A little over three weeks ago, Brandon Hurlbut showed up in Wilmington as the state director for the Obama Delaware campaign. It was a nice title, but he had no staff, no offices, and nowhere to stay. And the most recent poll in Delaware showed Hillary Clinton with a 24 point lead over Barack.
But what Brandon had was so much more important -- he had the help and support and enthusiasm of hundreds of dedicated volunteers in the state.
That contagious energy and enthusiasm led to the donation of our HQ office on Orange Street and our office opening party on January 19. It's what produced volunteers every single day who showed up to make phone calls. It's what kept our kitchen well-stocked with food. It's what drew 2,700 people to see Michelle in Wilmington and Dover, and what led 20,000 people to come out on a perfect Sunday afternoon to see Barack in Rodney Square. More importantly, that energy and enthusiasm is what led to an army of volunteers hitting the streets and phones on Election Day to get our supporters to the polls.
Last night, all of your efforts paid off. We won a decisive 11 point victory that demonstrated strength not only in New Castle County, but also Kent and Sussex Counties. We showed that Barack could attract not only African American voters in Wilmington, but also rural, white voters in the southern part of the state. This ability to put together a broad coalition of voters is the key to Barack becoming the Democratic nominee and the next President of the United States.
True to its motto of being the First State, Delaware led the way last night.
I'll post photos in the coming days, but I just wanted to thank everyone for what you've helped us accomplish. The entire campaign staff will be eternally grateful to all of you.
If you have time to lend a hand, our headquarters office is open everyday from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. We're located at 1201 N. Orange Street, Suite 900, in Wilmington. Our phone number is 573-2540. Please stop by!
"[T]he most persuasive case for Obama has less to do with him than with the moment he is meeting. The moment has been a long time coming, and it is the result of a confluence of events, from one traumatizing war in Southeast Asia to another in the most fractious country in the Middle East. The legacy is a cultural climate that stultifies our politics and corrupts our discourse. Obama’s candidacy in this sense is a potentially transformational one. Unlike any of the other candidates, he could take America—finally—past the debilitating, self-perpetuating family quarrel of the Baby Boom generation that has long engulfed all of us. So much has happened in America in the past seven years, let alone the past 40, that we can be forgiven for focusing on the present and the immediate future. But it is only when you take several large steps back into the long past that the full logic of an Obama presidency stares directly—and uncomfortably—at you. At its best, the Obama candidacy is about ending a war—not so much the war in Iraq, which now has a momentum that will propel the occupation into the next decade—but the war within America that has prevailed since Vietnam and that shows dangerous signs of intensifying, a nonviolent civil war that has crippled America at the very time the world needs it most. It is a war about war—and about culture and about religion and about race. And in that war, Obama—and Obama alone—offers the possibility of a truce." - Andrew Sullivan
"[T]he most persuasive case for Obama has less to do with him than with the moment he is meeting. The moment has been a long time coming, and it is the result of a confluence of events, from one traumatizing war in Southeast Asia to another in the most fractious country in the Middle East. The legacy is a cultural climate that stultifies our politics and corrupts our discourse.
Obama’s candidacy in this sense is a potentially transformational one. Unlike any of the other candidates, he could take America—finally—past the debilitating, self-perpetuating family quarrel of the Baby Boom generation that has long engulfed all of us. So much has happened in America in the past seven years, let alone the past 40, that we can be forgiven for focusing on the present and the immediate future. But it is only when you take several large steps back into the long past that the full logic of an Obama presidency stares directly—and uncomfortably—at you.
At its best, the Obama candidacy is about ending a war—not so much the war in Iraq, which now has a momentum that will propel the occupation into the next decade—but the war within America that has prevailed since Vietnam and that shows dangerous signs of intensifying, a nonviolent civil war that has crippled America at the very time the world needs it most. It is a war about war—and about culture and about religion and about race. And in that war, Obama—and Obama alone—offers the possibility of a truce." - Andrew Sullivan
Here is the clip...
http://thinkonthesethings.wordpress.com/2007/10/18/video-barack-obama-on-the-tonight-show-with-jay-leno/
as they support the candidates who want to end the war! This speaks volumes about what is really going on in the military concerning this very ill-advised war. Obama is second only to Ron Paul in campaign donations from those affiliated with the military.
By BENNETT ROTH, RICHARD S. DUNHAM and CHASE DAVIS
According to a Houston Chronicle analysis of campaign records from January through September, Paul received $63,440 in donations from current military employees and several retired military personnel.
Democrat Barack Obama, another war critic, was second in military giving. The Illinois senator got $53,968 during the nine months.
He was followed by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, a decorated Navy pilot and former Vietnam prisoner of war, who received $48,208 in military-related giving. McCain has been one of the most vigorous defenders of President Bush's decision this year to increase U.S. troops in Iraq.
The military contributions — nearly 1,000 of them are listed in Federal Election Commission records for this year — represent a small fraction of the overall contributions to the candidates.
Paul, whose campaign Web site notes his military service as a flight surgeon in the Air Force in the 1960s as well as his opposition to the current war, raised a total of $5 million from July through September alone. Also, many contributors do not disclose their occupations, making it difficult to determine the total extent of military contributions to any one candidate.
Nevertheless, analysts said the ability of Paul and Obama to rake in as much money from military employees as they did suggests there is a certain degree of dissatisfaction with the Iraq campaign among veterans and those in uniform.
One of the contributors to Paul's campaign was Lindell Anderson, 72, a retired Army chaplain from Fort Worth, who donated $100 to the Texas lawmaker.
"As a Christian, I think he speaks to a theme that the United States shouldn't be the policeman of the world," said Anderson.
Anderson said he strongly disagrees with Republicans who call Paul anti-military: "He spent five years in the military. People in the military have to respect his integrity" whether or not they agree with him on the war.
But an official with the American Legion, the veterans' service organization that has supported the Iraq war, said she didn't know why military employees support Paul.
"I don't know the rhyme or reason behind it," said Ramona Joyce. "It's America. Anybody can throw their money at who they want to."
At the Texas headquarters of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Austin, state adjutant Roy Grona said military personnel do not vote as a bloc.
"There's probably a lot of veterans that aren't happy with the war in Iraq," he said.
Grona said Paul has been endorsed by the VFW in his congressional races in part because of his support for veterans' benefits.
The average size of Paul's contributions from military sources is $500, with donations ranging from $50 to the maximum $2,300.
More than a third of Paul's military-related contributions came from Army affiliates; a third came from the Air Force; and a fourth from Navy donors. The rest came from affiliates of the Marines and other branches.
Jennifer Duffy, an analyst with the non-partisan Cook Political Report, speculated that Paul might be an attractive candidate for military personnel who oppose the war, "but don't want to cross the line and vote for a Democrat."
Paul has made withdrawal of troops from Iraq and a criticism of aggressive U.S. foreign policy central themes of his maverick campaign.
Kent Snyder, Paul's campaign chairman, said the contributions were evidence that many in the military agreed with the candidate's position.
"I guess they want to get out of Iraq, too," said Snyder.
Texas A&M political science professor George C. Edwards III attributed support for Obama among the military to the factors that he attracts support from many black voters, and blacks are a bigger proportion of the military than their overall share of the national population.
Edwards, who was a guest professor at West Point for three years, said "an awful lot of people in the military just think this war has been a disaster for the Army."
He said they believe the war has "stretched it thin, used its supplies and has been bad for morale."
"They may be quite upset and this is a way they can do something about it," he said.
Obama's support came from across the military, including a squad leader in the Army, a member of the Navy stationed at the U.S. embassy in Iraq, and state Rep. Juan Garcia, a Democrat from Corpus Christi.
Garcia, a retired Navy pilot, serves as an instructor at the Naval Air Station Corpus Christi with the Naval Reserves.
"The men and women of the military are looking for a leader like Barack Obama who will turn the page on foreign policy and national security issues," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.
Edwards attributed McCain's backing to his being "a former military guy." McCain received the largest number of supporters from Navy, in which he served.
"John McCain has extremely strong support among veterans, especially in the early primary states," spokesman Brian Rogers said. "He's a veteran himself and he's been there for them on the issues for over 20 years."
She truly has the courage of her convictions. Great op-ed piece in today's Wall Street Journal reprinted here for you all to read.
PEGGY NOONAN
Mr. Obama often seems to be thinking when he speaks, too, and this comes somehow as a relief, in comparison, say, to Hillary Clinton and President Bush, both of whom often seem to be trying to remember the answer they'd agreed upon with staff. What's the phrase we use about education? Hit Search Function. Hit Open. Right-click. "Equity in education is essential, Tim . . ."
You get the impression Mr. Obama trusts himself to think, as if something good might happen if he does. What a concept. Anyway, I've started to lean forward a little when he talks.
But he doesn't stand a chance, right? His main competitor, Mrs. Clinton, is this week's invincible. She broke through 50% for the first time in a big national poll--53% saying they would support her, a full 33 points more than Obama. Her third quarter fund raising beat everyone else's. "It's all over but the voting," said Rep. Tom Petri, who will probably get pummeled a bit by the campaign for premature triumphalism. But he only said what a lot of people are starting to think.
Has the Democratic Party noticed it actually has some impressive candidates? They should not be written off, and when you think about it, it's weird that they're being written off. Joe Biden used to seem mildly giddy, vain but in a small way, not a big and interesting way. (Big is LBJ: Ah will impose mah will. Small: Where's my hair-sculpting gel?) But it has been 35 years since he became a figure in Washington, and in the past few years in particular he has been ahead of his peers on Iraq--ahead with warnings, ahead with tripartite thinking, ahead with a seriousness and sobriety about the fix we're in. He is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and he's been reading daily threat reports for a long time. He is impressive. Why don't the Democrats notice?
Chris Dodd is the head of the Senate Banking Committee, and nothing if not sophisticated. In the post-9/11 world, sophisticated is not so bad. He's been in the Senate 27 years. In earlier years his thinking on government, his assumptions about what can and should be expected of it, veered from the utopian to the world-weary, and were sometimes both at once. But if you listen to him and watch him in debate, you might legitimately conclude this is a candidate who understands how it all works and what time it is. He's one of the grown-ups.
Anybody notice?
And yet the Democrats remain in their Hillary trance.
Not all, of course. Each candidate has his band of supporters, his little base. Mr. Obama is fortunate to have one with the grace and vigor of Ted Sorensen, John F. Kennedy's great staffer and speechwriter, who told me this week, "I am supporting Obama." He has known and liked the other main candidates, has "no objection to a female commander-in-chief and no ill feelings stemming from the Clinton stains on the escutcheon of the White House." But Mr. Obama is "the one serious potential nominee of the Democratic Party who is most likely to win" and most likely "to end the tragic occupation of Iraq on terms compatible with our country's best interests and traditional values."
When I asked if his support was connected in any way to the idea of breaking away from the Bush-Clinton-Bush rotation, he said, "Above all, I believe this country needs change, and continuing the 20-year hold on the White House of the same two families is not my idea of change."
It is the nature of modern politics. A political family gains allies--retainers, supporters, hangers-on, admirers, associates, in-house Machiavellis. The bigger the government, the more ways allies can be awarded, which binds them more closely. Your destiny is theirs. Members of the court recruit others. Money lines spread person to person, company to company, board to board, mover to mover.
The most important part is the money lines. Power is expensive. The second most important part is the word "winner." The Bushes are winners; the Clintons are winners. We know this, they've won. The Bushes are wired into the Republican money-line system; the Clintons are wired into the Democratic money-line system. For a generation, two generations now, they have had the same dynamics in play, only their friends are on the blue team, not the red, or the red, not the blue.
They are, both groups, up and ready and good to go every election cycle. They are machines. There are good people on each side, idealists, the hopeful, those convinced the triumph of their views will make our country better. And there are those on each side who are not so wonderful, not so well-meaning, not well-meaning at all. And some are idiots, but very comfortable ones.
Is this good for our democracy, this air of inevitability? Is it good in terms of how the world sees us, and how we see ourselves? Or is it something we want to break out of, like a trance?
It would be understandable if they were families of a most extraordinary natural distinction and self-sacrifice. But these are not the Adamses of Massachusetts we're talking about. You've noticed, right?
Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father" (Penguin, 2005), which you can order from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Fridays on OpinionJournal.com.
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