Did you know that, after the front page, the most read part of any newspaper is the Letters to the Editor? Yep! It's the largest forum most everyday citizens can hope to address, and with email, it doesn't even cost a stamp!
I just love the tool on our my.barackobama home page that allows us to write letters to the editors of local and national papers. In case you don't have time for compositions, but would like to try it out, here's a nifty 200 wd letter:
Making jokes about bombs in airports gets you arrested for good reason: joking about an actual threat can get people killed. Sarah Palin, and the GOP, use abysmal judgment when they make use of Ayers' history with the Weather Underground for political purposes. If Ayers were still an outlaw, underground, bombing things, it would be VERY appropriate to disclose a connection with a presidential candidate. But the guy's an English professor at an excellent university, for pity's sake. While Ayers was bombing things, Barack Obama was in grade school. Obama doesn't know the man well, and has condemned the actions that Ayers has done his time for. Everyone knows this already. Including Palin.So if Palin and the GOP raise the spectre of terrorist connections when you and she and we all know it's a specious pile o' poo, what happens if they get into office and there’s a true impending threat? Who will believe them?? The same 10% who still believe Bush?It's crucial that a leader in this time of uncertainty, anxiety, and insecurity think twice before stampeding the cattle. But now the terrorist threat is something the McCain campaign can play politics with. Bad idea. Very bad.
Feel free to cut and paste that letter into an email or into a webform for submission to your local paper, or fwd it to your undecided friends. Another great place to look for material is at the Ghost Writer Guild site, which has been set up specifically for the purpose of providing opinion pieces to Obama supporters who feel less confident putting thoughts on paper.
Now's the time when many Americans begin paying attention to campaigns and are looking for reasons to vote one way or another. Your letter might just persuade them, but you'll never know if you don't try... YES YOU CAN!!!
Now that he’s finally fired up on the soup-line economy, Barack Obama knows he can’t fade out again. He was eager to talk privately to a Democratic ex-president who could offer more fatherly wisdom — not to mention a surreptitious smoke — and less fraternal rivalry. I called the “West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin (yes, truly) to get a read-out of the meeting.
This is what he wrote:BARACK OBAMA knocks on the front door of a 300-year-old New Hampshire farmhouse while his Secret Service detail waits in the driveway. The door opens and OBAMA is standing face to face with former President JED BARTLET.
BARTLET Senator.
OBAMA Mr. President.
BARTLET You seem startled.
OBAMA I didn’t expect you to answer the door yourself.
BARTLET I didn’t expect you to be getting beat by John McCain and a Lancôme rep who thinks “The Flintstones” was based on a true story, so let’s call it even.
OBAMA Yes, sir.
BARTLET Come on in.
BARTLET leads OBAMA into his study.
BARTLET That was a hell of a convention.
OBAMA Thank you, I was proud of it.
BARTLET I meant the Republicans. The Us versus Them-a-thon. As a Democrat I was surprised to learn that I don’t like small towns, God, people with jobs or America. I’ve been a little out of touch but is there a mandate that the vice president be skilled at field dressing a moose —
OBAMA Look —
BARTLET — and selling Air Force Two on eBay?
OBAMA Joke all you want, Mr. President, but it worked.
BARTLET Imagine my surprise. What can I do for you, kid?
OBAMA I’m interested in your advice.
BARTLET I can’t give it to you.
OBAMA Why not?
BARTLET I’m supporting McCain.
OBAMA Why?
BARTLET He’s promised to eradicate evil and that was always on my “to do” list.
OBAMA O.K. —
BARTLET And he’s surrounded himself, I think, with the best possible team to get us out of an economic crisis. Why, Sarah Palin just said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had “gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers.” Can you spot the error in that statement?
OBAMA Yes, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac aren’t funded by taxpayers.
BARTLET Well, at least they are now. Kind of reminds you of the time Bush said that Social Security wasn’t a government program. He was only off by a little — Social Security is the largest government program.
OBAMA I appreciate your sense of humor, sir, but I really could use your advice.
BARTLET Well, it seems to me your problem is a lot like the problem I had twice.
OBAMA Which was?
BARTLET A huge number of Americans thought I thought I was superior to them.
OBAMA And?
BARTLET I was.
OBAMA I mean, how did you overcome that?
BARTLET I won’t lie to you, being fictional was a big advantage.
OBAMA What do you mean?
BARTLET I’m a fictional president. You’re dreaming right now, Senator.
OBAMA I’m asleep?
BARTLET Yes, and you’re losing a ton of white women.
BARTLET I mean tons.
OBAMA I understand.
BARTLET I didn’t even think there were that many white women.
OBAMA I see the numbers, sir. What do they want from me?
BARTLET I’ve been married to a white woman for 40 years and I still don’t know what she wants from me.
OBAMA How did you do it?
BARTLET Well, I say I’m sorry a lot.
OBAMA I don’t mean your marriage, sir. I mean how did you get America on your side?
BARTLET There again, I didn’t have to be president of America, I just had to be president of the people who watched “The West Wing.”
OBAMA That would make it easier.
BARTLET You’d do very well on NBC. Thursday nights in the old “ER” time slot with “30 Rock” as your lead-in, you’d get seven, seven-five in the demo with a 20, 22 share — you’d be selling $450,000 minutes.
OBAMA What the hell does that mean?
BARTLET TV talk. I thought you’d be interested.
OBAMA I’m not. They pivoted off the argument that I was inexperienced to the criticism that I’m — wait for it — the Messiah, who, by the way, was a community organizer. When I speak I try to lead with inspiration and aptitude. How is that a liability?
BARTLET Because the idea of American exceptionalism doesn’t extend to Americans being exceptional. If you excelled academically and are able to casually use 690 SAT words then you might as well have the press shoot video of you giving the finger to the Statue of Liberty while the Dixie Chicks sing the University of the Taliban fight song. The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it.
OBAMA You’re saying race doesn’t have anything to do with it?
BARTLET I wouldn’t go that far. Brains made me look arrogant but they make you look uppity. Plus, if you had a black daughter —
OBAMA I have two.
BARTLET — who was 17 and pregnant and unmarried and the father was a teenager hoping to launch a rap career with “Thug Life” inked across his chest, you’d come in fifth behind Bob Barr, Ralph Nader and a ficus.
OBAMA You’re not cheering me up.
BARTLET Is that what you came here for?
OBAMA No, but it wouldn’t kill you.
BARTLET Have you tried doing a two-hour special or a really good Christmas show?
OBAMA Sir —
BARTLET Hang on. Home run. Right here. Is there any chance you could get Michelle pregnant before the fall sweeps?
OBAMA The problem is we can’t appear angry. Bush called us the angry left. Did you see anyone in Denver who was angry?
BARTLET Well ... let me think. ...We went to war against the wrong country, Osama bin Laden just celebrated his seventh anniversary of not being caught either dead or alive, my family’s less safe than it was eight years ago, we’ve lost trillions of dollars, millions of jobs, thousands of lives and we lost an entire city due to bad weather. So, you know ... I’m a little angry.
OBAMA What would you do?
BARTLET GET ANGRIER! Call them liars, because that’s what they are. Sarah Palin didn’t say “thanks but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said “Thanks.” You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you’re at it, I want the word “patriot” back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn’t know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can’t do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn’t their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they’ve earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It’s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist’s baby too? I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!
OBAMA Good to get that off your chest?
BARTLET Am I keeping you from something?
OBAMA Well, it’s not as if I didn’t know all of that and it took you like 20 minutes to say.
BARTLET I know, I have a problem, but admitting it is the first step.
OBAMA What’s the second step?
BARTLET I don’t care.
OBAMA So what about hope? Chuck it for outrage and put-downs?
BARTLET No. You’re elite, you can do both. Four weeks ago you had the best week of your campaign, followed — granted, inexplicably — by the worst week of your campaign. And you’re still in a statistical dead heat. You’re a 47-year-old black man with a foreign-sounding name who went to Harvard and thinks devotion to your country and lapel pins aren’t the same thing and you’re in a statistical tie with a war hero and a Cinemax heroine. To these aged eyes, Senator, that’s what progress looks like. You guys got four debates. Get out of my house and go back to work.
OBAMA Wait, what is it you always used to say? When you hit a bump on the show and your people were down and frustrated? You’d give them a pep talk and then you’d always end it with something. What was it ...?
BARTLET “Break’s over.”
Is History Siding With Obama's Economic Plan?By ALAN S. BLINDER
CLEARLY, there are major differences between the economic policies of Senators Barack Obama and John McCain. Mr. McCain wants more tax cuts for the rich; Mr. Obama wants tax cuts for the poor and middle class. The two men also disagree on health care, energy and many other topics.
Such differences are hardly surprising. Democrats and Republicans have followed different approaches to the economy for as long as there have been Democrats and Republicans. Longer, actually. Remember Hamilton versus Jefferson?
Many Americans know that there are characteristic policy differences between the two parties. But few are aware of two important facts about the post-World War II era, both of which are brilliantly delineated in a new book, "Unequal Democracy," by Larry M. Bartels, a professor of political science at Princeton. Understanding them might help voters see what could be at stake, economically speaking, in November.
I call the first fact the Great Partisan Growth Divide. Simply put, the United States economy has grown faster, on average, under Democratic presidents than under Republicans.
The stark contrast between the whiz-bang Clinton years and the dreary Bush years is familiar because it is so recent. But while it is extreme, it is not atypical. Data for the whole period from 1948 to 2007, during which Republicans occupied the White House for 34 years and Democrats for 26, show average annual growth of real gross national product of 1.64 percent per capita under Republican presidents versus 2.78 percent under Democrats.
That 1.14-point difference, if maintained for eight years, would yield 9.33 percent more income per person, which is a lot more than almost anyone can expect from a tax cut.
Read More »
Barack Obama submitted the following Op-Ed piece to the Detroit Free Press for publication.
In this country, we believe that if you work hard, you should be able to build a better life for your children and grandchildren. That is the American Dream — and it’s slowly slipping out of reach for many families.Last month, 51,000 Americans lost their jobs – including 8,300 in the auto industry. Unemployment has hit Michigan hardest of all. Since George Bush took office, more than 260,000 Michigan manufacturing jobs have been lost, and in Detroit, one in every 10 workers is without a job. And I’ve heard from mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers all across Michigan who are working hard, but struggling to keep up with the rising cost of gas and groceries.This election is our chance to take our economy in a new direction. That’s why I’ve proposed a second stimulus package, not just to jumpstart the economy and create jobs, but to provide real relief to struggling families right now. It includes energy rebates of $1,000 for more than 5 million Michigan workers and their families, and $1.7 billion dollars to keep Michigan’s essential state and local government services running.In addition to this immediate relief, I will, as president, also provide a middle class tax cut that is three times larger than the one my opponent offers — putting a $1,000 tax cut directly into the pockets of 95% of workers and their families. And I will end tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas and give those tax breaks to companies that create good-paying jobs here in America.But to secure our prosperity in the 21st Century, we also have to make long-term investments in our competitiveness. That starts with solving our energy crisis once and for all. This isn’t just a challenge to meet; it’s an opportunity to seize — an opportunity that will create new businesses, new industries and millions of new jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced. For a state like Michigan, it’s an opportunity to rebuild and revive your economy. Already, there are 300 companies and 50,000 jobs in your clean energy sector. Now is the time to accelerate that innovation, both in Michigan and across the nation.That’s why I went to Michigan to unveil my comprehensive plan for energy independence. It will immediately direct the full resources of the federal government and the full energy of the private sector to a single, overarching goal — complete independence from foreign oil within a decade. To do this, we’ll invest $150 billion over the next ten years and leverage billions more in private capital to build a new energy economy that harnesses American energy and creates 5 million new American jobs.We’ll ensure that the cars of tomorrow aren’t built in Japan or China, but right here in Michigan. Instead of giving $4 billion in new tax breaks to oil companies that are making record profits — as Sen. John McCain is proposing — let’s give tax credits to American auto plants and manufacturers so that they can re-tool their factories and build the cars of the future, from hybrid cars to higher mileage cars, from new electric entrants such as GM’s Volt to flex-fuel cars and trucks powered by biofuels and driven by Michigan innovation.We’ll leverage private sector funding to bring these cars directly to American consumers, and we’ll give consumers a $7,000 tax credit to buy these vehicles. That’s how we’ll get one million 150-m.p.g. hybrids on our roads within six years. That’s how we’ll not only protect our auto industry and our auto workers, but help them thrive in a 21st Century economy; and that is how we will finally lower gas prices, secure our energy future, and save this planet for our children.That’s what change is. But that’s not what Sen. McCain is offering. He believes we’re on the right course. He’s said our economy has made great progress these past eight years. He’s embraced the same failed Bush policies that put our economy on this dangerous path and promises to continue them. He’s offering $300 billion in tax breaks for corporations and the wealthiest Americans, without saying how he’d pay for them. He’s offering another four years of tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. Our country and working families in Michigan cannot afford that.This fall, the people of Michigan have a choice to make. We can choose to remain on the same course that hasn’t worked for the past eight years and that won’t work now. Or we can reclaim the idea that in this country, opportunity is open to anyone who’s willing to work for it. That’s the promise of this country, and I believe we can keep it if you stand with me in November and choose a new direction for our economy and for this country that we love.U.S. SEN. BARACK OBAMA, D-Ill., is the Democratic candidate for president.
In this country, we believe that if you work hard, you should be able to build a better life for your children and grandchildren. That is the American Dream — and it’s slowly slipping out of reach for many families.
Last month, 51,000 Americans lost their jobs – including 8,300 in the auto industry. Unemployment has hit Michigan hardest of all. Since George Bush took office, more than 260,000 Michigan manufacturing jobs have been lost, and in Detroit, one in every 10 workers is without a job. And I’ve heard from mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers all across Michigan who are working hard, but struggling to keep up with the rising cost of gas and groceries.
This election is our chance to take our economy in a new direction. That’s why I’ve proposed a second stimulus package, not just to jumpstart the economy and create jobs, but to provide real relief to struggling families right now. It includes energy rebates of $1,000 for more than 5 million Michigan workers and their families, and $1.7 billion dollars to keep Michigan’s essential state and local government services running.In addition to this immediate relief, I will, as president, also provide a middle class tax cut that is three times larger than the one my opponent offers — putting a $1,000 tax cut directly into the pockets of 95% of workers and their families. And I will end tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas and give those tax breaks to companies that create good-paying jobs here in America.But to secure our prosperity in the 21st Century, we also have to make long-term investments in our competitiveness. That starts with solving our energy crisis once and for all. This isn’t just a challenge to meet; it’s an opportunity to seize — an opportunity that will create new businesses, new industries and millions of new jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced. For a state like Michigan, it’s an opportunity to rebuild and revive your economy. Already, there are 300 companies and 50,000 jobs in your clean energy sector. Now is the time to accelerate that innovation, both in Michigan and across the nation.That’s why I went to Michigan to unveil my comprehensive plan for energy independence. It will immediately direct the full resources of the federal government and the full energy of the private sector to a single, overarching goal — complete independence from foreign oil within a decade. To do this, we’ll invest $150 billion over the next ten years and leverage billions more in private capital to build a new energy economy that harnesses American energy and creates 5 million new American jobs.We’ll ensure that the cars of tomorrow aren’t built in Japan or China, but right here in Michigan. Instead of giving $4 billion in new tax breaks to oil companies that are making record profits — as Sen. John McCain is proposing — let’s give tax credits to American auto plants and manufacturers so that they can re-tool their factories and build the cars of the future, from hybrid cars to higher mileage cars, from new electric entrants such as GM’s Volt to flex-fuel cars and trucks powered by biofuels and driven by Michigan innovation.We’ll leverage private sector funding to bring these cars directly to American consumers, and we’ll give consumers a $7,000 tax credit to buy these vehicles. That’s how we’ll get one million 150-m.p.g. hybrids on our roads within six years. That’s how we’ll not only protect our auto industry and our auto workers, but help them thrive in a 21st Century economy; and that is how we will finally lower gas prices, secure our energy future, and save this planet for our children.That’s what change is. But that’s not what Sen. McCain is offering. He believes we’re on the right course. He’s said our economy has made great progress these past eight years. He’s embraced the same failed Bush policies that put our economy on this dangerous path and promises to continue them. He’s offering $300 billion in tax breaks for corporations and the wealthiest Americans, without saying how he’d pay for them. He’s offering another four years of tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. Our country and working families in Michigan cannot afford that.This fall, the people of Michigan have a choice to make. We can choose to remain on the same course that hasn’t worked for the past eight years and that won’t work now. Or we can reclaim the idea that in this country, opportunity is open to anyone who’s willing to work for it. That’s the promise of this country, and I believe we can keep it if you stand with me in November and choose a new direction for our economy and for this country that we love.U.S. SEN. BARACK OBAMA, D-Ill., is the Democratic candidate for president.
As some of you know, I make my living in media relations for a nonprofit organization. One of the things I do is try to get the group's views onto newspaper op-ed pages and into the letters columns (which, according to most newspaper surveys, is consistently one of the most-read pages in any paper). We've had columns published in papers all over the country, from the Chicago Tribune to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Portland Oregonian. I've personally had nearly 200 letters published, everywhere from the Wall Street Journal to the Redding (California) Record-Searchlight. Below are some tips I've put together for getting letters and op-eds published, which I hope folks will find useful:
OP-ED COLUMNS
The op-ed page (so called because it generally appears opposite the paper's editorials) typically includes a mix of pieces by columnists who are on the paper's staff, nationally syndicated columns, and guest pieces by other writers addressing issues of interest. Sometimes these are written by a nationally prominent person, but many newspapers publish -- and often prefer -- columns by local citizens addressing issues of local concern. Some tips:
**Use op-eds to comment on something that's been in the news, not to break news or to announce events or programs. Many newspapers consciously give op-ed space to those expressing a view different than the paper's own editorials.
**If you're able to, consider getting a locally known person to sign an op-ed that you draft for them. People who might not be expected to be on your side and have local clout are perfect.
**Be brief, short and clear. Aim for about 600 words, and absolutely no more than 700. Write in an active voice, in short paragraphs, and avoid jargon and technical terminology. Remember most of your audience doesn't know nearly as much about your issues as you do, so you will need to explain things in clear, simple terms. You can't make every possible point in 600 words, so stick to your most important arguments and the most solid facts you have to back them up.
**Most newspapers publish instructions for op-ed submissions, either in the paper or on their Web site. Review these and follow them. Submissions by email should always be done with the text in the body of the email, not as an attachment.
**By all means be pointed, controversial or funny if it's appropriate, but avoid personal attacks or insults, as well as overblown rhetoric.
**Give the piece a headline, and be sure to include the author's contact information and a one-sentence bio at the end.
**It often helps to "query" the opinion page editor in advance: Send a one-paragraph email briefly describing what you'd like to write about and asking if they might be interested. If the answer is yes, you have a foot in the door. But you may also hear back, "Sorry, but we already have a column on that subject running Thursday," in which case you've just saved yourself some effort.
**Do not submit the same column simultaneously to two papers in the same town or media market.
**Many papers will say that if you don't hear within a week, you can assume they have decided not to publish your submission. A follow-up call or email a few days after you submit a column is fine, and can be helpful (more than once I've found that something I submitted got lost or waylaid by an overactive spam filter), but don't be a pest.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Most of the above advice applies to letters as well as to op-eds. A few specific tips for letters:
**Brevity is essential. Limits on length typically vary from 150 to 300 words, but it is always advisable to stay close to 150. Be short, clear and succinct. Make one or two points, and then stop. Excessively long letters will either get tossed without being read, or will be edited so severely you may not recognize your own work. When in doubt, simplify!
**Always include your full name, address and phone number(s). Generally only your name and city will be published, but most newspapers do call to verify letters.
**Respond quickly to articles, columns, or other letters published by the paper. Now that most letters are submitted by email, responses are often published in a day or two. Letters responding to something that's been in the paper are more likely to be published than ones discussing issues the newspaper hasn't covered.
**Don't send too many letters to the same paper. There is no hard and fast rule, but it's safest to wait 2-3 months in between.
**Most newspapers get many more letters (and op-ed submissions) than they have space to print. Don't assume that you or your issue are on some sort of blacklist because they didn't publish something you sent. Wait 2-3 months and try again.
This op-ed piece is so great that I decided it needed to be posted here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/opinion/27rich.html
IT almost seems like a gag worthy of “Borat”: A smooth-talking rookie senator with an exotic name passes himself off as the incumbent American president to credulous foreigners. But to dismiss Barack Obama’s magical mystery tour through old Europe and two war zones as a media-made fairy tale would be to underestimate the ingenious politics of the moment. History was on the march well before Mr. Obama boarded his plane, and his trip was perfectly timed to reap the whirlwind.
He never would have been treated as a president-in-waiting by heads of state or network talking heads if all he offered were charisma, slick rhetoric and stunning visuals. What drew them instead was the raw power Mr. Obama has amassed: the power to start shaping events and the power to move markets, including TV ratings. (Even “Access Hollywood” mustered a 20 percent audience jump by hosting the Obama family.) Power begets more power, absolutely.
Before Senator Obama's plane landed in The Middle East, McCain was already crying media bias! Certainly the senator has been around long enough to know that he can't have it both ways. He and his handlers basically dared Obama to visit Iraq, but what they did not anticipate was the favorable (not biased) media coverage that his opponent would receive from doing just that. Did you see the reception in Berlin? Wow! Senator Obama looks good on the world stage; he appears confident and comfortable. I think McCain's supporters (both reluctant and enthusiastic) see how natural Obama looks on the world stage and it frightens them.
Senator Obama has made it clear that his overseas trip is in the capacity of a Senator, but I think most world leaders understand that whatever the outcome of U.S. elections, that they are witnessing history in the making. Meanwhile, back at home McCain continues to suffer from MDD (Message Deficit Disorder) and has become so desperate that he has generated this little rhetorical gem: "Obama would rather win the campaign and lose the war." It's obvious that he's pandering to the bottom feeders of the right-wing, but we must send a message to him (hope he doesn't steal it) that this sort of juvenile and mean-sprited campaigning is beneath the dignity of a potential president. Perhaps Senator McCain's time would be better spent developing a strategy beyond simply criticizing Obama or trying to pass himself off as some bedrock of national security from the cheese aisle of a grocery store.
Someone should inform McCain that Obama gets favorable (not biased) media coverage because he has something to say; he on the other hand is the political equivalent of a blind man wandering around without a cane. Smarting from his New York Times Op-Ed rejection, McCain has chosen to take his tantrum on the road, making wild assertions about media bias that just doesn't exist. If anyone has been the beneficiary of media largesse, it has been McCain; in fact, his voting record, lobbyist associations and business dealings have not undergone the kind of media or public scrutiny as Obama's. No one has accused him of being something he is not, no one has talked about Senator McCain's lack of general knowledge about the warring factions in Iraq, and no one has called him on his lack of support for Senator Webbs GI Bill. Both he and Bush were against many of the provisions in the bill and yet they took credit for the bill in its final and more robust form. No one asked Senator McCain why he as a victim of torture, would change his position (flip-flop) from firmly against it and compromise his own principles to support the brutal tactics of a rogue administration. That's not change we can use. Bush is a scoundrel. McCain is a scoundrel and his reputation as a "maverick," is for the most part media mythology. Having been part of one of, if not, the most partisan conservative administrations in history, an occasional bi-partisan sponsorship of a few bills of the no-brainer variety ( The Patient Protection Act with Senator Kennedy comes to mind) erroneously established him as some some sort of maverick.
We applaud Senator McCain for his bi-partisan gestures, in fact I almost bought into the hype during the last election cycle, but the truth of the matter is, McCain has supported the party line for the Bush Administration over 95% of the time. I think Senator McCain is confusing Obama's incredible charm, intelligence, and contagious positivity with "media bias." I guess he missed the memo that the republican message, which has guided and shaped public policy for so long, no longer resonates with the majority of Americans; we've had eight years to witness and experience the damage caused by the Bush Administration and we say no more! If only there were a market for boring lackluster speeches that drone on and on about nothing; if only the masses were clamoring for dry passionless displays of artificial stoicism or begging to revisit the last eight years of The Bush Administration, then John McCain would be sitting very well.
I realize that as someone blogging on Senator Obama's official website that I am preaching to the choir, but I am extremely puzzled about why McCain is so close to Obama and gaining ground in battle-ground states. McCain has no platform beyond maintaining the status quo and at times appears to be in the early stages of dimentia. In the face of soaring fuel prices, record home foreclosures and bank collapses, why would anyone choose to vote for more of the same? Thanks for the Obama Hatefest this morning Washington Journal! Obama gets good press, because he is a good man.
We must do all we can to elect Obama as the next President of the United States. He will end the Iraq war and take the fight to Afghanistan. Wouldn't you just love to see Osama bin Laden finally captured?
After reading his op-ed in yesterday's New York Times, it befuddles me that people see McCain as stronger on foreign policy, despite his jokes on killing Iranians and wanting a U.S. military presence in Iraq for maybe 100 years.
My Plan for Iraq by Barack Obamahttp://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/opinion/14obama.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin
There is a great article this morning in the New York Times that lays it out straight why Obama is the only choice in the upcoming election. From the article:
Remarkably, neither Mrs. Clinton nor Mr. McCain had the grace to offer a salute to Mr. Obama’s epochal political breakthrough, which reverberated so powerfully across the country and throughout the world. By being so small and ungenerous, they made him look taller. Their inability to pivot even briefly from partisan self-interest could not be a more telling symptom of the dysfunctional Washington culture Mr. Obama aspires to mend.
This is why he inspires me.
I watched the Houston speech Tuesday night and arrived at a different conclusion than Mr. Rove. I didn't see Obama doing an about face towards leftist policies. On the contrary, he was beating the drum of political change, a campaign mantra that continues to work and sway moderates and (gasp!) on-the-fence Republicans.
The fact is Barack Obama has nothing to hide. The best Rove can do is paint Obama as "left-leaning behind the cloak of centrist rhetoric" and attack his sound bytes. To me, that doesn't signal vulnerability. It only exposes Rove's limp and faint tactics and attempts to embolden WSJ readers. Barack has a clear vision for his presidency and the lack of real smearing from both the Clinton campaign and Rove's op-eds is the reason why Obama continues to win votes. He doesn't have any dirt. And Obama is more of a threat to Rove as a centrist than a liberal, hence the petty article.
I find Mr. Rove's comments on integrity and credibility quite ironic, actually. Given his political demise—TIME magazine source leaks, White House e-mail scandal, the list goes on—he still manages to get published in the WSJ. Joseph C. Wilson, retired diplomat, once said, "At the end of the day, it's of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs." If anyone is a divider, it is Karl Rove, who continues to use members of the Christian right for partisan purposes.
So why is Obama grabbing so many converts? And why is Obama being attacked by Bush-ies, and at the tip of Rove's editorial spear? Obama's record gives us insight on the growing fears of the Far Right.
To me, Obama's strong start signals strength, capability and promise of cross-party productivity. That sounds like a President for all Americans. Conservatives and Liberals.
On the heels of a brilliant article by George Lakoff in the Huffington Post, Frank Rich has written a very good Op-Ed in the New York Times today drawing a comparison to J.F.K. and Obama. With a constant barrage of content being created around this campaign it is refreshing to have journalist who can step back and articulately write pieces that let us step back from the moment and see the election through a different perspective.
For those who support Obama, these articles give us a deeper appreciation of our passion for his candidacy, and hopfeully they enables us to be more effective at uniting others behind the Obama cause. Yes we can.
A few of my favorite quotes:
“It’s legitimate to wonder whether sweeping policy change can be accomplished on that polarized a battlefield. A Clinton presidency may end up a Democratic mirror image of Karl Rove’s truculent style of G.O.P. governance: a 50 percent plus 1 majority. Seven years on, that formula has accomplished little for the country beyond extending and compounding the mistake of invading Iraq. As was illustrated by the long catalog of unfinished business in President Bush’s final State of the Union address, this has not been a presidency that, as Mrs. Clinton said of L. B. J.’s, got things done.”
(Read entire Op-Ed by Frank Rich)
BEFORE John F. Kennedy was a president, a legend, a myth and a poltergeist stalking America’s 2008 campaign, he was an upstart contender seen as a risky bet for the Democratic nomination in 1960.
Kennedy was judged “an ambitious but superficial playboy” by his liberal peers, according to his biographer Robert Dallek. “He never said a word of importance in the Senate, and he never did a thing,” in the authoritative estimation of the Senate’s master, Lyndon Johnson. Adlai Stevenson didn’t much like Kennedy, and neither did Harry Truman, who instead supported Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri.
J. F. K. had few policy prescriptions beyond Democratic boilerplate (a higher minimum wage, “comprehensive housing legislation”). As his speechwriter Richard Goodwin recalled in his riveting 1988 memoir “Remembering America,” Kennedy’s main task was to prove his political viability. He had to persuade his party that he was not a wealthy dilettante and not “too young, too inexperienced and, above all, too Catholic” to be president.
How did the fairy-tale prince from Camelot vanquish a field of heavyweights led by the longtime liberal warrior Hubert Humphrey? It wasn’t ideas. It certainly wasn’t experience. It wasn’t even the charisma that Kennedy would show off in that fall’s televised duels with Richard Nixon.
Looking back almost 30 years later, Mr. Goodwin summed it up this way: “He had to touch the secret fears and ambivalent longings of the American heart, divine and speak to the desires of a swiftly changing nation — his message grounded on his own intuition of some vague and spreading desire for national renewal.”
In other words, Kennedy needed two things. He needed poetry, and he needed a country with some desire, however vague, for change.
Mr. Goodwin and his fellow speechwriter Ted Sorensen helped with the poetry. Still, the placid America of 1960 was not obviously in the market for change. The outgoing president, Ike, was the most popular incumbent since F. D. R. The suburban boom was as glossy as it is now depicted in the television show “Mad Men.” The Red Panic of the McCarthy years was in temporary remission.
But Kennedy’s intuition was right. America’s boundless self-confidence was being rattled by (as yet) low-grade fevers: the surprise Soviet technological triumph of Sputnik; anti-American riots in even friendly non-Communist countries; the arrest of Martin Luther King Jr. at an all-white restaurant in Atlanta; the inexorable national shift from manufacturing to white-collar jobs. Kennedy bet his campaign on, as he put it, “the single assumption that the American people are uneasy at the present drift in our national course” and “that they have the will and strength to start the United States moving again.”
For all the Barack Obama-J. F. K. comparisons, whether legitimate or over-the-top, what has often been forgotten is that Mr. Obama’s weaknesses resemble Kennedy’s at least as much as his strengths. But to compensate for those shortcomings, he gets an extra benefit that J. F. K. lacked in 1960. There’s nothing vague about the public’s desire for national renewal in 2008, with a reviled incumbent in the White House and only 19 percent of the population finding the country on the right track, according to the last Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll. America is screaming for change.
Either of the two Democratic contenders will swing the pendulum. Their marginal policy differences notwithstanding, they are both orthodox liberals. As the party’s voters in 22 states step forward on Tuesday, the overriding question they face, as defined by both contenders, is this: Which brand of change is more likely, in Kennedy’s phrase, to get America moving again?
Lost in the hoopla over the Teddy and Caroline Kennedy show last week was the parallel endorsement of Hillary Clinton by three of Robert Kennedy’s children. In a Los Angeles Times op-ed article, they answered this paramount question as many Clinton supporters do (and as many John Edwards supporters also did). The “loftiest poetry” won’t solve America’s crises, they wrote. Change can be achieved only by a president “willing to engage in a fistfight.”
That both Clintons are capable of fistfighting is beyond doubt, at least on their own behalf in a campaign. But Mrs. Clinton isn’t always a fistfighter when governing. There’s a reason why Robert Kennedy’s children buried the Iraq war in a single clause (and never used the word Iraq) deep in their endorsement. They know that their uncle Teddy, unlike Mrs. Clinton, raised his fists to lead the Senate fight against the Iraq misadventure at the start. They know too that less than six months after “Mission Accomplished,” Senator Kennedy called the war “a fraud” and voted against pouring more money into it. Senator Clinton raised a hand, not a fist, to vote aye.
In what she advertises as 35 years of fighting for Americans, Mrs. Clinton can point to some battles won. But many of them were political campaigns for Bill Clinton: seven even before his 1992 presidential run. The fistfighting required if she is president may also often be political. As Mrs. Clinton herself says, she has been in marathon combat against the Republican attack machine. Its antipathy will be increased exponentially by the co-president who would return to the White House with her on Day One.
It’s legitimate to wonder whether sweeping policy change can be accomplished on that polarized a battlefield. A Clinton presidency may end up a Democratic mirror image of Karl Rove’s truculent style of G.O.P. governance: a 50 percent plus 1 majority. Seven years on, that formula has accomplished little for the country beyond extending and compounding the mistake of invading Iraq. As was illustrated by the long catalog of unfinished business in President Bush’s final State of the Union address, this has not been a presidency that, as Mrs. Clinton said of L. B. J.’s, got things done.
The rap on Mr. Obama remains that he preaches the audacity of Kumbaya. He is all lofty poetry and no action, so obsessed with transcending partisanship that he can be easily rolled. Implicit in this criticism is a false choice — that voters have to choose between his pretty words on one hand and Mrs. Clinton’s combative, wonky incrementalism on the other.
There’s a third possibility, of course: A poetically gifted president might be able to bring about change without relying on fistfighting as his primary modus operandi. Mr. Obama argues that if he can bring some Republicans along, he can achieve changes larger than the microinitiatives that have been a hallmark of Clintonism. He also suggests, in his most explicit policy invocation of J. F. K., that he can enlist the young en masse in a push for change by ramping up national service programs like AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps.
His critics argue back that he is a naïve wuss who will give away the store. They have mocked him for offering to hold health-care negotiations so transparent (and presumably feckless) that they can be broadcast on C-Span. Obama supporters point out that Mrs. Clinton’s behind-closed-doors 1993 health-care task force was a fiasco.
A better argument might be that transparency could help smoke out the special-interest players hiding in Washington’s crevices. You’d never know from Mrs. Clinton’s criticisms of subprime lenders that one of the most notorious, Countrywide, was a client as recently as October of Burson-Marsteller, the public relations giant where her chief strategist, Mark Penn, is the sitting chief executive. Other high-level operatives in her campaign belong to Dewey Square Group, an outfit that just last year provided lobbying services for Countrywide.
The question about Mr. Obama, of course, is whether he is tough enough to stand up to those in Washington who oppose real reform, whether Republicans or special-interest advocates like, say, Mr. Penn. The jury is certainly out, though Mr. Obama has now started to toughen his critique of the Clintons without sounding whiny. By framing that debate as a choice between the future and the past, he is revisiting the J. F. K. playbook against Ike.
What we also know is that, unlike Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama is not hesitant to take on John McCain. He has twice triggered the McCain temper, in spats over ethics reform in 2006 and Mr. McCain’s Baghdad market photo-op last year. In Thursday’s debate, Mr. Obama led an attack on Mr. McCain twice before Mrs. Clinton followed with a wan echo. When Bill Clinton promised that his wife and Mr. McCain’s friendship would ensure a “civilized” campaign, he may have been revealing more than he intended about the perils for Democrats in that matchup.
As Tuesday’s vote looms, all that’s certain is that today’s pollsters and pundits have so far gotten almost everything wrong. Mr. McCain’s campaign had been declared dead. Mrs. Clinton has gone from invincible to near-death to near-invincible again. Mr. Obama was at first not black enough to sweep black votes and then too black to get a sizable white vote in South Carolina.
Richard Goodwin knew in 1960 that all it took was “a single significant failure” by Kennedy or “an act of political daring” by his opponents for his man to lose — especially in the general election, where he faced the vastly more experienced Nixon, the designated heir of a popular president. That’s as good a snapshot as any of where we are right now, while we wait for the voters to decide if they will take what Mrs. Clinton correctly describes as a “leap of faith” and follow another upstart on to a new frontier.
Charleston, S.C.
Joseph P. Riley Jr. has been mayor of this historic and often tense city since the mid-1970s. He’s a Democrat, highly respected and has worked diligently to heal racial wounds that have festered in some cases for hundreds of years.
He has endorsed Barack Obama in today’s Democratic primary. But what struck me during an interview in his quiet office in an exquisitely restored City Hall was not the fact of the endorsement, but the manner in which the mayor expressed it.
He went out of his way to praise the Democratic field, including some of the candidates who have dropped out, like Senators Joseph Biden and Chris Dodd. He talked about his fondness for Bill and Hillary Clinton and said: “It’s tough when you have to choose between friends.”
The mayor’s thoughtful, respectful, generous assessment of the field echoed the tone that had prevailed until recently in the Democratic primary campaign. That welcome tone has been lost, undermined by a deliberate injection of ugliness, and it would be very difficult to make the case that the Clintons have not been primarily to blame.
Bill Clinton, in his over-the-top advocacy of his wife’s candidacy, has at times sounded like a man who’s gone off his medication. And some of the Clinton surrogates have been flat-out reprehensible.
Andrew Young, for instance.
This week, while making the remarkable accusation that the Obama camp was responsible for raising the race issue, Mr. Clinton mentioned Andrew Young as someone who would bear that out. It was an extremely unfortunate reference.
Here’s what Mr. Young, who is black and a former ambassador to the United Nations, had to say last month in an interview posted online: “Bill is every bit as black as Barack. He’s probably gone with more black women than Barack.”
He then went on to make disgusting comments about the way that Bill and Hillary Clinton defended themselves years ago against the fallout from the former president’s womanizing. That’s coming from the Clinton camp!
And then there was Bob Kerrey, the former senator and another Clinton supporter, who slimed up the campaign with the following comments:
“It’s probably not something that appeals to him, but I like the fact that his name is Barack Hussein Obama, and that his father was a Muslim and that his paternal grandmother is a Muslim. There’s a billion people on the planet that are Muslims, and I think that experience is a big deal.”
Pressing the point, Mr. Kerrey told CNN’s John King: “I’ve watched the blogs try to say that you can’t trust him because he spent a little bit of time in a secular madrassa. I feel quite the opposite.”
Get it?
Let’s start with the fact that Mr. Obama never attended a madrassa, and that there is no such thing as a secular madrassa. A madrassa is a religious school. Beyond that, the idea is to not-so-slyly feed the current frenzy, on the Internet and elsewhere, that Senator Obama is a Muslim, and thus potentially (in the eyes of many voters) an enemy of the United States.
Mr. Obama is not a Muslim. He’s a Christian. And if he were a Muslim, it would not be a legitimate reason for attacking his candidacy.
The Clinton camp knows what it’s doing, and its slimy maneuvers have been working. Bob Kerrey apologized and Andrew Young said at the time of his comment that he was just fooling around. But the damage to Senator Obama has been real, and so have the benefits to Senator Clinton of these and other lowlife tactics.
Consider, for example, the following Web posting (misspellings and all) from a mainstream news blog on Jan. 13:
“omg people get a grip. Can you imagine calling our president barak hussien obama ... I cant, I pray no one would be disrespectful enough to put this man in our whitehouse.”
Mr. Obama’s campaign was always going to be difficult, and the climb is even steeper now. There is no reason to feel sorry for him. He’s a politician out of Chicago who must have known that campaigns often degenerate into demolition derbies.
Still, it’s legitimate to ask, given the destructive developments of the last few weeks, whether the Clintons are capable of being anything but divisive. The electorate seems more polarized now than it was just a few weeks ago, and the Clintons have seemed positively gleeful in that atmosphere.
It makes one wonder whether they have any understanding or regard for the corrosive long-term effects — on their party and the nation — of pitting people bitterly and unnecessarily against one another.
What kind of people are the Clintons? What role will Bill Clinton play in a new Clinton White House? Can they look beyond winning to a wounded nation’s need for healing and unifying?
These are questions that need to be answered. Stay tuned.
Fri Jan 25, 12:20 AM ET
Sometimes lately it's been hard to remember which Clinton is running for president.
This week, for example, candidate Hillary Clinton made quick trips to California, New Jersey and Pennsylvania before returning to South Carolina, site of Saturday's primary, to make a sober speech on the economy. You might never have known it.
Much of the news coverage focused instead on husband Bill, who stayed in South Carolina to take on his wife's chief rival, Barack Obama. While Hillary was playing it cool, Bill was letting his temper get the best of him. He accused Obama of doing a political "hit job" on him, charged that reporters were too soft on the Illinois senator and slammed the press for fostering name-calling.
Whew.
After years of carefully building an image as a wise elder statesman, globetrotting philanthropist and big thinker, Clinton has abandoned all that to take on the grubby role that vice presidential candidates usually play, roughing up the opponent in ways the top of the ticket can virtuously avoid.
This kind of hardball is dangerously demeaning for a former president — the first President Bush generally remained above the fray when his son ran for president in 2000 and 2004 — but it can be effective. When Bill Clinton said that making Obama the nominee would be like a "roll of the dice," he drew scathing rebukes but nurtured a crucial seed of doubt about Obama's inexperience. When he called Obama's claim of consistent opposition to the Iraq war a "fairy tale," he successfully called attention to Obama's inconsistencies.
Whether that's worth tarnishing his reputation is for Bill Clinton to decide. What's more important for Hillary Clinton — and for voters — is what this says about the former president's role in the campaign and in the White House should she be elected.
If Bill Clinton is this tough on a fellow Democrat, what would he do when Hillary's being attacked by the Republican nominee, or by the shadowy "independent" groups that proliferate during a general election to do the really dirty work? What does his role suggest about who's in charge?
And what about the White House? The prospect of two presidents living there has always been the uncharted territory of Hillary Clinton's campaign. Both Clintons have said many of the right things — he that he'd defer to her, and she that she'd seek his counsel privately but give him no official role (though special envoy to Swaziland must cross her mind at times).
But his famous lack of discipline, angry outbursts on the campaign trail and habit of drawing attention to himself all suggest that voters have every right to wonder how this would actually work.
A regular series of video debates by Bloggingheads.tv
Amy Sullivan of Time magazine and Rod Dreher of The Dallas Morning News examine the growing appeal of Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama.
SEE THE VIDEO HERE: http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=5d12de8a66eeb766854d343b23b35ae34973d4e8&8ty&emc=ty
Note from Susanne: Rod Dreher verbalizes Obama's appeal to Republicans and Independents very clearly...
Check out Barack Obama's op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today:
"Homeland Insecurity"By Barack ObamaAmerica is in a defining moment. This is the wealthiest nation in history. Yet many Americans feel that the dream so many generations fought for is slowly slipping away.I've spoken with folks across this country who have worked all their lives to put their children through college, but now can't afford the rising tuition. I've spoken with many others who've done everything right, but fell into bankruptcy once they became sick, because they couldn't afford their skyrocketing medical bills. And since working Americans have to pay these rising costs with incomes that remain stagnant, many are falling deep into debt, unable to set anything aside for savings.So at a time when many Americans have no margin for error, it's no surprise that the downturn in the housing market has done enormous harm. In the coming years, over two million Americans could face foreclosure.The larger risk, however, is that what is happening in housing could spill over elsewhere. A number of firms borrowed huge sums to make investments tied to the housing market. They are now suffering big losses that could trigger a slowdown of the entire economy. We're already seeing some troubling signs. Consumer confidence is the lowest it's been in years. Pension funds are losing money, threatening retirement security. And banks are also losing money, resulting in a credit crunch. That means businesses have less money to invest and people can't get loans, which could lead to significant job losses in the months ahead.This is a moment of challenge. But it's also a moment of opportunity which we must seize, to make sure our economic future is secure. That starts with addressing the source of our economic woes -- the crisis in the housing market. For most Americans, a home is not just a place to live; it's their most valuable possession -- so preventing a larger crisis in the housing market means providing greater economic security for middle-class families.
"Homeland Insecurity"
By Barack Obama
America is in a defining moment. This is the wealthiest nation in history. Yet many Americans feel that the dream so many generations fought for is slowly slipping away.I've spoken with folks across this country who have worked all their lives to put their children through college, but now can't afford the rising tuition. I've spoken with many others who've done everything right, but fell into bankruptcy once they became sick, because they couldn't afford their skyrocketing medical bills. And since working Americans have to pay these rising costs with incomes that remain stagnant, many are falling deep into debt, unable to set anything aside for savings.So at a time when many Americans have no margin for error, it's no surprise that the downturn in the housing market has done enormous harm. In the coming years, over two million Americans could face foreclosure.The larger risk, however, is that what is happening in housing could spill over elsewhere. A number of firms borrowed huge sums to make investments tied to the housing market. They are now suffering big losses that could trigger a slowdown of the entire economy. We're already seeing some troubling signs. Consumer confidence is the lowest it's been in years. Pension funds are losing money, threatening retirement security. And banks are also losing money, resulting in a credit crunch. That means businesses have less money to invest and people can't get loans, which could lead to significant job losses in the months ahead.This is a moment of challenge. But it's also a moment of opportunity which we must seize, to make sure our economic future is secure. That starts with addressing the source of our economic woes -- the crisis in the housing market. For most Americans, a home is not just a place to live; it's their most valuable possession -- so preventing a larger crisis in the housing market means providing greater economic security for middle-class families.
Read the rest after the jump:
The real victims in this crisis are the millions of borrowers who followed the rules, whose only crime was taking out mortgages that lenders told them they could afford. Normally, these borrowers could avoid foreclosure by refinancing their mortgages or selling their homes. The problem today is that they cannot refinance because no one will lend to them, and they cannot sell because the housing market has fallen. With some arguing that the effects of the worst subprime loans will not be felt until 2008 and 2009, this may be just the beginning.We need to help struggling borrowers to weather this storm. One way to protect innocent homeowners - at least until this crisis passes - is to establish a fund to help people refinance or sell to avoid foreclosure. We can partially pay for this fund by imposing penalties on lenders that acted irresponsibly or committed fraud.But we have to do more than just deal with the present crisis. If we do not address the root of these problems, it is just a matter of time before we will be dealing with them again.
The Texas Youth Commission scandal went unnoticed, says Texas Ranger Brian Burzynski, despite his numerous attempts, beginning in early 2005, to get local, state and federal prosecutors to investigate allegations teachers, administrators and guards had sex with minor male inmates." Click here for the entire article.
For the record, I heard this article mentioned on Countdown with Kieth Olbermann and decided to check it out. I did not hold my breath thinking it might have been a fluke or mistake, but I did hold out an honest hope that our Attorney General would not be so blatantly hypocritical as to tout his support for a new child protection program having brushed aside one of the worst cases of child molestation and abuse I've ever had the displeasure of reading about. I was wrong.
I also held out a hope that I might see this discrepency mentioned in a major media outlet afterward. Besides Mr. Olbermann's brief mention of the article at WorldNet Daily and a New York Times article relating the situation but not mentioning the fact that the case was ignored by state, local and federal officials, I heard nothing about it. The only thing I can do is pass the word.
