Organizing for America | University Of Montana For Obama

University Of Montana For Obama

University of Montana students that support Barack Obama.

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Will you help President Obama with the economy?

By Nathan Kosted-OFA Montana Field Director - Jan 30th, 2009 at 6:06 pm EST

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In case you hadn't seen this yet I thought I'd pass it on, please consider hosting a party or talking with a friend you can work with to find a venue to hold a party. We need many minds to figure out the stimulus plan and economic recovery and your voice needs to be heard.

Sign up to host an Economic Recovery House Meeting the weekend of Friday, February 6th.

Wouldn't it be great if we could get a party in every major town in Montana (and the smaller ones too). I have sent this e-mail to people in Bozeman, Billings, Great Falls, Missoula, and Helena, please forward this to people all over the state who may be interested, this movement is about us, the people and let’s keep it going to change Montana and America.

Please don’t let the scare tactics of Rush Limbaugh continue to run this country, we need bipartisanship to solve the economic crisis and rebuild our country. We cannot stand by as every house republican votes against the stimulus plan in lockstep, this is not a political issue, it is an issue that needs open discussion from all viewpoints and not just the Republican caucus (or Democratic one for that matter) to decide. President Obama ran his campaign on openness, bipartisanship and real solutions for America; let’s help him on the road to recovery.

Thank you and may your personal finances outlast this recession,

Nathan Kosted

P.S. Here's he link again:

Sign up to host an Economic Recovery House Meeting the weekend of Friday, February 6th.

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DE-FLATION (please read)

By Randy - Dec 24th, 2008 at 10:35 pm EST

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De-flation is the answer to our countries problems. It's just my opion but we spent the last twenty years just inflateing our economy like a spare tire. We put so much air in that tire that it finally blew up. Geoge Bush and his fellow million air friends were so busy making money with there war and there ponzi schemes on wall street thet they took there eye off the air pressure gauge that that bubble had to burst and alot of people got hurt and lost all there money. Well us poor folks down here at the bottom don't really care because we don't have nothing to lose. Were already one push from the street. The other day I heard a news caster say something funny she said what good would green collar jobs and other manu. jobs do for us we on wall street don't know how to do that kind of work. Well I wish someone would tell these news casters that it's not the white collars i'm worried about it's us blue collar people the people at the bottom. When Barack Obama was talking about starting at the bottom he wasn't talking about the people that work on wall street at least I hope he wasn't. If you've been working on wall street for the last few years you should have enough money put it away to make it through this recession.

I was talking to my son today Christmas Eve I didn't have a present for him and he didn't have the money to get me one neither, but thats alright he's older now and understands. We sat here and talked, we talked about how hard things are now because 25 years ago I was 25 years old and I had know problem takeing care of my family. It seemed like there was a job on every corner and prices were LOW enough that we could afford a christmas tree and presents. Our wages were compatible with the prices of food and clothes. I rent a small apartment now and 25 years ago with the money i am paying for this apartment I rented a three bedroom house on a coner lot in a very nice suburb of Detroit. And the answer is simply inflation prices keep going up while our wages and jobs either get cut or get sent to mexico or india. I believe if you take away a mans wages or his only means to take care of his family then you must help that individual. And the only way thats going to happen is if we de-flate that bubble the prices of food and mortgages must go down there is no way a man can pay his house payment working at Burger King. If you notice the only ones crying are the rich but at the end of the day they will still eating steak. Simple if want to lower the wages lower the prices lower every thing all the way around. Banks have to change the way they do loans go back to the way it was before Bush got his big idea about giving everyone a house well thats fine but not everyone can afford a house. You have to make people save there money so that that they can put a down payment on the house. I just heard a commercial on t.v. it was a furniture store saying no payments for 18 months what people don't understand is that it is all a scam they don't want you to pay off that loan they just want to use it for a write OFF. Come on people get smart pay cash or don't but it.

MERRY CHRISTMAS RANDY!!!

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President Obama Please!!!

By Randy - Dec 19th, 2008 at 1:28 pm EST

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Please raise all taxes and tariffs on all imported cars, planes, and trains everything this is the only thing that will give our Country a chance. Think about it the Japanees live on an island and there running our auto industry (if it smells like fish it must be fish). Other countries treat there people like s----- and we reward then by buying there products. Just the taxes that we would get would get us out of this recession. I BELIEVE that other countries would pay and pay to be able to sell over here but we better do something before we lose all of our buying power.

Merry Christmas

Randy

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Check out change.gov!

By Montana for Obama - Nov 26th, 2008 at 12:29 pm EST

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I've been on change.gov lately, and am very impressed with it for
several reasons:

1. First, all Americans are being invited to make suggestions to
Barack's policy plans in all the various categories. He wants to
hear from us! That's an invitation to continue to be involved in
helping to steer our country forward;

2. There is also a survey that most of us have been invited to fill
out which asks us to identify the policy areas of greatest interest
to each individual person and whether we would be willing to invite
others in our communities to participate in by both making
suggestions and also by being willing to contact our elected
representatives to make our voices heard.

It's refreshing to see how he is using a grassroots approach to
organize and focus our creativity and energy in the service of a
better country. It's just what we were expecting and hoping to d!o!

Be sure to check this site out and to continue to help Barack in
governing our great country. We accomplished step one...and now on
to step two!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I'm in Beaverton, Oregon today to be
with our kids and grandkids at this special time.

Frank

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OBAMA FOR MONTANA

By WEBMASTER - Nov 24th, 2008 at 9:49 pm EST

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Absarokee * Alberton * Alder * Alzada * Amsterdam * Anaconda * Angela * Antelope * Arlee * Ashland * Augusta * Avon * Babb * Bainville * Baker * Ballantine * Basin * Bearcreek * Belfry * Belgrade * Belt * Biddle * Big Arm * Big Fork * Big Sandy * Big Sky * Big Timber * Bighorn * Billings * Birney * Black Eagle * Bloomfield * Bonner * Boulder * Box Elder * Boyd * Boyes * Bozeman * Brady * Bridger * Broadus * Broadview * Brockton * Brockway * Browning * Brusett * Buffalo * Busby * Butte * Bynum * Cameron * Canyon * Capitol * Cardwell * Carter * Cascade * Charlo * Chester * Chinook * Choteau * Circle * City * Clancy * Clinton * Clyde Park * Coffee * Cohagen * Colstrip * Columbia Falls * Columbus * Condon * Conner * Conrad * Cooke * Coram * Corvallis * Crane * Creek * Creston * Crow Agency * Culbertson * Custer * Cut Bank * Dagmar * Darby * Dayton * De Borgia * Decker * Deer Lodge * Dell * Denton * Dillon * Divide * Dixon * Dodson * Drummond * Dupuyer * Dutton * East Glacier Park * East Helena * Edgar * Ekalaka * Elliston * Elmo * Emigrant * Ennis * Essex * Ethridge * Eureka * Evergreen * Fairfield * Fairview * Fallon * Fishtail * Flaxville * Florence * Floweree * Forestgrove * Forsyth * Fort Benton * Fort Harrison * Fort Peck * Fort Shaw * Fort Smith * Fortine * Frazer * Frenchtown * Froid * Fromberg * Galata * Gallatin * Gardiner * Garneill * Garrison * Garryowen * Gateway * Geraldine * Geyser * Gildford * Glasgow * Glen * Glendive * Glentana * Gold Creek * Grantsdale * Grass Range * Great Falls * Greenough * Greycliff * Hall * Hamilton * Hammond * Hardin * Harlem * Harlowton * Harrison * Haugan * Havre * Hays * Heart Butte * Helena * Helmville * Heron * Highwood * Hilger * Hingham * Hinsdale * Hobson * Hogeland * Horse * Hot Springs * Hungry * Huntley * Huson

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WEBMASTER LANGUAGE TRANSLATIONS

By WEBMASTER - Nov 18th, 2008 at 2:31 am EST

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ARABIC * BULGARIAN * CATALAN * CHINESE 1 * CHINESE 2 * CROATIAN * CZECH * DANISH * DUTCH * FILIPINO * FINNISH * FRENCH * GERMAN * GREEK * HEBREW * HINDI * INDONESIAN * ITALIAN * JAPANESE * KOREAN * LATVIAN * LITHUANIAN * NORWEGIAN * POLISH * PORTUGUESE * ROMANIAN * RUSSIAN * SERBIAN * SLOVAK * SLOVENIAN * SPANISH * SWEDISH * UKRANIAN * VIETNAMESE

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BARACKOBAMA.COM HISTORIC RESEARCH

By WEBMASTER - Nov 16th, 2008 at 2:51 pm EST

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Obama Historic Research
by David Apperson

GENERATION OBAMANATION

BARACK OBAMA - ROAD TO THE WHITE HOUSE

DAILY BIBLE READING

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Express our strong support for a bigger, and bolder Peace Corps

By wt - Nov 6th, 2008 at 10:55 am EST

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I have seen many emails from MY Barrack Obama group members over the last 2 days not wishing to let the movement slip away now that the election has been won. The National Peace Corps Association through its MorePeaceCorps Campaign is sending a petition to President-elect Obmam. Take a look and add your name to the list…. http://www.petitiononline.com/morepc/petition.html

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"My Videos"

By Bigskygirl - Nov 5th, 2008 at 8:43 pm EST

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I wanted to share my Videos, of my travels with Obama. It will be fun for me, to have them, to look back to, when the memory of this amazing, exciting, election, may try to fade. It will be awhile!

Enjoy. Leave comments, if you'd like, and rate them too!

http://www.youtube.com/my_videos

BSG ;-)

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Last Minute Song To Fire You Up!!!

By Dr. Barbara Palmer - Nov 3rd, 2008 at 2:06 pm EST

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By the end of this, you'll be singing: Elect Obama! Go for it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83lum1XcOug

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Really Important! Missoula Needs Your Help!

By Montana for Obama - Oct 30th, 2008 at 12:15 pm EDT

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We are now in the final few days, and Barack is essentially tied here in Montana. We can win if we get folks to vote and if we sign up new voters. I'm going to be out knocking on doors and there are lots of other things that need doing here in Missoula. WE NEED YOU!

Laura Warren (laura.jo.warren@gmail.com) is doing a great job of helping to organize our effort in these final days and she tells me that there is a need for volunteers to help Barack NOW. Please contact her for a list of opportunities in Missoula. Here telephone number is 274-2647.

Remember, we got er done for Jon Tester and we can do it again if we stay focused and work hard. So, join me, Laura and other Missoulians to deliver the vote for Barack! Don't put it off. Contact her right now, OK?

Thanks,

Frank

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FOLLOW UP to the Nationwide Campus Day of Action

By wt - Oct 24th, 2008 at 4:30 pm EDT

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There's still one week left to collect signatures following up on the Nationwide Campus Day of Action which was held on October 14! I am writing to ask all members of groups that this blog is being sent to request members of your group, your friends, and your family to sign and return this lette to the More Peace Corps campaign (downloaded by clicking below:)

( http://www.morepeacecorps.org/images/uploads/kletter.pdf

Letters are starting to pour into the More Peace Corps campaign headquarters which will be delivered in bulk to the TRANSITION Team of the next President (hint initials BO) and leaders of the respective House and Senate committees that deal with foreign affairs and related topics.

Your input for changing American foregin policy is important, so take a few minutes to review the More Peace Corps website ( http://www.morepeacecorps.org ) and lend a helping hand.

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My American Prayer

By Montana for Obama - Oct 23rd, 2008 at 7:19 pm EDT

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Like many of you, I've been watching, working and waiting for the day when the answer to our prayers for our country might be lifted up to the next level. This is the evening of the 12th day until America responds to Barack's message to come together for the common good through the mechanism of the voting booth. Both Barack and Michelle have been telling us that we have to run through the tape at the finish line, doing all we can, giving our time and energy to help him win this election as our president.

Here in Montana it may not be easy, but I think it can be done. We elected Jon Tester didn't we? I think we have a good chance to pull this off, but you and I have to really be active in these remaining days. Most importantly, we have to sign up people to vote and let people know why we are supporting Barack Obama, and asking people to support him too.

We each have our own ways of making a difference. One of the most important ways, is by working with the nearest Obama campaign office to where you live. Barackobama.com lists a number of things you can do. And there are lots of ways of helping on a very personal level. I wear my Obama t-shirt when I go out to do things. People often see it, smile and even say they like it. I always ask them if they are a Barack supporter and if they are signed up to vote. If they aren't, I tell then how to get signed up and offer to take them to register. And today, I was sitting in the dentist's office waiting to get some work done and I asked the receptionist if she was excited about the upcoming election. (In other words, always provide an opening for dialogue.) She said yes, but she hadn't registered to vote yet and asked some questions about how to to it. So, I told her, and before we were done, she got permission from her boss to go register tomorrow at a particular time! I suggested she take a friend who might also need to register as well. She said, I will do it! Anyway, it's just an illustration of how easy it is to be active no matter where you are!

And here is an inspirational song about this time…a time to act on our hopes in the voting booth. A time to stand up. We can do this. Yes we can!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVi4rUzf-0Q In peace and love, Frank

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Barack's Legislative Record...talking points for you

By Montana for Obama - Oct 21st, 2008 at 8:09 pm EDT

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I thought you might find this a useful article as a talking point as you register people to vote and to vote early.FrankRobert J. ElisbergPosted October 21, 2008 | 11:21 AM (EST) The Little Known Truth of Barack Obama's Legislative Record As we all know, Barack Obama hasn't passed any major legislation. He's inexperienced, never done anything. We know this. We know it because John McCain and Sarah Palin, bless her accomplished heart, have said so. And so, we know.Far be it from me not to take their word for it, but I decided to check things out. And shockingly... it doesn't turn out to be true! Really. So, take a guess on how much legislation Barack Obama has sponsored in the United States Senate, which has become law.C'mon, take a guess. Nope, sorry, take another guess.Barack Obama has authored or co-sponsored 579 bills in Washington. And as a state senator, he sponsored 820 laws for Illinois.That's 1,399 bills in all. Not bad for someone who apparently had done zero -- okay, according to his opponents.I know, I know. Those 820 are just for a "state," so they don't really count. Except... well, wait, a "state" is what Sarah Palin is governor of. (At least for 21 months.) So if sponsoring pesky "state" laws doesn't count, what in the world does she have on her resume then? Other than ethics violations.Besides, y'know, Illinois is an awfully big state. If someone passes a law there, it does affect the lives of 13 million people.And, yipes, it turns out that there is a wide-ranging record of bipartisan laws he's co-sponsored, as well, working across the aisles with Republicans. Go figure, who knew?!Okay, first, let's look at Barack Obama's 579 Senate bills. (To be fair, some of these are pending -- the U.S. Senate works slooowly...) But here are just a few highlights of the ones that have passed.With Russ Feingold, Sen. Obama helped put together and co-sponsor the Obama/Feingold 2007 Ethics Reform Law, which curbed lobbying abuses. The bill was perhaps the most sweeping ethics reform since Watergate.Mr. Obama joined forces with Republican Richard Lugar as original co-sponsors of the landmark bill that improved the government's ability to detect and destroy Weapons of Mass Destruction, keeping them from terrorists. Working across the aisle again, this time, with Republican Chuck Hagel, Barack Obama authored a provision to secure vulnerable nuclear weapons and nuclear material around the world, protecting them from terrorists. Sen. Obama also wrote the legislation for his Homes for Heroes Act and SAVE Act, that increased services for homeless veterans. Shockingly, it turns out that John McCain is also wrong about Barack Obama not being willing to go against his party. You see, Mr. Obama sponsored an amendment that required lobbyist disclosures. And as the NY Times wrote, "The disclosure idea's lead sponsor, Senator Barack Obama... 'has not been the most popular person in our caucus in the last couple of weeks,' said a Democratic aide involved in deliberations over the bill." Gee. Apparently, it seems, Barack Obama has been willing to buck his own party. And work across the aisle. And sponsor and pass important legislation. And there are 574 other bills -- some large, some smaller, but all can be found on State Surge.Meanwhile, his record as a senator in Illinois has an impressive 820 bills that impacted the lives of countless millions, as well. By the way, for fact buffs: the 13th District he represented was alone comprised of 653,457 people -- the same as the entire state of Alaska.In Illinois, with its 13 million citizens, Barack Obama co-sponsored bipartisan campaign finance reforms, that the Chicago Tribune referred to as "the most sweeping good-government legislation in decades." He co-sponsored a bipartisan, groundbreaking ethics reform law and was the main sponsor of the Health Care Justice Act. As co-chairman of a bipartisan committee, Sen. Obama also helped pass predatory mortgage lending reforms, which prevent foreclosures. (Hmm, that was forward thinking. Ya think? But, tosh, it was just a "state" law...) He sponsored laws that raised tax credits for low-income workers, that improved childcare subsidies for the KidCare Program (bringing health care to 70,000 uncovered children), and that reformed welfare. And he co-sponsored the Equal Pay Act for women.Further, Mr. Obama sponsored bipartisan legislation that made Illinois the first state to require videotaping of capital cases, and bipartisan laws for monitoring racial profiling. This list goes endlessly on. A total of 820 laws in all. FactCheck.org has detailed descriptions. None of this is to place a value judgment on the 579 federal laws Barack Obama authored or co-sponsored. Nor is it to equate state laws with federal. It's merely to address the false impression that the McCain campaign has tried to put forth that Sen. Obama has sponsored no important legislation in the U.S. Senate, never been able to work across the aisle and largely sat in the Illinois Senate voting "present."Put whatever value you wish on the 1,399 laws Barack Obama has helped sponsor. Decide for yourself what is a "major" law. From ethics reform to safeguarding WMD to child health care to home foreclosure protection, and much more, you have a great many laws to choose from.It's up to you to decide if passing laws in a state of 13 million people shows a person's interests, initiative and abilities and helps set precedents. In truth, Illinois state laws do not cover a nation - they just cover 4% of the nation's population. In the end, there is only one simple point to this. Honesty. That anyone who suggests that Barack Obama has been ineffectual in his 12-year career as an elected representative, sponsoring no important legislation, unable to work across party lines, unwilling to go against his party, and avoiding taking stances by voting "present" -- then that person doesn't know what they are talking about. Or is lying

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Win the Battle for Montana's Editorial Pages with this Amazing "Live" List of Newspapers

By Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News - Oct 19th, 2008 at 6:00 pm EDT

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There's still time to win Montana's Editorial Pages: Please use this list at usnpl.com; OpEdNews Compendium of Major Endorsements Thus Far

Taken from this "LIVE URL":

http://www.usnpl.com/mtnews.phphttp://www.usnpl.com/mtnews.php

Newspapers
Click ( A ) for Newspaper address
Click ( C ) for County summary

Belgrade Belgrade News (A) (C)
Bigfork Bigfork Eagle (A) (C)
Billings Billings Gazette (A) (C)
Billings The Billings Outpost (A) (C)
Bozeman Bozeman Daily Chronicle (A) (C)
Browning Glacier Reporter (A) (C)
Butte The Montana Standard (A) (C)
Chester Liberty County Times (A) (C)
Choteau Choteau Acantha (A) (C)
Columbia Falls Hungry Horse News (A) (C)
Conrad The Independent-Observer (A) (C)
Cut Bank Cut Bank Pioneer Press (A) (C)
Eureka Tobacco Valley News (A) (C)
Glasgow Glasgow Courier (A) (C)
Great Falls Great Falls Tribune (A) (C)
Hamilton Ravalli Republic (A) (C)
Havre Havre Daily News (A) (C)
Helena Helena Independent (A) (C)
Helena Queen City News (A) (C)
Huson Clark Fork Chronicle (A) (C)
Kalispell Flathead Beacon (A) (C)
Kalispell The Daily Inter Lake (A) (C)
Laurel Laurel Outlook (A) (C)
Lewistown Lewistown News-Argus (A) (C)
Libby The Western News (A) (C)
Livingston Livingston Enterprise (A) (C)
Miles City Miles City Star (A) (C)
Missoula Missoula Independent (A) (C)
Missoula Missoulian (A) (C)
Pablo Char-Koosta News (A) (C)
Plains The Veterans Voice of MT (A) (C)
Red Lodge Carbon County News Online (A) (C)
Shelby The Shelby Promoter (A) (C)
Sidney Sidney Herald-Leader (A) (C)
Stevensville The Bitterroot Star (A) (C)
Townsend Townsend Star (A) (C)
West Yellowstone West Yellowstone News (A) (C)
Whitefish Whitefish Pilot (A) (C)
Wolf Point The Herald-News (A) (C)

College Newspapers
Univ of Montana Montana Kaimin

Editorial Page Victories clarify: Obama will win 2-1 in Electoral College! 4 part compendium---

Endorsements at OpEdNews: Washington Post, Houston, Detroit, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, Salt Lake, Philadelphia, Portland, Bangor, Sacramento, Kansas City (4 former Red States)

OpEdNews has been the site of choice to post the growing list of major and minor newspaper endorsements for Obama. The Editorials are quoted generally in full, with interspliced commentaries from major editors and commentators, explaining what is behind the Editorials.

Part I Obama's Editorial Endorsements: including Washington Post, Fidel Castro, Richard Lugar, Chuck Hagel, & more!

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Obama-s-Endorsements-The-by-Stephen-Fox-081016-633.html

*******

Part II Editorial Page Endorsements of Obama Denver Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francsico Chronicle, Los Angeles Times

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Editorial-Page-Endorsement-by-Stephen-Fox-081017-544.html

********

Part III New Endorsements: Salt Lake City Tribune, Bangor and Brunswick, Maine, Philadelphia, Miami, Portland, Kansas City

http://www.opednews.com/articles/EndorspLements-Salt-Lake-Ci-by-Stephen-Fox-081018-476.html

********

More Obama Endorsements IV: Sacramento, Katie Couric, Malaysia, Houston Chronicle, Detroit, Waco Tx (sort of)

http://www.opednews.com/articles/More-Obama-Endorsements-IV-by-Stephen-Fox-081019-492.html

TAKE THE TIME TO COMMENT AND SHARE YOUR INSIGHTS, which become a vital part of a larger on-going dialogue.

Thank you, Stephen Fox Founder, New Millennium Fine Art Contributing Editor New Millennium Fine Art Santa Fe, NM

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"That the future may learn from the past"

By wt - Oct 17th, 2008 at 11:42 pm EDT

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The motto of Colonial Williamsburg is "that the future may learn from the past"

While my wife and I were taking in the events of the day in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia recently a 45 minute presentation by “Patrick Henry” brought to mind some of the problems of our current imperial Presidency. Certainly dozens of the founding fathers who helped mold our American democracy might have been warning against innumerable actions taken by the current administration in terms of failing to grasp the importance of encroaching on the separations of powers of our government. I couldn’t help thinking about reenactments, some times in the future, by historical interpreters in period costumes representing distinct members of the Bush Administration. How will history judge them? I’ll leave you to ponder this….The purpose of this blog is to speak about reconciliation. So often as I have reviews the thousands of emails that Obama supporters and groups have generated during this campaign, the divisiveness of the campaign has come through. How can we bring Americans together to work on our massive problems? What can individual do to help generate the sense of team that will be needed to overcome the challenges that face us today? Even though reconciliation mostly involves people talking to each other, it is not easy to achieve. Listening to Patrick Henry descibe how the Founding Fathers overcame their difference helped me focus some research on the web in Williamsburg. I came across ‘The Beyond Intractability Projectt’ (from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and a reference to pass on - ( http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/reconciliation )

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Uncontrolled McCain

By Cheryl Bramsen - Oct 9th, 2008 at 7:53 pm EDT

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Please, Senator Obama, use the term Republican every chance you have. In the debate the term was only used once and it wasn't by stupid McCain. Please remember that if you can tie him to the Republican brand by saying that he is a Republican and we are in a Republican started mess, people will remember. Please offer to discuss all his lies even if he doesn't bring them up. I wear an Obama pin everywhere and I have been approached by undecided voters that say they are warning me that Obama is a terrorist. The elderly in the group were surprised that Medicare is in danger by Mccain's plan and he conveniently forgot to discuss Medicare in his little rant. And please remember, it is still a fact that he voted for the war while you were opposed. We need to hear that you will not put up with these lies. Thank you and I pray every night that God will protect you from the nut cases that Mccain is enflaming with his rhetoric.

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Why I voted for Barack

By Montana for Obama - Oct 9th, 2008 at 9:32 am EDT

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This is why I’m voting for Barack. Frank From the Huffington Post: Frank SchaefferPosted October 8, 2008 | 02:45 PM (EST) Obama Will Be One of The Greatest (and Most Loved) American Presidents Great presidents are made great by horrible circumstances combined with character, temperament and intelligence. Like firemen, cops, doctors or soldiers, presidents need a crisis to shine.Obama is one of the most intelligent presidential aspirants to ever step forward in American history. The likes of his intellectual capabilities have not been surpassed in public life since the Founding Fathers put pen to paper. His personal character is also solid gold. Take heart, America: we have the leader for our times.I say this as a white, former life-long Republican. I say this as the proud father of a Marine. I say this as just another American watching his pension evaporate along with the stock market! I speak as someone who knows it's time to forget party loyalty, ideology and pride and put the country first. I say this as someone happy to be called a fool for going out on a limb and declaring that, 1) Obama will win, and 2) he is going to be amongst the greatest of American presidents.Obama is our last best chance. He's worth laying it all on the line for. This is a man who in the age of greed took the high road of community service. This is the good father and husband. This is the humble servant. This is the patient teacher. This is the scholar statesman. This is the man of deep Christian faith. Good stories about Obama abound; from his personal relationship with his Secret Service agents (he invites them into his home to watch sports, and shoots hoops with them) to the story about how, more than twenty years ago, while standing in the check-in line at an airport, Obama paid a $100 baggage surcharge for a stranger who was broke and stuck. (Obama was virtually penniless himself in those days.) Years later after he became a senator, that stranger recognized Obama's picture and wrote to him to thank him. She received a kindly note back from the senator. (The story only surfaced because the person, who lives in Norway, told a local newspaper after Obama ran for the presidency. The paper published a photograph of this lady proudly displaying Senator Obama's letter.)Where many leaders are two-faced; publicly kindly but privately feared and/or hated by people closest to them, Obama is consistent in the way he treats people, consistently kind and personally humble. He lives by the code that those who lead must serve. He believes that. He lives it. He lived it long before he was in the public eye.Obama puts service ahead of ideology. He also knows that to win politically you need to be tough. He can be. He has been. This is a man who does what works, rather than scoring ideological points. In other words he is the quintessential non-ideological pragmatic American. He will (thank God!) disappoint ideologues and purists of the left and the right. Obama has a reservoir of personal physical courage that is unmatched in presidential history. Why unmatched? Because as the first black contender for the presidency who will win, Obama, and all the rest of us, know that he is in great physical danger from the seemingly unlimited reserve of unhinged racial hatred, and just plain unhinged ignorant hatred, that swirls in the bowels of our wounded and sinful country. By stepping forward to lead, Obama has literally put his life on the line for all of us in a way no white candidate ever has had to do. (And we all know how dangerous the presidency has been even for white presidents.) Nice stories or even unparalleled courage isn't the only point. The greater point about Obama is that the midst of our worldwide financial meltdown, an expanding (and losing) war in Afghanistan, trying to extricate our country from a wrong and stupidly mistaken ruinously expensive war in Iraq, our mounting and crushing national debt, awaiting the next (and inevitable) al Qaeda attack on our homeland, watching our schools decline to Third World levels of incompetence, facing a general loss of confidence in the government that has been exacerbated by the Republicans doing all they can to undermine our government's capabilities and programs... President Obama will take on the leadership of our country at a make or break time of historic proportions. He faces not one but dozens of crisis, each big enough to define any presidency in better times.As luck, fate or divine grace would have it (depending on one's personal theology) Obama is blessedly, dare I say uniquely, well-suited to our dire circumstances. Obama is a person with hands-on community service experience, deep connections to top economic advisers from the renowned University of Chicago where he taught law, and a middle-class background that gives him an abiding knowledgeable empathy with the rest of us. As the son of a single mother, who has worked his way up with merit and brains, recipient of top-notch academic scholarships, the peer-selected editor of the Harvard Law Review and, in three giant political steps to state office, national office and now the presidency, Obama clearly has the wit and drive to lead. Obama is the sober voice of reason at a time of unreason. He is the fellow keeping his head while all around him are panicking. He is the healing presence at a time of national division and strife. He is also new enough to the political process so that he doesn't suffer from the terminally jaded cynicism, the seen-it-all-before syndrome afflicting most politicians in Washington. In that regard we Americans lucked out. It's as if having despaired of our political process we picked a name from the phone book to lead us and that person turned out to be a very man we needed.Obama brings a healing and uplifting spiritual quality to our politics at the very time when our worst enemy is fear. For eight years we've been ruled by a stunted fear-filled mediocrity of a little liar who has expanded his power on the basis of creating fear in others. Fearless Obama is the cure. He speaks a litany of hope rather than a litany of terror.As we have watched Obama respond in a quiet reasoned manner to crisis after crisis, in both the way he has responded after being attacked and lied about in the 2008 campaign season, to his reasoned response to our multiplying national crises, what we see is the spirit of a trusted family doctor with a great bedside manner. Obama is perfectly suited to hold our hand and lead us through some very tough times. The word panic is not in the Obama dictionary. America is fighting its "Armageddon" in one fearful heart at a time. A brilliant leader with the mild manner of an old-time matter-of-fact country doctor soothing a frightened child is just what we need. The fact that our "doctor" is a black man leading a hitherto white-ruled nation out of the mess of its own making is all the sweeter and raises the Obama story to that of moral allegory.Obama brings a moral clarity to his leadership reserved for those who have had to work for everything they've gotten and had to do twice as well as the person standing next to them because of the color of their skin. His experience of succeeding in spite of his color, social background and prejudice could have been embittering or one that fostered a spiritual rebirth of forgiveness and enlightenment. Obama radiates the calm inner peace of the spirit of forgiveness. Speaking as a believing Christian I see the hand of a merciful God in Obama's candidacy. The biblical metaphors abound. The stone the builder rejected is become the cornerstone... the last shall be first... he that would gain his life must first lose it... the meek shall inherit the earth... For my secular friends I'll allow that we may have just been extraordinarily lucky! Either way America wins.Only a brilliant man, with the spirit of a preacher and the humble heart of a kindly family doctor can lead us now. We are afraid, out of ideas, and worst of all out of hope. Obama is the cure. And we Americans have it in us to rise to the occasion. We will. We're about to enter one of the most frightening periods of American history. Our country has rarely faced more uncertainty. This is the time for greatness. We have a great leader. We must be a great people backing him, fighting for him, sacrificing for a cause greater than ourselves.A hundred years from now Obama's portrait will be placed next to that of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. Long before that we'll be telling our children and grandchildren that we stepped out in faith and voted for a young black man who stood up and led our country back from the brink of an abyss. We'll tell them about the power of love, faith and hope. We'll tell them about the power of creativity combined with humility and intellectual brilliance. We'll tell them that President Obama gave us the gift of regaining our faith in our country. We'll tell them that we all stood up and pitched in and won the day. We'll tell them that President Obama restored our standing in the world. We'll tell them that by the time he left office our schools were on the mend, our economy booming, that we'd become a nation filled with green energy alternatives and were leading the world away from dependence on carbon-based destruction. We'll tell them that because of President Obama's example and leadership the integrity of the family was restored, divorce rates went down, more fathers took responsibility for their children, and abortion rates fell dramatically as women, families and children were cared for through compassionate social programs that worked. We'll tell them about how the gap closed between the middle class and the super rich, how we won health care for all, how crime rates fell, how bad wars were brought to an honorable conclusion. We'll tell them that when we were attacked again by al Qaeda, how reason prevailed and the response was smart, tough, measured and effective, and our civil rights were protected even in times of crisis...We'll tell them that we were part of the inexplicably blessed miracle that happened to our country those many years ago in 2008 when a young black man was sent by God, fate or luck to save our country. We'll tell them that it's good to live in America where anything is possible. Yes we will.

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The Choice

By Montana for Obama - Oct 6th, 2008 at 1:56 pm EDT

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A cogent and thoughtful reason for the election of Barack Obama by the editorial staff of: The New Yorker The Choice October 13, 2008 Never in living memory has an election been more critical than the one fast approaching—that’s the quadrennial cliché, as expected as the balloons and the bombast. And yet when has it ever felt so urgently true? When have so many Americans had so clear a sense that a Presidency has—at the levels of competence, vision, and integrity—undermined the country and its ideals?The incumbent Administration has distinguished itself for the ages. The Presidency of George W. Bush is the worst since Reconstruction, so there is no mystery about why the Republican Party—which has held dominion over the executive branch of the federal government for the past eight years and the legislative branch for most of that time—has little desire to defend its record, domestic or foreign. The only speaker at the Convention in St. Paul who uttered more than a sentence or two in support of the President was his wife, Laura. Meanwhile, the nominee, John McCain, played the part of a vaudeville illusionist, asking to be regarded as an apostle of change after years of embracing the essentials of the Bush agenda with ever-increasing ardor.The Republican disaster begins at home. Even before taking into account whatever fantastically expensive plan eventually emerges to help rescue the financial system from Wall Street’s long-running pyramid schemes, the economic and fiscal picture is bleak. During the Bush Administration, the national debt, now approaching ten trillion dollars, has nearly doubled. Next year’s federal budget is projected to run a half-trillion-dollar deficit, a precipitous fall from the seven-hundred-billion-dollar surplus that was projected when Bill Clinton left office. Private-sector job creation has been a sixth of what it was under President Clinton. Five million people have fallen into poverty. The number of Americans without health insurance has grown by seven million, while average premiums have nearly doubled. Meanwhile, the principal domestic achievement of the Bush Administration has been to shift the relative burden of taxation from the rich to the rest. For the top one per cent of us, the Bush tax cuts are worth, on average, about a thousand dollars a week; for the bottom fifth, about a dollar and a half. The unfairness will only increase if the painful, yet necessary, effort to rescue the credit markets ends up preventing the rescue of our health-care system, our environment, and our physical, educational, and industrial infrastructure.At the same time, a hundred and fifty thousand American troops are in Iraq and thirty-three thousand are in Afghanistan. There is still disagreement about the wisdom of overthrowing Saddam Hussein and his horrific regime, but there is no longer the slightest doubt that the Bush Administration manipulated, bullied, and lied the American public into this war and then mismanaged its prosecution in nearly every aspect. The direct costs, besides an expenditure of more than six hundred billion dollars, have included the loss of more than four thousand Americans, the wounding of thirty thousand, the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis, and the displacement of four and a half million men, women, and children. Only now, after American forces have been fighting for a year longer than they did in the Second World War, is there a glimmer of hope that the conflict in Iraq has entered a stage of fragile stability.The indirect costs, both of the war in particular and of the Administration’s unilateralist approach to foreign policy in general, have also been immense. The torture of prisoners, authorized at the highest level, has been an ethical and a public-diplomacy catastrophe. At a moment when the global environment, the global economy, and global stability all demand a transition to new sources of energy, the United States has been a global retrograde, wasteful in its consumption and heedless in its policy. Strategically and morally, the Bush Administration has squandered the American capacity to counter the example and the swagger of its rivals. China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other illiberal states have concluded, each in its own way, that democratic principles and human rights need not be components of a stable, prosperous future. At recent meetings of the United Nations, emboldened despots like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran came to town sneering at our predicament and hailing the “end of the American era.” The election of 2008 is the first in more than half a century in which no incumbent President or Vice-President is on the ballot. There is, however, an incumbent party, and that party has been lucky enough to find itself, apparently against the wishes of its “base,” with a nominee who evidently disliked George W. Bush before it became fashionable to do so. In South Carolina in 2000, Bush crushed John McCain with a sub-rosa primary campaign of such viciousness that McCain lashed out memorably against Bush’s Christian-right allies. So profound was McCain’s anger that in 2004 he flirted with the possibility of joining the Democratic ticket under John Kerry. Bush, who took office as a “compassionate conservative,” governed immediately as a rightist ideologue. During that first term, McCain bolstered his reputation, sometimes deserved, as a “maverick” willing to work with Democrats on such issues as normalizing relations with Vietnam, campaign-finance reform, and immigration reform. He co-sponsored, with John Edwards and Edward Kennedy, a patients’ bill of rights. In 2001 and 2003, he voted against the Bush tax cuts. With John Kerry, he co-sponsored a bill raising auto-fuel efficiency standards and, with Joseph Lieberman, a cap-and-trade regime on carbon emissions. He was one of a minority of Republicans opposed to unlimited drilling for oil and gas off America’s shores.Since the 2004 election, however, McCain has moved remorselessly rightward in his quest for the Republican nomination. He paid obeisance to Jerry Falwell and preachers of his ilk. He abandoned immigration reform, eventually coming out against his own bill. Most shocking, McCain, who had repeatedly denounced torture under all circumstances, voted in February against a ban on the very techniques of “enhanced interrogation” that he himself once endured in Vietnam—as long as the torturers were civilians employed by the C.I.A. On almost every issue, McCain and the Democratic Party’s nominee, Barack Obama, speak the generalized language of “reform,” but only Obama has provided a convincing, rational, and fully developed vision. McCain has abandoned his opposition to the Bush-era tax cuts and has taken up the demagogic call—in the midst of recession and Wall Street calamity, with looming crises in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—for more tax cuts. Bush’s expire in 2011. If McCain, as he has proposed, cuts taxes for corporations and estates, the benefits once more would go disproportionately to the wealthy. In Washington, the craze for pure market triumphalism is over. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson arrived in town (via Goldman Sachs) a Republican, but it seems that he will leave a Democrat. In other words, he has come to see that the abuses that led to the current financial crisis––not least, excessive speculation on borrowed capital––can be fixed only with government regulation and oversight. McCain, who has never evinced much interest in, or knowledge of, economic questions, has had little of substance to say about the crisis. His most notable gesture of concern—a melodramatic call last month to suspend his campaign and postpone the first Presidential debate until the government bailout plan was ready—soon revealed itself as an empty diversionary tactic.By contrast, Obama has made a serious study of the mechanics and the history of this economic disaster and of the possibilities of stimulating a recovery. Last March, in New York, in a speech notable for its depth, balance, and foresight, he said, “A complete disdain for pay-as-you-go budgeting, coupled with a generally scornful attitude towards oversight and enforcement, allowed far too many to put short-term gain ahead of long-term consequences.” Obama is committed to reforms that value not only the restoration of stability but also the protection of the vast majority of the population, which did not partake of the fruits of the binge years. He has called for greater and more programmatic regulation of the financial system; the creation of a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank, which would help reverse the decay of our roads, bridges, and mass-transit systems, and create millions of jobs; and a major investment in the green-energy sector. On energy and global warming, Obama offers a set of forceful proposals. He supports a cap-and-trade program to reduce America’s carbon emissions by eighty per cent by 2050—an enormously ambitious goal, but one that many climate scientists say must be met if atmospheric carbon dioxide is to be kept below disastrous levels. Large emitters, like utilities, would acquire carbon allowances, and those which emit less carbon dioxide than their allotment could sell the resulting credits to those which emit more; over time, the available allowances would decline. Significantly, Obama wants to auction off the allowances; this would provide fifteen billion dollars a year for developing alternative-energy sources and creating job-training programs in green technologies. He also wants to raise federal fuel-economy standards and to require that ten per cent of America’s electricity be generated from renewable sources by 2012. Taken together, his proposals represent the most coherent and far-sighted strategy ever offered by a Presidential candidate for reducing the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels.There was once reason to hope that McCain and Obama would have a sensible debate about energy and climate policy. McCain was one of the first Republicans in the Senate to support federal limits on carbon dioxide, and he has touted his own support for a less ambitious cap-and-trade program as evidence of his independence from the White House. But, as polls showed Americans growing jittery about gasoline prices, McCain apparently found it expedient in this area, too, to shift course. He took a dubious idea—lifting the federal moratorium on offshore oil drilling—and placed it at the very center of his campaign. Opening up America’s coastal waters to drilling would have no impact on gasoline prices in the short term, and, even over the long term, the effect, according to a recent analysis by the Department of Energy, would be “insignificant.” Such inconvenient facts, however, are waved away by a campaign that finally found its voice with the slogan “Drill, baby, drill!” The contrast between the candidates is even sharper with respect to the third branch of government. A tense equipoise currently prevails among the Justices of the Supreme Court, where four hard-core conservatives face off against four moderate liberals. Anthony M. Kennedy is the swing vote, determining the outcome of case after case. McCain cites Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, two reliable conservatives, as models for his own prospective appointments. If he means what he says, and if he replaces even one moderate on the current Supreme Court, then Roe v. Wade will be reversed, and states will again be allowed to impose absolute bans on abortion. McCain’s views have hardened on this issue. In 1999, he said he opposed overturning Roe; by 2006, he was saying that its demise “wouldn’t bother me any”; by 2008, he no longer supported adding rape and incest as exceptions to his party’s platform opposing abortion. But scrapping Roe—which, after all, would leave states as free to permit abortion as to criminalize it—would be just the beginning. Given the ideological agenda that the existing conservative bloc has pursued, it’s safe to predict that affirmative action of all kinds would likely be outlawed by a McCain Court. Efforts to expand executive power, which, in recent years, certain Justices have nobly tried to resist, would likely increase. Barriers between church and state would fall; executions would soar; legal checks on corporate power would wither—all with just one new conservative nominee on the Court. And the next President is likely to make three appointments.Obama, who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, voted against confirming not only Roberts and Alito but also several unqualified lower-court nominees. As an Illinois state senator, he won the support of prosecutors and police organizations for new protections against convicting the innocent in capital cases. While McCain voted to continue to deny habeas-corpus rights to detainees, perpetuating the Bush Administration’s regime of state-sponsored extra-legal detention, Obama took the opposite side, pushing to restore the right of all U.S.-held prisoners to a hearing. The judicial future would be safe in his care. In the shorthand of political commentary, the Iraq war seems to leave McCain and Obama roughly even. Opposing it before the invasion, Obama had the prescience to warn of a costly and indefinite occupation and rising anti-American radicalism around the world; supporting it, McCain foresaw none of this. More recently, in early 2007 McCain risked his Presidential prospects on the proposition that five additional combat brigades could salvage a war that by then appeared hopeless. Obama, along with most of the country, had decided that it was time to cut American losses. Neither candidate’s calculations on Iraq have been as cheaply political as McCain’s repeated assertion that Obama values his career over his country; both men based their positions, right or wrong, on judgment and principle. President Bush’s successor will inherit two wars and the realities of limited resources, flagging popular will, and the dwindling possibilities of what can be achieved by American power. McCain’s views on these subjects range from the simplistic to the unknown. In Iraq, he seeks “victory”—a word that General David Petraeus refuses to use, and one that fundamentally misrepresents the messy, open-ended nature of the conflict. As for Afghanistan, on the rare occasions when McCain mentions it he implies that the surge can be transferred directly from Iraq, which suggests that his grasp of counterinsurgency is not as firm as he insisted it was during the first Presidential debate. McCain always displays more faith in force than interest in its strategic consequences. Unlike Obama, McCain has no political strategy for either war, only the dubious hope that greater security will allow things to work out. Obama has long warned of deterioration along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and has a considered grasp of its vital importance. His strategy for both Afghanistan and Iraq shows an understanding of the role that internal politics, economics, corruption, and regional diplomacy play in wars where there is no battlefield victory. Unimaginably painful personal experience taught McCain that war is above all a test of honor: maintain the will to fight on, be prepared to risk everything, and you will prevail. Asked during the first debate to outline “the lessons of Iraq,” McCain said, “I think the lessons of Iraq are very clear: that you cannot have a failed strategy that will then cause you to nearly lose a conflict.” A soldier’s answer––but a statesman must have a broader view of war and peace. The years ahead will demand not only determination but also diplomacy, flexibility, patience, judiciousness, and intellectual engagement. These are no more McCain’s strong suit than the current President’s. Obama, for his part, seems to know that more will be required than willpower and force to extract some advantage from the wreckage of the Bush years. Obama is also better suited for the task of renewing the bedrock foundations of American influence. An American restoration in foreign affairs will require a commitment not only to international coöperation but also to international institutions that can address global warming, the dislocations of what will likely be a deepening global economic crisis, disease epidemics, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, and other, more traditional security challenges. Many of the Cold War-era vehicles for engagement and negotiation—the United Nations, the World Bank, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty regime, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization—are moribund, tattered, or outdated. Obama has the generational outlook that will be required to revive or reinvent these compacts. He would be the first postwar American President unencumbered by the legacies of either Munich or Vietnam. The next President must also restore American moral credibility. Closing Guantánamo, banning all torture, and ending the Iraq war as responsibly as possible will provide a start, but only that. The modern Presidency is as much a vehicle for communication as for decision-making, and the relevant audiences are global. Obama has inspired many Americans in part because he holds up a mirror to their own idealism. His election would do no less—and likely more—overseas. What most distinguishes the candidates, however, is character—and here, contrary to conventional wisdom, Obama is clearly the stronger of the two. Not long ago, Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager, said, “This election is not about issues. This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.” The view that this election is about personalities leaves out policy, complexity, and accountability. Even so, there’s some truth in what Davis said––but it hardly points to the conclusion that he intended.Echoing Obama, McCain has made “change” one of his campaign mantras. But the change he has actually provided has been in himself, and it is not just a matter of altering his positions. A willingness to pander and even lie has come to define his Presidential campaign and its televised advertisements. A contemptuous duplicity, a meanness, has entered his talk on the stump—so much so that it seems obvious that, in the drive for victory, he is willing to replicate some of the same underhanded methods that defeated him eight years ago in South Carolina.Perhaps nothing revealed McCain’s cynicism more than his choice of Sarah Palin, the former mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, who had been governor of that state for twenty-one months, as the Republican nominee for Vice-President. In the interviews she has given since her nomination, she has had difficulty uttering coherent unscripted responses about the most basic issues of the day. We are watching a candidate for Vice-President cram for her ongoing exam in elementary domestic and foreign policy. This is funny as a Tina Fey routine on “Saturday Night Live,” but as a vision of the political future it’s deeply unsettling. Palin has no business being the backup to a President of any age, much less to one who is seventy-two and in imperfect health. In choosing her, McCain committed an act of breathtaking heedlessness and irresponsibility. Obama’s choice, Joe Biden, is not without imperfections. His tongue sometimes runs in advance of his mind, providing his own fodder for late-night comedians, but there is no comparison with Palin. His deep experience in foreign affairs, the judiciary, and social policy makes him an assuring and complementary partner for Obama.The longer the campaign goes on, the more the issues of personality and character have reflected badly on McCain. Unless appearances are very deceiving, he is impulsive, impatient, self-dramatizing, erratic, and a compulsive risk-taker. These qualities may have contributed to his usefulness as a “maverick” senator. But in a President they would be a menace. By contrast, Obama’s transformative message is accompanied by a sense of pragmatic calm. A tropism for unity is an essential part of his character and of his campaign. It is part of what allowed him to overcome a Democratic opponent who entered the race with tremendous advantages. It is what helped him forge a political career relying both on the liberals of Hyde Park and on the political regulars of downtown Chicago. His policy preferences are distinctly liberal, but he is determined to speak to a broad range of Americans who do not necessarily share his every value or opinion. For some who oppose him, his equanimity even under the ugliest attack seems like hauteur; for some who support him, his reluctance to counterattack in the same vein seems like self-defeating detachment. Yet it is Obama’s temperament—and not McCain’s—that seems appropriate for the office both men seek and for the volatile and dangerous era in which we live. Those who dismiss his centeredness as self-centeredness or his composure as indifference are as wrong as those who mistook Eisenhower’s stolidity for denseness or Lincoln’s humor for lack of seriousness.Nowadays, almost every politician who thinks about running for President arranges to become an author. Obama’s books are different: he wrote them. “The Audacity of Hope” (2006) is a set of policy disquisitions loosely structured around an account of his freshman year in the United States Senate. Though a campaign manifesto of sorts, it is superior to that genre’s usual blowsy pastiche of ghostwritten speeches. But it is Obama’s first book, “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance” (1995), that offers an unprecedented glimpse into the mind and heart of a potential President. Obama began writing it in his early thirties, before he was a candidate for anything. Not since Theodore Roosevelt has an American politician this close to the pinnacle of power produced such a sustained, highly personal work of literary merit before being definitively swept up by the tides of political ambition. A Presidential election is not the awarding of a Pulitzer Prize: we elect a politician and, we hope, a statesman, not an author. But Obama’s first book is valuable in the way that it reveals his fundamental attitudes of mind and spirit. “Dreams from My Father” is an illuminating memoir not only in the substance of Obama’s own peculiarly American story but also in the qualities he brings to the telling: a formidable intelligence, emotional empathy, self-reflection, balance, and a remarkable ability to see life and the world through the eyes of people very different from himself. In common with nearly all other senators and governors of his generation, Obama does not count military service as part of his biography. But his life has been full of tests—personal, spiritual, racial, political—that bear on his preparation for great responsibility.It is perfectly legitimate to call attention, as McCain has done, to Obama’s lack of conventional national and international policymaking experience. We, too, wish he had more of it. But office-holding is not the only kind of experience relevant to the task of leading a wildly variegated nation. Obama’s immersion in diverse human environments (Hawaii’s racial rainbow, Chicago’s racial cauldron, countercultural New York, middle-class Kansas, predominantly Muslim Indonesia), his years of organizing among the poor, his taste of corporate law and his grounding in public-interest and constitutional law—these, too, are experiences. And his books show that he has wrung from them every drop of insight and breadth of perspective they contained.The exhaustingly, sometimes infuriatingly long campaign of 2008 (and 2007) has had at least one virtue: it has demonstrated that Obama’s intelligence and steady temperament are not just figments of the writer’s craft. He has made mistakes, to be sure. (His failure to accept McCain’s imaginative proposal for a series of unmediated joint appearances was among them.) But, on the whole, his campaign has been marked by patience, planning, discipline, organization, technological proficiency, and strategic astuteness. Obama has often looked two or three moves ahead, relatively impervious to the permanent hysteria of the hourly news cycle and the cable-news shouters. And when crisis has struck, as it did when the divisive antics of his ex-pastor threatened to bring down his campaign, he has proved equal to the moment, rescuing himself with a speech that not only drew the poison but also demonstrated a profound respect for the electorate. Although his opponents have tried to attack him as a man of “mere” words, Obama has returned eloquence to its essential place in American politics. The choice between experience and eloquence is a false one––something that Lincoln, out of office after a single term in Congress, proved in his own campaign of political and national renewal. Obama’s “mere” speeches on everything from the economy and foreign affairs to race have been at the center of his campaign and its success; if he wins, his eloquence will be central to his ability to govern.We cannot expect one man to heal every wound, to solve every major crisis of policy. So much of the Presidency, as they say, is a matter of waking up in the morning and trying to drink from a fire hydrant. In the quiet of the Oval Office, the noise of immediate demands can be deafening. And yet Obama has precisely the temperament to shut out the noise when necessary and concentrate on the essential. The election of Obama—a man of mixed ethnicity, at once comfortable in the world and utterly representative of twenty-first-century America—would, at a stroke, reverse our country’s image abroad and refresh its spirit at home. His ascendance to the Presidency would be a symbolic culmination of the civil- and voting-rights acts of the nineteen-sixties and the century-long struggles for equality that preceded them. It could not help but say something encouraging, even exhilarating, about the country, about its dedication to tolerance and inclusiveness, about its fidelity, after all, to the values it proclaims in its textbooks. At a moment of economic calamity, international perplexity, political failure, and battered morale, America needs both uplift and realism, both change and steadiness. It needs a leader temperamentally, intellectually, and emotionally attuned to the complexities of our troubled globe. That leader’s name is Barack Obama.

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Gathering in Philadelphia 10-08 - HOPE and Springstein

By wt - Oct 5th, 2008 at 6:42 am EDT

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Yesterday was a fine day! It was a great day for driving from the Washington, DC area to Philadelphia via the Bay Bridge. It was a great day for a free street concert in Philadelphia featuring Bruce Springstein, Tens of thousands of Obama supporters including prominent Pennsylvania politicians (like a Governor and Senator) experienced a ‘winds of change’ event.

This event was well covered by the media, so check it out. The best story I have read today was by Maryclaire Dale of the AP which fairly covered the event: ‘Bruce Springsteen rocks Barack Obama rally in Philly; calls Bush presidency 'disaster' ( http://www.startribune.com/politics/30471439.html )

Springstein provided the quote of the day from my perspective: “"I've spent 35 years writing about America and its people and the meaning of the American promise — a promise handed down right here in this city," said the New Jersey rocker, whose songs often depict down-on-their-luck, working-class dreamers. "Our everyday citizens ... have justifiably lost faith in its meaning." Yesterday was a great example of how Americans can overcome the problems we are facing by coming together.

It is the time to get off the fence, and make sure we have a President and Congressional and other political leadership that will help give American citizens a vision of hope, and help us to reestablish hope and prosperity in our great nation. But it doesn't happen without hard work and dedication.

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