Honestly Barack Blog

VP Speculation

Marcus @ SDSU — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 02:04:12 EDT

My personal picks for VP:

1. Schweitzer
2. Sebelius
3. Richardson

1. Gov. Schweitzer is the governor of red state Montana, he can help win North Dakota and Montana, he appeals to the western states of Nevada, New Mexico, and Colorado; he's pro-gun, and helps with rural voters; some of the highest approval ratings in his state; speaks Arabic, and has worked in South America, Asia, Europe, and Africa.

The potential downside might be the lack of foreign policy experience, or if McCain chooses a woman like Gov. Palin from Alaska.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Schweitzer
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/06/on-brian-schweitzer-as-vp.html

2. Sebelius is a governor of a Red State (Kansas), and could help not only put Kansas into play, but help out in the red states like Missouri and Colorado, and even her homestate of Ohio, where her father was once governor. She has a history of fighting special interests, and a good bi-partisan record in Kansas with a high approval rating. She also might help motivate women voters.
Her only downsides are her lack of foreign policy experience, and maybe her flat response to State of the Union might be a sign that she's not too good in the National Spotlight.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/07/07/sebelius/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Sebelius

3. Gov Richardson is also a red state governor from New Mexico. Where my other personal picks lack official foreign policy experience, Richardson is TEEMING with it as Ambassador to the U.N. and Secretary Energy. He appeals to western red states and can help win New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, and maybe even make Arizona close. He can appeal to the Latino community (he's Mexican American and lives in a border state), and relates to them much more than Obama.

While most say his downsides are that he's gaffe-prone, I'm going to be honest and cynical and say that my biggest worry is the fact that he's Latino. Everyone I talk to say the same thing that they think it's WAY too much color for one ticket this time around, and some whites would vote against them in droves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Richardson

What does everyone else think???

McCain Hypocracy

Marcus @ SDSU — Fri, 16 May 2008 00:59:10 EDT

Turns out Senator John McCain was before meeting with Hamas before he was against it:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/15/exclusive-video-mccain-wa_n_102031.html

This should NOT Be allowed...This blatant, dishonest, shameful political posturing and outrageous hypocracy should be called out on by the media, and hammered by the Democrats.

REPOST PEOPLE!!

Last Day to Register

Marcus @ SDSU — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 03:47:02 EST

A great day in San Diego today, guys.

Earlier today (well, technically yesterday), was the deadline to register to vote for the February 5th primary, so the San Diego Registrar of Voters and several Obama volunteers went on the San Diego State University campus to register students...

It was the first day back from Winter break at SDSU and we were there from 1:00pm to 6:00pm registering students, with Me and another fellow supporter Mitch missing some of our classes to volunteer. And even though this was my first time registering voters like this, and I was DEFINITELY out of my comfort zone, we made EXCELLENT progress...

We ended up registering a little over 900 students to vote for the California primary. I'm not sure the exact number, but we were able to get hundreds (again, I'm not sure the exact number) to sign Obama pledge cards. Almost ALL of the voters I talked to were either Obama supporters or at least open to the idea of supporting him.

One older man I talked to, who was a conservative Republican stopped and talked to us about how although he was supporting John McCain, and he is pretty much a staunch conservative, he absolutely has respect for Sen. Obama. He told me about how disturbed and angered he was about the Clintons' lies and distortions of Obama's record, and he took particular offense to their parsing of Obama's acknowledgement of Reagan's tranformation (for better or worse) of this country.

He ended up signing an Obama pledge card even though he didn't change his registration to democrat or declined to state to vote for Obama (I didn't really want to push him to hard to change his registration).

There was one strong Hillary supporter, and the other few Hillary supporters were more undecided than anything.

And there were a few voters who didn't want to say who they were voting for, so they could've very well been Hillary supporters, but what was so encouraging was the excitement for Obama, and just how many of the students, Republican and Democrat were so open and supportive of Obama.

I was surprised to run into so Many Anti-Hillary people, but I must admit, they did entertain me...

All in all, a good day, and don't lose hope on California, people! Pray for us, and Pray for Senator Obama!

My Experience Volunteering...

Marcus @ SDSU — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 03:27:32 EST

Lately, I've been feeling anxiety, nervousness, and helplessness with only 3 weeks to go and it being at such a DEAD HEAT...I know that many of the others like Mannie felt the exact same way..

So I volunteered at the Downtown San Diego office today, and I STRONGLY urge EVERYONE who posts on this blog everyday, if there is a campaign headquarters in or around their town to make phonecalls to Iowa...

It was really difficult at first, b/c I felt exactly like a telemarketer, and I HATE telemarketers..

I had no idea how informed the Iowa voters were and how often ALL of them are pestered by the political campaign operatives from both the Republicans, Democrats, and probably some smaller parties as well, day after day.

We basically asked who we they were caucusing for, and if they needed a ride, babysitter, directions, etc.
Several people just hung up as soon as I was from a campaign, and others just told me straight out "I'm not interested in politics - bye" or "I'm undecided!"

But after a while, I got the hang of it, and after I read the script over and over, after about 20 calls, I got comfortable and ad-libbed the script to make it sound less telemarkety and more like myself...a real, first-time, young, Obama volunteer.

I think the voters who didn't hang up in my face and actually didnt mind listening to me for literally a couple of seconds liked the naturalness and laughed when I asked them "I bet you've been getting a lot of calls, huh?"

I only made calls for about an hour and a half, but it was EXTREMELY satisfying. Me, my friend Nancy, and one of the staffers LM made about 150-200 calls between that hour and a half, and I would say about 80% didn't even answer. But it was encouraging that 4 people were Obama supporters, and 2 were Clinton supporters.

Probably the most encouraging fact of the day was that of all the calls made from the office that day, more than 200 were OBama supporters while 130 were CLinton supporters...there were hardly any Edwards supporters..

We still have lots of work to do, but just please people... don't lose hope!!!

Philippians 4:6
"Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and peition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God."

My Letter to Sen. Obama & his Campaign

Marcus @ SDSU — Wed, 23 May 2007 15:11:35 EDT

Dear Sen. Obama & the Campaign:

I'm a freshman at SDSU and I love Sen. Obama as a leader of this country and almost all of his ideas. His optimism is awe-inspiring and I've never been so excited by any politician.

One of his positions that I most agree with is his position on the Iraq War, and the fact that he opposed it from the start as opposed to most of the democratic candidates running for President is all the more reason for me to support him...by doing that, I feel like he isn't the typical politician and switches his position to whatever is politically convienent. This is why I've donated to the campaign and although I've only donated $10 (because I'm always broke), I hope to donate more....

HOWEVER

Lately I've been very bothered by his ambiguity on his positions. While his positions are positive, and upbeat, they are very very BROAD and almost open to interpretation. The fact that the Senator gives almost NO specifics to his policies while other candidates like John Edwards outline entire, detailed plans for moving the country forward.

Another point that bothers me is that although Sen. Obama opposed this war from the start, he has voted IDENTICAL to war-funding issues as Sen. Clinton. I almost get the feeling that he doesn't want to defund the war because it's not politcally safe to do so.

Now the Democratic Congress has passed a bill without ANY troop timetables, or required benchmarks regarding the Iraqi government, and the war can continue on being funded while our American troops are dying on the field in order to "fight them there so we won't have to fight them here."

You guys at the campaign constantly email, and mail me, asking me to donate more.

I WILL NOT donate to Sen. Obama until he either does well at the debates (his performance kind of SUCKED, to put in nicely); starts giving more policy detail; or makes a better effort to bring our troops home.

Sincerely,
Marcus Anthony Bush

PS If Sen Obama votes for the war funding bill just passed yesterday 5/22, with no timetables or benchmarks I'll lose a LOT of faith and be very discouraged from him. Thanks.