The Nobel Peace Prize 2009 "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples"
Barack H. Obama
USA 44th President of the United States of America
b. 1961
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/12/10/war-and-peace-oslo
The Nobel Peace Prize 2009"for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples"
"Somewhere today, in the here and now, in the world as it is, a soldier sees he's outgunned, but stands firm to keep the peace. Somewhere today, in this world, a young protestor awaits the brutality of her government, but has the courage to march on. Somewhere today, a mother facing punishing poverty still takes the time to teach her child, scrapes together what few coins she has to send that child to school -- because she believes that a cruel world still has a place for that child's dreams. Let us live by their example." -- President Obama
President Obama traveled to Oslo, Norway, to accept the Nobel Peace Prize this morning. In his speech, he described the Nobel Peace Prize as "an award that speaks to our highest aspirations," proof that, "our actions matter, and can bend history in the direction of justice." But the President also acknowledged that, even as he receives this prize, he is the Commander-in-Chief of the military of a nation in the midst of two wars:
One of these wars is winding down. The other is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by 42 other countries -- including Norway -- in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.Still, we are at war, and I'm responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill, and some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the costs of armed conflict -- filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other....I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war. What I do know is that meeting these challenges will require the same vision, hard work, and persistence of those men and women who acted so boldly decades ago. And it will require us to think in new ways about the notions of just war and the imperatives of a just peace.We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations -- acting individually or in concert -- will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King Jr. said in this same ceremony years ago: "Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones." As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King's life work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there's nothing weak -- nothing passive -- nothing na-- in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism -- it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.
Despite these harsh realities, President Obama concluded with a call to "reach for the world that ought to be."
We can acknowledge that oppression will always be with us, and still strive for justice. We can admit the intractability of depravation, and still strive for dignity. Clear-eyed, we can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace. We can do that -- for that is the story of human progress; that's the hope of all the world; and at this moment of challenge, that must be our work here on Earth.
Read the full remarks . . .
President Barack Obama has said the US must uphold moral standards when waging wars that are necessary and justified, as he accepted his Nobel Peace Prize.
President Obama arrived in Oslo Thursday to receive this year's Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first sitting president in 90 years, and just the third ever, to win the award. As the AP noted of his acceptance speech, "entered the pantheon of Nobel Peace Prize winners Thursday with humble words, acknowledging his own few accomplishments while delivering a robust defense of war and promising to use the prestigious award to "reach for the world that ought to be."
This morning the President spoke at the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony at the Oslo City Hall. His speech accepting the prize was well worth reading in full.
The Nobel Peace Prize 2009
EnglishNorwegian
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.
Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.
Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.
For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama's appeal that "Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges."
Oslo, October 9, 2009
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Down-in-New-Orleans/
New Orleans – President Barack Obama jetted to this hurricane battered city Thursday to deliver a fiery call to action, vowing to rebuild to the Gulf Coast area as a boisterous crowd chanted “yes we can!”
"I promise you this," Obama said during his first visit to the city as president. “Together we will rebuild this region and we will build it stronger than before."
Although the trip was met with criticism from some local officials that his administration hasn’t done enough to help with the ongoing rebuilding effort here, Obama struck an optimistic tone.
“Katrina may have swept through this city, but it did not destroy this community, and that is because of you – the people of New Orleans,” Obama said. “You deserve leaders in Washington who are willing to work as hard as you are.”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Streaming-at-Noon-The-Presidents-Speech-to-Americas-Students/
UPDATED: The speech has ended, but you can read the full text of the President's prepared remarks below:
Prepared Remarks of President Barack ObamaBack to School EventArlington, VirginiaSeptember 8, 2009Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today. I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year. Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn. I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox. I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve. But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed. And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself. Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide. Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future. You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy. We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country. Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in. So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse. But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right. But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying. Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future. That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America. Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall. And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same. That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it. I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things. But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying. No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals. And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best. It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country? Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.
Prepared Remarks of President Barack ObamaBack to School EventArlington, VirginiaSeptember 8, 2009
Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today. I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year. Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn. I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox. I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve. But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed. And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself. Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide. Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future. You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy. We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country. Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in. So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse. But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right. But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying. Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future. That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America. Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall. And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same. That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it. I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things. But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying. No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals. And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best. It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country? Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die." -- Senator Ted Kennedy, 1932-2009
One would be hard pressed to argue that Ted Kennedy's death was a more bitter pill for the country than the deaths of his brothers before him – John, the young president whose assassination gave Americans a hard warning about the violent age they were about to enter, or Robert, the presidential aspirant who was thought at the time to be the last leader in America who might have been able to help the nation transcend that violence.
Nevertheless, the heavens have somehow conspired to make this Kennedy death, however expected it might have been, nearly as heartbreaking as those of his vigorous younger brothers. It's not just that the great cause of the last 40 years of his life, reforming America's healthcare system, sits at a perilous juncture, although it certainly is that, in part. But the tragic irony of the timing is even greater, because we see in the very healthcare debate that so needed his input the precarious state of the institution to which he devoted his life, and which he shaped and influenced more than probably any other senator in history.
The United States Senate was rarely a force for progress through much of its history. Originally, senators weren't even directly elected. They tended to be men who at the very least would look after the interests of the railroad and mining and sugar industries, and preferably were members of families with those interests.
Then, in the mid-20th century, something different started to happen. As access to higher education became more widespread – and with the idea of public service not yet thought of in terms of the opportunity cost of not being a lobbyist or corporate lawyer instead – a different breed of person started entering the Senate. These people were not old-money Wasps, but middle-class men from different walks of life: frontiersmen who taught themselves Mandarin Chinese, like Montana's Mike Mansfield, or war veterans who wanted only to continue to serve their country, like Phil Hart of Michigan.
On this scale, Kennedy was something of a throwback. He was certainly patrician. He was from one of America's wealthiest families. But Kennedy money wasn't old Wasp money. Old Man Joe, whatever his faults, taught his nine kids to remember the penury from which the family had risen. And from the experience of being Catholic in early 20th-century America, they took the lesson that discrimination and exclusion had to be fought.
In 1958 and 1960, more men in the Mansfield-Hart mould were elected to the Senate. The trend culminated in Teddy's own class, of 1962. Now, suddenly, the Senate wasn't dominated by millionaires and racists. And now, the Senate could help remake America – and itself. It joined the side of progress and passed piles of legislation, starting of course with civil rights but hardly ending there, that changed the country.
No one was more central to this historic change than Kennedy. He left his imprint on more legislation than any senator in the history of the chamber. He forged the famous alliances with dyed-in-the-wool conservatives. I doubt that any senator passed more pieces of bipartisan legislation than Kennedy. He was just damn good at his job.
In a way I think it's a positive thing that he never became president. The controversy surrounding it would have been too great, after Chappaquiddick. It may well be that someone who's done something like that – not only Mary Jo Kopechne's death, but the family's infamous and shameful delay in contacting the authorities – doesn't deserve to be president. And it is the case that his one great run at it, in 1980, represented a sort of nadir in his career. Jimmy Carter may have deserved a primary challenge from his left, but he didn't deserve Kennedy's ungraciousness at that year's convention, when the senator snubbed the president on stage during the convention's final night.
But more than that (and more sympathetically than that), who can seriously doubt that, if Kennedy had been president, these eulogies might have been written years ago? I have a wispy memory from childhood; my family was at a friend's house. Teddy was on TV giving a speech, and I think it was a convention, whether 1968 or 1972 I can't quite say, though probably '68. A woman who was a friend of our host's was watching from a chair, and I was on the floor. I remember how she shook her head sadly and said: "If he runs, they'll just shoot him too."
He escaped the assassin's bullet (and believe me, there were years when one couldn't be sure he would), and now, age and disease have taken the Kennedy who did live to comb grey hair, to invoke a line of Yeats's that he invoked at the funeral of his nephew, the ex-president's son.
An era of Senate history passes with him. The present mess proves that the time when broadly bipartisan agreement could be reached on major legislation – as was the case back in the 1960s on civil rights and Medicare – is long gone. It would be nice to think that his death might encourage his mourning colleagues to try to recapture that old spirit. But it would be naive. His passing will surely, however, steel pro-reform forces to get something accomplished in his honour.
There are and will be more Kennedys, but the Kennedy era is over now. Teddy was imperfect enough that some Americans will say amen to that. Let them. The rest of us know what a dramatically better place this country is because of him.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2009/aug/26/ted-kennedy-death-america-politics
www.whitehouse.gov
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009-Medal-of-Freedom-Recipients/
Barack Obama will recognise the accomplishments of actors, activists, athletes and the world's foremost living theoretical physicist today when he awards the presidential medal of freedom to 16 people.
Among recipients of the United States' highest honour for a civilian will be Stephen Hawking, the Cambridge University physicist and mathematician known for his work on black holes; former Irish president and one-time UN human rights commissioner Mary Robinson, and retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
Other recipients include Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh, a leader in global anti-poverty efforts who pioneered providing "microloans" to provide credit to poor people who lack collateral.
Film star Sidney Poitier, civil rights leader the Rev Joseph Lowery and tennis legend Billie Jean King were also among those to receive the medal as well as Democratic senator Edward Kennedy, who has been battling brain cancer, and Sandra Day O'Connor, former US supreme court justice.
Kennedy will remain on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, following the death of his sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, but the senator's spokesman said his children will attend the ceremony and his daughter, Kara, will accept the award on his behalf.
Obama, awarding his first presidential medals, also will make posthumous awards to Jack Kemp of New York, the football quarterback-turned-politician who died in May, and gay rights activist and San Francisco politician Harvey Milk, who was assassinated in 1978.
The White House has said the individuals were selected for their work as "agents of change".
US president Harry Truman established the medal of Freedom in 1945 to recognise civilians for their efforts during the second world war. John F Kennedy reinstated the medal in 1963 to honour distinguished service.
Other recipients are: Joe Medicine Crow, the last living Plains Indian war chief who fought in the second world war wearing war paint beneath his uniform. Chita Rivera, an actor, singer, dancer and winner of two Tony Awards for Broadway roles. Nancy Brinker, founder of Susan G Komen for the Cure, a leading breast cancer grass-roots organisation. Dr Pedro Jose Greer Jr, assistant dean of academic affairs at Florida International University School of Medicine. Dr Janet Davison Rowley, professor of medicine at the University of Chicago.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/12/medal-of-freedom-obama-list
Posted by Katherine Brandon
The President announced today the 16 recipients of the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilan honor. The President praised the recipients for breaking down barriers and lifting up their fellow citizens: "These outstanding men and women represent an incredible diversity of backgrounds. Their tremendous accomplishments span fields from science to sports, from fine arts to foreign affairs. Yet they share one overarching trait: Each has been an agent of change. Each saw an imperfect world and set about improving it, often overcoming great obstacles along the way."The awards will be presented on August 12. Here is a little bit about this year’s recipients:
See the official release for a little more detail.
Tonight, President Obama arrives in Ghana in his first trip to sub-Saharan Africa as President of the United States. Over the past week, we have been collecting questions, comments and words of welcome for President Obama via SMS, Twitter, Facebook and from newspapers across Africa. We shared these responses with 3 journalists in Africa, Ms. Angela Quintal of the Independent Newspapers in South Africa, Mr. Mamadou Thior of Radio Television Senegal (RTS) and Mr. Peter Kimani of The Standard in Kenya. These journalists, in turn, picked a few of the questions for the President to answer. We'll post a video and audio recording of those answers on Monday.
Tomorrow, the President will address the Ghanaian Parliament. We'll post the transcript and the audio of the speech soon after on this site, and get video up in the coming days. In the meantime, we thought we'd share an interactive map which samples some of the questions.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/The-President-Takes-Questions-from-Africa/
Hi All,
Greetings and Salutation!
I watched the movie version of “Chicago” the other night. Today, I think about this AIG fiasco and remember Richard Gere’s well done rendition of “Razzle Dazzle ’em” in that movie. The sly lawyer as he diverts attention from what is fact to what is emotion. In the instance of this AIG fiasco, diverting attention to bonuses paid executives and away from the truth. Any really, really, good swindle or scam uses that “Razzle Dazzle ‘em” rule. One must have a focus of attention somewhere other than upon the fraud itself. The shenanigans at AIG bring to mind a movie called “Paper Moon”. Destiny teams a little girl and a middle-aged man up as con artists. The man pays for some items in a story with a large bill. Behind him in line, the little girl pays for something with a small bill. When the girl sees her change, she balks, claiming that she had given the clerk the larger bill. Her distressed cry that the larger bill is a birthday gift with a birthday inscription on it, inciting emotions. Found in the cash drawer is a larger bill with the inscription the girl claims. The girl “earns” the larger bill via her deception. AIG is much the same con, right down to the little girl taking the fraud into a simpler swindle. A couple of more obvious short-changing maneuvers to increase her take or maybe just to show off her flair for the con game. In the AIG situation, these would be bonuses unnecessary yet still, bonuses useful in diverting attention toward facts to attention toward emotions. It can be a bit more complicated but the primary things that occurred up to and including the bailouts is the same. There are many faucets to this fraud. However, the base fraud is a matter of giving a small bill and pretending it is the large bill. The deregulation of laws, which had created borders betwixt Wall Street, the Banks, and the Insurance companies, that allowed great fraud to be committed. Long ago and far away, something called “buying on margin” came to be. This entailed a situation whereby a person could post X dollars of collateral and the stock market company would give an equal amount of credit. Thereby, one could have $100.00 in collateral and buy $200.00 in stock. This is termed “leveraging” and was fine when regulations were in place. The advent of such things as “options” for “hedging” will greatly increase this leveraging situation to create a “win-win” situation for the smart investor (or better said, “Sly” investor). The stock market always somewhat of a gamble, one could now “bet” that a stock would fall in value and make the big bucks. Even if one did not actually own the actual shares of that stock, one could control hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock with only a few hundreds of marginal dollars. Marginal dollars are the big bill that the little girl did not really give the store clerk; it never existed. However, the real big bill, which the store clerk gave back to the little girl, did exist. In effect, it was money used to “bail out” the clerk and the store due to emotional circumstances. One day it hit the news that a company called “Lehman Brothers” had taken the big dive and the world would collapse unless the government did not step in to help. The sky was falling, as it were. The big cats including the FED knew that Lehman would collapse if someone did not purchase it (and revise the books) or the FED did not step in with help. The stack of cards to build the house was going to come down. The FED knew long before Lehman Brothers failed that it would happen. Instead of bracing (or bailing out) Lehman Brothers, the Fed let Lehman Brothers fail. The auspice incongruously put out that Lehman would fall by itself and create only a pothole on Wall Street. This is incongruent because anyone familiar with the system would know that Lehman would take others with it. Lehman failed and AIG became responsible for the billions in insurance it sold against such a failure. The government fooled to step in with billions and no oversight. The insurance that AIG had sold and could not cover, billions in insurance to protect investors that they not lose their investment AND not lose the monies that did not exist; stocks and options bought on MARGIN. What a quandary, what a great fraud is the scam perpetrated on an unsuspecting people. AIG had insured billions of dollars that did not exist. Until the FED marched in and turned those dollars into real cash, the clerk handing the poor little child her take and her bonus for her short change game. The executives earned those bonuses because they pulled the biggest heist in history. In addition, they are taking the people’s eye off the proverbial ball and probably giving AIG plenty of time for a probable shredding enterprise. Find the insured and one will find the trail of fraud or one can play with the millions in bonuses and ignore the billions in fraud.
Loveya,
Thursday, 15th January 2009
Washington, D.C.
www.change.gov
The Presiden Elect and his wife Michelle, along with tens of thousands of Americans, will mark this Martin Luther King Jr., Day by participating in community service events across the country. The following afternoon, Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th president of the United States, and later that night the new president will celebrate by hosting the first-ever Neighborhood Ball, attended by everyday Americans.
Through interactive technology and a live broadcast on ABC, the Neighborhood Ball will be linked with local, grassroots parties across the country, making for a truly special night that all Americans can take part in. The event will include musical performances by Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Mariah Carey, Faith Hill, Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, Shakira, Stevie Wonder and Nick Cannon.
You can sign up to host or attend a Neighborhood Ball in your community at PIC2009.org.
These parties can be as simple as a group of neighbors gathering in a living room or local restaurant to watch the live broadcast and interact online and through text messaging. Local Neighborhood Balls will be a place to gather with neighbors to celebrate an historic night, the end to one long journey, and the beginning of a new one.
President Elect Obama himself explained:
This is an inauguration for all Americans. I wanted to make sure that we had an event that would be open to our new neighborhood here in Washington, D.C., and also the neighborhoods across the country. Michelle and I look forward to joining our fellow Americans across the country during this very special event.
Wednesday, 14th January 2009
It’s been Barack Obama’s goal to make his upcoming inauguration, our inauguration – to make it a celebration for all Americans. Today he lays out everything that’s planned for the 56th Presidential Inauguration and the many ways you can get involved from home, if you’re not in Washington, D.C.
www.pic2009.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0yLdBuiYhQ
Here’s how you can be a part of the Inauguration:
• Host or attend a service event in your area on Martin Luther King Jr., Day, January 19th• Host or attend a party in your area that’s linked – through interactive technology – with the first-ever Neighborhood Ball on January 20th• Sign up for our text messaging program to receive updates and have your questions answered• Watch the Opening Ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial from 7:00-9:00 p.m. ET/PT January 18th on HBO• Watch the “Kids’ Inaugural: We Are The Future” concert. It will be broadcast from 8:00 - 9:30 p.m. ET/PT January 19th on The Disney Channel, be simulcast on Radio Disney and streamed on Disney.com immediately following the telecast.• Watch the first-ever Neighborhood Ball on ABC from 8:00 - 10:00 p.m. ET/PT on January 20th• Watch the webcast of the swearing-in ceremony and the Neighborhood Ball. We’ll keep you posted as more details are released.
I laid in bed this morning with tears flowing from my eyes. " Could it be possible" The dreams of my ancestors, great grandparents, grandparents and parents. He is now the first African American President of teh United States of America!!
There is really no way to state the impact of this happening some 150 years after the outlaw of slavery. What dawned on me, was last night I celebrated with people who didnt even look like me. They were just as excited as I was, had worked just as hard as I did, felt proud as I did to be an American and be a supporter of Barack Obama. They too knew who how historic and important this election and campaign would be! Obama's campaign has issued in an great errror to our history, one that I will never forget in my Life time.
I am proud to be an American and proud to have worked through this with each of you!!
As a young black American Woman, I am so out done by what has occured this past week in the McCain campaign. I cannot even understand least of all conceive of the underling racism that still exists in our country. The is History of our country, slavery, women liberation, anti- gay sentisim, has slipped back into the mainstream and makes us face the harsh reality of what the McCain/Palin campaign is trying to accomplish.
Will we ever get past the hateful history that still lurkes around in the midst of all of us? My friend in London who is a Black American told me today that she doesnt understand how we (black Americans) can still tolerate the deep rooted hate and bigotry that still exists. I was sadly hurt and disgusted by the McCain supporter who called Obama "a Arab" Are Arab people terrorist? Are they not human? Hell, are they not even Americans? Hate is what lead to the genocide of Millions of Jews, Hate is what lead to the genocide in Dafur? Hate is what lead to thousands being killed in Rawanda, Hate is what lead to the current war and hate has caused the division of blacks and whites right here in our own country.
For a man who states hes a maverick and has faught for a country of freedom, he sure is endorsing hate and fear. McCain and Palin is opportunisitic, erradic, frivolous and the smear campaigning is not a great tactic.. However folks, we have to wake up.. there are fellow Americans that believe this sort of stuff, that are not educated in the issues and these are the very ones that are getting out to vote...
Please use your voice and write to your editors of local and national news stations, papers and magazines. Take a stand, dont take this for grantide that our candidate is in the clear... We have to use this moment to really educate people, take a stand and help change the smear tactic of hate..
www.barackobama.com
Friday, 10th September 2008
Chicago, Illinois
Obama 52% Victory Forecast by Yale Professor's Economy Model
By Matthew Benjamin
Oct. 10 (Bloomberg) -- With 25 days before Election Day, a forecasting model that has called the top vote-getter in the last three presidential races predicts a solid victory for Barack Obama.
The Democratic presidential candidate will get about 52 percent of the popular vote on Nov. 4, according to an economic model developed by Yale University Professor Ray Fair.
``The model has predicted all along that the Democrat will get the majority of the two-party vote, and it's still saying that,'' Fair, who has been forecasting a Democratic victory since November 2006, said in a telephone interview from New Haven, Connecticut.
Fair, 66, cautions that his algorithm doesn't measure the effects of race, age or foreign policy, all of which may play an outsize role this election, the first in which a black candidate is a major-party nominee. ``All the political stuff isn't accounted for,'' said Fair.
The only economic data that Fair's vote equation uses that are still unknown are third-quarter gross domestic product growth and inflation. Assuming a 0.2 percent decline in GDP this quarter, the median of a recent Bloomberg survey of 52 economists, and 3 percent inflation, the model forecasts Republican John McCain will receive 48 percent of the vote.
The margin of error of 2.5 percentage points means some probability remains that McCain will win. Fair said the chances that his model will incorrectly predict the election result are roughly 20 percent to 25 percent.
Financial Crisis
Fair's methodology also doesn't take into account the current financial crisis that is roiling credit and equity markets and generating fears of an acute recession among consumers and investors. The crisis, which has triggered bank failures and sweeping government interventions in the economy, is expected to have its biggest impact on official statistics in the fourth quarter and beyond.
``If people perceive the economy to be worse than the variables we're using, then the equation will be underestimating the Democratic share of the vote,'' said Fair.
Eight in 10 respondents to a Sept. 19-22 Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times survey said the economy is doing badly, and more than half said very badly. Asked which candidate has better ideas for strengthening the economy, respondents said Obama by a margin of 46 percent to 32 percent.
They said Obama, 47, an Illinois senator, would be better than Arizona Senator McCain, 72, at handling the financial crisis by a margin of 45 percent to 33 percent.
Voter Anxiety
Economic anxiety is pushing many voters toward Obama. The McCain campaign pulled out of Michigan last week, an economically hard-hit battleground state that until last month was one of the Republican's top targets.
National polls show Obama widening his national lead in recent weeks. An Oct. 5-7 Gallup tracking poll showed voters favoring the Democrat by a margin of 52 percent to 41 percent. Other polls portray a narrower race. The Diageo/Hotline poll says Obama leads by a single point, 45 percent to 44 percent; a C-Span poll has Obama leading by about 2 percentage points.
Fair's equation takes into account which party currently holds the White House and for how long, whether the incumbent is running, growth and inflation. One variable he calls ``good news'' is the number of quarters in the last four years in which GDP growth exceeded 4.2 percent.
Fair's model would have correctly predicted the winner of the two-party vote in all but three elections since 1916, according to a 2002 paper published on his Web site. Before the three most recent elections, he accurately forecast who would get more votes without always getting the margin right.
In August 1996, he said the data suggested a narrow victory for incumbent President Bill Clinton in a race that was too close to call ``with any confidence.'' Clinton won 49.2 percent of the popular vote; Republican Robert Dole got 40.7 percent.
To contact the reporters on this story: Matthew Benjamin in Washington at mbenjamin2@bloomberg.net
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=aPnl.m5.6Sa8&refer=politics
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/10/obama-wall-street-tumbles_n_133607.html
Forest Whitaker Draws Crowd for Political Rally in Lakeland
http://www.theledger.com/article/20080927/NEWS/809270251#
By Shoshana WalterTHE LEDGER
LAKELAND | For about five minutes Saturday afternoon, Oscar-winning actor Forest Whitaker spoke about the importance of young people rallying around presidential candidate Barack Obama and empowering themselves by taking a more active role in the election,
In the front row, cousins Whitney Lee, 19, and Tiffany Lee, 15, both of Lakeland, giggled. The two recognized themselves in Whitaker’s words. They stood beneath the shade of a campaign sign and watched Whitaker’s every move.
Reaching out to young people is something Obama has proved he does best, Whitney had said before Whitaker took the microphone. He speaks to young voters, embraces them, and that’s one of the reasons she’s been encouraging people to register to vote, she said.
That sentiment was echoed throughout the event at Lakeland’s Lake Bonny Park as Obama supporters registered new voters and practiced campaigners pumped up a crowd of about 300.
That crowd swarmed Whitaker as he arrived, many on their tiptoes to sneak peaks and quick cell-phone snapshots at the round-faced man, who’s much taller than he looks in the movies.
Accompanied by his publicist and his wife, Keisha, a tall actress with oversized sunglasses, Whitaker created excitement when he arrived.
Obama represents us, he told the crowd: Vote. You can make a change by being heard.
“When you have hope, you can make those possibilities into a reality,” he said.
Behind him, Whitaker’s publicist assembled a “protective circle” of campaigners who whisked Whitaker to his car immediately after his speech.
But the crowd wouldn’t leave him alone.
As his publicist hurried him along, Whitaker posed for pictures, signed autographs and answered a reporter’s questions. He obliged a fan for one last photo from behind the rolled-down, tinted windows of his black SUV.
Dylan Parrish, a senior at Rochelle School of the Arts, leaned in as Whitaker smiled from his seat.
Parrish registered to vote Saturday and turns 18 in October.
“I’m very excited,” he had said from the bleachers before Whitaker arrived. “It’s been really hyped up since last year ... I think [Obama] talks in a way that we understand.”
Whitney Lee said she likes Obama’s stances on education, the economy and his support of equal pay for equal work.
At 15 years old, Tiffany Lee can’t vote yet, but she knows other people can. Her father, 41 years old, registered to vote for the first time in this election, she said.
She’ll be able to vote next time around, and if all goes well, she said, she knows who she’ll be supporting.
A full 7 hours after we officially formed our group, we held a phone banking event, '"Holla" for Obama' at Club Obama! the Obama Campaign Headquarters, downtown Durham.
Volunteering's better with cool folks - Thanks for coming out!
We got to reach out to voters in the Durham community and recuited volunteers to join us this Saturday as we rev up to meet Sen. Obama's challenge of knocking on 100,000 doors in North Carolina.
In case you haven't heard, we'll be meeting up this Saturday, September 27, at the (famous) Know Bookstore, 2520 Fayetteville Street. It's just accross the street from St. Joseph's Baptist Church, near NCCU and Church's Chicken. We'll be canvassing from that location during shifts starting at 10AM (until 2PM) and 2PM (until 6PM). Why not join us?
We're excited to join the community of Obama-Biden campaign groups and look foward to providing additionl opportunities to be active in Durham.
In the meantime, we'd love to hear from you. Let us know about events you'd like to see, places you want to go...your political fantasies (only the clean ones)...
Check us out here.
Till Next Time,
Urban Durham for Obama
Tuesday, 23rd September
Race for the White House
Gary Younge in Richmond
From his office in the former capital of the confederacy, the mayor of Richmond, Doug Wilder, is relishing Virginia's moment in the presidential sun. On that very morning Barack Obama was campaigning in the military town of Norfolk in the south-east of the state while the Republican hopeful, John McCain, appeared with Sarah Palin in front of the biggest crowd he had yet seen in Fairfax, to the north.
Two candidates on the same day in a state not seriously contested for the presidency in 44 years; Wilder, the state's former Democratic governor, does the maths and smiles. "John McCain is here now," he says. "You know why? Because he has to campaign in Virginia. He can't take it for granted."
With its 13 electoral college votes Virginia is a weighty addition to the battleground states - roughly the equivalent of winning New Hampshire, Nevada and New Mexico together. It could not be closer. Of the last six polls both Obama and McCain have led in three each. To the south North Carolina is also shaping up to be a tight race. No Democrat has won there for 32 years and Bush took the state four years ago by 12 points. Obama has 31 offices in the state and the latest poll shows a tie.
"I see a crack in the solid South," says Wilder, the first African American to be elected as a state governor. "I see a crack. And the fissure is taking place right here in Virginia ... to be considered a toss-up state this close to the election is amazing. We might influence North Carolina or Georgia. If we get either one of the states it's big."
Stunning victories
So far this fissure has failed to turn into a full-blown chasm. Polls in the summer showed Obama to be competitive in Texas, Mississippi, Georgia and Tennessee while holding narrow leads in South Carolina and Arkansas. Democrats recorded stunning byelection wins in Mississippi and Louisiana, prompting Time to run a cover proclaiming "The End of the South". But predictions of a full-scale remoulding of the region's electoral map have not been borne out. Obama pulled most of his staff and almost all of his advertising from Georgia a few weeks ago. Now he is focusing on North Carolina and Virginia.
The McCain campaign has belittled these efforts as arrogance subsidised by deep pockets. They refused to counter Democrat efforts in Georgia, figuring that if they struggled there then the jig would be up everywhere. They dismiss Obama's campaigning in North Carolina as wishful thinking.
"It's just one more state where the Obama campaign has allowed its hubris to dictate spending decisions," Steve Schmidt, McCain's chief strategist, told the Associated Press. "Soon you will see the Obama camp withdraw from North Carolina like you have seen them withdraw from other states."
For all their affected nonchalance Republicans are spending almost as much money in North Carolina as the Democrats. "North Carolina is teetering on the edge of being a swing state," said Ferrel Guillory, a political scientist at the University of North Carolina. "If the Democrats continue to emphasise it and continue to advertise there they could keep it in play. But keeping it in play just means it's competitive. It doesn't mean they're going to win."
Even this is no mean feat. Obama has poured in considerable resources here, flooding the area with ads, registering young and black voters at unprecedented rates and galvanising volunteers. Within 30 miles of Raleigh yesterday there were seven Obama events, involving canvassing, voter registration and phone banking. Obama was in Charlotte on Sunday; his wife, Michelle, was in the state on Thursday. McCain has not visited the state in months, his campaign has just 13 offices and nothing planned for yesterday. "You just don't see the McCain people anywhere," says Betsy Muse, a frontpage blogger for the liberal site BlueNC and an Obama volunteer.
Back in Richmond volunteers turn up at Broad Rock Library on many a weeknight, to collect campaign materials to go canvassing and registering. Obama has been hoping that this ground game of person-to-person contact will counter the Republican machine. The voter registration drives seem to be paying off. Virginia has seen more than 250,000 more voters registered since January. Most of this rise has taken place in Democratic counties. In North Carolina Democratic registration has leaped 7% while Republicans have risen 1%. The young and the black are over-represented in the increases.
Registering young and black voters is one thing. Getting them to the polls is another. This is one reason why the polls have been particularly unreliable.
Another reason is that it is difficult to know whether all voters are telling the truth. "The Bubba vote is there," former Republican House majority leader Dick Armey told USA Today recently. "And it's very real ... there's an awful lot of people in America, bless their heart, who simply are not emotionally prepared to vote for a black man."
Unreliable polls
Armey says those voters are "invisible" in the polls because they would not admit they opposed Obama because of his race. "I really want to say it's not going to play a big role," said Muse. "But it is." Given how central race has been to the political realignment in the region it's hard to see how it could not.
Until the 60s the South was the most reliable Democratic area in the country - but Southern Democrats were the most forceful supporters of racial segregation. As the civil rights movement emerged the Republicans sensed an opportunity. In 1961 Barry Goldwater launched the Republican "Southern strategy" in Atlanta. "We're not going to get the Negro vote as a bloc in 1964," he declared, "so we ought to go hunting where the ducks are." The party made an explicit appeal to white racism. When the then Democratic president Lyndon Johnson signed the 1964 civil rights act he said: "We have lost the South for a generation."
"There's not a lot of love for Obama in many of these white Democratic strongholds," said Chris Kromm, the executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies. "I've seen these older, white Hillary supporters say they'll vote for him because he's on their team. But you don't know how many of those McCain is going to be able to pick off."
Charmless
McCain has problems here, too. While his war record goes down well, many southerners view him as insufficiently pious and charming. During the primaries the guitar-playing former governor-cum-lay preacher Mike Huckabee won five of the 11 former confederate states, although many were held after McCain's victory was assured. At the rally in Fairfax the faithful turned out to see Sarah Palin, the straight-talking evangelical who, even though she hails from Alaska, has gone down better in the South.
"The South doesn't differ much from the rest of the nation on the big issues like war, tax and healthcare," said Guillory. "Where it does differ is in areas of cultural conservatism - like guns, religion and abortion. In a close race that conservatism can make the difference."
But Southern culture is changing. Of the 10 states with the steepest rise in Latino population, six are in the old confederacy. Meanwhile, the South's booming economy has pulled in many outsiders: particularly to the northern-most parts of Virginia and North Carolina's research triangle around the towns of Durham, Raleigh and Chapel Hill.
"People's perceptions of the South are rooted in an old idea of what the South looks like," said Kromm. "But it's one of the fastest-changing regions in the country and one of the fastest-growing regions in the country."
Obama hopes that if he can add some of these newcomers to his base of young, black and progressive voters he could create a serious upset. That idea is alive in Virginia, dead in Georgia and in intensive care in North Carolina. For now that is good enough for Muse. "We never get this kind of attention. We're hanging on. It's still possible."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/23/uselections2008.barackobama
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/samgrahamfelsen/gGg42R
First of all, I want to give Thanks publicly to those who came out to attend my fundraiser last night for Senator Obama. I thank God for each one of their testimonies. The process was inspiring because people are led to this campaign for so many varied reasons, and the economy came up quite frequently. Nevertheless, the response was amazing and many others are still giving online. Although I am not at my goal yet, I am well on the way to my first thousand.
It is such a priviledge to be alive to see the momentum that is building in our local community and to see change sweep the country. Last night as my kids and I were preparing for our guests, I was thinking about the many times that I witnessed my own family (most now deceased) gathering their resources to be involved in a campaign for change. Being from Montgomery and birthed in the 60s myself, I am often moved by the great sacrifice of their generation in order for us to be where we are now as Americans of every color. They have passed the baton to us, and we accept it knowing that one day we will be asked how well we ran the race set before us. The future is not a given. Our children will also be called to get in the race for change and social justice in their time. I hope that they will look at our example, and be encouraged. May God be with us all.
BARACK the VOTE!
Crystal
