Nota religious person myself, but I do really like these bumper stickers. Not a bad gift to pass out to those religious folks in our lives:
http://www.cafepress.com/timroff.24232699
http://www.cafepress.com/KosmicStore
The more things like this that can get your average middle-of-the-road Christian-American voter to see the Republican spin-machine for what it is, the better. There's nothing better than one Christian reminding another that the attacks on Obama have strayed incredibly from the "Christian Values" they purport to represent.
Thanks to timroff and desertguy on DailyKos for creating these!
I have started a group:
MyBO Group: Stop Telecom Immunity. Join Today!
This group exists for a simple purpose. It is designed to use Obama's fundraising infrastructure as a petition to stop telecom immunity. If Obama sees large numbers of people giving money around a single issue, hopefully he will respond with action in the senate. I'm still figuring out the details, but a full launch is forthcoming, complete with a DailyKos diary and a membership drive. Thanks!
Hmm:
I'm just posting this for the ObamaBloggers to read:
Kucinich's Articles against GWB: http://chun.afterdowningstreet.org/amomentoftruth.pdf
Kucinich's Speech presenting Articles against Cheney: http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentPrint.aspx?DocumentID=78044
(Interestingly, I found these links when I looked at an ObamaBlogger's link to a DailyKos article, and I read the comments at DailyKos, discovering them. Why isn't the MSM talking about this?...I suppose...Wasn't this going on today?)
"The society's deprivation relies/ not on our differences/ but the separation within." --Linkin Park, "Frgt/10."
"Watch your rights!" --StahrT
EMK
Dear Obama Surrogate,
You are going to be on cable news shows in the next two weeks, and you are going to be confronted with the notion of the popular vote being a legitimate measuring stick.
I must say that thus far I have been generally very unimpressed with you as a group. You flub around, you let yourself get bullied by giant assholes like Joe Scarborough and you never make super-easy points.
So listen up, I am going to make this easy for you. Do not screw this up. Use the three obvious points, and use concrete examples, which I have helpfully provided for you. If you do not say these three things, you are a total failure as a surrogate.
Point Number 1: If the popular vote determined the nominee, no candidate would ever go to Iowa or New Hampshire. They'd spend all their time in big urban areas all over the country from the outset of the campaign, racking up raw numbers. What would be the point of even visiting New Hampshire if you could camp out in Brooklyn? Concrete Example: Barack Obama would not have spent only a day and a half in California before the Feb 5 primary. He would have never gone to Idaho. Duh.
Point Number 2: If the popular vote determined the nominee, no state in its right mind would ever hold a caucus, instantly disenfranchising itself. Concrete example: Minnesota-Missouri. Minnesota gets credit for 214K votes, and Missouri gets 822K votes, but they each get 72 delegates. Is Missouri's voice 4 times more important than Minnesota's?
Point Number 3: The arbitrary distinction between who gets to vote in these primaries is nothing like the general election, where everyone registered gets to vote. In the primaries, sometimes it's just Dems, sometimes Dems and Indies, sometimes anyone. Concrete example: Texas gets a million more votes than similar overall population New York (2.8M to 1.8M), even though New York is far more Democratic, simply due to this arbitrary restriction on who can vote (NY = closed, Texas = open).
Overall point: regardless of the fact that Obama will win the popular vote, it is completely illegitimate in this race. THIS IS NOT LIKE POPULAR VOTE IN THE GENERAL ELECTION.
Think you can remember this, Obama surrogates? I mean, re-read it if you have to. Rehearse in front of a mirror. Get a buddy to critique you.
I heard Chuck Todd say that superdelegates think popular vote is the real measuring stick. That is so unbelievably asinine that if it's true, it only demonstrates how badly you, the Obama Surrogates, have failed.
Get your shit together and start making these points.
You're welcome.
I FORGOT: I am waiting for the first Obama surrogate to say, with mockery dripping, that (even in its dishonest spasms of stupidity for including Florida and Michigan where the candidates for office did not even campaign but had a name recognition buzzpoll) the Clinton argument requires that Obama gets zero votes in Michigan. Then demand that an opposing Clinton surrogate own that intellectual point implicit in their argument.
Update (rewritten for clarity): In the spirit of stating your opponents' best argument for them up front, then dismantling it, lay it out this way:
When the Clintons and their surrogates deceptively argue for the popular vote, they appear at first glance to be making a simple, moral, populist argument, that all votes are equal. Right? That's the implication, and why it rolls off their tongues so easily.
But where is the inherent morality in open versus closed primaries that arbitrarily limit turnout and whether Republicans and independents get to pick the Democratic nominee in some states but not others?
Are caucuses inherently immoral? Many states chose them as their form of selecting a nominee.
Is it moral to alter the game strategy only after the fact?
Make the opposing Clinton surrogate make a moral case that Minnesota = 1/4 of Missouri, because their argument insists that it should. Make them argue from a principle standpoint that Minnesota = 1/4 of Missouri. Make them argue that. Put them in that position. It'll expose this whole can of worms.
Here is the latest about Obama from CBS's new segment: For the Record. Now, anything that is my opion or from another source will be in [boldfaced brackets].
----
For The Record: Barack Obama
A Closer Look At The Candidate's Background - From Local Church To State Senate To Capitol Hill
(CBS) When talking to reporters, Sen. Barack Obama used to have to spell his name. Now he doesn't have to spell that out anymore - but he does have to spell out his record. In the CNN debate Jan. 21, he said: "On issue after issue that is important to the American people, I haven't simply followed, I have led." From votes for abortion rights to lessening penalties for marijuana use to raising doubts about capital punishment, Obama is a traditional liberal, CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds reports. "I can't think of a tax increase that he didn't embrace," said state Sen. Bill Brady, R-Ill. Still, Brady considers Obama a friend who was able to work effectively with both parties in Springfield, pushing social welfare and justice legislation. "Republican, Independent or Democrat, he was very willing to ask anyone for help on an initiative he may be pursuing," Brady said. That includes a bill requiring police to videotape interrogations. Obama overcame opposition from the governor, the police and members of both parties to pass the bill. But there was something else about his time in Springfield. In more than 4,000 votes, Obama voted "present" - that's the yellow button on the right of a state Senate voting apparatus - some 129 times. That's a cop-out, say his critics. "That's not 'yes,' that's not 'no,'" said Sen. Hillary Clinton while debating Obama. "That's 'maybe.'" Obama even voted "present" on a bill involving sexual abuse that he had sponsored himself - saying he discovered legal questions after its introduction. And yet voting "present" in Illinois can be used to avoid making a choice.
[That is debatable. According to some bloggers on barackobama.com (Please let me know who you are because I don't remember when this was blogged), a "present" vote is similar to a "no" vote when you are essentially in favor for the subject matter of the bill, but you are concerned about a particular aspect of the bill.] "It's not that unusual for this to occur," said Chris Mooney, a political scientist at the University of Illinois. His rise in the current campaign is consistent with what has to be considered a charmed political life. "The hopes of a skinny kid with a funny name that America had a place for him too," Obama said. His speech at the Democratic Convention in 2004 brought even Hillary Clinton out of her seat. And his Senate race took off just as his Republican opponent fell apart. "The Obama phenomenon. A wave that just can't be stopped … it just continues to crest," said David Mendell of the Chicago Tribune and author of the book, "Obama: From Promise to Power." Once in Washington, Obama fought to cut dependence on foreign oil, provide relief for wounded soldiers and he led a successfull fight to limit the influence of lobbyists. "A lot of the detail in terms of the disclosure provisions for lobbying really came from Obama," said Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. But there are some questions. In a February debate, he said: "I said very early on I would not take PAC money. I would not take money from federal-registered lobbyists." Not now - but he did accept at least $1.2 million from special interest political action committees for his U.S. Senate campaign. And that helped elect him. He takes credit for battling the nuclear industry, but a plan to improve reporting of radiation leaks was watered down - by him - partly due to industry or opposition. And it never passed.
[This MSNBC.com article describes the story concerning the bill. Although it never passed, it did result in voluntary disclosure of the plants the Illinois locals affected, for now.] Employees and officials of Exelon - one of the companies involved - contributed almost $270,000 to his presidential and Senate campaigns. Obama is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee - and but he's been absent a lot. He has yet to meet British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, for example, or the leaders of Germany, Russia or even Canada according to his staff. Because he is so new to the national scene, questions persist about Obama's identity - who he really is; questions that political opponents will be only too happy to answer in the fall. No flag pin on his lapel? No hand on his heart that once? Opponents call it unpatriotic. Is he a Muslim? The whispering persists no matter how often Obama responds. "I've been going to the same church for 20 years, praising Jesus," Obama said. That church is the Trinity United Church of Christ. Self-described as "unashamedly black," with an emphasis on African culture, the church has been targeted by critics who call it separatist, racist and anti-Israel. Obama has been a member for 20 years. "I consistently have not only befriended the Jewish community, not only have I been strong on Israel, but, more importantly, I've been willing to speak out even when its not comfortable," Obama said. Obama has said the church's former pastor - and his spiritual leader - Jeremiah Wright, is "like an old uncle who sometimes will say things that I don't agree with." Among Wright's pronouncements: that "racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run." A church-related publication saluted Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan - a well-known anti-Semite, who in turn has praised Obama's candidacy as recently as last Sunday. It's a gesture Obama rejected Tuesday night, after some prodding. "There's no formal offer of help from Minister Farrakhan that would involve me rejecting it," he said. "But if the word 'reject' Sen. Clinton feels is stronger than the word 'denounce,' then I'm happy to concede the point, and I would reject and denounce."
[Obama himself has explained the numerous attacks on the symbolic gestures/religion issue numerous times, most recently at the debate on February 26.] But Obama's long association with a now-indicted developer named Tony Rezko could be a liability. An Obama fundraiser from the early '90s, Rezko goes on trial fraud next week. But his unsavory reputation was well known for years. And it raised eyebrows when Obama and Rezko's wife, Rita, bought property next to each other on Chicago's south side on the very same day in 2005 - even though by then, Tony Rezko was on federal investigation. No one has charged Obama with wrongdoing, something he has been quick to point out. "Nobody has indicated that in any way ... was I connected with any of the things that he did," Obama said. For good measure, Obama gave some $150,000 in Rezko-related campaign contributions to charity. But government watchdogs scratch their heads. "So, what we're left with is a question of, you know, really, what was he thinking? The warning signs to stay away were very clear," said Cindy Canary of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform. And Obama didn't heed them? "Sen. Obama was very slow to walk away from Tony Rezko," she said.
[This dailykos article debunks the Obama/Rezko connection, and I have included it as part of the extended post for this blog.] Could it come back to haunt him? "If we have problems in this campaign, I suspect it's not going to be because of mistakes I've made in the past. I think it's going to be the mistakes that I make in the future," Obama said on 60 Minutes. His opponents will be waiting.
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Now, concerning the Excelon/nuclear contributions, Obama really doesn't need them, and he needs to prepare himself for those attacks. McCain, Hillary, and Nader would love to attack him on that. Furthermore, he'll need to make sure that his foreign policy is not just about Israel. Middle Eastern stability requires Palestine and the rest of the Middle East to be stable; and, he needs to consider non-Middle Eastern affairs, like Kosovo/Russia/Serbia, China, North Korea, etc.
Oh, and as for Hillary's upcoming CBS: For the Record story, I'll be chiming in on that one as well! Feel free to read my extended post below.
Sorry for the long blog.
Finally a small hole in my wall between e-obama-communities has been broken down. Another member of the mybarackobama community wrote me today about my WIKIPOLITICS blog yesterday. Wow, like finding water in a desert, finally a sign of life on the Obama blogs, I was feeling pretty alone in my blogging pursuits. Something to say and no one reading it. I followed this person's blog trail and discovered that we were on to the same doubts. Someone else who is writing about the morning after the election and how to transcribe this effective bottom up energy formed within the community of Americans for Barack Obama. In the spirit of true wiki-creative collaboration, let the WIKI-THINKING begin. How can we create a wikipedia of policy? All those experts just need a medium to feed into. In the meantime, I will reprint my yesterdays blog, add a link to his blog and a link to a friend's blog outside of the obama community that printed their take on this concept. Here is Mr. Messerly's take
http://my.barackobama.com/page/dashboard/public/Cq2g
Here is Madame Mayo's input:
http://madammayo.blogspot.com/2008/02/j-on-obama-and-practice-of-wikipolitics.html
My latest blog post on WIKIPOLITICS, debunking the pied piper theory on Obama supporters. Also a great read for political strategists trying to figure out why the Obama WIKI-WAY will keep working, its not a phenomena!.WIKIPOLITICSWhat is WIKIPOLITICS? It is the power of mass political collaboration – the power to change everything. It is an American style constitutional power - of the people, by the people and for the people. Obama is the first candidate to practice WIKIPOLITICS.In my opinion, which I would not have been able to form, without Wiki-input, I have used the thoughts and ideas of others and proposed a political theory, that I imagine, will take shape once it hits the wiki-political community. Before I say more, I would like to credit those who have inspired my thoughts on the first draft of WIKIPOLITICAL THEORY . Many of us are familiar with Wikipedia, the pioneer of open source internet mass collaboration. From Wikipedia comes the “Wiki”. Wikipedia brings together the knowledge of many to collectively write a living encyclopedia. Where google leads us to the sources, Wikipedia consolidates the collaborative input. I also give inspirational credit to a book entitled: WIKINOMICS: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams. This book was compiled with mass collaboration, bringing together the thoughts of many on how mass collaboration can change everything. As this book illustrates, from YouTube, Flickr, MySpace, Linux to the Human Genome Project, we are seeing revolutionary positive, results spawning from mass collaboration. When I began to read this book, I had my “a-ha”(Oprah Winfrey term) moment. I realized that there was a good explanation for Obama’s record breaking campaign. There is a reason the political analysts are having a hard time putting their finger on Obama’s successes besides just liking the guy. WIKIPOLITICS is what is happening in this election and for now it is changing the power to choose our candidates. People, outside the campaign, are having a hard time understanding the power that has been unleashed in this campaign, It’s an irony that Obama’s rivals have taken on hope and optimism as the enemy. The challengers blame his eloquent evangelist- style communication skills. What else could it be? Many would like to believe, he is just so blatantly inspirational and that must be the reason why his supporters are so hopeful and committed to his candidacy. But for some reason, this supposed phenomena, just doesn’t go away no matter how hard his supporters are criticized and insulted for their hope and optimism. That’s because WIKIPOLITICS is in play. It will be hard for the opposition to accept that Obama’s campaign is not magical. It is not messianic. It is a pioneering massive collaborative undertaking that inspires everyday Americans to stand up, participate in the campaign and vote. This wiki-campaign is an emerging example of how Obama will move this country towards the American future laid out by our founders – the wiki-way. Changing course is happening peacefully without a revolution and it feels good. We do not need to turn against each other to achieve this change as so often is believed. Americans have spent too many years feeling bad and helpless about what is happening to our country. Much of the disenfranchised, helpless feeling has hinged on political leadership that is deaf to the voice of most Americans. Solutions have not come lightly because the hand that feeds them their campaign finance has its own self-interest, not the best interest of the majority of Americans. WIKIPOLITICS is public campaign finance at its best because the people are deciding who their money should support dollar by dollar. It’s hard to imagine that America’s most patriotic moment, in the last 8 years was when we all came together after 9-11. One of our worst patriotic moments was when we stood by helplessly watching an entire American city go under water and our government doing little to save them. Had there been a Wiki-Disaster Response mechanism, a Web 2.0 community with smart political leadership influences, I have the feeling the rescue and reconstruction efforts would have been far more effective and collaborative. In Election 2008, we are witnessing the best of patriotic moments in a long time - watching Americans participate person by person, town by town, state by state in this election. This surge has momentum because people are waking up and feeling the positive energy of mass collaboration, WIKIPOLITICS can change our future.
Fellow Texans,
Kudos to FMArouet over at DailyKos for giving us the lessons learned from the Potomac Primaries in VA, MD and DC. (make sure to rec that diary if you have a DKos acct.). The Clinton campaign is desperately counting on a big victory in Texas, but if we learn from the lessons of our friends in VA, MD and DC, we can shock the Clinton campaign and all the pundits and maybe help Obama lock-down the nomination. Wouldn't that be something? The audacity of us! Yes We Can!
So read this post, and then use all the resources at your disposal to spread the word and make this dream a reality. We control our destiny, it's a matter of how much we want it. Here is the summary, read the whole thinto understand how we can bring home the nomination for Obama with a Texas victory.
Sincerely,
Amir
The Four Major Lessons Learned
(1) If the national campaign cannot provide all the signs and handouts that volunteers need, they can download .pdf files from the two sites listed above and get them copied/printed locally at Kinkos, Staples, or a local printing company.
(2) Go to Obama's Campaign Website and search on your zip code to find campaign activities near you. You can also form a group to generate your own activity with friends and neighbors.
(3) Then coordinate vertically with your nearest Obama county or regional headquarters and locally with like-minded volunteers to canvass, phone bank, arrange campaign visibility efforts, and, most importantly, GOTV on March 4th. Try to avoid mass e-mailings. Send precise, action-oriented, coordinating e-mails to individuals and small groups instead.
(4) Oh, and remember to remind friends, colleagues, and all voters that you encounter that the primaries in Texas and Ohio are open--Republicans and Independents can vote for Obama if they wish.
Below are a few lessons learned by an Obama foot soldier in the Virginia Primary, part of Obama's Potomac Trifecta last Tuesday.
Bottom line: coming only one week after Super Tuesday, the Obama campaign in the Potomac Primary had to depend heavily on local volunteers and locally produced campaign materials. The professional staffers arrived in time for a solid weekend of directing phone banking, canvassing, and visibility efforts. In contrast, there was virtually no sign of a Hillary ground game or advertising presence.
The result was an encouraging 64-36 Obama win in Virginia.
A few specific links and suggestions below the break may be of some use to local volunteer efforts for Obama in Texas and Ohio.
My.BarackObama.com for Nearby Campaign Activities
Three weeks before the February 12th Potomac Primary, I checked My.BarackObama.com for campaign activities in my area, Northern Virginia (NOVA). I found one that I had enjoyed in a previous campaign--passing out flyers at the Metro, and I e-mailed the "Metro Visibility Coordinator," who promptly responded. Throughout NOVA we had volunteers at most Metro stops during rush hours for two weeks before the primary.
Getting the Obama Campaign Stuff
Our main problem was getting signs/posters and producing the handouts. We had a few Obama signs to wave, but many volunteers ended up reproducing their own flyers on their home printers or at Kinkos or Staples at a few cents a copy. Obviously, it is better to have a nice, glossy brochure than to hand out a black-and-white printed sheet, but one could also argue that there is certain compelling spontaneous quality about the locally produced, cheap handout. Just $50 or $100 can buy many hundreds of copies. The "Store" at Obama's website is back-ordered on many items. There may simply not be time for the campaign materials to be produced and delivered in time for the March 4th primaries.
For downloadable .pdf files of some of Obama's policy positions, you can go to: Resource Flyers.
For .pdf signs, etc, you can go to: Obama Posters, Signs and Stickers. You can then glue or tape the printouts to cardboard or poster board. Alternatively, you can have a local printing firm produce them for you.
Many in NOVA bought their own poster board and markers and made their own window signs and yard signs. I even saw one man and his sons walking down the street in Falls Church with a huge home-made "Obama '08" banner on the Saturday before the primary.
In NOVA we had a minimal number of yard signs, buttons, and bumper stickers to pass out, though there was an extremely heavy demand for them. Washington, D.C., on the other hand, seemed to have a good number of Obama signs spread throughout the city. With more lead time before the primaries in Texas and Ohio, the campaign may have more success in supplying such items--as well as brochures and signs--to volunteers in those states. But if there are any supply bottlenecks, the download links above should help.
Enough glossy brochures arrived by the weekend before the primary to enable me to leaflet my neighborhood and hand out the remainder at a Metro stop.
Local (Dis)organization
At first glance, the whole effort--which was especially intense only for the week following Super Tuesday and particularly for the weekend before the primary--seemed amorphous, almost unstructured. The national staffers were fully functioning in NOVA only by the weekend before the primary.
The NOVA office for Obama opened only on February 4th, a mere week before the primary. Nonetheless, there was a flood of volunteers throughout the week. A second office opened in NOVA later in the week, and both offices had a creative chaos of high numbers of volunteers for phone banking, canvassing, and driving materials and volunteers to wherever they had to go. One afternoon while I was trying to cadge a few campaign materials from one of the headquarters, I heard someone say to a volunteer: "We've run out of call lists to hand out." There surely was no shortage of volunteers. We had a fair number of out-of-state students on the weekend before the primary. Their efforts were certainly welcome, but the most effective GOTV efforts are probably those of local volunteers.
The campaign set up an activities websites for counties in Virginia and sought volunteers to serve as District Coordinators. The District Coordinators generally served as the depots for whatever small numbers of signs and handouts were available from the national campaign. They also sought to encourage a presence outside as many polling stations as possible for primary day and to help with arranging rides to the polls. With so many "late deciders" in this campaign, it seems worthwhile to provide voters with one last nudge of encouragement as they walk into the polling station.
The campaign did not become so granular as to seek out precinct captains for canvassing and leafleting efforts. Doing so would likely be a good idea. Perhaps there will be time to do so in Texas and Ohio. The national campaign staffers and those running the local campaign tended to send out flurries of mass e-mails. A more coherent command structure down to the precinct probably would have helped. There is a reason, after all, that the Romans employed decurions to lead groups of eight foot soldiers or thirty cavalrymen. Low-level coordination among town/township/neighborhood/precinct volunteers needs to be linked to the county or city campaign leadership, but such "decurions" could serve as bottom-up and top-down filters and activity coordinators in their locales. They would be able to coordinate campaign activities with short, precise, e-mails addressed to the appropriate members of their group and to the "centurions" above them.
No particular union efforts crossed my screen in NOVA (unions are not especially strong in Virginia). Unions will presumably provide many effective foot soldiers at least in Ohio.
The Clinton ground game was virtually invisible in NOVA and Washington, DC (just a very modest Metro presence one or two days before the primary). As short as we were in Obama yard signs for distribution, I saw not a single Hillary yard sign anywhere in NOVA before February 12th. The Clinton forces will surely work to deploy a more respectable ground game in Texas and Ohio. They showed, after all, that they were capable of conducting an effective ground game in New Hampshire.
*Footnote #1: Yes, Obama had one of his famous rallies in NOVA at T.C. Williams High School. I understand that rallies generate enthusiasm. When I was watching the TV news coverage of the huge Obama rallies in New Hampshire, though, I couldn't help but think how much better the attendees' time would be spent canvassing or passing out flyers in public visibility efforts. If the attendees in New Hampshire had spent as much time in GOTV efforts as in traveling to and attending campaign rallies, perhaps they could have eked out a victory there, instead of suffering a narrow loss.
**Footnote #2: When someone coming out of a Metro stop would ask me why I thought he/she should vote for Obama instead of Hillary, my most persuasive response was probably:
I think that Hillary would be a competent President, if she could win. But she is going to have a tough time defeating McCain in what would likely be a very close election. Obama has the potential to crush McCain by 57-43 or even 60-40, and Obama likely would have the kind of coattails that could give the Democrats a real working majority in the House and Senate.
Good luck to all fellow Obama foot soldiers in Texas and Ohio.
John Kerry posted on DailyKos today...check it out:
"Working for Barack Obama"I’m heading off to Pakistan with Joe Biden and Chuck Hagel this weekend to observe their long awaited elections and make it very clear that the United States and the world are watching what happens there – but before I leave, I wanted to report back to you a few thoughts on the other election the world is watching, right here at home.No denying that this election has been personally exciting – in my travels for Barack I’ve seen general election sized crowds (and I know something about what those look like!) coming out because so many people – and so many new people – are looking for something different.But momentum’s a funny thing; you have it until, well, until you don’t have it. So, you bet things are going well, you bet there’s a head of steam – but Barack Obama also needs a big push and he needs it now: the next 3 weeks can be decisive in this campaign if you make it so. (Wisconsin is close, and as yesterday’s public polls underscore, he’s the underdog in Ohio and Texas.) So today, I'm asking for your help.As soon as I’m back, I’ll keep doing what I can do, keep traveling and campaigning, carry the message on TV and the radio along with Ted Kennedy and a whole bunch of folks who are burning up the phones for this campaign, and yesterday I emailed the johnkerry.com community and asked for their help by contributing to Barack Obama’s campaign.But I also wanted to come here and ask the help of this community at Daily Kos. I know many of you have already given, but this is a critical time, as Barack is taking incoming fire not just on the Democratic side, but from John McCain as well, who thinks the surest way to fix his conservative base problems is by trying to galvanize the right-wing noise machine to ramp up their attacks on Barack.So, if you can, contribute today....I haven’t been this optimistic we can get real change for quite a while. There’s a storm of activism gathering out there. Barack Obama is leading it, but it’s made up of all of us – Barack, me, you, all Americans who are working for this change.But, again, we all need to do what we can. So, contribute today, if you can..And if you can't give money, give time. And also talk to your friends, neighbors, and family members.I’ve rarely asked this community for money for anything, but today, I am in the asking business because I care a hell of a lot about a candidate who I want to help stay in the hope business and deliver. So please do contribute to Barack’s campaign.Thank you for all you’ve done. We’re getting closer.
"Working for Barack Obama"
I’m heading off to Pakistan with Joe Biden and Chuck Hagel this weekend to observe their long awaited elections and make it very clear that the United States and the world are watching what happens there – but before I leave, I wanted to report back to you a few thoughts on the other election the world is watching, right here at home.
No denying that this election has been personally exciting – in my travels for Barack I’ve seen general election sized crowds (and I know something about what those look like!) coming out because so many people – and so many new people – are looking for something different.
But momentum’s a funny thing; you have it until, well, until you don’t have it. So, you bet things are going well, you bet there’s a head of steam – but Barack Obama also needs a big push and he needs it now: the next 3 weeks can be decisive in this campaign if you make it so. (Wisconsin is close, and as yesterday’s public polls underscore, he’s the underdog in Ohio and Texas.) So today, I'm asking for your help.
As soon as I’m back, I’ll keep doing what I can do, keep traveling and campaigning, carry the message on TV and the radio along with Ted Kennedy and a whole bunch of folks who are burning up the phones for this campaign, and yesterday I emailed the johnkerry.com community and asked for their help by contributing to Barack Obama’s campaign.
But I also wanted to come here and ask the help of this community at Daily Kos. I know many of you have already given, but this is a critical time, as Barack is taking incoming fire not just on the Democratic side, but from John McCain as well, who thinks the surest way to fix his conservative base problems is by trying to galvanize the right-wing noise machine to ramp up their attacks on Barack.
So, if you can, contribute today.
...I haven’t been this optimistic we can get real change for quite a while. There’s a storm of activism gathering out there. Barack Obama is leading it, but it’s made up of all of us – Barack, me, you, all Americans who are working for this change.
But, again, we all need to do what we can. So, contribute today, if you can..
And if you can't give money, give time. And also talk to your friends, neighbors, and family members.
I’ve rarely asked this community for money for anything, but today, I am in the asking business because I care a hell of a lot about a candidate who I want to help stay in the hope business and deliver. So please do contribute to Barack’s campaign.
Thank you for all you’ve done. We’re getting closer.
Click here to see the full post from John Kerry.
And please take a second to donate -- keep the momentum going:
Please read, comment, recommend, tip, vote and pass along. Thanks They can debate the details of their policies all they want but nothing will ever get passed or changed unless one of them can end the partisan gridlock. Corporate special interests only get their way when half of us fail to participate. They divide the rest of us and pit us against one another and that’s how they win. If someone was able to unite enough of us, the power of corporate special interests would become irrelevant and we could begin repairing the damage caused by a corporate run government. I wish they would focus all the debates on: How will you make change happen? Please read on: How will you make change happen?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/1/15/17715/3179/933/437396
-- Todd Smyth He's the ONE and the time is NOW! - OBAMA '08
There's a great diary on DailyKos about Obama's visit to Florida. It's a really enjoyable read, and has some great photos. My favorite line from it is the last line of this:
As much as I hate to give this guy any credit, I am quoting Republican pollster and Market Researcher, Frank Luntz: "80 percent of our life is emotion, and only 20 percent is intellect. I am much more interested in how you feel than how you think. I can change how you think, but how you feel is something deeper and stronger, and it's something that's inside you. How you think is on the outside, how you feel is on the inside, so that's what I need to understand." http://www.pbs.org/... My thoughts on that: In 2004, approximately 1/2 of Americans voted with/for the emotion of fear. In 2008, a majority of Americans will vote with/for the emotion of hope.
As much as I hate to give this guy any credit, I am quoting Republican pollster and Market Researcher, Frank Luntz: "80 percent of our life is emotion, and only 20 percent is intellect. I am much more interested in how you feel than how you think. I can change how you think, but how you feel is something deeper and stronger, and it's something that's inside you. How you think is on the outside, how you feel is on the inside, so that's what I need to understand." http://www.pbs.org/...
My thoughts on that: In 2004, approximately 1/2 of Americans voted with/for the emotion of fear. In 2008, a majority of Americans will vote with/for the emotion of hope.
On today's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Senator Barack Obama sat down with Stephanopoulos in an interview that illuminated his political philosophy and thought processes in a very interesting way.
What is most compelling to me about Senator Obama, and the chief reason that I support his candidacy over the many other quality candidates we have in our field this cycle, is his understanding of both an overall vision of what America fundamentally is, as well as the nuts and bolts of how to get things done.
Barack Obama is not an either/or thinker; he is wholistic in his approach, a quality that could serve us well in a President.
Stephanopoulos' questions addressed a number of issues, including Obama's "experience" to handle the job; his war funding votes; taxes; social security; affirmative action and larger questions regarding race in America. Obama's responses revealed a depth of intellect and wisdom that we rarely witness in politicians. I believe the discussion also gave us a glimpse of what someone who is primarily dedicated to public service, and at the same time wise to the way politics are played, really looks like.
In response to the interviewer's claim that getting 16 GOP Senators to vote in favor of a funding bill that puts limits on the President is something "that is not gonna happen, Obama discussed why continuing to "ratchet up the pressure" on Bush loyalists to end this war is a smart part of the overall strategy to bring the occupation to an end. Asked whether he would be willing to give Bush a "blank check" on funding, the answer was a firm "No".
The host also tried to box Obama in on taxes, social security and affirmative action. Stephanopoulos asked about why Obama's daughters should get preferential treatment when applying to college, to which Obama responded that they should actually be treated as advantaged in the application process. His approach would be to also look at the disadvantaged white student who qualifies but may not be able to afford higher education.
Take a look at the whole interview; I think you'll see a candidate who can see both the forest and the trees. And in my opinion, that ability is precisely what we need in our chief executive at this juncture.
Good. Looks like the campaign has responded to the MySpace incident. This post was crossposted on both MyDD and DailyKos, so a tip of the hat to the campaign for being conscious of who were really pushing the story.
I'm still a bit skeptical of the campaign on this incident, but one very important and damning fact was left out of Anthony's account of what happened:
Unfortunately, at that point, Joe changed the password on the profile, and didn't give us the new one, like he had done in the past. This changed the previous dynamic, and we could no longer access the profile at a moment's notice if need be. We asked Joe what was needed to restore access, and subsequently we received the list of itemized financial requests that have been discussed elsewhere.
Very telling indeed. Having seen a lot of "shared web spaces" go down in flames, I see many telltale signs here of "original creator" vs. "new boss" here. Obama's campaign gets very proactive on changing the content of the page, Joe gets upset as it doesn't match his vision of the space. Rinse, repeat, and Joe eventually blows a fuse and changes the password, thinking "if these guys are going to deface my baby, they can damn well pay for it". Cue MySpace URL stealing antics.
It's an unfortunate event, and one of those blameless ones. I do honestly believe that all parties were acting on what they believed to be right.
There's an interesting discussion going on at the DailyKos regarding Obama's speech at the CCGA. Diarist Jermoe a Paris finds a lot of support for this speech among a number of NeoCon pundits, including the "pro-surge" Robert Kagan. The diary is pretty interesting in and of itself, and the discussion afterward is, uhh, quite colorful. And quite anti-Obama, which is so oddly the mood over at dKos.
Diarist Lee really nails this anti-Obama sentiment in his response to Jerome a Paris. Here's a snippet:
Then I happened across this seemingly unrelated diary ("The Truth about Kos and Kucinich") which has a poll, answered by 150 people, asking respondents if they are a "war abolishionist" or a "war pragmatist." The former won out slightly (54%/45%). It struck me that this may be a real ideological cleavage on this site, and I imagine the "war abolitionists" are the ones who REC'd JaP's diary. Well count me a "war pragmatist" and someone who would be delighted with an Obama presidency (though I also like Edwards). I agree with Jimmy Carter who said (paraphrasing) "Though war is sometimes a necessary evil, it is always evil." (italics mine) I do support wars that reduce the total amount of "evil," such as Clinton's intervention in the Balkans and of course WWII. But it's a very delicate calculace that must be made with much care and deliberation. I trust Obama to take war seriously, and only use military force when all other options have failed, and that he would use it in concert with the international community (if we can't even convince our allies of our case we better take a hard look and figure out why... and no that doesn't mean France or anyone else gets a veto on our national security. If we have to work around the U.N., fine, but they're better be a coalition - and not just some bullshit facade of one)
Then I happened across this seemingly unrelated diary ("The Truth about Kos and Kucinich") which has a poll, answered by 150 people, asking respondents if they are a "war abolishionist" or a "war pragmatist." The former won out slightly (54%/45%). It struck me that this may be a real ideological cleavage on this site, and I imagine the "war abolitionists" are the ones who REC'd JaP's diary.
Well count me a "war pragmatist" and someone who would be delighted with an Obama presidency (though I also like Edwards). I agree with Jimmy Carter who said (paraphrasing) "Though war is sometimes a necessary evil, it is always evil." (italics mine) I do support wars that reduce the total amount of "evil," such as Clinton's intervention in the Balkans and of course WWII.
But it's a very delicate calculace that must be made with much care and deliberation. I trust Obama to take war seriously, and only use military force when all other options have failed, and that he would use it in concert with the international community (if we can't even convince our allies of our case we better take a hard look and figure out why... and no that doesn't mean France or anyone else gets a veto on our national security. If we have to work around the U.N., fine, but they're better be a coalition - and not just some bullshit facade of one)
I wholeheartedly agree with Lee's characterization of this difference. As a war pragmatist myself (as seen in my *cough* debates on other sites), I found Obama's speech to be generally agreeable, if not inspiring. I do question the need for 50,000 army and 20,000 more marines, as conventional forces are simply no longer the face of war in the future.
I am a regular poster and sometime diarist at dailykos, a mega-hit, progressive blog. Currently, John Edwards is the darling of the website.
For two days in a row, diarists have written about Obama's phone banking. Both diarists complained about rude and pushy fundraising.
[Link Here's a link] to today's diary. I believe that Barack Obama is the only true progressive running today. I was a strong Howard Dean supporter and organizer during the last nomination. I saw the mistakes that campaign made. I have also seen the strength that has been gained by the grassroots. Dailykos is a very influential website. I have two suggestions:
1. If you don't read dailykos, I'd suggest you do, but, better yet - log in and comment or write diaries of your own.
2. If there is any credence to the diarist's criticisms of the phone banking going on in the Obama camp, I'd suggest Mr. Obama check with his training staff and set them on the right path. How his staff treats the public will have a great deal to do with his appeal.
Thanks for reading. Here's the [Link link] to dailykos.
Obama is going to be a very formidable candidate for reasons that should alternately thrill progressives and reduce them to tearing their hair out. Obama laid out last night the beginnings of a simple, effective and powerful frame for his campaign. If he sticks to this script, he'll best Hillary and any Republican candidate out there. His only real competition will be John Edwards, for reasons that should soon become clear. Here's the frame: 1. "Our politics is broken". In this formulation, to use Jeffrey Feldman's diagnostics, is a designed to help us do something. Specifically, it is a tool designed to connect us to other people, and it no longer functions properly: We have developed an "incapacity to recognize ourselves in each other"; we have come to believe that "we are not fundamentally connected" - but as [I] said at the 2004 convention, "I am my brother's keeper, and my sister's, too." The result of this breakdown is the violence Obama mentioned last night: not just the physical violence of the VTech shootings, but verbal, economic, and cultural violence as well. 2. The "fix" to broken politics is to reclaim a particular political tradition. Call this the "Abraham, Martin and John" frame, or more properly "Abraham, Martin and Robert," since Obama cited Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy in his speech: * Lincoln: government is "of the people, by the people, for the people" * MLK: "the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice" * RFK: "whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded." In short, we fix politics by restoring to the people the power to "do the right thing," that is, work together to solve problems. 3. The result of the fix will be a populace empowered to create political and cultural change for themselves. Obama mentioned as problematic "a coarsening culture, cynicism, and despair," as well as inner-city issues no doubt tailored to the audience. Still, this is an endlessly adaptable frame, and will no doubt continue to turn up in many different contexts. It's not difficult to see what's going to drive progressives bananas about this, especially in the blogosphere. It's light on substance, probably by design. Obama may never get around to discussing specific proposals, at least to the blogosphere's satisfaction. But if he does, it won't be until relatively late in the game - probably not until he's forced to. Given his reputation for avoiding tough stands on issues, that's enough to infuriate some folks right there. But, as George Lakoff and Jeffrey Feldman have each pointed out, moral frames trump practical ones in communication. Obama doesn't need to articulate policy at this point. He is laying the groundwork to have voters trust him to take the nation in the right direction, with the policies to follow. Because the right direction is defined by many voters as a new direction, if Obama can make this sale, he'll be well-nigh unstoppable. All the Republican candidates and Hillary are offering essentially more competent leadership with continuity, which won't stand up to Obama's positioning.
In the grand scheme of things, this straw poll on www.dailykos.com doesn't mean much. But every little bit can help. So go vote for Obama!
The YearlyKos Convention will have a Second Life component this year. Click the image below to go to the YearlyKos Second Life site for all the details. Be sure to watch the video that on that page for details about YKCSL registration.
I have visited the YKSL registration center in SL, and it is quite well done. I plan to register this week, and will be posting more information about the event, and my experiences participating in it.
