Hi fellow New Yorkers/NJ folks,
There are a number of trips being planned to New Hampshire in the next two weeks.
I am planning a trip to Nashua, New Hampshire from Thurs. 1/3 to Sunday 1/6. I still have room in my car, but not for long.
The Nashua field office needs our help, so we will be there to do Get out the vote activities, canvass, and have a rocking good time! We will also be in NH to celebrate Obama's victory in Iowa!!!
You don't want to miss this!! Please let me know ASAP if you would be interested.
Extra costs include hotel room, food and gas. Email me and I will let you know the details.
If you cannot make it during this time, but would like to go, there are mulitple weekend trips scheduled. I would be happy to direct you.
LET'S GO CHANGE THE WORLD!!!!
Dear friends,
First of all, I just want to give a big shout out to all of you because as a result of the GFC's efforts, we have raised over $350,000 for Obama's campaign. I'm no expert but considering that most of us did not even start fundraising until Oct, that is really amazing. Everything you do is so appreciated by Barack. You are all truly special and the backbone of this movement.
I was one of the lucky ones who got to ask Barack a question --about if he were elected, how would he bring Dems and Republicans together. I told him that it was an honor to be a part of his campaign and that I wished him and his family Godspeed to get through this grueling race. I remember him saying that his campaign has been bringing in a huge amount of Republicans and Independents, and he believes this support will carry into when he becomes President. He seemed very confident that he could get the job done. I then said, "Well, I'm fired up!" and he said, 'Are you ready to go?" and I said "I'm ready to go!"Although the focus is on the early states right now, Barack mentioned the importance of continuing our fundraising efforts to be prepared for the Super Tuesday states like NY, CA, FL, etc, where it is incredibly expensive.
There were two other questions about how Barack's health insurance plans would support small business owners, and what people can do to support him. I know he mentioned that his HC plan would have some sort of clause to assist small business owners. As for continued support, he mentioned the need to keep getting the word out to family and friends, phone bank, canvass and continue to raise money.
He hopes that we will continue to do what we have been doing, even past Jan. 1. Barack needs us now more than ever!!!Also, everyone, big news to come. Barack mentioned that he has been endorsed by the Portsmouth Herald in New Hampshire!!! Woohoo! You should be hearing about this shortly.
OBAMA 08!!!
Hi everyone,
I wanted to offer you the opportunity to join me in a conference call with Barack, himself, this Wed. 12.19 at 7:20 pm.
In order to qualify, I would appreciate it if you would make a donation to my page by Monday 12/17 at 9:00 pm.
If you make a contribution, make sure to send me an email letting me know how much you contributed and I will let you know if you made the call by Monday night.
The top two contributors will be sent the conference call information on Tuesday 12/18.
As we all know, your contribution will be for the best cause--helping to elect the future President of the United States.
If you have any questions, let me know.
Correction Appended
John Edwards ended 2004 with a problem: how to keep alive his public profile without the benefit of a presidential campaign that could finance his travels and pay for his political staff.
Mr. Edwards, who reported this year that he had assets of nearly $30 million, came up with a novel solution, creating a nonprofit organization with the stated mission of fighting poverty. The organization, the Center for Promise and Opportunity, raised $1.3 million in 2005, and — unlike a sister charity he created to raise scholarship money for poor students — the main beneficiary of the center’s fund-raising was Mr. Edwards himself, tax filings show.
A spokesman for Mr. Edwards defended the center yesterday as a legitimate tool against poverty.
The organization became a big part of a shadow political apparatus for Mr. Edwards after his defeat as the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2004 and before the start of his presidential bid this time around. Its officers were members of his political staff, and it helped pay for his nearly constant travel, including to early primary states.
While Mr. Edwards said the organization’s purpose was “making the eradication of poverty the cause of this generation,” its federal filings say it financed “retreats and seminars” with foreign policy experts on Iraq and national security issues. Unlike the scholarship charity, donations to it were not tax deductible, and, significantly, it did not have to disclose its donors — as political action committees and other political fund-raising vehicles do — and there were no limits on the size of individual donations.
Mr. Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, set out to keep his political options open by promoting issues he cared about, like poverty.
“He wanted to learn, travel and be in a position to be a viable candidate,” said J. Edwin Turlington, a Raleigh lawyer who was the manager of Mr. Edward’s 2003 presidential exploratory committee. “He had the ability to raise money to fund his activities. He had a vision, and he knew it would take money.”
Mr. Edwards mixed policy and politics in a way that allowed his supporters to donate to the causes he believed in — and to the organizations he had set up. He also set up two political action committees, something commonly done by politicians thinking of running for president.
But it was his use of a tax-exempt organization to finance his travel and employ people connected to his past and current campaigns that went beyond what most other prospective candidates have done before pursuing national office. And according to experts on nonprofit foundations, Mr. Edwards pushed at the boundaries of how far such organizations can venture into the political realm. Such entities, which are regulated under Section 501C-4 of the tax code, can engage in advocacy but cannot make partisan political activities their primary purpose without risking loss of their tax-exempt status.
Because the organization is not required to disclose its donors — and the campaign declined to do so — it is not clear whether those who gave money to it did so understanding that they were supporting Mr. Edwards’s political viability as much or more than they were giving money to combat poverty.
The money paid Mr. Edwards’s expenses while he walked picket lines and met with Wall Street executives. He gave speeches, hired consultants, attacked the Bush administration and developed an online following. He led minimum-wage initiatives in five states, went frequently to Iowa, and appeared on television programs. He traveled to China, India, Brussels, Uganda and Russia, and met with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and his likely successor, Gordon Brown, at 10 Downing Street.
“He was not a U.S. senator; he had no office,” said Ferrel Guillory, a political program director at the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina. “So he set up a series of entities to finance his travel, to finance a political shop and to finance an issue shop. It all adds up to a remarkable feat of keeping a presidential candidacy alive without any of the traditional bases for it.”
Mr. Edwards depended for his activities in large part on donations from supporters. In addition to the two nonprofit organizations, he created a leadership political action committee and a 527 “soft money” organization that also shared the same name: the OneAmerica Committee. These two committees each allowed donors to give more than the $2,300 per person limit in a presidential primary or general election, and, in some cases, to give in unlimited amounts.
From 2005, when he established them, through 2006, the committee and the soft money organization raised $2.7 million, most of which paid for travel and other activities that helped Mr. Edwards maintain his profile.
“It’s a permanent campaign,” said Meredith McGehee, policy director at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit group based in Washington. “It’s about shaking every money tree possible and finding every means to finance a permanent campaign. It’s like having different checking accounts, with different rules, and the goal of keeping your name and agenda in the public eye.”
The two foundations and the two political committees all shared an address in Washington and jointly raised around $4 million. Most donations to the political committees came from his core supporters, trial lawyers and unions, and in one case from Oak Spring Farms LLC, which gave $250,000. Many donations ranged from less than $10,000 to $50,000. For example, Boyd Tinsley, the violinist and backup singer for the Dave Matthews Band, gave $50,000, as did the Service Employees International Union, whose organizing efforts Mr. Edwards has supported.
The Edwards campaign defended the activities of the nonprofit.
“One of the Center for Promise and Opportunity’s main goals was to raise awareness about poverty and engage people to fight it,” Jonathan Prince, deputy campaign manager, said yesterday. “Of course, it sent Senator Edwards around the country to do this. How else could we have engaged tens of thousands of college students or sent 700 young people to help rebuild New Orleans? It’s patently absurd to suggest there’s anything wrong with an organization designed to raise awareness about poverty actually working to raise awareness about poverty.”
“Of course, some of the people who worked for Senator Edwards in the government and on his campaign continued to work with him to fight poverty and send young people to college,” he added. “Perish the thought: people involved in politics actually trying to improve peoples’ lives.”
Mr. Edwards also developed mutually beneficial relationships with public and private institutions. He founded the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina, which provided him with a platform. In return, he raised $3 million to sustain it. He was hired by the Fortress Investment Group, a New York hedge fund, to “develop investment opportunities,” according to a 2005 Fortress news release. That led to meetings with such people as Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany; Henry Kravis, founder of KKR, one of Wall Street’s most successful investment funds; and the chief executives of General Electric, Citigroup, Coca-Cola and DaimlerChrysler.
“Fortress became a vehicle for foreign travel,” Mr. Turlington said, “but it was also a way to spend more time with sophisticated financial people.”
The Edwards campaign declined to disclose the amounts raised or spent by the two similarly-named nonprofit agencies — the Center for Promise and Opportunity and the Center for Promise and Opportunity Foundation — since their 2005 tax filings, which are the most recent to have been filed.
The Center for Promise and Opportunity Foundation, which started with $70,000 in 2005, gave out $300,000 in college scholarships in 2006, said Pamela Garland, the executive director of the College for Everyone Program that is part of the foundation. The center, often praised for helping poor students in Greene County, N.C., get into college, is on track to give out $476,000 this year, Ms. Garland said.
Mr. Edwards broke his ties to that charity once he announced his candidacy for president. “It’s really just me now,” said Ms. Garland, who began her job last May. She credited Mr. Edwards with devising the program, raising the money and speaking to high school students, using his own up-from-poverty story to inspire them.
At the same time, the larger nonprofit group had a more politically active agenda. Its directors included Mr. Turlington, the Raleigh lawyer; Miles Lackey, Mr. Edwards’s former chief of staff; Alexis Bar, his former political scheduler; and David Ginsberg, currently a senior adviser for communications.
The $1.3 million the group raised and spent in 2005 paid for travel, including Mr. Edwards’s “Opportunity Rocks” tour of 10 college campuses, consultants and a Web operation. In addition, some $540,000 went for the “exploration of new ideas,” according to tax filings.
Nonprofit groups can engage in political activities and not endanger their tax-exempt status so long as those activities are not its primary purpose. But the line between a bona fide charity and a political campaign is often fuzzy, said Marcus S. Owens, a Washington lawyer who headed the Internal Revenue Service division that oversees nonprofit agencies.
“I can’t say that what Mr. Edwards did was wrong,” Mr. Owens said. “But he was working right up to the line. Who knows whether he stepped or stumbled over it. But he was close enough that if a wind was blowing hard, he’d fall over it.”
Of the explicitly political entities, Mr. Edwards’ OneAmerica Committee 527 organization allowed donors to give without limitations. The money was transferred to his leadership political action committee. Leadership committees were initially created to allow prominent politicians to raise money for distribution to needy office-seekers. But Mr. Edwards spent the entire $2.7 million he raised for OneAmerica, including $532,000 raised by the 527, on himself, an increasingly common trend among politicians.
Correction: June 29, 2007
A front-page article last Friday about nonprofit organizations created by John Edwards that helped keep his political profile alive after the 2004 election referred imprecisely to a donation made to an Edwards campaign committee. Although an individual donor was not identified, the donation was credited to Oak Spring Farms LLC, which listed a New York hotel as its address. The donation was not “anonymous.” The article also misstated the title of one of Mr. Edwards’s campaign advisers. David Ginsberg is a senior adviser for communications; he is not the campaign’s deputy campaign manager, a post currently held by Jonathan Prince.
I just loved this op-ed from the NY Post today and had to share. The good news keeps raining in, viva Barack!!!
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Opposing him is a time-tested political figure capitalizing on his role in a popular eight-year administration and campaigning on the theme of experience and deriding the opponent as unqualified and naive.
In 1960 the challenger was John Kennedy and the time-tested candidate was Richard Nixon, whose slogan was "experience counts." Now it's Obama vs. Clinton, but the paradigm is the same.
The decision that Hillary should run as the candidate of experience was an enormous blunder. In a Democratic electorate that's in the party precisely because it so intensely dislikes things as they are and wants change, experience is the wrong virtue to stress.
Democrats back insurgency and political insurrection - but Hillary offers them only a synthetic and imagined incumbency. She has ceded the field of change to her rivals and sequestered herself with those pining for the 1990s, like fans at an old-timers day baseball game.
To voters who want change, she offers only nostalgia.
Hillary and her helpers were doubtless drawn to the theme of experience to set up the negatives they planned to throw at Obama. But it was inside-out logic. Knowing that they'd soon attack Obama's inexperience, the Clinton campaign decided to emphasize Hillary's supposed experience. By stressing her experience, they surely felt, they could attack Obama without seeming to do so. But this put the "negative" cart before the "positive" horse - that is, it gave them an attack plan at the cost of locking them into a lame identity for Hillary.
By stressing experience, Hillary is basing her campaign on a fraud. Like her Senate race, which was premised on the obvious lie that she wanted to be a New Yorker, her presidential race is rooted in the fabrication that she was the principal actress in her husband's presidency.
In fact, she was an observer (a close-up one, to be sure); at most a kibitzer, sending in advice from time to time but surely not a principal.
Yes, she had actual line responsibility, in the first two years of his presidency - a time of dismal failure. But her role from late 1995 to 1997 was scarcely more than a traditional first lady's: She toured the country, wrote books, cut ribbons and traveled the world.
Even her return to a role of power - when the Lewinsky scandal all but closed down the Clinton presidency at the start of 1998 - was only in the realm of damage control, not as a formulator of public policy. Then, the final year of Bill's tenure saw her absorbed in her own Senate campaign, no longer much interested in 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., except as a springboard.
But now her candidacy's focus on "experience" has backed Hillary into a campaign of dissembling to reinvent her White House role - a series of ever-grander boasts that more and more defy credibility: First, she was at her husband's side as he balanced the budget. Then, she became a principal architect of his economic policies, the secret catalyst of the Irish peace process and the face of the administration's foreign policy.
All this posturing not only makes her look fake - but weaker by the day, too: Why is this strong woman hiding behind her husband's record, rather than focusing on her own?
All this artifice accomplishes is to win control of the rearview mirror in an election where voters want to look out of the windshield. She's now positioned in the wrong place in the wrong primary. It's Republicans who vote for experience - Democrats vote for change.
Bill Clinton is now running around Iowa trying to sell Hillary as the "agent of change," but he is fighting against the long-term theme of her campaign in making Hillary the candidate of experience. And how can a former president, whose very presence is identified with a bygone era, convince us that his wife is now the candidate of the new age?
What genius thought up this strategy?
It hurts when I see all the negativity towards Barack just because people assume that he is Muslim.
I wish that folks would understand that Barack's ties to Islam in terms of his family's heritage is an asset, not should not be a distraction in this race for the presidency.
His upbringing in Indonesia, and his ties to Kenya are invaluable insights into the world as it is.
How can you envision a better solution when you have no frame of reference to go by?
I truly believe that his emphasis on partnership not division, his appreciation of diverse cultures, and his global sensitivity will be key in enlisting allies in this war on terror.
I have a very personal tie to this issue.
I made a film about the post 9/11 backlash against Muslims in America, focusing on the experiences of three Muslim teenagers called Whose Children Are These? www.whosechildrenarethese.com. In short, as a result of a failed, poorly constructed domestic national security measure called 'Special Registration'--83,000 innocent Muslim men registered with the US Government, 14, 000 were deported and 0 were charged with terrorist related offenses.The policy was put into effect by then Attorney General John Ashcroft and the newly created Department of Homeland Security. It has done nothing to make our country safer, and has antagonized Muslim nations all over the globe. Barack understands how important it is to fix this 'us against them' mentality, and bring Muslim communities into this fight against Al Qaeda. This happened five years ago, and I am very disheartened by just how little progress has been made in mainstream America in terms of tolerance and the blatant disregard for civil liberties in this country. All this talk about Barack being Muslim and being seen is in a negative light is so demeaning. The majority of Muslims around the world have nothing to do with extremist factions like Al Qaeda. To make that correlation is like saying all Christians (of which I am one) believed in and supported Timothy McVeigh and the bombing in Oklahoma City. Sorry for the rant, but people have to understand that Barack's global perspective, his understanding that America is a partner in our world, his respect for other cultures and his pride in his diverse heritage are what will restore this country's stature in the global community.
To go back to what we know in terms of fear driven politics will do nothing but worsen important ties to nations that would be strong allies in this fight against Al Qaeda.
I don't want to see this happen.
I don't want to see us go down a path that will make us even more unsafe.
When you have seen what I have seen in terms of the devastation caused by ignorance, misunderstanding and fear, supporting Barack Obama is a necessity.
We need Barack. More than ever, our time is now.
Hey everyone,
Here is my footage of Barack at the Apollo. I tried to get what i could, some of Cornell West, some of Chris Rock and most of Barack.
Enjoy!
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=23133977
To my new friends on this blog, you are all amazing. Have a great Thanksgiving. On this day of giving thanks, let's take a moment and remember those who are suffering around the world. if you all could take a moment a pray for our brothers and sisters in Bangladesh who have lost their loved ones and homes as a result of the cyclone Sidr. If anyone would like to donate to a good cause, here is the link for the Red Crescent society, an international arm of the Red Cross. Link
God bless you all!
Sincerely, Theresa from NY
I am the first to admit that I have been extremely negative this past week especially towards HRC and her campaign. But, as some of other members of this website have pointed out it is important to be positive in the remaining days and help each other through what I know will be a difficult time.
Bottom line is I NEED INSPIRATION Y'ALL!
So I am dedicated this blog to "Making a difference" and the Barack supporters who are doing the hard work of canvassing, petitioning and getting out there to talk to the ever important undecideds, Republicans and Independents. Please share your stories with me and we can talk about and laugh about some of the challenges and successes we have had in 'making a difference' and spreading Barack's message of hope to all those who will listen.
I look forward hearing from you.
In solidarity and hope,
Theresa from NY
