Mike Underwood's Blog

Spam in "Florida Loves Obama"

Mike Underwood — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:10:46 EDT

Some fool has filled my inbox promoting a meeting on November 5, 2009. Quit it!

The grim truth about "The Republican Road to Recovery"

Mike Underwood — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 16:07:23 EDT

Follow this link for an analysis of the House GOP leadership's proposed alternative to the Obama budget. The Republican Budget Plan is here:

http://www.gop.gov/solutions/budget/road-to-recovery-final

The Citizens for Tax Justice has crunched to numbers to show the grim truth about "The Republican Road to Recovery" in a worthwhile report here:

http://www.ctj.org/pdf/housegopplan20090327.pdf

* GOP Budget Plan Fizzles Amid Lack Of Details, Infighting, Mockery [UPDATED, NOW WITH CHARTS!]Source: www.huffingtonpost.comGOP Budget Plan Fizzles Amid Lack Of Details, Infighting, Mockery [UPDATED, NOW WITH CHARTS!] - The Huffington Post

Overseas Questions about the Inauguration

Mike Underwood — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 15:59:28 EST

I have gotten questions from the UK about why foreign dignitaries were not more visible at the swearing-in ceremony. Where any present? Any representatives of the British Royal Family, for instance? Did Nelson Mandela attend? If not, why not?

Caroline Kennedy for Senator

Mike Underwood — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 10:32:50 EST

Lest we forget, here is Caroline Kennedy's endorsement of Barack Obama from January of 2008:

A President Like My Father

By CAROLINE KENNEDY
Published: January 27, 2008

OVER the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wished they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president. This sense is even more profound today. That is why I am supporting a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama.

My reasons are patriotic, political and personal, and the three are intertwined. All my life, people have told me that my father changed their lives, that they got involved in public service or politics because he asked them to. And the generation he inspired has passed that spirit on to its children. I meet young people who were born long after John F. Kennedy was president, yet who ask me how to live out his ideals.

Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and imagine that together we can do great things. In those rare moments, when such a person comes along, we need to put aside our plans and reach for what we know is possible.

We have that kind of opportunity with Senator Obama. It isn’t that the other candidates are not experienced or knowledgeable. But this year, that may not be enough. We need a change in the leadership of this country — just as we did in 1960.

Most of us would prefer to base our voting decision on policy differences. However, the candidates’ goals are similar. They have all laid out detailed plans on everything from strengthening our middle class to investing in early childhood education. So qualities of leadership, character and judgment play a larger role than usual.

Senator Obama has demonstrated these qualities throughout his more than two decades of public service, not just in the United States Senate but in Illinois, where he helped turn around struggling communities, taught constitutional law and was an elected state official for eight years. And Senator Obama is showing the same qualities today. He has built a movement that is changing the face of politics in this country, and he has demonstrated a special gift for inspiring young people — known for a willingness to volunteer, but an aversion to politics — to become engaged in the political process.

I have spent the past five years working in the New York City public schools and have three teenage children of my own. There is a generation coming of age that is hopeful, hard-working, innovative and imaginative. But too many of them are also hopeless, defeated and disengaged. As parents, we have a responsibility to help our children to believe in themselves and in their power to shape their future. Senator Obama is inspiring my children, my parents’ grandchildren, with that sense of possibility.

Senator Obama is running a dignified and honest campaign. He has spoken eloquently about the role of faith in his life, and opened a window into his character in two compelling books. And when it comes to judgment, Barack Obama made the right call on the most important issue of our time by opposing the war in Iraq from the beginning.

I want a president who understands that his responsibility is to articulate a vision and encourage others to achieve it; who holds himself, and those around him, to the highest ethical standards; who appeals to the hopes of those who still believe in the American Dream, and those around the world who still believe in the American ideal; and who can lift our spirits, and make us believe again that our country needs every one of us to get involved.

I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.

Caroline Kennedy is the author of “A Patriot’s Handbook: Songs, Poems, Stories and Speeches Celebrating the Land We Love.”

More Good News: Our Community Continues!

Mike Underwood — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 12:30:25 EST

Please look at this message from Chris Hughes, co-founder, with Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz, of Facebook and coordinator of online organizing for the Barack Obama campaign:

"Over the past 21 months, millions of individuals have used My.BarackObama to organize their local communities on behalf of Barack Obama. The scale and size of this community and its work is unprecedented. Individuals in all 50 states have created more than 35,000 local organizing groups, hosted over 200,000 events, and made millions upon millions of calls to neighbors about this campaign. There can be no question that these local, grassroots organizations played a critical role in Tuesday's victory.

What has made My.BarackObama unique hasn't been the technology itself, but the people who used the online tools to coordinate offline action. My.BarackObama has always been focused on using online tools to make real-world connections between people who are hungry to change our politics in this country.

And the site isn't going anywhere. The online tools in My.BarackObama will live on. Barack Obama supporters will continue to use the tools to collaborate and interact. Our victory on Tuesday night has opened the door to change, but it's up to all of us to seize this opportunity to bring it about.

In the coming days and weeks, there will be a great deal more information about where this community will head. For the moment, let's celebrate this victory and know that the community we've built together is just the beginning."

Chris Hughes
November 7, 2008

More Good News: Our Community Continues!

Mike Underwood — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 12:27:49 EST

Dangerous, misleading viral emails

Mike Underwood — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 13:47:18 EST

http://www.youtube.com/v/4FCNKwHRCQM

Smear emails like this one have been going around the Internet for months, and every word of them is manipulative and false.

The truth is, Barack Obama is a committed Christian, and faith plays an important role in his life and the lives of his wife and daughters. He has never held any other faith.

The YouTube video this smear cites has been heavily edited. For the transcript of Senator Obama's original speech, please click here:

http://obama.senate.gov/speech/060628-call_to_renewal/

Shameful shadowy smear emails started by anonymous attackers lie about Barack’s faith to create division and distrust in a time when we need to come together. Preying on cynicism and people's worst instincts is the worst kind of appeal to hate and fear, and it should have no place in our elections.

There's no way to stop all of the dangerous, misleading viral emails, but together we can take the political process back from the cynical politics of fear. And we can all start by spreading the truth about Barack Obama.

Start by heading to Fight the Smears, where you can find out the truth about a wide range of attacks on Barack:

http://www.fightthesmears.com

Learn more about Barack's position on faith:

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/faith/

And learn more about Barack's own faith:

http://fightthesmears.com/articles/3/baracksfaith

Here are a few facts about Barack Obama and his faith:

* Barack has spoken often about his Christian faith: "I learned that my sins could be redeemed. I learned that those things I was too weak to accomplish myself, He would accomplish with me if I placed my trust in Him.… kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt I heard God's spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth and carrying out His works."

http://www.barackobama.com/2007/06/23/a_politics_of_conscience_1.php

* Barack Obama has been endorsed by a number of prominent Christian leaders, including Brian McLaren and Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell. A group of pastors has also praised Obama for standing up for American families and addressing social justice concerns:

http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2008/08/21/new-christian-group-airs-ads-%E2%80%93-for-obama/

* Other Christian leaders have announced they are supporting Barack Obama, and you can watch their video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eUkc9GCMEQ

* Barack believes faith can be a powerful force to help those who need it most. As President, he will establish a Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships to help churches and religious groups provide much-needed social services in their communities:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/us/politics/02obama.html?_r=1&ref=politics&oref=slogin

Please forward this to anyone you know who has received hateful smear emails about Barack. Together we can make sure these negative and divisive attacks don't affect this election.

Weekly Reader Calls It for Obama

Mike Underwood — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:43:33 EDT

Weekly Reader's quadrennial poll of students from kindergarten to 12th grade predicts that Obama will win with 55% of the vote to McCain's 43%. This survey has been surprisingly accurate in the past, getting 12 of the past 13 presidential elections right. In 52 years, the Weekly Reader voting has been wrong only once. That happened in 1992, when the students picked George H.W. Bush, and the nation picked Bill Clinton. Perhaps proving their wisdom, the students didn’t like Ross Perot as much as their elders. The prickly Texan got 5.3 percent from the kids, and 19.5 percent from the adults.

The survey's accuracy may be due to children getting most of their political views from their parents and the children's views may more accurately reflect what their parents are really thinking than what the parents are telling the pollsters.

Here are some highlights:

* Among the students, Obama wins the popular vote over John McCain by a tally of 54.7 percent to 42.9 percent.

* If you extrapolate the students’ votes to the Electoral College, the Democratic ticket captures 33 states as well as Washington, D.C., worth a total of 420 electoral votes. (Only 270 are needed for election).

* Obama and Joe Biden swept almost all the so-called “swing states,” including both New Mexico and Missouri—and Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina, and Colorado as well.

* McCain couldn’t even carry his own state of Arizona among the students, nor could the McCain-Palin ticket prevail in Sarah Palin’s home state of Alaska.

Offers of Help from Overseas

Mike Underwood — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 09:46:12 EDT

Does anyone have any ideas about how I should answer inquiries like this one:

"I am not a US citizen, but is there anything that we can do to help the Obama campaign in/from the UK?"

I am inclined to request prayers. Any other ideas?

Thanks.

Mike Underwood

Tallahassee, Florida USA

OBAMA ACCEPTANCE PARTY IN TALLAHASSEE

Mike Underwood — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:02:05 EDT

Just in case anyone hasn't heard, the party tonight to watch Barack's acceptance speech is at The Moon, 1105 E Lafayette St. in Tallahassee followed by an after party at Waterworks, 1133 Thomasville Road. At least that's all I know about. Please comment if you know of more.

Mike Underwood

Tallahassee's Obama Office Grand Opening!

Mike Underwood — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 11:16:58 EDT

Tallahassee's Obama Office Grand Opening!

Get ready, Tallahassee. Change is coming! Come prepared with your best, most creative, most exciting Obama campaign chants! To show Tallahassee just how FIRED UP and READY TO GO we are. In honor of Barack Obama's 47th birthday, we will be having a potluck birthday bash!
Bring your snacks and favorite dishes to impress the crowd.

Time:    Tuesday, August 5 at 5:00 PM

Duration:    3 hours

Host:    Frederick Wong

Contact Phone:    850-566-8455

Location: Tallahassee Obama Campaign HQ (Tallahassee, FL)
920 E Lafayette St
Tallahassee, FL 32301

Directions:    The new Obama campaign office is on East Lafayette, on the strip between Chili's Restaurant and the Moon. The campaign building is right next to the Namasté Yoga Center of Tallahassee with the purple sign.

Kim, please contact me!

Mike Underwood — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 10:22:14 EDT

I know I promised to send you a friend request on this website, but I can't find your profile! You must be set up under a user name like "Cool Patriotic Person Who Has Just Moved Back to Tallahassee" or something. Please get in touch.

Mike Underwood

Even a small donation is a statement!

Mike Underwood — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:11:49 EDT

I'm encouraging everyone I know to donate $10 to the campaign -- today!!

Let's show Barack, Michelle and all the campaign workers who are out there tirelessly and tenaciously (and POSITIVELY) working for the good of America that we SUPPORT them!!

Even if it's a small donation - let's make a statement!

YES WE CAN!

http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/rmunderwood

Obama Good Vibes

Mike Underwood — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 18:44:25 EDT

This is just too great. Please let me share it with you. I've posted on my blog here and elsewhere that Michelle Obama is appearing at a fundraiser in Tallahassee next Wednesday morning (4/9/08). Because I am as clueless as the next guy about computers, I didn't realize that the Obama website would designate me the "host" and send payments for tickets to my fundraising page. In fact, I am not on the host committee and I have no tickets to sell. After my page had received $500 in payments and another $400 in pledges I figured out what had happened. I emailed everyone and asked them to cancel those payments and get the contributions to the real hosts. It is all straightened out now (I hope), but one contributor declined to cancel their $250 contribution to my "Christmas Fundraising Campaign" (now far over its fundraising target) and just gave another $250 for a ticket to the host committee. I also got this incredible message:

"What the heck! I really do believe in him. . . . The interesting thing for me about Obama is what he inspires in me, and how I see small but powerful changes in the people around me . . . Maybe it was a mistake on my part on the internet, but in doing so [it makes me] reach out in small ways - helping an older woman at the grocery store load her bags into her trunk - and I do this because I sense that I'm part of a sea change. That there is real reason to hope again. So, I'm grateful for the opportunity - thanks for making it available to me!"

For my part, I have never seen anything like this. Dare I say, I sense victory?

Student Tickets for Michelle Obama in Tallahassee 4/9

Mike Underwood — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:55:53 EDT

Michelle Obama will be in Tallahassee, Florida at The Moon, 1105 E Lafayette Street on Wednesday, April 9, 2008, for a coffee, running approximately from 10:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. The host committee is offering tickets at three price levels: $250, $125 and, for students with a valid ID, $40. The $250 tickets are for admission to the ground floor, where the speaker's platform will be, while the $125 tickets and the student tickets are for the balcony.

Send checks to Don Hinkle, Hinkle & Foran, 1545 Raymond Diehl Road, Suite 150, Tallahassee, Fl 32308. For student tickets contact Andrew Gilliam at gilluma@gmail.com. If you need to use a credit card, please call Don Hinkle's assistant, Patti Liedy at (850) 205-2055 and she will fax or e-mail you a donation form.

Michelle Obama in Tallahassee April 9, 2008

Mike Underwood — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 12:47:27 EDT

Michelle Obama will be in Tallahassee, Florida at The Moon, 1105 E Lafayette Street on Wednesday, April 9, 2008, for a coffee, running approximately from 11 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. The host committee is offering tickets at three price levels: $250, $125 and, for students with a valid ID, $40. The $250 tickets are for admission to the ground floor, where the speaker's platform will be, while the $125 tickets and the student tickets are for the balcony.

Send checks to Don Hinkle, Hinkle & Foran, 1545 Raymond Diehl Road, Suite 150, Tallahassee, Fl 32308. For student tickets contact Andrew Gilliam at gilluma@gmail.com. If you need to use a credit card, please call Don's assistant, Patti Liedy at (850) 205-2055 and she will fax or e-mail you a donation form.

This is an excellent opportunity to galvanize and energize support in the Florida Big Bend area. This is also a testament to how successful Tallahassee was in showing that support on Barack's two visits last year. We need a good turnout so our area will continue to be a stop heading into the Fall. Of course, we also need to bring in new support to ensure that Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee and the next President of the United States!

Transcript of Barack Obama’s Speech on Race

Mike Underwood — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:01:39 EDT

The following is the text as prepared for delivery of Senator Barack Obama’s speech on race in Philadelphia, March 18, 2008.

“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

“People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn’t need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish – and with which we could start to rebuild.”

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man who's been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American – and yes, conservative – notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I’d like to leave you with today – a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King’s birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one 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.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn’t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, 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.”

“I’m 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 start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

Why Obama must not take the bait!

Mike Underwood — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 11:16:45 EST

March 7, 2008 Op-Ed Columnist Playing by Clinton Rules By DAVID BROOKS

Barack Obama had a theory. It was that the voters are tired of the partisan paralysis of the past 20 years. The theory was that if Obama could inspire a grass-roots movement with a new kind of leadership, he could ride it to the White House and end gridlock in Washington.

Obama has built his entire campaign on this theory. He’s run against negativity and cheap-shot campaigning. He’s claimed that there’s an “awakening” in this country — people “hungry for a different kind of politics.”

This message has made him the front-runner. It has brought millions of new voters into politics. It has given him grounds to fend off attacks. In debate after debate, he has accused Hillary Clinton and others of practicing the old kind of politics. When he was under assault in South Carolina, he rose above the barrage and made the Clintons look sleazy.

Yet at different times during this election, he’s been told to get off the white horse and start fighting. In the current issue of Time magazine, Michael Duffy and Nancy Gibbs report on a meeting that took place in Chicago last Labor Day. All of Obama’s experienced advisers told him: “You gotta get down, get dirty, get tough.”

Obama refused. He argued that if he did that, the entire basis for his campaign would evaporate. “If I gotta kneecap her,” he said, “I’m not gonna go there.”

Now, the Obama campaign is facing another test. There are a few ways to interpret the losses in Texas and Ohio. One is demographic. He didn’t carry the groups he often has trouble with — white women, Latinos, the less educated. The other is tactical. Clinton attacked him, and the attacks worked.

The consultants, needless to say, gravitate toward the tactical interpretation. And once again the cry has gone up for Obama to get tough. This advice gets wrapped in metaphors. Obama has to start “throwing punches” or “taking the gloves off.”

Beneath the euphemisms, what the advice really means is that Obama has to start accusing Clinton of things.

This time, Obama, whose competitive juices are flowing, has apparently accepted the advice. The Obama campaign is now making a big issue of Hillary Clinton’s tax returns and dropping hints about donations to President Clinton’s library and her secret White House papers. It’s willing to launch an ethics assault. “If Senator Clinton wants to take the debate to various places, we’ll join that debate,” the Obama strategist David Axelrod told reporters the other day.

These attacks are supposed to show that Obama can’t be pushed around. But, of course, what it really suggests is that Obama’s big theory is bankrupt. You can’t really win with the new style of politics. Sooner or later, you have to play by the conventional rules.

The Obama people seem to have persuaded themselves they can go on the attack, but in the right way. They can be tough and keep their virginity, too. But there are more than five long months between now and the convention.

Unless they consciously reject conventional politics, the accusations will build on each other. The BlackBerries will buzz. The passions will rise. The Obama forces will see hints of Clinton corruption all around, and they’ll accuse and accuse again. The war will begin to take control, and once you’re halfway through you can’t suddenly surrender because it’s become too rough.

And the Clinton people will draw them every step of the way. Clinton can’t compete on personality, but a knife fight is her only real hope of victory. She has nothing to lose because she never promised to purify America. Her campaign doesn’t depend on the enthusiasm of upper-middle-class goo-goos. On Thursday, a Clinton aide likened Obama to Ken Starr just to badger them on.

As the trench warfare stretches on through the spring, the excitement of Obama-mania will seem like a distant, childish mirage. People will wonder if Obama ever believed any of that stuff himself. And even if he goes on to win the nomination, he won’t represent anything new. He’ll just be a one-term senator running for president.

In short, a candidate should never betray the core theory of his campaign, or head down a road that leads to that betrayal. Barack Obama doesn’t have an impressive record of experience or a unique policy profile. New politics is all he’s got. He loses that, and he loses everything. Every day that he looks conventional is a bad day for him.

Besides, the real softness of the campaign is not that Obama is a wimp. It’s that he has never explained how this new politics would actually produce bread-and-butter benefits to people in places like Youngstown and Altoona.

If he can’t explain that, he’s going to lose at some point anyway.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company <div><img alt="DCSIMG" id="DCSIMG" width="1" height="1" src="http://wt.o.nytimes.com/dcsym57yw10000s1s8g0boozt_9t1x/njs.gif?dcsuri=/nojavascript&WT.js=No&WT.tv=1.0.7" /></div>

Question about phone calls

Mike Underwood — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 10:18:31 EST

I was assigned 20 names to call in RI. I printed them and called them. How to a get back to list in order to report the results of the calls and to get credit for them?

Bill Kristol on Obama’s Path to Victory

Mike Underwood — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:11:36 EST

Just in case anybody hasn't seen this. Also recommended is Frank Rich on Hillary's W-like Hallmark Channel fiasco.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/opinion/11kristol.html?_r=1&WT.mc_id=GN-P-E-FB-WI-TXT-ME1-X-X-0000-NA&WT.mc_ev=click&oref=slogin

BARACK1

Mike Underwood — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 17:20:32 EST

What a great feeling after the Iowa caucuses last night! I sent out a dozen fresh fund-raising e-mails today. Let's keep it going.

Don't Let Your Gift Cards Expire

Mike Underwood — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 12:13:10 EST

I have four with odd amounts on them that expire on December 31. Check your wallet. Rather than letting the funds evaporate, please consider making a donation of any amount here:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/christmas/rmu4obama

Incredible Civil Rights Speech by Senator Obama

Mike Underwood — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 12:21:49 EST

If you haven't read the incredible civil rights speech Barack Obama delivered earlier this month in Manning, SC, be sure to check it out.

USA Today on making history By Sarah Ramey (November 06, 2007)

USA Today

When Sen. Barack Obama took to the steps of the Clarendon County Courthouse in Manning, S.C., Friday to give a speech on civil rights, the symbolism of the location was as chilling as the unspoken reason for his address.
It was in Clarendon County that a 1948 lawsuit was filed by a black farmer whose children had to walk miles to school while white students were provided free bus transportation. That suit launched a legal campaign that culminated six years later in the Supreme Court's historic Brown v. Board of Education decision that outlawed school segregation.
"It would have been easy for them to stay home. To heed the voices of caution and convenience that said, 'wait,' 'the timing isn't right,' or 'the country just isn't ready.' It would have been easy for them to give in to the fears that no doubt kept them awake some nights," the Illinois senator said of the blacks who went to court to end the racial imbalances in the county's school system.
"Now, I've heard that some folks aren't sure America is ready for an African-American president, so let me be clear," he told his mostly black audience. "I never would have begun this campaign if I weren't confident I could win. But you see, I am not asking anyone to take a chance on me. I am asking you to take a chance on your own aspirations."
...a victory by Obama in the race to become the Democratic nominee would put a black man in position to take the helm of the world's most powerful nation.
...No one should back away from supporting him out of fear that his race might cause others to reject his candidacy — or cause him harm.
Had blacks in Clarendon County been afraid to confront their fears, they would not have made the history that changed this nation for the better.

Fire in the Belly?

Mike Underwood — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 11:03:14 EDT

What do you think of this? Two writers I admire have recently made the same observation about Senator Obama. In a recent review of Arthur Schlesinger's memoirs, Maureen Dowd said:

But [Adlai] Stevenson is stuck on the same mental pedestal that Barack Obama is on -- ''split between his desire to win and his desire to live up to the noble image of himself.''

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CEFD71139F934A35753C1A9619C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2

Then in an excellent essay on Al Gore's "The Assault on Reason," Michael Tomasky observed:

The sad irony of the 2000 debacle is not only that we've been stuck with George W. Bush, frightful as that is, but also that Gore, even with his limitations, could have been a great president. . . . But his ambivalence about electoral politics . . . seemingly prevented him from having the gusto to finish Bush off as he should have. (One senses a touch of a similar ambivalence in Obama, though not in Edwards and certainly not in Hillary Clinton.)

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20593

Barack in Tallahassee

Mike Underwood — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 09:07:13 EDT

Please post photographs from Senator Obama's incredible day in Tallahassee Friday August 24, 2007. A gallery of photographs is on the Tallahassee Democrat's website at www.tallahassee.com

Don Hinkle also has a site where he has asked people to post their photographs here:

obamaintallahassee.snapfish.com/bellsouth

Barack Obama in Tallahassee Aug. 24

Mike Underwood — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 18:29:24 EDT

TALLAHASSEE, FL – U.S. Senator Barack Obama will serve as the keynote speaker for the Leon County Democratic Party’s second annual Collins-Steele Dinner, which will be held on August 24th at 5:30 pm in the University Center Club at Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee. Tickets ($100) are available for purchase online here: http://www.leondems.com/ Payments by check, made payable to the "Leon DEC", can be mailed to Leon DEC, P.O. Box 1751, Tallahassee, FL 32302.