For those of you trying to reach unaffiliated voters - check this out....
California’s Unaffiliated Voters Are Sometimes Unreachable
New York Times
LOS ANGELES — The conventional political wisdom in delegate-rich California is that the roughly three million registered voters without a party affiliation are ripe for the picking by the Democratic candidates for president.
The latest political news from around the nation. Join the discussion.
Democrats began allowing independents to participate in their party’s presidential primary in 2004, and campaigns now see them — the fastest-growing group of registrants in California — as potentially pushing a candidate over the top in the primary on Feb. 5.
“We think that is a perfect target for us,” Mitchell Schwartz, the California director for Senator Barack Obama’s campaign, said of the pool of independent voters.
But the quirky ways of the state’s independent voters combined with the cumbersome process for voting in the primary may make them far less relevant than expected.
“The whole effect of the participation and influence of the independent voter is a bit overblown in California,” said Mark DiCamillo, the director of the California Field Poll.
In the 2004 presidential primary, out of 2.5 million independent residents registered to vote — their party affiliation is officially listed as “decline to state” — only 207,000 voted for a Democratic presidential candidate, or 8 percent of all votes cast that year, according to figures from the California secretary of state.
(Republicans only allow their own party members to vote; the state’s American Independent Party also allows decline-to-state voters to cast ballots in its primary, but the party’s presence is very small.)
Polling and party experts expect more decline-to-state voters to cast ballots in the Democratic contest on Feb. 5 because the primary comes earlier than in prior years and there is a dynamic race between Mr. Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democratic front-runners nationally. Still, these voters do not offer the reliable support on which campaigns depend.
“The first thing is that nonpartisans as a group are occasional voters,” Mr. DiCamillo said. “They are not as engaged in politics. They view the parties as being too partisan and migrated to nonpartisan.”
It is also true that decline-to-state voters must be quite motivated — and knowledgeable — to cast a ballot in the Democratic primary. The voters must ask for a Democratic ballot at their polling station; otherwise, they are provided with a nonpartisan ballot that has statewide measures only.
And if they vote by mail, as a great many Californians do, these voters must request a Democratic ballot in writing.
“If you do nothing, you get a nonpartisan ballot,” Mr. DiCamillo said. “That is a proactive step that is a hurdle.”
County registrars are supposed to inform the independent voters that they have a right to a Democratic ballot, but each does so differently, leaving many voters with no idea they can participate in the primary.
“We do get people after an election saying, ‘I wanted to vote a partisan ballot, and I got this nonpartisan ballot,’ ” said Steve Weir, the vice president of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials.
Of the other 23 states with primaries or caucuses on Feb. 5, nine have open primaries and three have semi-open ones. Each state has its own rules and nuances, but the process in most of them is far less complicated than in California.
Bruce E. Cain, a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley, said it required a lot of work for a campaign in California to make the independent voters important. A candidate needs “to target the decline-to-state voters, remind them that they can participate, and tell them how,” Professor Cain said.
Both Obama and Clinton campaign officials said they were doing that, but that it was a complex battle in a place where, compared with a state like New Hampshire, voters were less informed about the ins and outs of the primary process.
“It’s very hard, frankly,” said Mr. Schwartz of the Obama campaign. “In an open primary like New Hampshire, especially, people know they can vote.” He said the Democratic Party “should be doing a ton more” to reach out to the independents.
State Democratic Party officials said they did the best they could with a limited budget and competing interests. Separately from the party efforts, the Courage Campaign, a so-called 527 group, plans to call or e-mail 300,000 registered decline-to-state voters in California to remind them that they can vote Democratic.
Something fundamental has shifted in the Democratic Party.
David Brooks
Last week there was the widespread revulsion at the Clintons’ toxic attempts to ghettoize Barack Obama. In private and occasionally in public, leading Democrats lost patience with the hyperpartisan style of politics — the distortion of facts, the demonizing of foes, the secret admiration for brass-knuckle brawling and the ever-present assumption that it’s necessary to pollute the public sphere to win. All the suppressed suspicions of Clintonian narcissism came back to the fore. Are these people really serving the larger cause of the Democratic Party, or are they using the party as a vehicle for themselves?
And then Monday, something equally astonishing happened. A throng of Kennedys came to the Bender Arena at American University in Washington to endorse Obama. Caroline Kennedy evoked her father. Senator Edward Kennedy’s slightly hunched form carried with it the recent history of the Democratic Party.
The Kennedy endorsements will help among working-class Democrats, Catholics and the millions of Americans who have followed Caroline’s path to maturity. Furthermore, here was Senator Kennedy, the consummate legislative craftsman, vouching for the fact that Obama is ready to be president on Day One.
But the event was striking for another reason, having to do with the confluence of themes and generations. The Kennedys and Obama hit the same contrasts again and again in their speeches: the high road versus the low road; inspiration versus calculation; future versus the past; and most of all, service versus selfishness.
“With Barack Obama, we will turn the page on the old politics of misrepresentation and distortion,” Senator Kennedy declared. “With Barack Obama, there is a new national leader who has given America a different kind of campaign — a campaign not just about himself, but about all of us,” he said.
The Clintons started this fight, and in his grand and graceful way, Kennedy returned the volley with added speed.
Kennedy went on to talk about the 1960s. But he didn’t talk much about the late-60s, when Bill and Hillary came to political activism. He talked about the early-60s, and the idealism of the generation that had seen World War II, the idealism of the generation that marched in jacket and ties, the idealism of a generation whose activism was relatively unmarked by drug use and self-indulgence.
Then, in the speech’s most striking passage, he set Bill Clinton afloat on the receding tide of memory. “There was another time,” Kennedy said, “when another young candidate was running for president and challenging America to cross a New Frontier.” But, he continued, another former Democratic president, Harry Truman, said he should have patience. He said he lacked experience. John Kennedy replied: “The world is changing. The old ways will not do!”
The audience at American University roared. It was mostly young people, and to them, the Clintons are as old as the Trumans were in 1960. And in the students’ rapture for Kennedy’s message, you began to see the folding over of generations, the service generation of John and Robert Kennedy united with the service generation of the One Campaign. The grandparents and children united against the parents.
How could the septuagenarian Kennedy cast the younger Clintons into the past? He could do it because he evoked the New Frontier, which again seems fresh. He could do it because he himself has come to live a life of service.
After his callow youth, Kennedy came to realize that life would not give him the chance to be president. But life did ask him to be a senator, and he has embraced that role and served that institution with more distinction than anyone else now living — as any of his colleagues, Republican or Democrat, will tell you. And he could do it because culture really does have rhythms. The respect for institutions that was prevalent during the early ’60s is prevalent with the young again today. The earnest industriousness that was common then is back today. The awareness that we are not self-made individualists, free to be you and me, but emerge as parts of networks, webs and communities; that awareness is back again today.
Sept. 11th really did leave a residue — an unconsummated desire for sacrifice and service. The old Clintonian style of politics clashes with that desire. When Sidney Blumenthal expresses the Clinton creed by telling George Packer of The New Yorker, “It’s not a question of transcending partisanship. It’s a question of fulfilling it,” that clashes with the desire as well.
It’s not clear how far this altered public mood will carry Obama in this election. But there was something important and memorable about the way the 75-year-old Kennedy communed and bonded with a rapturous crowd half a century his junior.
The old guy stole the show.
Listening to the TV spinners after SC one pundit said that of course, in the end, we vote for the person who one can best identify with, i.e., a woman for a woman, a black for a black, an Italian for an Italian, etc. Its just human nature they said. Well, to look at me, I am a woman, white, half-Hispanic, a senior, low-income, etc., etc., the demographic the furthest away from the typical "identity" politic that one would expect to vote for Barack Obama. So why AM I voting for Barack Obama??
Well, if it is about identity, here is how I identify. I come from the "Kennedy" generation; from a time where we were very individualistic in our thought process, no pundits for us. We vetted the politic ourselves. I come from a time where this individual thinking gave us the courage to come together. Knowledge empowered us, gave us self-confidence and grounding. When we felt that we mattered, the world's problems became personal and we personified the quote above. We developed our own thoughts, weighed the consequences of divisiveness and realized that the only way to protect our freedom was to ACT collectively and united.
Do not let "them" tell you how to think. Educate yourself. Barack tells us we can, and indeed, we can. Open your minds, change your minds, think for yourself, and study the issues, our collective pain; study the world and join together to ameliorate the sorrows.
That's how I identify with Barack. He knows (like JFK and MLK) and generously teaches us that to be courageous, to be free and world- wide examples of freedom; one must loose the bonds of narrow-thinking ignorance.
I identify with Barack's plan to educate our future citizens to preserve our democracy and help the world embrace the freedom we love… Courage, courage, yes, we can.
Much love, Sara
GREENVILLE, S.C.
Maureen Dowd
If Bill Clinton has to trash his legacy to protect his legacy, so be it. If he has to put a dagger through the heart of hope to give Hillary hope, so be it.
If he has to preside in this state as the former first black president stopping the would-be first black president, so be it.
The Clintons — or “the 2-headed monster,” as the The New York Post dubbed the tag team that clawed out wins in New Hampshire and Nevada — always go where they need to go, no matter the collateral damage. Even if the damage is to themselves and their party.
Bill’s transition from elder statesman, leader of his party and bipartisan ambassador to ward heeler and hatchet man has been seamless — and seamy.
After Bill’s success trolling the casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, Hillary handed off South Carolina and flew to California and other Super Tuesday states. The Big Dog relished playing the candidate again, wearing a Technicolor orange tie and sweeping across the state with the mute Chelsea.
He tried to convey the impression that they were running against The Man, and with classic Clintonian self-pity, grumbled that Barack Obama had all the advantages.
When he was asked yesterday if he would feel bad standing in the way of the first black president, he said no. “I’m not standing in his way,” he said. “I think Hillary would be a better president” who’s “ready to do the job on the first day.” He added: “No one has a right to be president, including Hillary. Keep in mind, in the last two primaries, we ran as an underdog.” He rewrote the facts, saying that “no one thought she could win” in New Hampshire, even though she originally had had a substantial lead.
He said of Obama: “I hope I get a chance to vote for him some day.” And that day, of course, would be after Hillary’s eight years; it’s her turn now because Bill owes her. “I think it would be just as much a change, and some people think more, to have the first woman president as to have the first African-American president,” he said.
Bad Bill had been roughing up Obama so much that Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina suggested that he might want to “chill.” On a conference call with reporters yesterday, the former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a national co-chairman of the Obama campaign, tut-tutted that the “incredible distortions” of the political beast were “not keeping with the image of a former president.”
Jonathan Alter reported in Newsweek that Senator Edward Kennedy and Rahm Emanuel, the Illinois congressman and former Clinton aide, have heatedly told Bill “that he needs to change his tone and stop attacking Senator Barack Obama.”
In the Myrtle Beach debate Monday night, Obama was fed up with being double-teamed by the Clintons. He finally used attack lines that his strategists had urged him to use against Hillary for months. “It was as though all the e-mails were backed up,” said one.
When Hillary tried once more to take Obama’s remarks about Ronald Reagan out of context, making it seem as though Obama had praised Reagan’s policies, he turned sarcastic about getting two distortionists for the price of one.
“I can’t tell who I’m running against sometimes,” he snapped at Hillary, obviously entrapped and psyched-out by the Clinton duo.
On a conference call with reporters yesterday morning, Obama did not back off from his more aggressive, if defensive, stance. The Clintons, he said “spent the last month attacking me in ways that are not accurate. At some point, it’s important for me to answer.” Recalling that Hillary had called mixing it up the “fun” part of politics, he said: “I don’t think it’s the fun part to fudge the truth.”
Bill has merged with his wife totally now, talking about “we” and “us.” “I never did anything major without discussing it with her,” he told a crowd here. “We’ve been having this conversation since we first met in 1971, and I don’t think we’ll stop now.” He suggested as First Lad that “I can help to sell the domestic program.”
It’s odd that the first woman with a shot at becoming president is so openly dependent on her husband to drag her over the finish line. She handed over South Carolina to him, knowing that her support here is largely derivative.
At the Greenville event, Bill brought up Obama’s joking reference to him in the debate, about how Obama would have to see whether Bill was a good dancer before deciding whether he was the first black president.
Bill, naturally, turned it into a competition. “I would be willing to engage in a dancing competition with him, even though he’s much younger and thinner than I am,” he said. “If I’m going to get in one of these brother contests,” he added, “at least I should be entitled to an age allowance.”
He said, “I kind of like seeing Barack and Hillary fighting.”
“How great is this?” he said. “Neither of them has to be a little wind-up doll who’s supposed to behave in a certain way. They’re real people, flesh and blood people. They have differences.”
And if he has anything to say about it, and he will, they’ll be fighting till the last dog dies.
Please read this Op Ed from today's New York Times.
The Last paragraph, which I will copy here first says it all. He also notes that this column was written before the SC primary results were known, so take that into consideration.. And, in my last blog it occurred to me to call the monster machine BILLARY. I posted that everywhere. I knew someone would pick it up and that it would snowball, as it is so obvious. I posted a comment to the Op Ed below as follows:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted to the New York Times
No BILLARY, No, Never, ever.I am a lifelong Democrat. Senior, white, female, college educated, single, disabled, half Latina, low-income, Medicare. That is the demographic they claim will vote for Hillary. But I believe Hillary to be a woman who is battered and brow-beaten by her husband and does not represent a strong, independent, free-thinking woman suitable to be president. She doesn't inspire, she makes you feel sorry for her. No BILLARY for me, if THEY get the nomination, I stay home.--------------I have been using the term "Billary" on other blogs wishing a national source would pick it up, (yet knowing soon it would occur to someone else), but I had no idea The NYT would be brave enough to put it out there. Many thanks. You have my vote. It says it all.-----Now, will you say Hillary is battered and brow-beaten. The proof? Remember when she cried in response to a question re how she did it every day. I could visualize her getting up in the morning, Bill starting in on her, I could see it. I've been there. Then the tears. I could feel her pain.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Last paragraph first:
If Mr. Obama doesn’t fight, no one else will. Few national Democratic leaders have the courage to stand up to the Clintons. Even in defeat, Mr. Obama may at least help wake up a party slipping into denial. Any Democrat who seriously thinks that Bill will fade away if Hillary wins the nomination — let alone that the Clintons will escape being fully vetted — is a Democrat who, as the man said, believes in fairy tales.
Now the complete editorial:
Opinion NY Times
The Billary Road to Republican Victory
By FRANK RICHPublished: January 27, 2008
IN the wake of George W. Bush, even a miracle might not be enough for the Republicans to hold on to the White House in 2008. But what about two miracles? The new year’s twin resurrections of Bill Clinton and John McCain, should they not evaporate, at last give the G.O.P. a highly plausible route to victory.
Frank Rich
Share your thoughts on this Op-Ed column.
Amazingly, neither party seems to fully recognize the contours of the road map. In the Democrats’ case, the full-throttle emergence of Billary, the joint Clinton candidacy, is measured mainly within the narrow confines of the short-term horse race: Do Bill Clinton’s red-faced eruptions and fact-challenged rants enhance or diminish his wife as a woman and a candidate?
Absent from this debate is any sober recognition that a Hillary Clinton nomination, if it happens, will send the Democrats into the general election with a new and huge peril that may well dwarf the current wars over race, gender and who said what about Ronald Reagan.
What has gone unspoken is this: Up until this moment, Hillary has successfully deflected rough questions about Bill by saying, “I’m running on my own” or, as she snapped at Barack Obama in the last debate, “Well, I’m here; he’s not.” This sleight of hand became officially inoperative once her husband became a co-candidate, even to the point of taking over entirely when she vacated South Carolina last week. With “two for the price of one” back as the unabashed modus operandi, both Clintons are in play.
For the Republicans, that means not just a double dose of the one steroid, Clinton hatred, that might yet restore their party’s unity but also two fat targets. Mrs. Clinton repeatedly talks of how she’s been “vetted” and that “there are no surprises” left to be mined by her opponents. On the “Today” show Friday, she joked that the Republican attacks “are just so old.” So far. Now that Mr. Clinton is ubiquitous, not only is his past back on the table but his post-presidency must be vetted as well. To get a taste of what surprises may be in store, you need merely revisit the Bill Clinton questions that Hillary Clinton has avoided to date.
Asked by Tim Russert at a September debate whether the Clinton presidential library and foundation would disclose the identities of its donors during the campaign, Mrs. Clinton said it wasn’t up to her. “What’s your recommendation?” Mr. Russert countered. Mrs. Clinton replied: “Well, I don’t talk about my private conversations with my husband, but I’m sure he’d be happy to consider that.”
Not so happy, as it turns out. The names still have not been made public.
Just before the holidays, investigative reporters at both The Washington Post and The New York Times tried to find out why, with no help from the Clintons. The Post uncovered a plethora of foreign contributors, led by Saudi Arabia. The Times found an overlap between library benefactors and Hillary Clinton campaign donors, some of whom might have an agenda with a new Clinton administration. (Much as one early library supporter, Marc Rich’s ex-wife, Denise, had an agenda with the last one.) “The vast scale of these secret fund-raising operations presents enormous opportunities for abuse,” said Representative Henry Waxman, the California Democrat whose legislation to force disclosure passed overwhelmingly in the House but remains stalled in the Senate.
The Post and Times reporters couldn’t unlock all the secrets. The unanswered questions could keep them and their competitors busy until Nov. 4. Mr. Clinton’s increased centrality to the campaign will also give The Wall Street Journal a greater news peg to continue its reportorial forays into the unraveling financial partnership between Mr. Clinton and the swashbuckling billionaire Ron Burkle.
At “Little Rock’s Fort Knox,” as the Clinton library has been nicknamed by frustrated researchers, it’s not merely the heavy-hitting contributors who are under wraps. Even by the glacial processing standards of the National Archives, the Clintons’ White House papers have emerged slowly, in part because Bill Clinton exercised his right to insist that all communications between him and his wife be “considered for withholding” until 2012.
When Mrs. Clinton was asked by Mr. Russert at an October debate if she would lift that restriction, she again escaped by passing the buck to her husband: “Well, that’s not my decision to make.” Well, if her candidacy is to be as completely vetted as she guarantees, the time for the other half of Billary to make that decision is here.
The credibility of a major Clinton campaign plank, health care, depends on it. In that same debate, Mrs. Clinton told Mr. Russert that “all of the records, as far as I know, about what we did with health care” are “already available.” As Michael Isikoff of Newsweek reported weeks later, this is a bit off; he found that 3,022,030 health care documents were still held hostage. Whatever the pace of the processing, the gatekeeper charged with approving each document’s release is the longtime Clinton loyalist Bruce Lindsey.
People don’t change. Bill Clinton, having always lived on the edge, is back on the precipice. When he repeatedly complains that the press has given Mr. Obama a free ride and over-investigated the Clintons, he seems to be tempting the fates, given all the reporting still to be done on his post-presidential business. When he says, as he did on Monday, that “whatever I do should be totally transparent,” it’s almost as if he’s setting himself up for a fall. There’s little more transparency at “Little Rock’s Fort Knox” than there is at Giuliani Partners.
“The Republicans are not going to have any compunctions about asking anybody anything,” Mrs. Clinton lectured Mr. Obama. Maybe so, but Republicans are smart enough not to start asking until after she has secured the nomination.
Not all Republicans are smart enough, however, to recognize the value of John McCain should Mrs. Clinton emerge as the nominee. He’s a bazooka aimed at most every rationale she’s offered for her candidacy.
In a McCain vs. Billary race, the Democrats will sacrifice the most highly desired commodity by the entire electorate, change; the party will be mired in déjà 1990s all over again. Mrs. Clinton’s spiel about being “tested” by her “35 years of experience” won’t fly either. The moment she attempts it, Mr. McCain will run an ad about how he was being tested when those 35 years began, in 1973. It was that spring when he emerged from five-plus years of incarceration at the Hanoi Hilton while Billary was still bivouacked at Yale Law School. And can Mrs. Clinton presume to sell herself as best equipped to be commander in chief “on Day One” when opposing an actual commander and war hero? I don’t think so.
Foreign policy issue No. 1, withdrawal from Iraq, should be a slam-dunk for any Democrat. Even the audience at Thursday’s G.O.P. debate in Boca Raton cheered Ron Paul’s antiwar sentiments. But Mrs. Clinton’s case is undermined by her record. She voted for the war, just as Mr. McCain did, in 2002 and was still defending it in February 2005, when she announced from the Green Zone that much of Iraq was “functioning quite well. ” Only in November 2005 did she express the serious misgivings long pervasive in her own party. When Mr. McCain accuses her of now advocating “surrender” out of political expediency, her flip-flopping will back him up.
Billary can’t even run against the vast right-wing conspiracy if Mr. McCain is the opponent. Rush Limbaugh and Tom DeLay hate Mr. McCain as much as they hate the Clintons. And they hate him for the same reasons Mr. McCain wins over independents and occasional Democrats: his sporadic (and often mild) departures from conservative orthodoxy on immigration and campaign finance reform, torture, tax cuts, climate change and the godliness of Pat Robertson. Since Mr. McCain doesn’t kick reporters like dogs, as the Clintons do, he will no doubt continue to enjoy an advantage, however unfair, with the press pack on the Straight Talk Express.
Even so, Mr. McCain hasn’t yet won a clear majority of Republican voters in any G.O.P. contest. He’s depended on the kindness of independent voters. Tuesday’s Florida primary, which is open exclusively to Republicans, is his crucial test. If he fails, his party remains in chaos and Mitt Romney could still inherit the earth.
That would be a miracle for the Democrats, but they can hardly count on it. If Mr. Obama has not met an unexpected Waterloo in South Carolina — this column went to press before Saturday’s vote — the party needs him to stop whining about the Clintons’ attacks, regain his wit and return to playing offense. Unlike Mrs. Clinton, he would unambiguously represent change in a race with any Republican. If he vanquishes Billary, he’ll have an even stronger argument to take into battle against a warrior like Mr. McCain.
This has been hell week for me. I've been physically sick with outrage at the Billary monster/machine.
I was truly in crisis and at a loss for what to do about my crushed hopes for this campaign. I let them get to me.
Mourning MLK, then watching the movie "Bobby", PBS had a wonderful movie on Sargent Shriver. I relived all the old pain. It was as real as real could be. At the debate I felt Barack Obama remembered me, (low income seniors). He stood his ground. I was shocked and proud. Then I watched the Billary monster/machine rear its head. Both of them, Billary, got into my head and squeezed my brain and they really tried to crush my soul. All the old wounds of days past were bleeding.
Well, Barack Obama survived and has come back strong. I'm not so quick to heal. I'm still broken hearted that the Democratic party seems to be leaving us out in the cold.
I came to a crucial decision. Although I have always voted, and voted as a Democrat. though I have always supported the party, this time, if they take Obama from us, from the hopes for a new tomorrow; a caring soul to help our Country recover and prosper and lead in the World; I will never, ever, ever, vote for Billary. No, no, no, never, never, ever.
Let us keep trying. Yes we can. Dear friends don't forget the March this Saturday. Check events.
Much love.
"If you want to be important, wonderful,
If you want to be recognized, wonderful,
If you want to be great, wonderful,
but recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant.
That’s the new definition of greatness.
This morning the thing that I like about it, by giving that definition of greatness it means everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. And you can be that servant."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - From the "Drum Major Instinct" speech.
---------------
Tomorrow, Monday, January 20 there will be a march in starting at 8 a.m. People can meet at the Oak Park Community Center on Martin Luther King Boulevard or at Grant Union High School, 1400 Grand Ave. Ending at the Sacramento Convention Center where there will be a job fair, talent show and students will speak.
I marched with Dr. King. I miss him. Now we've been given a new opportunity for greatness, to serve.
I'm including Barack Obama's speech because as time moves on the content on the main page gets buried deeper and I wanted you all to see it....
---------------------
"The Scripture tells us that when Joshua and the Israelites arrived at the gates of Jericho, they could not enter. The walls of the city were too steep for any one person to climb; too strong to be taken down with brute force. And so they sat for days, unable to pass on through.
But God had a plan for his people. He told them to stand together and march together around the city, and on the seventh day he told them that when they heard the sound of the ram's horn, they should speak with one voice. And at the chosen hour, when the horn sounded and a chorus of voices cried out together, the mighty walls of Jericho came tumbling down.
There are many lessons to take from this passage, just as there are many lessons to take from this day, just as there are many memories that fill the space of this church. As I was thinking about which ones we need to remember at this hour, my mind went back to the very beginning of the modern Civil Rights Era.
Because before Memphis and the mountaintop; before the bridge in Selma and the march on Washington; before Birmingham and the beatings; the fire hoses and the loss of those four little girls; before there was King the icon and his magnificent dream, there was King the young preacher and a people who found themselves suffering under the yoke of oppression.
And on the eve of the bus boycotts in Montgomery, at a time when many were still doubtful about the possibilities of change, a time when those in the black community mistrusted themselves, and at times mistrusted each other, King inspired with words not of anger, but of an urgency that still speaks to us today:
"Unity is the great need of the hour" is what King said. Unity is how we shall overcome.
What Dr. King understood is that if just one person chose to walk instead of ride the bus, those walls of oppression would not be moved. But maybe if a few more walked, the foundation might start to shake. If a few more women were willing to do what Rosa Parks had done, maybe the cracks would start to show. If teenagers took freedom rides from North to South, maybe a few bricks would come loose. Maybe if white folks marched because they had come to understand that their freedom too was at stake in the impending battle, the wall would begin to sway. And if enough Americans were awakened to the injustice; if they joined together, North and South, rich and poor, Christian and Jew, then perhaps that wall would come tumbling down, and justice would flow like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.
Unity is the great need of the hour - the great need of this hour. Not because it sounds pleasant or because it makes us feel good, but because it's the only way we can overcome the essential deficit that exists in this country.
I'm not talking about a budget deficit. I'm not talking about a trade deficit. I'm not talking about a deficit of good ideas or new plans.
I'm talking about a moral deficit. I'm talking about an empathy deficit. I'm taking about an inability to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we are our brother's keeper; we are our sister's keeper; that, in the words of Dr. King, we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny.
We have an empathy deficit when we're still sending our children down corridors of shame - schools in the forgotten corners of America where the color of your skin still affects the content of your education.
We have a deficit when CEOs are making more in ten minutes than some workers make in ten months; when families lose their homes so that lenders make a profit; when mothers can't afford a doctor when their children get sick.
We have a deficit in this country when there is Scooter Libby justice for some and Jena justice for others; when our children see nooses hanging from a schoolyard tree today, in the present, in the twenty-first century.
We have a deficit when homeless veterans sleep on the streets of our cities; when innocents are slaughtered in the deserts of Darfur; when young Americans serve tour after tour of duty in a war that should've never been authorized and never been waged.
And we have a deficit when it takes a breach in our levees to reveal a breach in our compassion; when it takes a terrible storm to reveal the hungry that God calls on us to feed; the sick He calls on us to care for; the least of these He commands that we treat as our own.
So we have a deficit to close. We have walls - barriers to justice and equality - that must come down. And to do this, we know that unity is the great need of this hour.
Unfortunately, all too often when we talk about unity in this country, we've come to believe that it can be purchased on the cheap. We've come to believe that racial reconciliation can come easily - that it's just a matter of a few ignorant people trapped in the prejudices of the past, and that if the demagogues and those who exploit our racial divisions will simply go away, then all our problems would be solved.
All too often, we seek to ignore the profound institutional barriers that stand in the way of ensuring opportunity for all children, or decent jobs for all people, or health care for those who are sick. We long for unity, but are unwilling to pay the price.
But of course, true unity cannot be so easily won. It starts with a change in attitudes - a broadening of our minds, and a broadening of our hearts.
It's not easy to stand in somebody else's shoes. It's not easy to see past our differences. We've all encountered this in our own lives. But what makes it even more difficult is that we have a politics in this country that seeks to drive us apart - that puts up walls between us.
We are told that those who differ from us on a few things are different from us on all things; that our problems are the fault of those who don't think like us or look like us or come from where we do. The welfare queen is taking our tax money. The immigrant is taking our jobs. The believer condemns the non-believer as immoral, and the non-believer chides the believer as intolerant.
For most of this country's history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man's inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays - on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system.
And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we're honest with ourselves, we'll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King's vision of a beloved community.
We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity.
Every day, our politics fuels and exploits this kind of division across all races and regions; across gender and party. It is played out on television. It is sensationalized by the media. And last week, it even crept into the campaign for President, with charges and counter-charges that served to obscure the issues instead of illuminating the critical choices we face as a nation.
So let us say that on this day of all days, each of us carries with us the task of changing our hearts and minds. The division, the stereotypes, the scape-goating, the ease with which we blame our plight on others - all of this distracts us from the common challenges we face - war and poverty; injustice and inequality. We can no longer afford to build ourselves up by tearing someone else down. We can no longer afford to traffic in lies or fear or hate. It is the poison that we must purge from our politics; the wall that we must tear down before the hour grows too late.
Because if Dr. King could love his jailor; if he could call on the faithful who once sat where you do to forgive those who set dogs and fire hoses upon them, then surely we can look past what divides us in our time, and bind up our wounds, and erase the empathy deficit that exists in our hearts.
But if changing our hearts and minds is the first critical step, we cannot stop there. It is not enough to bemoan the plight of poor children in this country and remain unwilling to push our elected officials to provide the resources to fix our schools. It is not enough to decry the disparities of health care and yet allow the insurance companies and the drug companies to block much-needed reforms. It is not enough for us to abhor the costs of a misguided war, and yet allow ourselves to be driven by a politics of fear that sees the threat of attack as way to scare up votes instead of a call to come together around a common effort.
The Scripture tells us that we are judged not just by word, but by deed. And if we are to truly bring about the unity that is so crucial in this time, we must find it within ourselves to act on what we know; to understand that living up to this country's ideals and its possibilities will require great effort and resources; sacrifice and stamina.
And that is what is at stake in the great political debate we are having today. The changes that are needed are not just a matter of tinkering at the edges, and they will not come if politicians simply tell us what we want to hear. All of us will be called upon to make some sacrifice. None of us will be exempt from responsibility. We will have to fight to fix our schools, but we will also have to challenge ourselves to be better parents. We will have to confront the biases in our criminal justice system, but we will also have to acknowledge the deep-seated violence that still resides in our own communities and marshal the will to break its grip.
That is how we will bring about the change we seek. That is how Dr. King led this country through the wilderness. He did it with words - words that he spoke not just to the children of slaves, but the children of slave owners. Words that inspired not just black but also white; not just the Christian but the Jew; not just the Southerner but also the Northerner.
He led with words, but he also led with deeds. He also led by example. He led by marching and going to jail and suffering threats and being away from his family. He led by taking a stand against a war, knowing full well that it would diminish his popularity. He led by challenging our economic structures, understanding that it would cause discomfort. Dr. King understood that unity cannot be won on the cheap; that we would have to earn it through great effort and determination.
That is the unity - the hard-earned unity - that we need right now. It is that effort, and that determination, that can transform blind optimism into hope - the hope to imagine, and work for, and fight for what seemed impossible before.
The stories that give me such hope don't happen in the spotlight. They don't happen on the presidential stage. They happen in the quiet corners of our lives. They happen in the moments we least expect. Let me give you an example of one of those stories.
There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organizes for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She's been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and the other day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.
And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.
So Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."
By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
But it is where we begin. It is why the walls in that room began to crack and shake.
And if they can shake in that room, they can shake in Atlanta.
And if they can shake in Atlanta, they can shake in Georgia.
And if they can shake in Georgia, they can shake all across America. And if enough of our voices join together; we can bring those walls tumbling down. The walls of Jericho can finally come tumbling down. That is our hope - but only if we pray together, and work together, and march together.
Brothers and sisters, we cannot walk alone.
In the struggle for peace and justice, we cannot walk alone.
In the struggle for opportunity and equality, we cannot walk alone
In the struggle to heal this nation and repair this world, we cannot walk alone.
So I ask you to walk with me, and march with me, and join your voice with mine, and together we will sing the song that tears down the walls that divide us, and lift up an America that is truly indivisible, with liberty, and justice, for all. May God bless the memory of the great pastor of this church, and may God bless the United States of America."
Much Love.
Dear Friends,
---------
This is off the main site. At the end of Barack Obama's statement is an important request from Obama campaign manager David Plouffe asking for your feedback!!!!!!
Las Vegas, NV- The Obama campaign released the following statement from Barack Obama:
"We're proud of the campaign we ran in Nevada. We came from over twenty-five points behind to win more national convention delegates than Hillary Clinton because we performed well all across the state, including rural areas where Democrats have traditionally struggled. The reason is because tens of thousands of Nevadans came out to say that they're tired of business-as-usual in Washington and ready for a President who can bring this country together, take on the lobbyists and special interests, and end the politics of saying and doing whatever it takes to win an election. It is the kind of politics that feeds our cynicism and distracts us from taking on the real challenges facing America - an economy that's left working families struggling, a broken health care system, and a war in Iraq that must end.
"We ran an honest, uplifting campaign in Nevada that focused on the real problems Americans are facing, a campaign that appealed to people's hopes instead of their fears. That's the campaign we'll take to South Carolina and across America in the weeks to come, and that's how we will truly bring about the change this country is hungry for."
The Obama campaign released the following statement from Obama campaign manager David Plouffe:
"We currently have reports of over 200 separate incidents of trouble at caucus sites, including doors being closed up to thirty minutes early, registration forms running out so people were turned away, and ID being requested and checked in a non-uniform fashion. This is in addition to the Clinton campaign's efforts to confuse voters and call into question the at-large caucus sites which clearly had an affect on turnout at these locations. These kinds of Clinton campaign tactics were part of an entire week's worth of false, divisive, attacks designed to mislead caucus-goers and discredit the caucus itself.
"We will investigate all of these thoroughly and would encourage anyone who had concern about actions at the caucus sites to call (866) 675-2008."
By David LattermanPrincipalFault Line Analytics
The California Political Precinct Index (CPPI) is an ongoing project by Fall Line Analytics to better characterize detailed political voting trends in California. The CPPI is a precinct-level index which ranks each California precinct on a 0-10 0 political scale, with 0 representing the most ‘conservative’ precincts and 100 representing the most ‘liberal’ precincts’.
Taking the methodology from the well-known and highly-accurate San Francisco Progressive Voter Index, the CPPI is created by performing a factor analysis on the results of several ballot measures for every California precinct. These measures can be interpreted on a left-right ideological scale, which when taken together, reveal inherent voting patterns of the precinct. Because the precinct change in most California counties from year to year, for the CPPI only issues from 2004 were used in this initial index.
The resulting index reveals political patterns in California that have rarely been seen at so detailed a level. We clearly understand the ‘liberal coast and conservative inland’ phenomenon, but now we can see subtle nuances throughout the state; for instance, variations between the coastal cities or the towns along Rt. 99 in the Central Valley.
When the CPPI is aggregated into larger geographies like counties, California Assembly Districts, or Congressional Districts, we can see big-picture voting trends. Looking at the average CPPI scores for Assembly districts, we see very clearly how left-leaning Districts vote Democrat, and right-leaning Districts vote Republican. There is also a transition area where districts are more up for grabs, and a party not in power could claim a seat from the sitting Assemblyperson. This technique works for any district configuration, and can also work for primaries when we get a sense of which districts lean toward the extremes for their parties and which of those lean more centrist.
Perhaps the most powerful application of the CPPI is the ability to breakdown the demographic and registration characteristics of each precinct. In our report, for example, we show differences within the Latino community through various Counties in California. With over 20,000 precincts as a sample size, we can perform advanced statistical analyses on a host of demographic variables to see what makes parts of California tick politically. We can also incorporate local ballot measures and candidate races to take a deeper look at specific political geographies.
With our ongoing project, we plan to add other years’ data to the CPPI, and accommodate changing precinct lines to maintain geographic consistency. But even at this level, the CPPI is a powerful new tool to examine the political goings-on in California!
David Latterman is the Principal of Fall Line Analytics, a San Francisco-based polling and political research firm. Latterman has spent the last several years using advanced statistical techniques and GIS mapping to paint detailed political pictures of many localities throughout California and the US. He also serves as a political analyst for several Bay Area media outlets. Latterman has advanced degrees from UNC Chapel Hill and UC Berkeley in geology and public policy.
..............................
The Fall Line Analytics link will give you large color maps of these statistics. It is the original work quoted here. It has detailed information. Find your precinct and develop a strategy. Get together and share the strategies to regain precincts for the Democratic party.
Dear Roseville folks,
Lets get together, lets create an event.
When I began my.BarackObama page my goal was to find others in Roseville to get together and show support in whatever we can, i.e., events, fundraising, voter registration, etc. If you go to my page you wil see some of my attempts to connect.
I feel the most important work in this area is visibility. It is taken for granted that Roseville is a politically conservative area. This fact, (and it is a fact - see my blog on statistics) is pushed by local business men as well politicos. They use it as a selling point for living in Roseville. My point is that by meeting in public places and showing support for Obama, Yes, we can! raise awareness and change this demographic..
Have much more to say, but I understand people don't like long blogs, so I'll make this point first, if you are interested in, say, meeting in a public place, like Maidu, or someplace downtown to talk and invigorate our support, let me know, let everybody know.
Yes, we can!
Wrote a poem today. Never wrote a poem before.
"Barack, Barack You Have No Lack"
"Barack, Barack, you have no lack
You are our hopes and vision.
As president you won’t be bent
Into corrupt division
The world awaits
To forgive the hate
The greed and the derision
Peace, love and understanding,
Respect and gentle commanding,
Empowering cooperation
Our differences withstanding
We pray for your inspired command
Your loving words, and guiding hand,
We make a plan, work hard and stand
Together, yes Barack, we can.!"
I'll try to include Buffy Wick's blog here. But if I don't succeed, be sure to check out her blog. She's a "friend".
Just watched the debates, ate three (yes, I said "three") hot creme brulee(s). Just couldn't taste them; the action on tv was so engrossing. Need time to digest both all the words and the creme brulee(s).
Yes, we can.
Population - 79,921
Elections Division 2956 Richardson Drive PO Box 5278 Auburn, CA 95604 (530) 886-5650 E-mail: election@placer.ca.gov
175,939
From Placer County California website.
Even if all the non Republicans voted for Barack we are still short.
Have heart, we just have to work harder. I am doing Voter Registration right now, independently as it is not too late.
Today I called the Board of Elections in Auburn and they said if they have the new registration forms post-dated or hand-delivered to their office by January 22 you can vote in the February 5 primary.
Register now and help others to register NOW! Yes, we can.
"To the world you may be one person. but to one person you may abe the world." Anonymous
Had an exciting weekend meeting with other Obama supporters at Jenifer Jacob's event. What a great group! There will be another event on the 26th in Folsom. A March! That is right up my alley. Being a senior, I go way back to the Peace and Freedom Marches and sincerely believe that visibility and representing (with your entire being!) is the best way to support a cause. The cause that Obama represents, hope, unity and respect for all, as well as his interest in helping all up the human condition (which certainly involves both our national interests in the world and a caring for other peoples), deserves our best representation and support.
Okay, so much for my speech. I am a senior and wish more seniors would get involved. I see lots of beautiful young folk, lets see some beautiful old folk. Soooo, below is a blurb of BarackObama.com - Issues site, just to keep seniors in the loop.
"We… have an obligation to protect Social Security and ensure that it's a safety net the American people can count on today, tomorrow and forever. Social Security is the cornerstone of the social compact in this country… Coming together to meet this challenge won't be easy… It will take restoring a sense of shared purpose in Washington and across this country. But if you put your trust in me — if you give me 'your hand and your heart' — then that's exactly what I intend to do as your next President."— Barack Obama, Speech in Des Moines, IA, October 27, 2007
"We… have an obligation to protect Social Security and ensure that it's a safety net the American people can count on today, tomorrow and forever. Social Security is the cornerstone of the social compact in this country… Coming together to meet this challenge won't be easy… It will take restoring a sense of shared purpose in Washington and across this country. But if you put your trust in me — if you give me 'your hand and your heart' — then that's exactly what I intend to do as your next President."
— Barack Obama, Speech in Des Moines, IA, October 27, 2007
Just watched Tim Russert on his Saturday show for the second time (it plays three times). It will play again Sunday at 9:00 on MSNBC. Chuck Todd - NBC New Political Director, David Brooks - New York Times, and Susan Page - Washington Chief Bureau, USA Today were his guests. Please try to check it out - extremely informative. You might get it on the Net tomorrow night as well. Would love to see some comments.
Tim's "Meet the Press" will feature Hillary this Sunday for the full hour.
Hope you leave me a note, feel like I'm talking to myself, as usual. Remember the "we" in "Yes, we can.!!
"Most people take the limits of their vision to be the limits of the world. A few do not. Join them."
~ Schopenhauer
This is my first blog. Looking for Roseville, CA folks who want to support this exciting campaign. Barack Obama is a God-send. I can't do much alone. Lets get together and create an event.
I've searched the net and cannot find a Roseville group. Today I went to the library to see if they could direct me to some action. No luck. They suggested the Senior Center. No luck there either. I was informed that they are Parks and Rec only. They can't supply a meeting place unless we "hire" the hall. I am a appalled that political action is of no interest to anyone I know. (I don't know many folks in Roseville, obviously.) There's a lot of complaining, though, but no involvement.
My skills are good but I am not good at motivating. My limitations can be overcome by another in a group. As a group we could pool our skills. This election is soooo important to be silent.
