reform law that, among its hard-to-sell provisions, requires lawmakers to disclose the names of lobbyists who "bundle" contributions for them.
Taken together, these accomplishments demonstrate that Obama has what Dillard, the Republican state senator, calls a "unique" ability "to deal with extremely complex issues, to reach across the aisle and to deal with diverse people." In other words, Obama's campaign claim that he can persuade us to rise above what divides us is not just rhetoric.
I do not think that a candidate's legislative record is the only measure of presidential potential, simply that Obama's is revealing enough to merit far more attention than it has received. Indeed, the media have been equally delinquent in reporting the legislative achievements of Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, both of whom spent years in the U.S. Senate. The media should compare their legislative records to Obama's, devoting special attention to their heart-and-soul bills and how effective each was in actually making law.
Charles Peters, the founding editor of the Washington Monthly, is president of Understanding Government, a foundation devoted to better government through better reporting.
http://ruralvotes.com/thefield/?p=655
In an earlier post, I outlined why the Clinton campaign’s obsessive attempt to fight 1988 all over again with a silly - I called it shrieking - “plagiarism” accusation is stupid and will backfire.
Think of it as another Wile E. Coyote caper attempting to bring down the Road Runner.
Now I’d like to address some equally “tough love” to some Obama supporters, who - as can be seen on the comments section here and elsewhere - fell reflexively into the same combination of panicked-and-yet-catatonic state we’re seeing from the high echelons of the Clinton organization.
All day long we’ve heard the worrywart faction among online Obama supporters expressing much teeth gnashing that somehow this dust-up is going to affect the vote in Wisconsin tomorrow or derail the Obama candidacy (they must have missed the coach’s halftime pep talk here last night when we quoted the immortal words of Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi: “Confidence is contagious, and so is lack of confidence”).
The fact is, even if Clinton wins Wisconsin tomorrow (and I’ll explain before the night is out - once I’ve finished the Congressional District previews - why The Field predicts an Obama win there), not even a Wisconsin loss would derail the Obama campaign, as the latest numbers out of Texas - showing a virtual tie where there was supposed to be a “Clinton firewall” - suggest.
Remember that Obama’s biggest fundraising night of the campaign was the night he lost the New Hampshire primary: a Wisconsin defeat - even though, again, I don’t think it likely - would probably just have the effect of rallying his supporters into giving more money, working harder, and creating an even bigger wave heading into the March 4 primaries. Ability to suffer setbacks gracefully is what separates the winners from the losers. And it’s a large part of what has happened so far in the Democratic nomination fight.
As a smart commentator here pointed out, the evidence is already in: the national TV news programs tonight basically reported the dust-up in a way that made the Clinton campaign look as silly as it deserved to look, throwing petty stones from a glass house. Here’s Mark Halperin’s summary:
ABC: Bush 41 endorsement of McCain led the program. McCain said to be closer with 41 than with George W. Bush; how close to appear with the unpopular 43 is cast as a tricky question. Then on to “plagiarism” charge against Obama—showed videos of Obama’s “just words” remarks, followed by Gov. Patrick’s speech two years earlier. Also showed Clinton borrowing Obama’s “fired up” line. More video showed Clinton likening immigration enforcement to tracking movies from Blockbuster– then showed Edwards making the same point five months earlier.
CBS: Wisconsin Democratic race was the second story. Polls show the race will be tight, and Clinton is staying longer than expected to campaign. Then to “war of words”—showing tape of Obama followed by Patrick. Also showed tape of Clinton copying Obama’s “fired up” line. Brief mention of Bush 41’s endorsement of McCain
NBC: Led with Clinton-Obama’s “war over words,” showing section of Obama’s speech, then similar portion of a Deval Patrick speech. Said it was Clinton’s “where’s the beef” moment, but also highlighted Obama brushing it off, Clinton doing same thing with husband’s line at Coretta Scott King’s funeral. Then, covered Bush 41’s McCain endorsement, including his gentle message to Huckabee. Looked into Bush 43’s role in McCain campaign, with President saying in interview “I will help him in any way I can.”
So, if there are any Chicken Littles among the Obama supporters - yes, I’m not speaking about all or even most of you - out there running around and typing “the sky is falling,” they need to get some perspective. Today’s little skirmish is nothing - it won’t even be remembered weeks from now - compared to what will come as there are fewer straws for the Clinton campaign to grasp onto and the clock starts running out on the game.
But when you take the bait, and react reflexively to little spitballs, you end up emboldening the spitball shooter to act even more stupidly and negatively tomorrow and the next day. Those that get ahead in politics learn to spin off from those kinds of antics and attacks and stay on message. The Obama campaign did that today in textbook form.
Yes, panic loves company, but everything I’ve seen so far in this contest shows that even when some of their supporters are freaking out, the leadership over there - including the candidate - has stayed cool, calm and collected, and they haven’t yet been thrown off their game plan.
After all, the news story today wasn’t about anything of substance or importance that Clinton said or did today, was it? Nothing Senator Clinton said or did today rose above the din, there was no emote or connecting moment, no memorable words from the candidate, no sense of momentum or history, just a shrill attack that boomeranged. They eclipsed their own sun with this one.
Look, listen and learn from today. Pay attention to how the dance steps play out. Because if past is prologue, tomorrow they’ll try something even nastier and dumber.
All it means when your adversaries get all crazy on you is that your candidate is winning.
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming. Beep beep!
OBAMAS:
Now, I would post those of Obama's, but the list is too substantive, so I'll mainly categorize. During the first (8) eight years of his elected service he sponsored over 820 bills. He introduced 233 regarding healthcare reform, 125 on poverty and public assistance, 112 crime fighting bills, 97 economic bills, 60 human rights and anti-discrimination bills, 21 ethics reform bills, 15 gun control, 6 veterans affairs and many others. His first year in the U.S. Senate, he authored 152 bills and co-sponsored another 427. These included: **the Coburn-Obama Government Transparency Act of 2006 (became law), **The Lugar-Obama Nuclear Non-proliferation and Conventional Weapons Threat Reduction Act, (became law), **The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, passed the Senate, **The 2007 Government Ethics Bill, (became law), **The Protection Against Excessive Executive Compensation Bill, (In committee), and many more. In all since enter the U.S. Senate, Senator Obama has written 890 bills and co-sponsored another 1096.
