Just watched Bill Maher's take on Obama - echoing the "why doesn't he fight hard, fists swinging" school of thought. In this mode of politics, if someone talks trash, you flame them back.
I think that's definitely what you want in a campaign, when you need to build momentum and destroy the opponent's message. Maybe - just maybe - governing requires a more sedate approach.
So far, the Cranks of August have pretty much burned through their artillery, and the President is back near 60% approval rating for his handling of health care. So, in this case, the Cranks of August didn't lead to all out war. mostly because Obama didn't descend to their level. However, he has caved on the end-of-life counseling and Van Jones. Maybe he just felt it was easier to do this and hold his fire for the real fight.
I'm more concerned that he gets health care right, in establishing the key principles of universal coverage and cost-control.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/opinion/09brooks.html
What would this look like? Spending to support ways for people to connect....and improve transit options to help us get around...?
Please read this OUTSTANDING interview by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/22/votes
It explains how the 2004 election was stolen through computer fraud, and how this is being set up again. Already, there are examples of votes being switched by election machines. This predicts a possibility that the election will be stolen, and then the narrative will be that there was a "Bradley Effect". Or alternately, that an Obama win is not legitimate because of ACORN. This effort is being propagated by right-wing zealots who don't believe the people (pro choice, by and large) should have their votes counted.
I hope the Obama Campaign is working on this issue.
I was wearing my Move On Obama T-shirt, and an Asian American woman said - "you look just like him! Without the glasses, you'd be a ringer." Of course, she made my day.
Then she said, "be like him."
That floored me.
For the first time in many, many years, we have a leader worthy of emulation.
Obama will bring back a sense of dignity and respect to the White House, and inspire us all to work towards the future of our country and the world.
Just caught The Early Show on CBS from Nashville. The crowd shots were an enthusiastic wall of Obama supporters, without a McCain supporter in sight. When John Rich came out to sing his "Raising McCain" campaign song (as Harry Smith said, "for First Amendment" balance) , the crowd was respectful but assertive, with several people moving into the shot to dance next to Rich with their Obama signs. Rich was respectful in return, giving an Obama supporter a hug.
What a great picture of American democracy!
Also, I was deeply moved to see such broad multicultural support for Obama in a pretty red state. As a person of color, to see this kind of unity and enthusiasm for another person of color....well, it brings tears to my eyes. It is liberating and inspiring, and warms my heart. "Only love can conquer hate."
Yes We Can!
Barack will keep it on the issues - the economy, war, energy and education/building our country's material and personal infrastructure.
McCain will snidely imply that Barack is naive and unfit, and use every favorable opportunity to dismiss Barack. He will talk in general terms about the economy and believing in the country. He will toss a laundry list of accusations about Obama's plans hoping that something sticks.
Barack will emphasize he believes in the country too - but not in the policies that have put the country in peril. John McCain has been supporting the failed policies of Bush - and he's no maverick.
Barack should also find an opportunity to emphasize: "I am a patriot, and I put my country and its people first; I am a Christian and I am guided by my faith which emphasizes compassion and social justice for everyone, not just the superrich."
Brokaw will probably ask each of them to respond directly to the recent attacks launched by the other campaign. Barack hopefully will dismiss the concern just the way he did in the Democratic debates, and also add something like: "Let's see, McCain wants to make me guilty by a minor association with a former domestic terrorist, whose actions then I despise, but who is now a respected professor. I'm questioning John's past association with a convicted felon - an association which the Congress of the United States called questionable. That's John McCain's actual behavior and judgment on an issue central to the economy. Listen folks, the McCain campaign is just trying to scare you and divert attention away from the economy."
I wonder if Brokaw will ask something like "Do you respect or even like your opponent?"
I'm predicting it will be a good night for us.
If you were paying close attention to the debate tonight, Joe Biden emerged as a clear winner. Yes, Palin was cutesy and folksy, and she didn't sound as stupid as she seemed the last two weeks. What do you expect - she's been preparing for days with the "best minds" of the McCain campaign.
She looked like a slogan slinger to me. Her mantras were "Obama will raise your taxes" "we will go after greed and corruption on Wall Street" and "I will promote Energy Independence." Her statements about Barack Obama were outright slanders. Her support for energy independence relies mainly on "drill baby drill" which panders on this popular sentiment, but ignores reality. Meanwhile, McCain has been against a whole slew of alternative energy proposals, and for deregulation, which fueled "greed and corruption".
Most shockingly, she said Obama was 'waving a white flag of surrender' on Iraq. A complete distortion and lie.
Bill Clinton said once, "If one guy is trying to scare you, and the other is trying to get you to think, vote for the guy who's getting you to think." The clear choice is Obama-Biden.
Palin: slogan slinger who distracts, misleads, slanders and panders. Also, I was struck by her facial expressions. She seemed hostile to me - her micro-expressions ran against the "agreeable" approach she was taking, making me believe she's quite mean underneath all that folksy talk. Also, Palin just plain didn't answer a bunch of questions, she just spouted talking points on whatever she'd been told by pollsters plays well in Peoria. (Examples: she didn't answer q's about deregulation, or "talk straight" about same sex benefits.)
Biden was comprehensive, connected, and real all throughout. Big lines:
"Facts matter" (pointing out truths about what General McClellan said about Afghanistan);
"Past is prologue" (McCain no different than Bush, voted with him most of the time, despite Palin's obfuscating attempts to distance their ticket from Bush - they're gonna be governing with the same folks, people!)
"John McCain is no maverick" (this was a high point, as Biden gave an impassioned attack on McCain's supposed strength);
McCain will build "The ultimate bridge to Nowhere" talking about how McCain's health care plan will be unfair and effectively dump 5-20 million people off health insurance.
"John McCain - God love him - but he's been dead wrong" on war policy.
Finally, Biden really connected with me as he spoke of his personal tribulations, and his conversations with Main Streeters. He sounds so much more credible on his connections to the working class than Palin does.
----
A side note: what to say about McCain....
He is out of touch. Can we trust a man who sings songs about "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran"? A man who clearly seems petty - he was unwilling to even be cordial to Obama in the Senate yesterday.
We need bigger leaders. Leaders who are not rash, reckless or impulsive. Leaders who have the best interests of common Americans and the nation at heart. Leaders who have the courage of their convictions, and the clear headedness to stay cool under pressure. We need Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Let's put on our game faces, let's fill the country with the strength of our positive spirit, and let's give em the 411 on 11/4!
The only way they will win is if we let them!
I just saw the first part of Charlie Gibson's interview with Sarah Palin.
She's not appealin'.
She looked nervous and flustered, did not know the first thing about any of the issues - other than a couple of index card soundbites, i.e. "we will not second-guess the Israeli's on their National Defense". She really couldn't explain her 'task from God' quotes.
I look forward to seeing more of her on ABC tomorrow on World News Tonight and 20/20.
But I predict the reaction from most of America will be:
"I said thanks, but no thanks, to that woman from Nowhere."
Sorry, I just had to say that. That's the meanest thing I've said on this blog. Oh, except that McCain is a liar. But that's true.
Lies, smears, distortions, phony outrage, hypocrisy.
That's what the McCain-Palin campaign is all about. Reformed Maverick (not Maverick Reformer) John McCain has taken the Rove playbook to new depths of disgust.
Examples are rife: the phony outrage over Barack's comment on McCain's economic policy - "like putting lipstick on a pig" - which was perversely construed to be a slander on Palin, who, as it turns out, uses lipstick. Who knew?
And McCain's blatant lies in his Education commercial. Every statement in that ad is a blatant lie, as parsed by the NYT today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/us/politics/11checkpoint.html
We cannot allow these people to win. We have to call a spade a spade. That dog won't hunt. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. A stitch in time saves nine.
How about an ad: "John McCain - dishonor at the gate: McCain and Palin lie about their records and distort Obama's. Do you want a leader who lies, one who wants to pull the wool over your eyes to sell you a real life Bridge to Nowhere? That's not change. That's politics as usual. Vote for the candidate who tells you the truth, who doesn't stoop to smears - the candidate who has a vision for the future and the integrity to help America achieve it. Vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Proud Americans."
or "My mother says that at the end of the day, what you have left is your honor, and your good name. What will John McCain have left at the end of this campaign? He has lied repeatedly and his campaign is trying to swindle America out of our future. He comes from the party that took a record surplus and squandered it in record debt. The party that has wrecked our economy. Vote for Obama and Biden. Real Americans for change." etc.
Write your own ad in the comments section.
Ugh. The convention I just witnessed was a travesty. While the Democrats were upbeat, unified and focused, the Repubs showed off their personal attack skills. For me, it showed clearly that the independent, insurgent John McCain is no more. He was completely unable to control his convention to put forth the post-partisan image he wants to project to swing voters. Instead, we got full-on partisan rancor for the entire convention, including Palin's speech, and then McCain tries to say he's different.
Let us be clear - he will not be different. He will be unable to control his conservative wing. He will do what it takes to stay in power with his base, which means no change at all in the economy, immigration, health care, the war, FISA, and on and on.
He is running a campaign to smear Barack Obama and deceive people about his intentions to promote "change". He is not ready to lead. He was not even ready to lead his own convention.
If you take racism out of the picture, Barack will win this election by 2 to 1, a Johnson landslide. It's that clear. Instead, we have to motivate to fight for every vote. I hope everybody will put in the time every week for the next 60 days to make sure we put Barack and Joe over the top, to get the country we deserve - Republicans, Democrats, and Decline-to-states.
Do the Republicans take the American people for fools? Lindsey Graham was on This Week today, and he was stacking up Palin's experience to Obama's. Give us a break. He sounded like a fanatic zealout, full of distortions and lies to support his twisted world view. If Palin had been a Democrat, he would have been the first out of the gates to savage her. He cares nothing about the truth, just about propagating his tenuous hold on power. I was disgusted by this attack animal.
The main reason we're all dumbfounded by Palin is because she hasn't been even mentioned in the news for most of the year. Tim Pawlenty, also a governor, was rumored to be on McCain's shortlist, and we had the chance to get used to him. Maybe Palin will grow in stature once we're more familiar with her, but right now, it looks like a desperate attempt to secure the Republican conservative base, or a cynical ploy to sway women voters to vote against their interests and for their gender. I don't think women are this stupid, frankly.
Let's take another angle on the experience issue, one that I haven't heard much from the supposed pundits. (By the way, does anyone else feel that the pundits are become more and more obviously irrelevant to gauging the mood of the country, or even as neutral judges of the campaign proceedings?)
Let's leave aside every professional activity that Barack Obama has engaged in. Leave aside his outstanding academic achievements. Leave aside his community organizing. Leave aside his years in the State Senate and Senate. Leave aside his many accomplishments in the legislature. Leave aside his bestselling books. (That's an awful lot to leave aside, by the way.) "What has he done?" Lindsey Graham asked today. Well, I'll tell you: he has created and run a massive grassroots campaign that has transformed the landscape of American politics. He has inspired millions of average Americans with his clarity, intelligence, honesty, and leadership. He has addressed race in a transcendent way. He is a political phenomenon in a way that no other politician in memory can claim. Barack Obama is a transformational leader.
This is why Lindsey Graham is shaking in his boots.
This year, the Democrats, led by Barack Obama and Joe Biden, will lay waste to the politics of fear that Graham's party has thrived on in the last decade. In the years to come, Obama will reshape the national dialogue, invigorate the national spirit, and bring us many steps closer to the fulfillment of the promise that this great nation holds for its people and the world.
I had a conversation with a friend who took issue with the idea that one person, a leader, could create change. She is right, of course. That's the motto that Barack Obama places at the head of even this very website: "I'm asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington. I'm asking you to believe in yours."
I am imagining the day he wins this election. I can see people celebrating in the streets, people kissing like that famous photo in the streets of New York when World War II ended. We've waited a long time for this. We will make history, together.
Dear Friends,
Right now, Fox News is trying to paint Barack Obama as foreign, un-American, suspicious, and scary. They're trying to send Americans the message that our country's first viable Black candidate for President is not "one of us."
I've joined on to ColorOfChange.org's campaign to push back on Fox, publicly demanding they stop their race-baiting and fear mongering. If that doesn't work, then we'll go to their advertisers and the FCC. I wanted to invite you to sign on as well. It takes only a moment:
http://www.colorofchange.org/foxobama/?id=2135-64345
Here's what happened recently:
After Senator Obama won the nomination, he and his wife gave each other a "pound" in front of the cameras. Fox anchor E.D. Hill called the act of celebration a "terrorist fist jab." Then last week, a Fox News on-screen graphic referred to Michelle Obama as "Obama's baby mama"--slang used to describe the unmarried mother of a man's child. It was a clear attempt to associate the Obamas with negative cultural stereotypes about Black people, an insult not only to Michelle Obama but to women and Black people everywhere.
After each of the incidents mentioned, Fox issued some form of weak apology. But what does it mean when you slap someone in the face, apologize the next day, then slap them again on the third? It means the apology is meaningless.
These aren't one-time incidents--they're part of a pattern that continues no matter how often Fox is forced to apologize. Fox has a clear record of attacking and undermining Black institutions, Black leaders, and Black people in general.
If we don't push back now, we will see more of the same from now until November. Please join me in helping to bring an end to Fox's behavior.
Thanks.
Yes. Sexism is real. There was media bias in the way Hillary was covered. It wasn't the reason she lost, though, in my opinion.
But today in the NYT, Republican elected women (Christine Todd Whitman, Heather Wilson) are now quite thoroughly convinced that sexism is what did her campaign in.
Gee, could it be politically strategic/savvy of them to stoke this particular fire, in the hopes that disaffected Clinton women supporters will vote for McCain? It's like they got handed the same talking points from the RNC.
All those blog comments about "McCain 08! I'm mad about Hillary!" - some of them may be real, but I have to believe that a lot of them are just Republicans trying to make a situation. I really can't believe that droves of women will vote against their interest, and against Senator Clinton's wishes.
I recently visited DC for a conference, and was at the wonderful Newseum about 48 hours after Barack was there for an interview with Brian Williams. They have a huge 2-story screen in the atrium, and while I was watching, I saw video of Barack walking past a place I recognized in the Museum. I got really excited and rushed forward a few steps to see if I could spot him, but then realized that the video was two days old.
Then, my mom and I had fun with the "Be a TV Reporter" experience. Here's our breaking news from the future clip (^_^) OK, I hope this doesn't count as silly season...
http://www.newseum.org/batvr/batvr.aspx?item=batvr_video&style=k&guid=ff795c67-2a1d-458b-befb-a353926aece7
With something like 80% of precincts reporting, Clinton holds a 10 point lead in PA, which has been typical for her lead in several big states like Ohio, Texas and California. I think everyone feels like Obama has the edge overall and will be the nominee, but definitely check out the analysis of the exit polls for clues about November.
Obama continues to do well in Urban areas and with men. The group that's been solidly (60%) behind Hillary are women. While sizeable percentages of each candidate's supporters say they will support whoever is the nominee, a slightly higher percentage of Clinton voters say they would defect to McCain if Obama's the nominee (15 vs 11%).
Pennsylvania looks a bit "unique" to me in that there are a LOT of older voters, almost a third over 60; also, I was surprised that of the people who thought race was important, 3/5ths voted for Hillary. That's basically racism, right? But the bigger factor was gender. In each case, 80% of voters said race and gender were unimportant, but of the 20%, they broke strongly for Clinton.
Full results at
http://politics.nytimes.com/election-guide/2008/results/vote-polls/PA.html
Just caught a clip of Clinton - the full interview will be on Good Morning America on ABC tomorrow morning.She is asked what she would do if Iran launched an atomic weapon against Israel.She responded, "I would obliterate them."If she hadn't scared me before, she'd be giving me the willies now. What's she saying - she would launch an all-out nuclear attack against Iran, murdering millions of civilians? And what would happen the day after that, Mrs. Clinton? When the world starts believing that it's okay to use nuclear weapons?
There have been two military uses of nuclear weapons in the history of mankind. That's enough obliteration.
This is really ugly. We need to stop her now - life as we know it may depend on it.
UPDATE 4/22/08
I watched the whole interview on ABC this morning, and I'm just as alarmed. She did say "that's a terrible thing to say", and implied it was hard to contemplate it, but said she needed to do so to deter Iran.
Barack came on afterwards and was asked about Clinton's response. He said "sabre-rattling hasn't worked", and the question presupposes a failure to control Iran's nuclear policy, which he emphasized would be the cornerstone of his Iran policy. But he made it clear that any attack on Israel or any ally, by conventional or nuclear force, would lead to "forceful action" by his administration.
He actually sounds like the voice of experience and wisdom on this. I hope more people can size the both of them up through comments like these.
