Senator Obama,
If you are reading this please read closely. All the signs point to Senator McCain lying more and getting even more ugly during Tuesday's upcoming debate. He is desperate at this point. The McCain/Palin ticket have proven to be liars and bad for this country. What I am asking is this. Senator Obama IT IS TIME to TAKE THE GLOVES OFF. You cannot sit back and let him get away with some of the lies and remarks he makes during these debates and during his stump speeches. As Democrats we have looked "weak" during the past 2 elections and we cannot do it again. When they hit us with lies, we hit them back harder with the frightening truth about them and call them out right there on stage.
Once again....Please Please Please. I do believe in you but it is time to take Old man McCain to the mat and kick his butt. Show the country what he really is about. Also, if you really call him out on his lies during the debate and just hammer him with your clever charm and amazing mind then maybe he will just go crazy on stage and then the job will be done. We all know he is not any kind of Maverick. That is just BS. During the VP debate I wanted to throw up after hearing "Maverick" about 40 times. Joe did great.
I only give this advice because these are things that America is saying. They are saying Barak, DO NOT BE AFRAID To hit McCain HARD on Tuesday. DO NOT be afraid. You ARE the only one in this race that can heal this country but calling out the lies and distortions of this man is the right thing to do.
All my support and admiration,
Darren R. Holmquist
It's not often we have a chance to celebrate the communities that have formed around this campaign. A few days ago I dialed into a conference call with campign staffers and was both humbled and inspired by what I heard.
For most of the call, both Chris Hughes and David Plouffe expressed their gratitude to the grassroots participants, all of whom (if I'm not mistaken) volunteer a remarkable amount of their time and energy to the campaign as organizers, canvassers, donors, multimedia voices and online bloggers and responders. Trying to take the measure of just what all this effort added up to, and what it meant about the power ordinary people have to make their voices heard, simply took my breath away.
It also helped me put my modest individual efforts into perspective, thereby making me appreciate the significance of this community even more.
But the thing that I found really humbling was the result of a technical difficulty: from the amount of time it took me to connect, I'm guessing dozens (if not hundreds) of other people were also dialing in, and I imagine that the technology was not designed to accomodate more than a handful of callers at a time, if even that many. So I also imagine that the traffic made it impossible for Mr. Hughes and Mr. Plouffe to hear us and so they could not take questions from callers. It also meant that we did not get a chance to thank them for their work.
Think about it: these two campaign staffers were thanking us on behalf of their coworkers, and most importantly, the candidate himself, and I could not help but imagine what it must be like for them at the center of the storm that is a presidential campaign.
I wanted to reassure them that if we could do more we would. It was because of them that we have been able to *gather* in this virtual world, exchange ideas, have arguments (and how), encourage one another, bicker, and in the end connect around a common purpose. Because of the courage, integrity and will to serve exemplified by Senator Obama and by extension by the campaign staff, we have more readily and more easily woven the networks that make up this movement
So, to the campagin staff and the candidate, for all your continuing hard work and dedication, the grassroots says thank you.
The Obama '08 campaign is getting more organized and serious! As noted on the Talking Points Memo/Election Central blog post today, the Obama '08 Campaign has just hired two key people:
Obama Hires Clinton-Gore Pollster Joel Benenson By Greg Sargent | bio An Obama source confirms to Election Central that Barack Obama's Presidential campaign has just made two key hires: It has enlisted top Democratic pollster Joel Benenson, who managed Clinton-Gore's polling operation in 1996, and has signed up operative Ertharin Cousin as a senior adviser to the campaign. (continues at link)
An Obama source confirms to Election Central that Barack Obama's Presidential campaign has just made two key hires: It has enlisted top Democratic pollster Joel Benenson, who managed Clinton-Gore's polling operation in 1996, and has signed up operative Ertharin Cousin as a senior adviser to the campaign. (continues at link)
Sounds okay to me. How about that name "Ertharin Cousin"?!
I just saw an interview with Obama pollster Cornell Belcher. Mr. Belcher, who is a top Democratic numbers guy, was fronting for Sen Obama on MSNBC, answering questions from Nora O'Donnell. The Republican strategist opposite Mr. Belcher unfortunately outshown him. Mr. Belcher was not very well spoken. I found myself willing him to complete a thoughtful sentence.
Nora played for Mr. Belcher two clips from the 60 Minutes interview last night. In the first, Sen Obama was talking about how American society defines a person as African American if a person looks African American. The second clip was of Michelle Obama saying that, as a black man, Sen Obama could get shot going to the gas station. Mr. Belcher failed to point out that this discussion was in response to Steve Kroft's pointed questioning first on Sen Obama's personal racial identity and then on comparing Michelle Obama's fear of a possible assassination attempt on her husband vs. Mrs. Powell's fear of a possible assassination attempt on Colin Powell, which was apparently a major consideration in keeping him out of Presidential politics. Instead, Mr. Belcher talked about how he doesn't know a single black man who hasn't been pulled over by the police and harrassed. While that could certainly be true and while I have no qualms with that argument and think we absolutely must address issues of racism in this country, I don't think that was the right message at that time.
Nora also allowed Hillary Clinton to slap Sen Obama's hand via Mr. Belcher. She brought up a quote from one of Sen Clinton's pollster's, apparently in reaction to Obama's statements over the weekend about Sen Clinton's mistakes in backing the war and her lack of vision in creating a cohesive exit strategy. The quote essentially said that the entire Democratic party should reserve the word "mistake" for the Bush administration and not use it in terms of other Dems. Mr. Belcher, on behalf of Sen Obama's campaign, found himself agreeing in an almost mea culpa manner. I can't see how that's helpful to this campaign.
My fervent hope is that the Senator will put forward campaign staff who carry forward his message of hope and who can bring at least a measure of his eloquence. Mr. Belcher is excellent at the numbers game. Perhaps, however, they should find someone else to be grilled on MSNBC.
