Organizing for America | Amy Baral's Blog: Media Coverage

Media Coverage

By Amy Baral - Jan 25th, 2008 at 2:00 am EST

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Tags: campaigning, election 2008, Obama

In a perfect world, the media would report the full story, unbiased and true on every account.

In a perfect world, the media would focus less on polls and more on what the candidate are actually saying.
In a perfect world, the media would air stories about legislative achievements and the actual policies of all of the candidates.
After phonebanking for hours upon hours in both New Hampshire and Massachusetts, the question that I have gotten most has been about Barack Obama's experience in politics. I always try to answer this question to the best of my abilities using the knowledge that I have learned after working on the campaign, reading up on Barack Obama's life, and reading his books.
However, after receiving this question along with another person questioning why Obama won't just come out and state his policies instead of bickering with Hillary, it occurred to me that the average American voter has not read The Audacity of Hope, has not read through Obama's policies, and does not watch CNN 24/7. The average American voter does not know everything that Obama accomplished both as a state senator for eight years and a national senator for four years.
Here I will do my best to explain the major points in Obama's past legislative achievements that give me a huge clue as to how great and well-minded a president he could be.
1. Obama, as a state senator, worked on extensive campaign finance reforms- something that a freshman state senator never really wants to get his hands dirty in.2. Again as a state senator, Obama passed a bill that made it mandatory to have videotapped interrogation thereby protecting possible criminals from harmful interrogation tactics used by police. Who would ever have the guts to take on the police of a state and gain support of both Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that seemingly falls strongly on the Democratic side and less on the Republican.3. As a Senator for Illinois, Obama worked on a bill that made bundling transparent. Again, I have always been told that legislator do not want to pass reasonable campaign finance reforms at it ends up hurting them in getting reelected or elected to a different office because campaign finance reforms limit the avenues to funnel money into a campaign.
Obama's work on these three issues is on a simple sampling of the major legislation that he was work on. These are usually the points that I explain to the people on the phone who ask me about his experience.
These programs have shown that Obama has an ability that is unique in the politics of our day- he can work with Democrats, Republicans, and Independents to pass meaningful legislation that makes all groups happy and actually accomplishes something.
To me, a great judge of character and experience, is not how much one has accomplished or how long one has been in a particular office, but rather how well one does his or her and how well one works with others.
Obama has shown that he can work with Democrats and Republicans, something that Hillary Clinton and the Republican contenders have yet to show. If only the media would cover this part of Obama's campaign then the American people could realize that Hillary's "experience" means nothing if she is not willing to work with both Democrats and Republicans in a bipartisan manner in order to get things accomplished.

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