Recently, we have been told the economy is becoming a problem for Americans. I realize that the foreclosures in the last year; the general decline in real wages in the Bush Administration years; and the devaluing of the dollar for the last 7 years might also have been keys, but as we found out in New Hampshire, voters care about the economy. It dates back to notions that voters vote with their pocketbook: a tried and true basic understanding of politics.
While it is clear that all candidates have stances on the issues, I am going to suggest something new for a campaign. Historically, candidates run on the "vote for me and THEN I will solve your problems." Yet, it seems as though they either don't get to it or things change and they don't get it done. They often use the economic problems of today to get elected for tomorrow, leaving themselves blameless for the economic plight of the moment.
What makes this strange is that Presidents Reagan, Clinton and Bush all went on the campaign trail to sell their economic plans and force Congress to pass them. If one steps back from the process, one might think that running a national campaign might also be a good time and place to actually push a bill through Congress at the same time one is running for the White House.
I realize there is risk to not getting it passed, but isn't there something to the idea of "I care about changing the voice of American politics and the American people so much that I am willing to take chances and know the American people will appriciate the effort"?
The American people want not simply a campaign, but would love for a candidate to take that extra step. Barack has done it for a long time and has spoken the truth: We are tired of hearing what we can't do. We want to hear what we can do and see what we can do. Take the chance, have faith in us, the American people.
Tomorrow: The real economic problem that no one is talking about.
After Romney's victory last night in Michigan it is clear......the Republican Party is in trouble. With no clear leader and the demographics changing from state to state. There is no one candidate that they can rally around. McCain is leading in National polls,Huckabey sewing up the Evangelical vote,Romney painting himself ath "Favorite Son" and Gulliani hoping to pick up the pieces in Florida after the train wreck that will be Feb. 5th. Where does that leave us?
In a unique position of opportunity! With a leaderless and frustrated pool of voters Barack Obama's message of Hope and Uniting as one people the Republican vote is ripe for the picking!
We should begin reaching out to the Republicans and courting them for thier support. With influx of Obama Republicans , Independant Voters and First time voters that will give us the edge to carry Super Tuesday and carry the momentum into the Texas Primary. Let us make this the definitive moment. Let's unite Republicans,Independants and Democrats alike.
YES WE CAN !
In September 2007, my wife and I made a decision to come to Denton, Texas to live close to our family. My parents live here in Denton for the last two years, and my sister has lived in Corinth for the last decade or so.
Now that we are here, we are working on laying down roots. I am making contacts with the local Democratic party and may be on my way to being a precinct captain here in Denton for the party.
Just recently, I made my choice for Barack Obama as President. I have liked him since seeing his address in 2004, where I called my parents immediately after and said, "This will be the first black President in America." I was that sure after hearing his message then, but I wanted to make sure it was the same Barack now. And it is.
I signed up for this campaign, but was saddened to see that Denton for Obama is essentially dormant. So I was going to stay in Denton for Obama and start another Denton group. However, after having a discussion with Amy from the Obama campaign via email, she made the decision to make me a co-administrator of the group to try to wake up Denton for Obama.
What does that mean? Well, it means I would like to try to wake up the group that is here, while also working to invite new people. I have had one new recruit so far in Bob from Denton and I hope to build up more. Apparently Bob knows some of you so I hope a few of you will come back and join in.
I would also like to eventually set up meet ups and events here, as well as start building a ground campaign and a donor base for the Obama campaign that includes things like debate and election parties, get out the vote groups, poll workers and watchers, sign distributors, voter registration efforts and so on. But we need to start with building an active base.
While I have not worked a political campaign before, I have done work as a Supervising Judge at polling places in Kansas, and helped organize nationwide research on political communication and political campaigns. So I hope that with your help and our teamwork, we can build a ground game for Barack in Denton that will turn out strong in the primaries in Texas and in the general election in November.
The Texas primary isn't that far away. It is time for Denton for Obama to WAKE UP!
Join Barack Obama supporters honor and rejoice the memory of Dr King. We are meeting at the corner of Taft and Allen Parkway Sat Jan 19th at 12:00 Noon, parade starts at 1:00 PM. Let's stand together showing our support to the ideals Dr King stood for. Let's keep the dream alive!
Maria Isabel 713.542.0721
After our Meeting tonight (which was great by the way) we went to Chili's to discuss our strategies and up coming events. During our discussion we drew the attention of many of the Wait staff and customers. We even got the attention of the Manager who was a die hard republican. After a few minutes talking we convinced him to let us leave some voter registration cards for his emloyees to fill out.
I mention the above story because I think it illustrates a point. If we had been discussing Hillary Clinton in a restaraunt in Amarillo,Texas, I'm pretty sure that Manager would not have been nearly as friendly and much less cooperative. Why? Simple. The Obama campaign does not have to engage in "who hates whom" , "He said that" or "She did that" type of blamemongering.
This campaign is all about " What can WE do for America!" That is what makes this campaign great. That's what makes America great. That's what makes even die hard Republicans engage us with a smile.
Now that's a different kind of campaign!
John Edwards is a menace to the Democratic party and a detriment to the progressive cause. He has managed to pull off what tens of millions of campaign and public relations dollars have failed to accomplish in two decades.
Edwards has made two of the most unlikable and callous political figures in America look sympathetic.
He began his handiwork in the 2004 Vice Presidential debate. On the heels of John Kerry finally finding his voice and clearly besting Bush, Edwards took it all way in a single paragraph. Never before had anyone had such a perfect opportunity to drive a political stake into the heart of the Darth Vadar of crony capitalism.
Armed with tomes of material to expose the first Bush II administration as the most corrupt in the history of this nation, Edwards came across like an ill-mannered, carping personal injury lawyer.
Worse, he made the Democratic ticket look more hypercritical than the Republicans by covertly attacking not the war profiteering of the Vice President, but instead the sexual orientation of Cheney’s daughter. Remarkably, Edwards accomplished the impossible - making perhaps the most unsympathetic politician in modern history look sympathetic. The campaign went south at that precise moment.
A little more than three years later Edwards managed to do for Hillary Clinton what he had already done for Cheney.
At the January 5 New Hampshire primary debate Barack Obama was calmly and methodically addressing Senator Clinton’s ill-tempered swipes at himself. Without provocation Edwards interjected, carefully making it appear he was coming to Senator Obama’s defense. In his inimitable style (betrayal in the guise of help) he launched on Senator Clinton, immediately resurrecting the at-that-point-dead story line of "two guys ganging up" on the damsel in distress.
My heartfelt advice to the Obama campaign team is to spend as much effort in distinguishing Barack from Edwards as you do in distinguishing Barack from Clinton. Do not ever again permit another public perception that Edwards is allied in any fashion with Barack. Edwards is trouble with a capital "T."
I was President of the North Texas Young Democrats in the 80's, back when Texas was a fiercely democratic state. What happened? Ronald Reagan. His strong personal appeal and ablility to transcend party lines won over many Democrats and Texas within just a few years became a Republican state.
Guess what? Now its our turn.!
Now it's the Democrats that have a candidate that has great personal appeal. We have the candidate that is a compelling and dynamic orator. Barack Obama is the candidate that transcends party lines. It's our candidate tha inspires 1000's of first time voters to get involved. Now the table has turned! Lets show the politicians what change really is. Lets enter a new term to the political lexicon.........OBAMA REPUBLICANS !
There are less than 52 Days and 6 hrs. to the Harris County Primaries, this is an opportunity to put Senator Obama on the map for a New future in America!
We are open for business at the Obama Headquarters in Houston. If you can tend the signing in table, make phone calls, bake cookies or anything in between, if you would like to assist and contribute to this terrific effort, call or send me an email: m@isabelops.com or maria@houstonforobama.com Phone: 713.542.0721
Include when (Day/Time) you can work for Obama at the Houston Headquarters.
We are scheduling volunteers today!!!!
Feel the Urgency!
Let's Bam Texas!!!!
In the event any of your local papers ran Thomas' column "Obama's nice words won't defeat enemy" I'm posting the letter I sent to our local paper that ran it.
Obama: "Hope is the bedrock of this country."
Please stop running Cal Thomas columns. The man’s material is reactionary. His piece printed in the January 11 Times also demonstrates he is igorant and intolerant. He attempts to write Barack Obama off as part of the "black leadership"that includes Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Barack Obama has been critized by both Sharpton and Jackson as not toeing the line with their positions. And not without cause. Barack Obama is his own man. In his life and in his political career he has transcended race. Regardless, based solely on the color of his skin, and ignoring the fact his mother was white as was his grandfather who helped raise him, Thomas positions him as just another black activist being "lionized" by the "liberal media." Thomas also demonstrates his propaganda skills, or perhaps utter ignorance, by mischaracterizing Mr. Obama’s entire foreign policy position as "talking to Islamic leaders rather than defeating radical Islam." First, any candidate who is afraid to speak to world leaders - of whatever poltical or religious stripe - doesn’t qualify for dog catcher, let alone President. Second, several months ago when Mr. Obama was the first to declare he would cross the Pakistan border to take out Bin Laden if he knew his location with certainty he was lambasted by all - including the "liberal media" - for alleged naivete. Fast forward to today, I challenge Thomas to find me one candidate - Democrat or Republican - who hasn’t mimicked Mr. Obama’s position. But Thomas wants to continue the vague goal of "defeating radical Islam." How are we going to accomplish that, by hauling out religious censors to determine what beliefs are acceptable, mainstream, extreme, or radical? Or are we going to do what most American citizens thought George Bush was going to do when he said he was going to hunt down the terrorists who had attacked our country? If the latter is naive, then Thomas is calling the entire country naive, not just Mr. Obama. Perhaps the fact that Mr. Obama is at the top of the polls indicates that average Americans are not as stupid as Thomas thinks they are nor as intolerant as Thomas himself is. Certainly those supporting Mr. Obama are not as cynical nor as apathetic as Thomas. Compare Thomas’ "No one changes Washington" line to Mr. Obama’s Iowa victory speech, "Hope is the bedrock of our nation."
Mark Rathbun
Ingleside Texas
I THINK BARCK OBAMA IS GOING TO BE TH BEST PRASTENT BECUSE HE CAN GET THE JOB DONE RIGHT .
A few years ago, while going to school, I found myself running short of money so I took a side job at Manpower doing odd temporary jobs. It turned out that the poll workers didn't turn out very heavily at our area precincts and I was asked to be a poll worker at a local election site for pay. I really enjoyed the experience enough that I got connected with the county clerk's office and worked two more elections as a supervising judge.
From that experience, I can tell you a few things:
1) Paper ballots are still the best way to vote. They ensure that your vote can be verified. The system we used was a bubble system with pen similar to how someone would take a test in school on a scantron form, only in ballot form. It was then read on an optical scanner and the ballots were locked inside the machine until the end of the night. After the votes were counted by the machine, the county clerk's office would randomly audit precincts to ensure the accuracy of the scanners in general and they were tested extensively and publicly before the elections. This ensured accuracy.
2) Optical scanners are nice but they can make mistakes, or crash. A back up is needed. In one polling place I worked, the computer crashed because of a software problem. IF all the votes had been done without a paper back up, they would have been lost. A paper back up ensured that we were able to reboot and fix the system, keep taking voters all day without stopping, and then feed them all and verify the feeds and counts afterwards for accuracy. Paper back ups are vital.
3) Public testing before election day of scanners and post election auditing of results are a MUST. They are vital both to ensuring the confidence of the public which is important to the very principles of Democracy, and to ensuring accuracy. Full audits would always be nice, but at least random audit checks of at least 10% of precincts before certification should be a requirement to ensure accuracy. Any discrepancies that are not easily explained as "human error" ought to require a full audit before certification.
All of these can be done at the local level, county by county, but ought to be mandated nationally for those who use optical or computerized voting systems of some kind.
This afternoon, I logged in and found this blog by lojove: Petition for Accurate Vote Documentation. After reading this, I strongly recommend that people sign the petition to ensure accurate paper ballots at least as a back up. Now is the time. Waiting until November is too late.
I ask my friends and my fellow group members, please sign this to ensure the stability of our democracy and the accuracy of our votes.
The Obama Phenomena: Coastal Bend Connection
by Mark Rathbun
Until the eve of the Iowa caucuses, Hilary Clinton - and many political commentators - had positioned herself as the "inevitable" winner for the Democratic presidential nomination. After Senator Barack Obama beat Ms. Clinton in Iowa by nine percentage points and came in a close second in the New Hampshire primary the question of who will be the Democratic presidential nominee is anything but inevitable. The biggest surprise of the first two primaries are the record number of voters turning out to participate. Many have attributed that to the excitement Mr. Obama has brought to the race.
Political pundits of all stripes seem mesmerized by what former Clinton advisor Dick Morris called a "new poltical phenomenon to be reckoned with." Morris, a democratic turncoat who now serves as color commentator for the likes of right-wingers Bill O’Reilley and Sean Hannity said on national radio that Senator Obama’s post Iowa caucus win speech gave him goose bumps. He said that he hadn’t heard such an inspiring speech "since the Kennedy era" (JFK/RFK).
District 32 State Representative Juan Garcia was at the speech with his wife Denise. He described the atmosphere as "electric, it just felt historic."
Mr. Garcia's ties to Mr. Obama go back eighteen years. Both Juan and Denise Garcia attended Harvard law school with Mr. Obama and his wife Michelle in the early nineties. Juan and Barack played intramural basketball together and have been personal friends since.
However, Mr. Garcia said his support of Mr. Obama goes beyond friendship. He told the Herald he supports Mr. Obama "because he represents a chance to close a chapter in our country's history where race colored every issue. More than anything in a country increasingly divided between red states and blue states, from the beginning he spoke purple. In a tiny way it is what we tried to do in our race too in a very conservative district. He believes Mr. Obama is unique among candidates because he is so connected to the average American citizen, and likes the idea of having a president "who still has kids in school, who still remembers what it is like to figure out how you're going to pay for your kids' college or cover a morgtage."
A former naval pilot himself Mr. Garcia acknowledged that the eventual Republican nominee will attempt to exploit Mr. Obama's lack of military history. Not mentioning the fact that the man Mr. Obama would replace as president was a draft-dodger, Garcia said "I think he's got to make a very conscientious decision on his running mate." He has confidence Mr. Obama will make a wise choice. He has heard insiders talking about possibly choosing long-time chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, former Georgia Senator Sam Nunn.
Some local supporters aren't worried about Mr. Obama's lack of military credentials. One of them is Gerald Garrett, a retired 20-year Navy veteran who resides in Port Aransas. Mr. Garret said he likes "Obama because he will not play games with our military and will be a straight shooter." He believes that if Obama had been president when former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld told soldiers in Iraq that 'you fight a war with what you are given' in response to their complaints about riding vehicles with no armour plating, "Obama would have fired him on the spot." Mr. Garrett added, "Obama is strong, a man of integrity and true grit. I can't wait to see him in action front and center in the White House."
I would like to hear from Obama supporter exactly why they feel their vote for him in the 2008 presidential election is important to them?
How do you feel his win would effect your life? Your thoughts on America's history?
In the last few months, I have moved from Lawrence, Kansas (Go Hawks!) to Denton, Texas. I admit, it has taken some time for my wife and I to get the feel of the place and get used to taking allergy medication almost daily. Having worked with some very strong political communication research groups at the University of Kansas, I miss the political discussion and involvement in my first few months here.
I have found the Denton for Obama group but they seem rather dormant. Before I attempt to start a Denton for Obama 2 group and try to find people in the area to join up for the Texas primary and the general election, I am in search of other people in the area.
I plan to have some relatively medium sized events at our home at some point to watch debates, to organize efforts, and other possibilities. I have experience organizing groups and putting together efforts of people that might be useful. I also have an extensive political communication background for local Democratic and Obama efforts (and maybe larger group efforts if something comes up in the state or somewhere in the nation).
However, my first step is to find the Obama groups in and near Denton (Dallas is really not Denton area since it is more than 30-40 minutes away). If you have any suggestions, please comment here or drop me a line. I am also looking to expand my network of friends, feel free to contact me.
I remember about a year ago sitting down with some of my "political geek" friends and talking about the election in terms of electoral math. We have often played games like President Forever and other political simulations whereby electoral math mattered. This has come from the focus on electoral math specifically in the Rove strategy for President Bush and thus, we focused on it.
At the time, Hillary was THE DNC candidate to think about and we said "she may be able to pull the South after living their for 20 years and being thought of as one of the South's own" potentially. The recent rising of Huckabee led some to question, "can she really take the South"? But after Iowa and the bounce we are seeing in New Hampshire, my friends posed the question to me again this week. I wasn't sure how I would answer them until today's CNN political ticker.
An undisclosed political strategic for the Republican Party said, "I think Barack Obama is a potential Robert Kennedy or Reagan figure." And I thought about it for a moment. There are certain political figures that focus on electoral math. They are the types that cannot captivate a nation because they need to focus really on electoral strategy in picking their issues. There is also a second kind of candidate. A candidate that transcends traditional boundaries because they are so captivating and inspiring with the "right message at the right time." I think that applies to Barack.
Similar to both Robert Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, America is at a point of spiritual low. I don't mean spiritual in terms of religion, but rather a faith in the American Dream that comes with down times. A war being potentially lost that maybe never should have been fought leaving us with guilt for doing it in the first place. A global warming problem that we may well be able to lay on the feet of the American people for living without thinking of the consequences of our actions. An economy that is teetering on recession and potentially major economic collapse if things aren't fixed. And a budget that is breaking the bank because we didn't deal with it.
Each of these has something in common: Shortsighted actions without thought to consequences and our responsibilities. And with that comes guilt.
How does a society deal with that guilt? They can hide from it and ignore it. They can continue with it. Or they can acknowledge it, and seek to fix it with actions that require us to think of the consequences by putting responsibility squarely upon our own shoulders. I think Barack is doing exactly the latter.
The message of the Obama campaign is simply this: We can do better by taking responsibility for our lives and our actions. We can have health care if we take the responsibility to make it possible. We can fix our economy if we take responsibility for our actions to make it. We can fix our environment if we take responsibility and start acting responsible.
It is not a new message but a new messenger. The Kennedy's of the 60's spoke of our duty and responsibility. Reagan spoke of our ability to create change and our responsibility to the world and ourselves. And Barack continues the message.
It is a message that transcends parties and electoral math. It is a restorative and transformative message at the same time. And this is the right time to be reminded of it. It is why Barack is the right man at the right time.
You wouldn't be here if you didn't think Barack Obama was a very serious and strong choice to be the next President of the United States.
I believe that Barack inspires us to be better, to listen to our better angels and to strive for a better world for all of us. He moves us to find solutions and make choices that will make our world and our lives a better place. And one step in that process is electing Barack President of the United States of America.
That takes money and commitment from all of us to make it possible. I know the economy is showing signs of slowing. I know money gets tight, especially after Christmas with credit card debt. I know we need to save and pay bills. But we have to ask, what is a great President worth to us? Isn't a stronger dollar, a better health care system, better foreign policy that saves dollars and lives, a balanced budget, and inspiration for us worth something? We need to invest in our future just like we do a 401k.
So I ask you to make a choice with me. Starting this month, January 2008, through my network, donate $25 a month to Barack's campaign. It isn't that much. For you smokers, that is 5 packs of cigarettes. It is 5 trips to McDonalds you won't take and that your waistline will thank you for. It is less than 2 cases of beer that your liver will thank you for.
IF we all give, $25 a month, it can add up to quite a lot. Feel free to donate more, but $25 a month is all I ask.
