The campaign office in Newport News has many dedicated volunteers and staffers. I arrived last night and today am working with Noam, Erin, Jessica and Jessica to GOTV!
The volunteers and staffers are wonderful and very helpful. Phonebacking, yard sign pickup and preparing for election day are top matters for the office this morrning. The interest was so high, we've run out of Obama bumper stickers, but we're improvising and are providing Obama*Warner Commonsense Solutions for Virginia literature!
We can still use: bottled water for the office; canvassers for the area through election day; and Obama bumper stickers.
PatriciaCamp Obama Field Office Volunteer
Looks like Obama Offices all over Virginia are low on supplies if not out. While this is unusual, I have heard that national demand is exceeding supplies. I agree that the Campaign needs to put some money behind getting bumper stickers and yard signs out here. However, there is plenty we can do right now. A lot of people have been wondering what to do about it so I have a short list of ideas:
Seriously, get in touch with people. I know many of you are active but consider who you need to talk to to get supplies moving. They might take a couple weeks to get to you but those McCain stickers will fade away in an ocean of blue Obama stickers as soon as we get our stuff.
Good luck, Virginia! (And share supplies if you happen to have extras.)
So...Sarah Palin spoke at the republican national convention last night.
Yeah.
Just provides a huge, resounding confirmation that in choosing to support Barack Obama, I've indeed chosen the right candidate for the job of President of the United States of America.
This will be my first presidential election. Can anyone help me figure out where to start to get new voters, especially youth, registered to vote?
http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19501048&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=415898&rfi=6
BY ROJA HEYDARPOUR, STAFF WRITER
Source: Times Tribune
It’s been said many times: this is an election year of firsts. The first viable woman presidential candidate. The first viable black presidential candidate.
But the first Muslim presidential candidate?
One in 10 Americans believes that Illinois Sen. Barack Obama is a Muslim, according to a Pew Research Center News Interest Index survey taken in March.
Mr. Obama is, in fact, a practicing Christian, as underscored by the debate over the controversial sermon delivered by his pastor after Sept. 11, 2001.
The same survey found that 79 percent of the general public had heard rumors that Mr. Obama is Muslim, while 38 percent had heard “a lot” about it.
Indeed, rumors have circulated on blogs and comment boards since the fall, spurred by pictures of Mr. Obama in a turban, by talk of childhood time spent in Indonesia — a Muslim country — and by his middle name, Hussein, among other things.
At each point, Hillary was given uninterrupted opportunities to respond to Obama’s missteps. They might as well have just cut to the chase with her by simply asking at each juncture “How badly did Obama screw up here?”, rather than pretending that her input on his gaffes would illuminate some larger truth not already rehashed in her ubiquitous attack ads. When Obama attempted to clarify his answers or rebut Hillary’s points, he was interrupted by both moderators. At one point, Stephanopoulos even seemed to willfully misinterpret one of Obama’s answers about Wright, implying that he had just disowned his pastor.
Throughout this exercise in absurdity, Obama attempted to point out how empty and counterproductive the moderators’ superficial focus was. When Stephanopoulos told (not asked) Obama that “the flag pin issue will be big in the fall”, Obama responded by saying that “that’s the exact kind of false issue that distracts from substantive policy discussion. If you want to have that debate, I am happy to participate”. In reference to the “bitter” comments for which he has been assailed, Obama even pointed to an instance in 1993 when Hillary was similarly hammered as ‘elitist’ for comments about “baking cookies”. He noted that “I heard her say that, and I said to myself—that’s not her; that’s not who she is’. But I think Senator Clinton took the wrong lesson from that.” When Hillary appeared to affirm that she had indeed learned the wrong lesson--her belief that candidates should be judged by every out of context quote, loose affiliation with suspect characters, and perception that could be floated about them--Obama observed that “by her own criteria, Senator Clinton would be disqualified from running. Her husband’s associations in the 1990s and after have been called into question”. Rather than discuss these ideas further, the moderators pressed on with more gossip. In the post debate spin room, Clinton operatives accused Obama of attempting to “lecture” the moderators.
In some sense, it is understandable that 60 minutes had to go by before either candidate was asked a substantive question. From a policy standpoint, there aren’t that many differences between the two candidates, so focusing on personality and character issues seems to make sense. In addition, there have been more than six long weeks since the last primary, leaving not that much new material, save for the numerous gaffes by and “discoveries” about the two candidates. In fairness, there have been those twenty previous debates, so developing new material might prove difficult, even for a policy wonk the caliber of Stephanopoulos. And finally, it can be argued that there is good reason to discuss seemingly insignificant issues in a political campaign. As conservative columnist David Brooks noted “We may not like it, but issues like Jeremiah Wright, flag lapels and the Tuzla airport will be important in the fall. . . It’s legitimate to see how the candidates will respond to these sorts of symbolic issues”.
Maybe. But one might expect that an esteemed news organization like ABC would not allow these overanalyzed minutiae from the campaign trail to dominate their list of questions to the extent that they did—that is the stuff of the cable news set, after all. One would be wrong. Each question posed in the first hour had been addressed by the candidates to which they were directed at several previous venues, including prior debates, interviews, press conferences, statements, and rallies. Innumerable news cycles had digested, regurgitated, and digested again every element of every topic raised in the first hour. Nonetheless, and often in the guise of “man on the street” videos (lending them some dubious credibility outside the pundit chamber), they were rehashed again and again. In lieu of well-crafted, original questions, the moderators phoned in their responsibilities by playing YouTube clips that we had all seen a thousand times, and breathlessly asking for a response.
To ABC’s credit, the second hour was more substantive—but it seemed cursory at best after the hour-long gabfest that preceded it. As Olbermann noted, the final question—about gas prices, a hardly insignificant issue for most Americans—was relegated to the “throwaway status” of the end of the debate. And, contrary to conventional wisdom that all policy ground had been covered in previous debates, the two candidates did discuss more fully their proposals on a variety of issues, including the capital gains tax, social security, and Iran.
Perhaps ABC budgeted too much time for the debate. Maybe an hour would have been better—it would have allowed them to focus their energy on policy. Perhaps George Stephanopoulos—a die-hard Clintonista-- was given too much control over the questions list (the question about the fake “flag pin issue” was provided by none other than Sean Hannity). Perhaps ABC wanted to give its viewers what, let’s be honest, they all want—dirt and mudslinging, entertainment rather than news. But I can’t shake the sense that regardless of the reason, ABC blew a pretty big opportunity here. Here they were, given the opportunity to truly illuminate the candidates’ positions and viewpoints prior to perhaps the decisive contest in the Democratic nomination, and they chose to spend it on a discussion barely more appropriate to a sewing circle than to the contest for the highest office in the land. At the close of the debate, Charlie Gibson noted that “this has been a very interesting debate”. Indeed, it was.
In recent days, Senator Obama has come under increasing fire for his comments at a fundraiser in California last week. At the event, he dared to imply that a large portion of America has grown increasingly “bitter” with their economic situation, and the inability of the government to manage the marketplace effectively. Rather than vote based on these concerns, he said, “they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations”. Hillary predictably pounced on these statements as revelatory of Obama’s “elitist” outlook. Conservative pundits like William Kristol have lined up to hit the rhetorical tee-ball of defending God-fearing gun owners out of the park. Apparently, Obama is a Marxist, and we did not even know it!
Never mind that Karl Rove's entire political career was built on the reality that Obama referenced--God, Guns and Gays get people to vote against their economic self-interest and support the G.O.P.. Never mind that even some members of the religious right have acknowledged that George W. Bush has used them, promising anti-gay marriage amendments and other Evangelical pipe dreams in order to generate volunteer and voting support in 2004, and delivering on basically none of these items once in office. Never mind that none of Obama’s comments were intended to say that all religious people, all gun owners, all anti-immigration people, or even all Republican voters do not have good reasons to hold their views. All he meant was that simplified versions of these valid perspectives and values tend to be exploited by politicians in order to distract them from other issues.
But what he intended does not matter. Nuance does not matter here, either, and the accuracy of his statement could not have less importance. What does matter is the larger truth about politics revealed this gaffe and the subsequent reporting about it: statements that are the most true and informed are usually the exact things that make you supposedly “unelectable” if you actually say them out loud. People claim to not like politicians who are fake or phony, or who talk down to them, but they seldom have the stomach to take the truth when one of them dares to be real. The reality is that they want to be pandered and lied to, to be given some superficial answer to their financial or societal grievances, rather than face up to the more complex, unpleasant reality.
John McCain has found that out the hard way, as with his comment during the 2000 presidential campaign that Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson were “agents of intolerance”, referring to their efforts to demonize gays, Muslims, and all pro-choice supporters, as well as their prayers for the deaths of specific Supreme Court justices. In order to survive the G.O.P. election this time around, he had to give a commencement speech at Liberty University, and essentially take back his comments. McCain had seen the truth cost him the nomination, so he chose a politically-expedient lie instead. For those of us who agreed with him, it was a painful process to watch. And the cruel irony is that he is still not trusted in Evangelical circles.
In this election cycle, we saw the pander bear phenomenon illustrated in the G.O.P. Michigan primary. While McCain refused to guarantee the impossible—returning working class jobs to the state--Mitt Romney promised to bring all those outsourced factories back to Michigan, and arguably won the primary because of it. Hillary’s attempts during the Ohio primary to denigrate NAFTA—a trade agreement she clearly supported as First Lady—fit a similar pattern. Rather than acknowledging that globalization is going to be the rule, protectionism the exception in the modern economy, politicians prefer to promise the restoration of a bygone era. And once again, the voters rewarded it!
In many ways, this problem is as old as politics itself. People have always wanted to be told what they want to hear, rather than the hard truth, and politicians usually oblige so as to get elected. But the game is getting increasingly costly. With global warming, terrorism, energy prices, economic disaster, and the Iraq War all begging for solutions, waiting for so many Americans to awake from their denial and face the world as it is (rather than as it was in the mythical “good old days”) is more than just a frustrating yet “necessary” part of the political process. We will never get anywhere if leaders of Obama’s caliber have to constantly go through the motions of apologizing for telling the truth.
I realize that Senator Obama does not like going negative, but let me play devil's advocate for a minute:
If I were Obama's media consultant, I would make an ad featuring pictures of Hillary and Bill swilling champagne at some black tie fundraiser. I would overlay that with factoid breakdowns of how it was, exactly, that they made $109 MILLION over the last 8 years. Finish it off with a line to the effect of: "Hillary Clinton claims to be a champion of the working class, but she is really more at home with the corporate elite she claims to fight."
Funnel it through a 527, and run it around the clock in Pennsylvania.
Now, the Democratic Party is walking a thin line toward the general election. Both sides of this line are two powerful and prestigious candidates. I have serios doubt that the primaries running up to the Convention will do anything but maintain the status quo. Florida and Michigan will be figured out in some way even if the votes are split 50/50. Plenty of superdelegates will surely not cast their vote until the Convention. So we might not know what we'll get. No one wants a backroom deal this round but that might be what it takes.
A plan has circulated where a party elder takes the nomination with one of the remaining candidates as VP. I find this particularly interesting. Al Gore would be my choice party elder and Barack Obama being my choice candidate. Both have a great concern for certain principles and a populist view. Hillary and Al undoubtedly have weakened relations. Eight years of Obama as a VP gaining experience makes him a fantastic candidate for the next eight years. Right now I am unsure of whether or not we can beat McCain with 29% of Hillary's supporters defecting to McCain.
Thoughts?
While his name may not have the Clinton name recognition, he is no newcomer to leadership and service. This man has a compelling life story --a father from Kenya, a mother from Kansas, spent years as a community organizer in Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods, worked as a civil rights attorney and graduated first in his class at Harvard. His polices are fair and his judgment is sound. He has an outstanding record on the environment, women’s rights, and importantly, he has been right from the beginning on Iraq and on restoring habeas corpus. The failed policy in Iraq costs $200,000 a minute, has left us with nearly 4,000 service members killed and 32,000 wounded, diverts our attention from Al Qaeda, and is destroying our standing in the world. What doesn’t get attention in the media either is that the “surge” has been no victory for Iraqi women. In many areas, rule has been turned over to tribal leaders and this has put women under strict Sharia law. This means, in the once modern Iraq, women now are denied employment, cannot walk the streets alone, can be told to go home and dress properly or worse, be beaten. Tragically, honor killings have returned. This means that if a woman has been unfaithful, her family has the right to kill her. Senator Clinton has never acknowledged her lack of judgment in voting to authorize this Iraq war, and then repeated that poor judgment recently by voting for the Kyl Lieberman amendment which could pave the way to military action in Iran. Senator McCain has stated that we should have permanent bases in Iraq and could be there for decades. Our children deserve better. I could not, in good conscience, vote for a candidate who didn’t have the judgment to see these actions as the wrong direction for the world. On domestic issues, Barack Obama’s plan to bring universal health care is sound and fair and unlike Senator Clinton’s plan, apart from children, does not require a mandate, and further, his economic policies are more respectful of market forces. His greatest strength is his leadership style that brings people together –-republicans, democrats, independents, new voters, and young people by the scores. Let’s all follow Governor Tim Kaine’s lead and rally behind the most inspiring, intelligent and sincere candidate this nation has seen in a long time. Vote for Barack Obama this Tuesday.
