Organizing for America | Falmouth Mass. For Obama

1 - 25 of 348Thank you for your comment. Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive. For more information, please see our Comments FAQ.June 22nd, 2008 7:43 pmYou speak about the Draft being gone..Yet the GOP insists the WAR will continue. There have been many articles about the problems our troops are facing , the problems the recruiters are facing, yet you really think there will be no DRAFT? Please, be reasonable, we are intelligent folks...who is the GOP going to get to fight their Wars? GOP = DRAFT...get it yet?

PEACE...John From Cape Cod

GrassRoots for OBAMA in 08 and 2012

— John Schlegel, Cape Cod, Ma.

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Donation to small fund in memory of Robert Kennedy 40th

By elfpix - May 24th, 2008 at 11:19 pm EDT

Also listed in: Falmouth Mass. For Obama | Massachusetts Action Team | SE Massachusetts for Barack Obama

There is a small fund raiser on the activties list which you might consider when and if you make a donation to the Obama campaign.

You can read about it here:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/fundraising/4vlg

I give a small amount to the campaign when I can and often forget that there are opportunities to help others in their fund raising efforts - opportunities like this one which seems unfortunately timely today.

Please consider it.

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How will his power be kept under control?

By elfpix - May 10th, 2008 at 3:23 pm EDT

Also listed in: Falmouth Mass. For Obama | SE Massachusetts for Barack Obama

So? Will the power go to his head? Or is he really what we see?

As the results from the National Day of Voter Registration start to come in - the photos, the numbers of people who came, the process laid out, the high energy, the belief - I have been thinking about the power accruing to this inspiring man.

As part of that I have been reading a bio of him by David Mendell, Obama from Promise to Power. Mendell has been covering him since he started to run for state Senate in IL. for the Chicago Trib. Mendell tries to show as many sides of this person as he's given access to. He shows Obama grumpy, shows him unsuccessful and trying to figure out why, shows him happy, loving, caustic, tender, guarding his privacy, thinking things through. But always from the distance of a newspaper reporter without full access.

So for me, an enthusiastic supporter, there's still the question of whether this guy is who he appears to be.

And that has a lot to do with just how much of a liability it could be for him to consolidate so much power.

When I consider what's gone on for the last 5 months since the primary season began and those who really don't pay a lot of attention to politics have started to become aware of Obama, I'm deeply impressed by the things that Matt Stoller has explicated here http://openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5637

1. Obama's oratorical skill

2. his forging of a new path to organizing people (using the new media, finessing Fox News,raising so much money in little amounts, binding his fans together through the site)

3. his dogged insistance on taking the highest road he can find even in the face of the Clintons' so-called kitchen sink strategy

4. his distancing himself from the party (so much so that for a long time now it's seemed to me that he is not part of the party at all)

5 .his committment to the 50-state Strategy and campaigning in all the states (reaching out to the mob and the little corner pizza place)

But as these tactics succeed, and the mob gets bigger, it gets harder to control. And those who don't get it resent it.

Control of the entire thing is clearly part of the Obama script. The further some person or group is from being willing to accept his being top dog, the further he wishes to distance himself from them. The blogosphere is too hard to bring under control, cannot be counted on to hew to his party line. Jeremiah Wright was uncontrollable and way too close to keep at arm's length and therefore was a liability.

So the real question is: what will he be with all this power? Just how strong will the Republicans have to be to keep that power from doing something seriously wrong for the country - even defining seriously wrong in progressive terms? Just how strong will we have to be to be part of the control? Will he be able to maintain his mediating skills once it's too easy to get enough to go along? Will he look outside his own box when he's infatuated with his own ideas?

Who will be there to keep him on track?

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One reason why MA could vote for McCain

By elfpix - Apr 25th, 2008 at 9:02 am EDT

Also listed in: Falmouth Mass. For Obama | SE Massachusetts for Barack Obama

Two days ago I had a conversation with someone who is leading the Obama effort on the Cape and Islands. I found his name from an article in the CCTimes. I have been trying for two months now to locate Obama people on the Cape so I went to the Obama site, figuring that whatever was going on on Cape would be affiliated with the campaign and I would find it through the campaign site. Well, there are quite a few groups on Cape on the campaign site. All the Cape ones have 5 or 10 or maybe 30 people subscribed. Curious. Why so few? Why are many of those people not really Cape Codders, but reps from the campaign in Chicago, or Boston, or fercrissakes, Texas even? So I subscribe to two of those groups and then dead silence. Nothing. No emails, despite that there are a bevy of things going on - phonebanking, letter writing to superdelegates etc., trips to PA to knock on doors or register voters. Silence. Where is everybody? Is everybody on the Cape in Mrs. Clinton's pocket? Are there no people on the Cape interested in or getting committed to Mr. Obama? So I call this guy down Cape and have a chat. He tells me he's got 300 people on his email list to contact when things need doing for Mr. Obama. I ask him about the fact that I couldn't find him through the Obama site. Why not? Well, "we're all set up here, in touch with the Boston office, they steer people to us when they register at the campaign site. We've been to NH, door to door, carrying signs, etc." Yes. But why can't I find you through the campaign site? "Well, they're sending new contacts to us when they register." Well, I registered at the site 2 months ago, have you heard from me? "Well, what's your name?" I give him my name and there's no evidence that he's ever heard from he, he says. So I say "seems to me you'd want to make the Cape Obama people accessible to newcomers. I suggest you get the Cape group affiliated through the campaign site you people can find you." So it's two days later. I check the Obama campaign site, note that Mr. Obama has added 80,000 NEW donors since the end of the PA primary. And that the Cape and Islands for Obama group is STILL NOT affiliated with the site. Hmmm. Now I think I understand even better why MA voted for Clinton and is moving to the right.

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