"[T]he most persuasive case for Obama has less to do with him than with the moment he is meeting. The moment has been a long time coming, and it is the result of a confluence of events, from one traumatizing war in Southeast Asia to another in the most fractious country in the Middle East. The legacy is a cultural climate that stultifies our politics and corrupts our discourse. Obama’s candidacy in this sense is a potentially transformational one. Unlike any of the other candidates, he could take America—finally—past the debilitating, self-perpetuating family quarrel of the Baby Boom generation that has long engulfed all of us. So much has happened in America in the past seven years, let alone the past 40, that we can be forgiven for focusing on the present and the immediate future. But it is only when you take several large steps back into the long past that the full logic of an Obama presidency stares directly—and uncomfortably—at you. At its best, the Obama candidacy is about ending a war—not so much the war in Iraq, which now has a momentum that will propel the occupation into the next decade—but the war within America that has prevailed since Vietnam and that shows dangerous signs of intensifying, a nonviolent civil war that has crippled America at the very time the world needs it most. It is a war about war—and about culture and about religion and about race. And in that war, Obama—and Obama alone—offers the possibility of a truce." - Andrew Sullivan
"[T]he most persuasive case for Obama has less to do with him than with the moment he is meeting. The moment has been a long time coming, and it is the result of a confluence of events, from one traumatizing war in Southeast Asia to another in the most fractious country in the Middle East. The legacy is a cultural climate that stultifies our politics and corrupts our discourse.
Obama’s candidacy in this sense is a potentially transformational one. Unlike any of the other candidates, he could take America—finally—past the debilitating, self-perpetuating family quarrel of the Baby Boom generation that has long engulfed all of us. So much has happened in America in the past seven years, let alone the past 40, that we can be forgiven for focusing on the present and the immediate future. But it is only when you take several large steps back into the long past that the full logic of an Obama presidency stares directly—and uncomfortably—at you.
At its best, the Obama candidacy is about ending a war—not so much the war in Iraq, which now has a momentum that will propel the occupation into the next decade—but the war within America that has prevailed since Vietnam and that shows dangerous signs of intensifying, a nonviolent civil war that has crippled America at the very time the world needs it most. It is a war about war—and about culture and about religion and about race. And in that war, Obama—and Obama alone—offers the possibility of a truce." - Andrew Sullivan
Here is the clip...
http://thinkonthesethings.wordpress.com/2007/10/18/video-barack-obama-on-the-tonight-show-with-jay-leno/
as they support the candidates who want to end the war! This speaks volumes about what is really going on in the military concerning this very ill-advised war. Obama is second only to Ron Paul in campaign donations from those affiliated with the military.
By BENNETT ROTH, RICHARD S. DUNHAM and CHASE DAVIS
According to a Houston Chronicle analysis of campaign records from January through September, Paul received $63,440 in donations from current military employees and several retired military personnel.
Democrat Barack Obama, another war critic, was second in military giving. The Illinois senator got $53,968 during the nine months.
He was followed by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, a decorated Navy pilot and former Vietnam prisoner of war, who received $48,208 in military-related giving. McCain has been one of the most vigorous defenders of President Bush's decision this year to increase U.S. troops in Iraq.
The military contributions — nearly 1,000 of them are listed in Federal Election Commission records for this year — represent a small fraction of the overall contributions to the candidates.
Paul, whose campaign Web site notes his military service as a flight surgeon in the Air Force in the 1960s as well as his opposition to the current war, raised a total of $5 million from July through September alone. Also, many contributors do not disclose their occupations, making it difficult to determine the total extent of military contributions to any one candidate.
Nevertheless, analysts said the ability of Paul and Obama to rake in as much money from military employees as they did suggests there is a certain degree of dissatisfaction with the Iraq campaign among veterans and those in uniform.
One of the contributors to Paul's campaign was Lindell Anderson, 72, a retired Army chaplain from Fort Worth, who donated $100 to the Texas lawmaker.
"As a Christian, I think he speaks to a theme that the United States shouldn't be the policeman of the world," said Anderson.
Anderson said he strongly disagrees with Republicans who call Paul anti-military: "He spent five years in the military. People in the military have to respect his integrity" whether or not they agree with him on the war.
But an official with the American Legion, the veterans' service organization that has supported the Iraq war, said she didn't know why military employees support Paul.
"I don't know the rhyme or reason behind it," said Ramona Joyce. "It's America. Anybody can throw their money at who they want to."
At the Texas headquarters of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Austin, state adjutant Roy Grona said military personnel do not vote as a bloc.
"There's probably a lot of veterans that aren't happy with the war in Iraq," he said.
Grona said Paul has been endorsed by the VFW in his congressional races in part because of his support for veterans' benefits.
The average size of Paul's contributions from military sources is $500, with donations ranging from $50 to the maximum $2,300.
More than a third of Paul's military-related contributions came from Army affiliates; a third came from the Air Force; and a fourth from Navy donors. The rest came from affiliates of the Marines and other branches.
Jennifer Duffy, an analyst with the non-partisan Cook Political Report, speculated that Paul might be an attractive candidate for military personnel who oppose the war, "but don't want to cross the line and vote for a Democrat."
Paul has made withdrawal of troops from Iraq and a criticism of aggressive U.S. foreign policy central themes of his maverick campaign.
Kent Snyder, Paul's campaign chairman, said the contributions were evidence that many in the military agreed with the candidate's position.
"I guess they want to get out of Iraq, too," said Snyder.
Texas A&M political science professor George C. Edwards III attributed support for Obama among the military to the factors that he attracts support from many black voters, and blacks are a bigger proportion of the military than their overall share of the national population.
Edwards, who was a guest professor at West Point for three years, said "an awful lot of people in the military just think this war has been a disaster for the Army."
He said they believe the war has "stretched it thin, used its supplies and has been bad for morale."
"They may be quite upset and this is a way they can do something about it," he said.
Obama's support came from across the military, including a squad leader in the Army, a member of the Navy stationed at the U.S. embassy in Iraq, and state Rep. Juan Garcia, a Democrat from Corpus Christi.
Garcia, a retired Navy pilot, serves as an instructor at the Naval Air Station Corpus Christi with the Naval Reserves.
"The men and women of the military are looking for a leader like Barack Obama who will turn the page on foreign policy and national security issues," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.
Edwards attributed McCain's backing to his being "a former military guy." McCain received the largest number of supporters from Navy, in which he served.
"John McCain has extremely strong support among veterans, especially in the early primary states," spokesman Brian Rogers said. "He's a veteran himself and he's been there for them on the issues for over 20 years."
Great leaders lead by setting examples. When it comes to the issue of negotiation with Iran, Obama took a bold stance and now Hillary has come to realize it is the correct thing to do.
Filed at 2:35 a.m. ET
CANTERBURY, N.H. (AP) -- Hillary Rodham Clinton called Barack Obama naive when he said he'd meet with the leaders of Iran without precondition. Now she says she'd do the same thing, too.
During a Democratic presidential debate in July, Obama said he would be willing to meet without precondition in the first year of his presidency with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea.
Standing with him on stage, Clinton said she would first send envoys to test the waters and called Obama's position irresponsible and naive.
But asked about it Thursday by a voter, the New York senator said twice that she, too, would negotiate with Iran ''with no conditions.''
''I would engage in negotiations with Iran, with no conditions, because we don't really understand how Iran works. We think we do, from the outside, but I think that is misleading,'' she said at an apple orchard.
She characterized her recent vote to label Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization as a way to gain leverage for those negotiations.
Obama and other rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination have been criticizing Clinton's vote late last month in favor of the resolution, comparing it to her 2002 vote authorizing the war in Iraq.
They have suggested that the Iran vote was the first step toward a military invasion there.
Obama is getting rave reviews from environmentalists for his speech yesterday! This from www.gristmill.grist.org:
Staying with the Monday Is Obama Day theme, here are a few thoughts on Obama's energy plan. (Full plan here; speech introducing the plan here.)
Overall, I'm pleasantly surprised -- even shocked -- at its quality. It's a deft mix of good politics and strong, substantive policy. Here are what I see as the three headlines:
More detailed thoughts below the fold.
Much has been said about Edwards' important role in this campaign: pushing the other candidates toward stronger, more ambitious policy. You can see it at work here -- in several respects Obama's energy proposal echoes Edwards'.
However, with his promise to auction 100% of cap-and-trade credits, Obama has put himself out ahead of all the other frontrunners. He deserves the praise he'll get for it.
As for investing the auction revenue, Obama gets it absolutely right:
Some of the revenue generated by auctioning allowances will be used to support the development and deployment of clean energy, invest in energy efficiency improvements and address transition costs, including helping American workers affected by this economic transition and helping lower-income Americans afford their energy bills by expanding the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, expanding weatherization grants for low-income individuals to make their homes more energy efficient, and establishing a dedicated fund to assist low-income Americans afford higher electricity and energy bills
Note that Obama is neatly transcending the faux-controversy between Shellenberger & Nordhaus and their critics: He's putting regulation and investment on equal footing.
He's smart on investment, too -- some of it is for basic R&D, some of it for green jobs programs, and some for pushing existing technologies to market. I particularly like this:
The Clean Technologies Deployment Venture Capital Fund will be modeled on the highly-successful Central Intelligence Agency In-Q-Tel program. In-Q-Tel is a non-profit, independently-managed venture capital fund led by seasoned venture capital professionals to develop new intelligence technologies for the CIA. The first five years of In-Q-Tel funding led to 22 new technologies being used in 40 government programs.
The CTDVCF (which needs a better acronym) would be specifically designed to get technologies across the "valley of death" that separates the lab and the market. This is a creative way to spur rather than replace market incentives.
Naturally I'm not too excited about the ethanol business, but if you must have ethanol, this is about as good a balance as you could as for. It's frank about the limitations of corn ethanol and promises plenty of research money for cellulosic. Most importantly, it specifically calls out the importance of local ownership of biofuel refineries, and promises some incentives that would encourage it.
Here's the wording on dirty coal plants:
Obama will use whatever policy tools are necessary, including standards that ban new traditional coal facilities, to ensure that we move quickly to commercialize and deploy low carbon coal technology. Obama's stringent cap on carbon will also make it uneconomic to site traditional coal facilities and discourage the use of existing inefficient coal facilities.
Sounds like he's proposing more or less what Edwards is: requiring that new coal plants be IGCC. As I said in this post, that's a big risk, and not anything close to as bold as requiring working CCS. Combined with the price on carbon, though, it certainly sends the right signal to coal companies: old-fashioned dirty coal is on the way out. Greens should push Clinton to go at least this far.
On efficiency, some highlights include making all new buildings carbon neutral by 2030, decoupling in the utility sector, and my personal favorite, investing in the smart grid.
The transportation stuff contains the usual promises to boost CAFE standards and mandate flex-fuel vehicles, but -- praise be -- it also contains several measures to reduce driving. Listen to this sweetness:
Barack Obama believes that we must move beyond our simple fixation of investing so many of our transportation dollars in serving drivers and that we must make more investments that make it easier for us to walk, bicycle and access other transportation alternatives.
There's a limited amount the federal gov't can do on this score, but Obama has been thoughtful about how to use those tools.
Finally, Obama says all the right things about the international effort -- re-engage with the UN process, bring developing countries in, etc. etc.
There are certain areas where the plan is vague, and a few others where I'd disagree on details, but overall I think greens should be happy with its comprehensiveness and boldness. It's just stunning how far the energy policy discussion has come in the last couple of years.
She truly has the courage of her convictions. Great op-ed piece in today's Wall Street Journal reprinted here for you all to read.
PEGGY NOONAN
Mr. Obama often seems to be thinking when he speaks, too, and this comes somehow as a relief, in comparison, say, to Hillary Clinton and President Bush, both of whom often seem to be trying to remember the answer they'd agreed upon with staff. What's the phrase we use about education? Hit Search Function. Hit Open. Right-click. "Equity in education is essential, Tim . . ."
You get the impression Mr. Obama trusts himself to think, as if something good might happen if he does. What a concept. Anyway, I've started to lean forward a little when he talks.
But he doesn't stand a chance, right? His main competitor, Mrs. Clinton, is this week's invincible. She broke through 50% for the first time in a big national poll--53% saying they would support her, a full 33 points more than Obama. Her third quarter fund raising beat everyone else's. "It's all over but the voting," said Rep. Tom Petri, who will probably get pummeled a bit by the campaign for premature triumphalism. But he only said what a lot of people are starting to think.
Has the Democratic Party noticed it actually has some impressive candidates? They should not be written off, and when you think about it, it's weird that they're being written off. Joe Biden used to seem mildly giddy, vain but in a small way, not a big and interesting way. (Big is LBJ: Ah will impose mah will. Small: Where's my hair-sculpting gel?) But it has been 35 years since he became a figure in Washington, and in the past few years in particular he has been ahead of his peers on Iraq--ahead with warnings, ahead with tripartite thinking, ahead with a seriousness and sobriety about the fix we're in. He is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and he's been reading daily threat reports for a long time. He is impressive. Why don't the Democrats notice?
Chris Dodd is the head of the Senate Banking Committee, and nothing if not sophisticated. In the post-9/11 world, sophisticated is not so bad. He's been in the Senate 27 years. In earlier years his thinking on government, his assumptions about what can and should be expected of it, veered from the utopian to the world-weary, and were sometimes both at once. But if you listen to him and watch him in debate, you might legitimately conclude this is a candidate who understands how it all works and what time it is. He's one of the grown-ups.
Anybody notice?
And yet the Democrats remain in their Hillary trance.
Not all, of course. Each candidate has his band of supporters, his little base. Mr. Obama is fortunate to have one with the grace and vigor of Ted Sorensen, John F. Kennedy's great staffer and speechwriter, who told me this week, "I am supporting Obama." He has known and liked the other main candidates, has "no objection to a female commander-in-chief and no ill feelings stemming from the Clinton stains on the escutcheon of the White House." But Mr. Obama is "the one serious potential nominee of the Democratic Party who is most likely to win" and most likely "to end the tragic occupation of Iraq on terms compatible with our country's best interests and traditional values."
When I asked if his support was connected in any way to the idea of breaking away from the Bush-Clinton-Bush rotation, he said, "Above all, I believe this country needs change, and continuing the 20-year hold on the White House of the same two families is not my idea of change."
It is the nature of modern politics. A political family gains allies--retainers, supporters, hangers-on, admirers, associates, in-house Machiavellis. The bigger the government, the more ways allies can be awarded, which binds them more closely. Your destiny is theirs. Members of the court recruit others. Money lines spread person to person, company to company, board to board, mover to mover.
The most important part is the money lines. Power is expensive. The second most important part is the word "winner." The Bushes are winners; the Clintons are winners. We know this, they've won. The Bushes are wired into the Republican money-line system; the Clintons are wired into the Democratic money-line system. For a generation, two generations now, they have had the same dynamics in play, only their friends are on the blue team, not the red, or the red, not the blue.
They are, both groups, up and ready and good to go every election cycle. They are machines. There are good people on each side, idealists, the hopeful, those convinced the triumph of their views will make our country better. And there are those on each side who are not so wonderful, not so well-meaning, not well-meaning at all. And some are idiots, but very comfortable ones.
Is this good for our democracy, this air of inevitability? Is it good in terms of how the world sees us, and how we see ourselves? Or is it something we want to break out of, like a trance?
It would be understandable if they were families of a most extraordinary natural distinction and self-sacrifice. But these are not the Adamses of Massachusetts we're talking about. You've noticed, right?
Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father" (Penguin, 2005), which you can order from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Fridays on OpinionJournal.com.
Copyright © 2007 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
I’m not a big fan of any poll this far out from an election but that recent poll from Iowa points out a very important truth. While Clinton leads among all democrats, she is trailing to Obama when you whittle the sample down to those who will likely vote. This suggests to me that as Hillary exposes herself to the residents in all these small town meetings and coffee clutches, they get to judge her first hand. If I can pick out her fake laugh and smile on national TV, imagine what those people are seeing up close and personal. My guess is that she is turning people off with her forced phony pleasantries. This is not New York. These people require a bit more sincerity from their candidate. The more they get to know Hillary, the more they realize she is not the right choice for the democratic party.
On the other hand, Obama is having just the opposite effect. As he continues to meet with and impress the likely voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, people get a real appreciation for his character, his positive message and his compassion and sincerity. He is the Bill Clinton of 1992, not Hillary.
By Larry Eichel
Inquirer Staff Writer
Philip Terranova, the university's vice president for university relations, made the announcement Friday morning. Such details as the availability of tickets were not immediately available.
The debate, which has been officially sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee, will be produced by NBC News and televised on MSNBC.
Can you imagine someone in the Bush adminstration calling someone else intellectually lazy? It is quite clear to everyone by now that if anyone would know anything about intellectual laziness it would be someone in Bush's circle. The ridiculous conclusion of this anonymous source in the white house is just another demonstration of their own, yep you guessed it... intellectual laziness.
In my opinion this type of laziness stems from the inability of people to view the world in anything other than black and white. It is too easy to classify people, religions, etc. into simplistic categories and stereotypes. By doing so, it allows for hatred and ignorance to achieve false justification. Can you get any lazier intellectually than to take this incredibly oversimplified approach to life? Whether it be race, religion or politics, the world is very complex. There is no black. There is no white. There is only gray. From all that I have seen and read, Obama understands this better than any other presidential candidate. That is why he will get my vote.
Obama shows once again why he is head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to integrity and civility. People are starting to take notice!
He is wrong to say Obama is "acting white." What Jackson fails to understand is that we need to stop categorizing politicians into racist stereotypes. Obama is an American, first and foremost. He happens to be an african-american as well but to say that an african-american cannot have political views similar to a caucasian american is ludicrous. (no pun intended)
Here is what Andrew Sullivan had to say about this...
"Yesterday, after sitting through a tedious speech by Barack Obama on tax policy, I noted:If Obama gets no further than his current rut (I suspect he'll surpass it later in the fall), he will nonetheless have achieved something remarkable. Here is a credible, serious African-American candidate for president boring an audience on tax reform. The days of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton dominating African-American politics and visibility are gone.I guess Jesse Jackson agrees. Jackson's "acting white" remark is a sign of desperation - of failure, of the bankruptcy of pure victim politics. It's racist; and it's offensive. But it's also an extremely encouraging sign. It could help illustrate one of the game-changing features of the Obama candidacy and open more eyes to the potential in the Illinois senator; and it could jump-start up a real debate among African-Americans about what their future politics should look like and express. Both are very healthy developments. Obama, after all, is not only running against Clinton and her well-oiled machine. He's also running against the failed past in racial politics. But part of his candidacy is about not explicitly returning to these tired and divisive racial themes, while articulating policies that he believes benefits whites and blacks in an interconnected America. Yhe Obama campaign should thank Jesse Jackson for making the newness of Obama's racial message clear in a way that leaves the race-consciousness to others. It's the first lucky break Obama's had in a while.Obama in the end didn't need a Sistah Souljah moment. He needed a Jesse Jackson moment. And he just got one."
"Yesterday, after sitting through a tedious speech by Barack Obama on tax policy, I noted:
If Obama gets no further than his current rut (I suspect he'll surpass it later in the fall), he will nonetheless have achieved something remarkable. Here is a credible, serious African-American candidate for president boring an audience on tax reform. The days of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton dominating African-American politics and visibility are gone.
I guess Jesse Jackson agrees. Jackson's "acting white" remark is a sign of desperation - of failure, of the bankruptcy of pure victim politics. It's racist; and it's offensive. But it's also an extremely encouraging sign. It could help illustrate one of the game-changing features of the Obama candidacy and open more eyes to the potential in the Illinois senator; and it could jump-start up a real debate among African-Americans about what their future politics should look like and express. Both are very healthy developments.
Obama, after all, is not only running against Clinton and her well-oiled machine. He's also running against the failed past in racial politics. But part of his candidacy is about not explicitly returning to these tired and divisive racial themes, while articulating policies that he believes benefits whites and blacks in an interconnected America. Yhe Obama campaign should thank Jesse Jackson for making the newness of Obama's racial message clear in a way that leaves the race-consciousness to others. It's the first lucky break Obama's had in a while.
Obama in the end didn't need a Sistah Souljah moment. He needed a Jesse Jackson moment. And he just got one."
Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic Monthly thinks so... as do many others.
17 Sep 2007 11:18 am
Obama:
"I commend Senator Clinton for her health care proposal. It's similar to the one I put forth last spring, though my universal health care plan would go further in reducing the punishing cost of health care than any other proposal."
Here's why, from the perspective of Obama's campaign, the politics of health care cuts in their favor:
(1) Her plan isn't terribly bold, reinforcing the idea that she cannot see more than a few inches in front of her face, whilst Obama can see around the corner.
(2) By refering, repeatedly, to the "secrecy" and intruige surrounding the botched 1994 effort, Obama's team extends their argument that Democrats really can't trust Clinton at the end of the day.
(3) They disagree with the Clintons about whether Democrats laud Clinton for having tried health care first; in the view of Obama's advisers, Democrats blame Clinton for giving Republicans the power to halt any momentum towards universal health care.
(4) Clinton chose to unveil her proposal late in the game, suggesting that she's a follower, rather than a leader; Democrats know she waited and wondered why; key health care interests in the party are frustrated.
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I was there in May when Senator Obama made his first, electric appearance in Philadelphia and I plan to be in attendance again to support him and his agenda in the upcoming democratic presidential debate in Philadelphia. Here is the lastest info...
Phila.'s presidential debate set for Oct. 30
Inquirer Senior Writer
In the early phases of the 2008 presidential campaign, the Philadelphia area hasn't received much attention, which isn't surprising since the party nominations may be decided long before the Pennsylvania primary in April.
But attention will be paid for at least one day next month. Or so it seems.
On Oct. 30, the eight Democratic candidates are scheduled to come to Philadelphia for a televised debate, the first presidential debate in the city since 1976.
This event has been on the national political calendar since May 16. At that time, the Democratic National Committee put out a list of dates and locations for six officially sanctioned debates for the second half of this year.
Since then, there has been nary an official word about the Philadelphia event, which is now just over six weeks away. And few unofficial words.
Last week, officials at the sponsoring organizations, which include MSNBC and the state Democratic Party, offered assurances that the event was going to happen and that a formal announcement would come soon.
Among the questions to be answered is where the event will be held.
One source familiar with the situation indicated Friday that the likely venue was Temple University's Liacouras Center. Another said that was by no means a sure thing.
State Democratic officials say they hope the debate - one in a long series for the presidential candidates this year - will have an immediate impact on the local political scene.
"It's going to take place exactly one week before this year's general election," said Mary Isenhour, executive director of the state party. "Our hope is that it will rally the troops for the statewide judicial elections and help us with turnout."
Democrats need a healthy turnout in Philadelphia - where the mayor's race and most of the council races are not seen as competitive - to improve their chances to win the two Supreme Court and three Superior Court seats on the Nov. 6 ballot.
In that regard, some of the presidential candidates might attend political events in the area before and after the debate.
Though the national Democrats are not worrying about Pennsylvania in the context of winning the nomination, they do care about it in terms of winning the presidency.
The conventional wisdom is that no Democrat can capture the White House without the state. The Democrats have carried it the last four times, although the margin in 2004 was only 2.5 percent of the total vote cast.
Expected to participate Oct. 30 are Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, former Sens. John Edwards of North Carolina and Mike Gravel of Alaska, Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.
This would be the third time a televised, national political debate has been held in Philadelphia.
On Sept. 23, 1976, President Gerald R. Ford and his Democratic challenger, Jimmy Carter, came to the Walnut Street Theater for the first of their three debates that fall.
That encounter marked the first time in U.S. history that a president had agreed to debate and only the second time (after 1960) that any televised debates had been held.
It is remembered largely for a failure in the sound system that left Ford and Carter standing at their lecterns in uncomfortable silence for nearly half an hour.
On Oct. 11, 1984, the now-demolished Convention Center in University City was host to a vice presidential debate between incumbent George H.W. Bush and Democrat Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman ever on a major-party national ticket.
And the third such debate in the city's history is scheduled for Oct. 30.
As a spokeswoman for MSNBC put it in an e-mail last week: "Additional details to follow."
Here is a quote everyone should print out and post all over their campus or office. Be sure to highlight the date. I will take good, sound judgment over experience any day of the week.
"After September 11th, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration's pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again. I don't oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism.
What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne...
Once Again, another example of why Barack Obama should be our next President.
In case we needed yet another example of why Barack Obama should be the next President of the United States, he gave us one today during the testimony of Patreus and Crocker before the U.S. Senate.
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3586869
Here is a very telling article from today's Wall Street Journal. Mr. Sopo is a true hero for standing up to the hardline leadership of the Cuban- American population in Miami. His group, Unidos Con Obama is the future of the movement to remove Castro and his cronies from power in a sensible and sane manner.
MIAMI -- Giancarlo Sopo's grandmother was horrified when the Barack Obama campaign invited him to ride in the official motorcade during a swing through Miami late last month.
The 86-year-old walked to her bureau and handed Mr. Sopo a small, palm-frond crucifix and a picture card of Jesus for divine protection. "Be careful, my son," she warned him. "There are many crazy people out there who may want to harm you and the senator, because of your opinions."
The crazy people she was talking about are fellow Cuban-Americans. The opinion she was talking about is Sen. Obama's view that the U.S. should take small steps to ease its economic embargo of the island.
Just days before he rode in the motorcade, Mr. Sopo had created a small Cuban-American group called Unidos con Obama (United with Obama). His grandmother's worst fears haven't come to pass, but Mr. Sopo is discovering that being a fan of the Illinois Democrat in Miami's Little Havana can mean a break from old friends and acquaintances.
"If you deviate slightly from what is the traditional hard-line approach to the Castro regime, they will publicly call you a communist on local radio and TV stations, humiliate you and your family, and accuse you of terrible things," the 24-year-old says.
For decades, U.S. presidential candidates from both parties have made pilgrimages to Miami to pledge their toughness toward Fidel Castro, hoping to score Cuban-American votes. In 2000, when a few hundred ballots in Florida determined the presidency, both Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore came out against the Clinton administration's decision to take a motherless 6-year-old boy, Elian González, away from his Miami relatives and return him to his father in Cuba.
In a forum of Democratic candidates on Spanish-language Univision last night, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, one of Mr. Obama's main rivals for the nomination, said the Cuban people "deserve liberty and democracy," but avoided any suggestion that she would tinker with the trade embargo.
Mr. Obama, for reasons of principle, policy and politics, is betting that a younger generation of Cuban-Americans might go for a candidate promising new tactics when it comes to Cuba -- a situation made even more urgent by the declining health of Mr. Castro. In a recent Miami Herald op-ed, Mr. Obama said he wants to relax rules that limit how much Cuban-Americans can travel to the island and how much money Cuban expatriates can send back to their relatives.
"My policy toward Cuba will be guided by one word: liberty," Mr. Obama told supporters at a Little Havana rally last month.
But he stopped short of calling for an end to the U.S. economic embargo until change comes to Cuba. In his op-ed, Mr. Obama wrote that "it makes strategic sense to hold onto important inducements we can use in dealing with a post-Fidel government, for it is an unfortunate fact that his departure by no means guarantees the arrival of freedom on the island."
Mr. Sopo was at the Little Havana rally, with his sister, mother and grandmother. Compact, earnest, fiercely admiring of Warren Buffett and other captains of capitalism, Mr. Sopo says in elementary school he memorized JFK's "Ich bin ein Berliner" address and Gordon Gekko's "greed is good" speech from the movie "Wall Street."
Mr. Sopo's anti-Castro pedigree is impeccable. His grandfather was a Cuban Navy officer who died in a Cuban prison after the revolution. His father, Edgar, who had studied at Georgetown University, was jailed by the Castro regime in 1959, but he fled to Miami after a friend secured his release. In Florida, he joined fellow exiles plotting Mr. Castro's overthrow and went ashore in Cuba with an infiltration team ahead of the failed American-backed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. He escaped capture by taking refuge in the Venezuelan Embassy in Havana. Félix Rodríguez, the Central Intelligence Agency operative who was present in Bolivia at the 1967 execution of Mr. Castro's Argentine comrade Ernesto "Che" Guevara, was on Edgar Sopo's team during the Bay of Pigs invasion and spoke at his 1999 funeral.
The younger Mr. Sopo was proud to shake Mr. Bush's hand at a campaign rally in 2000, but the war in Iraq soured him on Mr. Bush, and in 2004 he worked on Democrat John Kerry's presidential bid. He first heard about Mr. Obama in 2003 and volunteered to do low-level campaign work earlier this year.
The eureka moment, however, came in a movie theater when Mr. Sopo's BlackBerry buzzed with an Internet alert notifying him that Mr. Obama planned to propose easing travel and remittance restrictions to Cuba.
The next day he decided to organize Cuban-Americans and other Hispanics to support Mr. Obama's presidential bid. Within a few days he had 10 members and was holding forth on Channel 41, a local Spanish-language television station.
He was also attracting the attention of those for whom relaxing the embargo is considered a betrayal of the Cuban cause. The first call came from his friend Melanie De Armas, a 21-year-old student at Florida International University who works a day job in a mortgage company. "Hey, Mr. Obama," she said in a message left on Mr. Sopo's voice mail, according to Mr. Sopo. "I saw you on the news. I want to talk to you about this."
When they did speak, Mr. Sopo brought up a recent Florida International University poll showing that more than 60% of Cuban-Americans in Miami support freer travel and remittances. He said he disagreed with those who call Mr. Obama naive for thinking that more contact between the U.S. and Cuba will loosen the regime's grip.
Ms. De Armas responded that she doesn't believe the polls. "I wasn't polled, and nobody in my family was polled," she says.
Radio host Ninoska Pérez-Castellón, a fixture among Miami exiles, went on the air to condemn Mr. Obama's Cuba stance, adding that it was a "provocation" for the candidate to schedule a rally in the same Little Havana auditorium where Ronald Reagan gave a famously anti-Castro speech in 1983.
Ms. Pérez-Castellón, 56, had called Edgar Sopo a "Cuban patriot" in a radio broadcast after his death. The following year, Ms. Pérez-Castellón, Giancarlo Sopo, his mother and his little sister were among the Cuban-Americans who gathered around the Elian González house to try to prevent him from being sent to Cuba.
But Ms. Pérez-Castellón, whose husband spent 28 years in a Cuban prison, has nothing good to say about the younger Mr. Sopo's alliance with Barack Obama. "If Giancarlo feels that way, it's fine, and even though it's a totally opposing view from what his father's view was, that's fine," she says. "But does he represent the majority of this community? No."
The conflict was evident at Mr. Obama's Little Havana rally. Outside the auditorium, Mr. Sopo, wearing a white guayabera, with his 19-year-old sister, Giannina, and their young allies waved signs that read, "Cuban Americans Support Obama."
On the other side of the street were a few dozen older protesters waving signs that read, "Helping Castro Is a Crime" and "Cuba Sí, Obama No."
Inside the auditorium, the candidate vowed to fight for freedom in Cuba -- in his own way. "Until there's justice in Cuba, there's no justice anywhere," Mr. Obama said. The Sopos gave him a standing ovation.
Afterward, Giannina gestured across the street at the angry anti-Obama demonstrators. "They're too old to change," she said.
Write to Michael M. Phillips at michael.phillips@wsj.com3
Here is a great article from today's (9/5/07) Wall Street Journal. It portrays Clinton as a conventional, "old school" foregin policy proponent. Obama is contrasted as the voice of a new generation with a much younger cadre of advisers and a true progressive approach to dealing with today's foreign policy problems. She likes to claim the label of "progressive." However in this arena, Obama is the candidate leading the charge to change the conventional wisdom. Hillary Clinton represents the past. Barack Obama represents the future. He IS the voice of our future! he IS the voice of our generation!
WASHINGTON -- What Democratic Sen. Barack Obama may lack in foreign-policy experience, he is trying to make up for in sheer numbers of advisers -- enough, says one of the team, for "his own virtual State Department."
Since launching his presidential bid in February, the freshman senator from Illinois has used the burgeoning brain trust -- now over 150 advisers and counting -- to help flesh out an almost wonkishly detailed set of statements, on the Iraq war, on Iran, U.S. counterterrorism strategy, the future of the U.S. military, even Cuba. Coming up next, his advisers say, will be more on China, U.S. energy security, the plight of Iraqi refugees, and how much to reduce the U.S. nuclear stockpile.
But the makeup of Mr. Obama's team -- heavy on onetime aides to President Clinton -- also speaks to an internecine feud between Mr. Obama and his chief rival for the Democratic nomination, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, over which of them represents the future of their party.
For crafting his counterinsurgency strategy, Mr. Obama has Harvard University's Sarah Sewall, who worked in the Pentagon under President Clinton. For overall security issues he leans on Mr. Clinton's former national security adviser, Anthony Lake. What about fighting AIDS or boosting U.S. trade in Africa? For that and more, he has former Clinton administration diplomat Susan Rice.
Mr. Obama has racked up a slew of converts from the Clinton camp, especially among a younger crowd of ex-Clintonites who say they want a fresher approach to new challenges than those offered by Mrs. Clinton. Many of these advisers, like Mr. Obama himself, are in their 40s. (Mrs. Clinton is 59 years old).
Acolytes such as Ms. Sewall, Ms. Rice, or former Clinton White House adviser Ivo Daalder, have found themselves in the midst of what one Obama aide calls "a generational tussle within the Democratic Party."
Even if there is a tussle, so far it hasn't taken the form of substantial policy differences. Both candidates support a gradual withdrawal of U.S. forces in Iraq and the need to turn security over to Iraqi forces. Both favor a more robust emphasis on diplomacy and multilateral engagement, even with archfoes such as Iran. Both say they are willing to use force unilaterally, if need be, to protect U.S. interests.
Instead, the big difference between the two is mainly in style and tone.
While Mr. Obama's camp is working to give heft to a freshman senator just three years removed from the Illinois state legislature, Mrs. Clinton considers her foreign views largely set -- one reason why she has such a small squad of advisers. The core of her team includes several staunch loyalists from her husband's time in power, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former United Nations ambassador Richard Holbrooke, and Samuel "Sandy" Berger, who succeeded Mr. Lake as national security adviser during Mr. Clinton's second term. The first two have been outspoken critics of President Bush's foreign policy and his handling of the Iraq war, and strong defenders of the Clinton legacy.
Mrs. Clinton's aides point out that her main adviser is President Clinton himself.
While Mrs. Clinton's team emphasizes tactical edge over sweeping solutions, Mr. Obama's camp is consciously in search of big concepts and grand strategies.
Mr. Lake, an academic and former diplomat, has been working alongside Mr. Obama off and on since 2003. He says he shares the senator's view that the U.S. needs to engage in a sweeping reassessment of its stance in the world -- "a grand strategy," as Mr. Obama put it in his recent book, "The Audacity of Hope."
"We're at a point in the history of our foreign policy where we need to step back and think things through to figure out what fits and doesn't fit with the world today," Mr. Lake says.
Mr. Daalder, who worked in the Clinton White House in the mid-1990s and is now at the Brookings Institution, describes the difference between Sens. Clinton and Obama as "the difference between what do we do about Iran and its nuclear program now versus how do we deal with nuclear proliferation writ large."
Mr. Obama's eagerness to lay out a comprehensive foreign policy -- unusual for a candidate at this stage in a campaign -- has made him in some ways the prime mover in the Democratic debates. But it has also opened him to attack from Sen. Clinton and others who are hoping to make a point of Mr. Obama's lack of experience.
Mrs. Clinton called him "naive" for saying he would meet with a short list of despotic leaders without preconditions during his first year as president. She also blasted him for telling an interviewer that he would never use tactical nuclear weapons against a terrorist group. The Clinton campaign also criticized Mr. Obama's statement in a speech in Washington that he would attack terrorist camps in Pakistan if they posed a threat, even without the approval of Pakistan's government.
But these barbs have also given Mr. Obama the chance to paint Mrs. Clinton as a conventional thinker who "lacked the good judgment" to oppose the Iraq war from the outset. "My call for a new foreign policy is based on the same thing that informed my opposition to the war in Iraq: common sense, not conventional Washington thinking," he said during a recent swing through Iowa.
Clinton advisers point to Mr. Obama's slumping national poll numbers as evidence that Mrs. Clinton has emerged much stronger from some of the recent dust-ups over foreign policy.
Mr. Obama did get a well-timed boost recently from one of his party's foreign-policy eminences, Zbigniew Brzezinski. The 79-year-old former Carter national security adviser not only backed Mr. Obama but panned Mrs. Clinton's views as "very conventional" and merely a continuation of "what we had eight years ago."
Mrs. Clinton is the lead Democratic candidate in national polls, but she's still had a rocky time getting her own foreign-policy team in place.
Plenty of notables are in her corner, ranging from Middle East specialist Martin Indyk to John Podesta, President Clinton's former White House chief of staff. Yet the Clinton campaign struggled for months to land a chief foreign-policy coordinator. Lee Feinstein, a former Albright adviser who originally flirted with the Obama camp, signed on with Sen. Clinton in late July.
Obama advisers often describe the Clinton camp as a closed shop, an assertion that Mr. Feinstein disputes. "The senator obviously has very deep foreign-policy experience," he says. "At the same time, she seeks out the best foreign-policy minds, and we are able to draw on a wide and diverse group, from former cabinet officials and diplomats to rising stars in the think tanks."
The Clinton/Obama divide has created some curious fissures in Washington. Mona Sunthep, one of Mr. Berger's top aides at the White House, now serves as a corporate vice-president at Mr. Berger's consulting firm, Stonebridge International. Both Mr. Berger and Ms. Sunthep's husband, Clyde Williams, are big in the Clinton camp. Yet the 39-year-old has gone over to Sen. Obama.
"I am more of his generation," she says.
![[Cast Your Vote]](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/images/it_qod09142004171604.gif){kind=small}
![[Giancarlo Sopo]](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/images/HC-GK629_Sopo_20070906233318.jpg)
![[Edgar Sopo prepares to invade Cuba; Giannina Sopo at a rally]](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/images/NA-AN930_CUBAN_20070909201247.jpg)
![[Barack Obama]](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/images/HC-GJ670_Obama_20070404185338.gif)
![[Hillary Clinton]](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/images/HC-GK060_Clinto_20070524174444.gif)
![[Combo]](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/images/NA-AN884A_OBAMA_20070904195715.gif)
