Posts with the tag philadelphia

OFA at the National Constitution Center

Bill of Downingtown — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 09:50:30 EDT

On Sunday, August 2, OFA in Chester County, PA had a busy day. First, we did phone banking for a few hours in West Chester. Then some of us travelled to the National Constitution Center for the Health Care Town Meeting with Senator Arlen Specter and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius.

That happened to be the day that over four inches of rain fell in the Delaware Valley, closing the Schuylkill Expressway. Our trip became a tour of the western suburbs.

We arrived in the Constitution Center just as the Senator and Secretary were being introduced. I was still on the ground floor, but I heard loud booing and jeering from the floor above. By the time I got to the area of the Town Hall I discovered this:

1. The acoustics of the meeting location were awful: high ceiling, very reflective surfaces, a booming sound. Unless you were right in front of one of the public address system speakers, you probably could not understand what was said. I moved around until I found a spot to listen.

2. There were a few noisy individuals who wanted to scream and boo but not listen. It was clear that they did not support health care change; it was not clear why. It was also clear that they were acting out of a dislike for Senator Specter and President Obama (and by extension his HHS Secretary) and that they did not know much about the bills currently before the Congress.

A loud group will gain more attention than a listening group, no matter what their relative sizes. But Senator Specter and Secretary Sebelius are veterans of public service: they know this. What we don’t want is for Senator Specter, in particular, to think that only the loud, negative people care.

Back to the phone banks. Join me, won’t you. Find an event at

http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/search_simple?source=topnav

Thanks for coming!

Town Meeting: Economic Recovery Plan Information

Suffragette Returns — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 12:07:16 EST

If you are interested in finding out what the administration is providing to the American public on the "Economic Recovery" please watch this video.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/obamaforamerica/gGx23L

In our small group discussion, we spoke of the importance of www.recovery.com to the development of public trust. If the information is current, detailed and adequate, it will go a long way toward convincing the American public that its tax funds are being spent productively. Further, citizens will begin to believe that the bleeding will stop in the near term and that recovery is possible.

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY

WEBMASTER — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 02:26:14 EST

The Pickens Plan: For those who would like to become an active participant in a solution for our nations energy needs I urge you to join with T.Boone Pickens in his quest for a cleaner planet through alternative energy.

Also see Green Wave Energy: Green Wave was founded by Mark Holmes and was formulated for viable alternative energy solutions. Green Wave Energy is promoting state-of-the-art energy-saving products and services throughout the country.

Green Wave Energy understands alternative energy technology will become “main stream” when

individuals and organizations understand that alternative energy technology exists and
when people see the economic benefits of using alternative energy technologies

Call 949.645.1701 for information on how Green Wave Energy can help you save the planet.

Alternative Energy
Source: David Apperson

url: http://veterans.barackobama.com/page/community/tag/alternative-energy

Inauguration Packages

teachingeducation — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 14:54:31 EST

We welcome anyone who has a sincere interest, and a tight budget to visit our site www.utopiatraveldeals.com and select our destinations page. We have packages that start from $126.00/per person. We'll work with you to see if any of the options that we have may suit your needs. We have signed a contract with a new hotel and are able to provide accommodations and transportation from states close to DC(PA,NJ,etc) for up to 59 people,if you have a group who is interested. If you are a vendor and can offer your services as a part of our packages let us know as well.

Toronto Fantasy Film Fest, Alameda Writers Group, BMI Holiday Party, WIFV-MD Holiday Party, iStandard Producer Showcase, Google Friend Connect, Highlight December's Media and Entertainment Networking Dates

Paul — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 02:21:55 EST

The 18th International Animated Film Festival in Bègles admits animated short and feature films, and conducts screenings in 35mm (optical sound), video BetaSP Pal or DVD formats, and foreign films if they are without dialogues, with french dialogues or subtitled in french. The festival, which is free to filmmakers to enter, runs through December 14. The inaugural Philadelphia Independent Film & Video Festival is a chance for independent and upstart filmmakers to showcase their works and talent in a small scale film festival that runs December 4-7 in Philadelphia. The Toronto Fantasy Worldwide International Film Festival brings together various fantasy, science-fiction and anime genre, running December 4-8. The festival seeks to exhibit globally produced feature, short, animation and documentary films from the genre that has provided 19 of the 20 top best selling box office hits of all time. In a special engagement set for the Bahamas International Film Festival, Laurence Fishburne will be on hand for a special tribute and presentation on Sunday, December 7. Academy Award® winner Sir Sean Connery will again be attending as Festival Patron and presenting Laurence Fishburne with the Career Achievement Award. Chris Lockhart, former executive story editor of ICM, now with the William Morris Agency will hear pitches from Alameda Writers Group members, at the December 6 session in Glendale, and will reveal what works and what doesn’t. Guests may become members at the meeting for a membership fee.

The International Film Festival Summit (IFFS) is the annual conference and trade show for professionals from the film festival industry. The Summit, which will be in Las Vegas, December 7-9, provides a platform for the community to explore ways to collaborate and promote the advancement of the film festival industry. BMI will be hosting its Annual Holiday Party with cocktails, edibles, and live DJ. Raffle tickets will also be sold for a chance to win great items from Puma, Gibson Guitar, Silver Jeans, Solstice Sunglass Boutique, the Ellis Hotel, and more, All happening December 9 in Atlanta. The WIFV-MD Holiday Happy Hour Party, made up of professionals, students, organizations and dedicated women and men who support, envision, write, direct, participate in and produce independent films, movies, TV series, documentaries, industrials, multi-media, etc., will include a feature film screening with Q&A at their December 11 party in Timonium, with the customary hors d'oeuvres and cash bar. The December 17 iStandard Producer Showcase is a live Music Producer-Specific event that puts the aspring hitmaker in front of a panel of prominent music industry tastemakers. Record Labels send their A&R's, Artists come out looking to collaborate, and other Producers, Engineers, Publishers, Entertainment Attorneys, and more seeking the next hot producer at this New York event.

The above events are only a sample of what is fully listed. Complete details are on the "Media, Entertainment and Performing Arts Industry News and Events" page at actorschecklist.com/news.html. Video and podcast versions of this news summary are also available at popular video sites around the Web like MySpace, YouTube, Daily Motion, as well as on The Actor's Checklist podcast blog at actorschecklist.com/loudblog, a great place to get your iPhone, ipod or Apple TV download from. The Free Home Video Showcase at http://www.actorschecklist.com/video now serves as an archive for all past video presentations. This month on video you will again see an interesting array of performing artists from the indie sector on video. Newly introduced this month to The Actor's Checklist website is Google Friend Connect technology where visitors may now sign in with their Google, Yahoo, AIM or OpenID account. You are encouraged to explore the entirety of the site for instances of Google Friend Connect deployment, including its use on the news page at http://www.actorschecklist.com/news.html. Happy Holidays to all from The Actor's Checklist!

OBAMA FOR MISSISSIPPI

WEBMASTER — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 20:31:29 EST

Abbeville * Aberdeen * Ackerman * Algoma * Alligator * Amory * Anguilla * Arcola * Arkabutla * Artesia * Ashland * Avalon * Avon * Bailey * Baldwyn * Banner * Bassfield * Batesville * Bay Saint Louis * Bay Springs * Beaumont * Becker * Belden * Belen * Bellefontaine * Belmont * Belzoni * Benoit * Benton * Bentonia * Beulah * Big Creek * Biloxi * Blue-Mountain * Blue Springs * Bogue Chitto * Bolton * Booneville * Boyle * Brandon * Braxton * Brookhaven * Brooklyn * Brooksville * Bruce * Buckatunna * Bude * Burnsville * Byhalia * Caledonia * Calhoun City * Camden * Canton * Carriere * Carrollton * Carson * Carthage * Cary * Cascilla * Cedarbluff * Centreville * Charleston * Chatawa * Chatham * Chunky * Clara * Clarksdale * Cleveland * Clinton * Coahoma * Coffeeville * Coila * Coldwater * Collins * Collinsville * Columbia * Columbus * Como * Conehatta * Corinth * Courtland * Crawford * Crenshaw * Crosby * Crowder * Cruger * Crystal Springs * D-Iberville * D-Lo * Daleville * Darling * De-Kalb * Decatur * Delta City * Dennis * Derma * Diamondhead * Doddsville * Drew * Dublin * Duck-Hill * Dumas * Duncan * Dundee * Durant * Eastabuchie * Ecru * Edwards * Elliott * Ellisville * Enid * Enterprise * Escatawpa * Ethel * Etta * Eupora * Falcon * Falkner * Farrell * Fayette * Fernwood * Flora * Florence * Forest * Foxworth * French Camp * Friars Point * Fulton * Gallman * Gattman * Gautier * Georgetown * Glen * Glen Allan * Glendora * Gloster * Golden * Goodman * Gore Springs * Grace * Greenville * Greenwood * Greenwood Springs * Grenada * Gulfport * Gunnison * Guntown * Hamilton * Harperville * Harriston * Harrisville * Hattiesburg * Hazlehurst * Heidelberg * Hermanville * Hernando * Hickory * Hickory Flat * Hillsboro * Holcomb * Hollandale * Holly Bluff * Holly Ridge

Pennsylvania Voter Protection -- Polling Assignment

G. L. — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 11:51:31 EST

I am excited to finally have my election observer polling assignment. I will be in South Philadelphia at the Mahlon Lewis Apartments, bright and early on Election Day!

Baracking the Vote in West Philly (with Barack)

Melissa — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 20:50:17 EDT

October 11, 2008

I took the bus with Blue Wave NJ to volunteer at the West Philly rally. The crowd was mostly African American and the feelings of pride and hope were everywhere. I was working the line, signing up volunteers so I got to meet so many people and hear about why they were willing to stand in line for hours to see Obama. Lots of people brought their kids. My favorite onsie: "Babies 4 Obama (obama logo) I Need a Change). This one woman scolded her 9or10 y-o son 'You are about to see the first black president and you are complaining about standing in line?" lol A little girl about the same age had dragged her mother and little brother and sister. She couldn't stand still, she was so excited. I also heard a lot of emphasis about the Obama family - people love Michelle.

At the rally before the speech, many of the speakers spent time helping voters understand their rights. We passed out flyers too outlining their rights and listing a phone number to call if someone was keeping them from voting on election day.

The speech was so moving. . . I had tears in my eyes. We are so close! Obama focused on all the positive things he would do but balanced it by empowering the crowd to make changes in their own communities and households. He said he would strengthen education but it was up to parents to turn off the tv. He would create green jobs and energy efficient policies but it's up to all of us to be responsible with our energy use.

There were so many people and the space was tight . . . I couldn't get very close, but there were speakers so I could hear him.

We used the momentum from his visits to knock on doors after the rally and sign up people to volunteer and make sure they were going to to go out and vote. People were happy to see us and talk about Obama.

It was a great day . . . I'm planning to do a few more trips to PA before the election (I live in NJ). I was also impressed with the number of young people volunteering - they can't vote yet but they want to be a part of this.

Be Prepared on Voting Day! Don't fall for the tricks in the trick-bag

Rawspoon — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 23:09:55 EDT

For those of us in PA, keep this in mind when you go to vote:

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/29/judge-pa-must-have-paper-ballots-ready-if-half-of-machines-fail/

Also, you should have received your new voter's registration card in the mail by now if you're newly registered OR if your district's poling place changed since the last election. Please make sure to check your registration status with your county Board of Elections office. You can find this at www.votespa.com. We've heard over the last few months that newly registered voters need to also bring photo identification and a current utility bill with them to the polls. But that is NOT entirely true.

Absentee Ballot Information for Philadelphia

Sheldon from Doylestown — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 09:53:02 EDT

For Pennsylvania And Particularly Philadelphia:

I received an email saying that some people have not received their Absentee Ballots in the mail.

Anyone who is going to be out of town on Election Day can go to Room 142 in City Hall and submit his/her absentee ballot on the spot. They don't have to go through the process of waiting for the ballot to come back in the mail. (County Board of Elections: 215-686-3469 or 215-686-3943) Bring acceptable I.D.
Acceptable I.D. from http://votespa.com/HowtoVote/GuideforFirstTimeVoters/tabid/77/language/en-US/Default.aspx:

Pennsylvania driver's license or PennDOT ID card
ID issued by any Commonwealth agency
ID issued by the U.S. Government
U.S. passport
U.S. Armed Forces ID
Student ID
Employee ID

If you do not have a photo ID, you can use a non-photo identification that includes your name and address. Approved forms of non-photo identification include:
Confirmation issued by the County Voter Registration Office
Non-photo ID issued by the Commonwealth
Non-photo ID issued by the U.S. Government
Firearm permit
Current utility bill
Current bank statement
Current paycheck
Government check

There are special provisions for people who miss the deadlines as well as military personnel.

(Reference: http://votespa.com/HowtoVote/VotingbyAbsenteeBallot/tabid/78/language/en-US/Default.aspx)

Absentee Ballot Applications must be received by the Board of Elections by 5 p.m. on October 28th. Absentee Ballots must be received by the Board of Elections by 5:00 PM on October 31st. Postmarks are NOT honored; applications must be in the office before the deadline. (See: http://www.phillyelection.com/abeng.htm)

The mailing address for Philadelphia County on the state's two websites is incorrect. The correct address, which is printed on the Absentee Ballot forms from the Philadelphia Board of Elections is:

Philadelphia County Board of Elections
Room 142 City Hall
Philadelphia, PA 19107-3211

For additional help, please see this website: https://www.myfamilyvotes.com/Absentee_Ballot.html. Further instructions at https://www.myfamilyvotes.com/Ab.html. (Thank you, Emma Tramble.)

First-time voters and those who have moved should confirm that they are registered to vote by searching Pennsylvania's voter registration database. You also can confirm your registration by contacting your County Board of Elections (County Board of Elections: 215-686-3469 or 215-686-3943) or by calling 1-877-VOTESPA.

Print out an Absentee Ballot Application here:

https://www.myfamilyvotes.com/uploads/absentee_ballot_application_for_PA.pdf

(Reference: http://votespa.com/HowtoVote/VotingbyAbsenteeBallot/tabid/78/language/en-US/Default.aspx)

Philadelphia Election Commissioner Scoffs. Lawsuit Filed.

Sheldon from Doylestown — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 09:41:24 EDT

Earlier this week, American News Project (http://americannewsproject.com/) reported that, come November, Pennsylvania voters could face substantial delays at the polls. We spoke with the man running the election in Philadelphia, who scoffed at long lines and tales of lost votes. Now, voters are suing the state of Pennsylvania. With the help of Voter Action and the NAACP, they filed a complaint this morning in Philadelphia federal court, specifically citing an interview between the American News Project and Philadelphia Deputy City Commissioner Fred Voigt. Here's an update and more of our interview with Philly's deputy commissioner, Fred Voigt.

Watch video here: http://americannewsproject.com/node/155

10/23/08 Today's Voter Action Press Release "COALITION OF VOTERS AND CIVIL RIGHTS GROUPS FILE FEDERAL LAWSUIT IN PENNSYLVANIA SEEKING EMERGENCY PAPER BALLOTS" here: http://www.voteraction.org/press-release/2008/coalition-of-voters-and-civil-rights-groups-file-federal-lawsuit-in-pennsylvania-

Oct 23 2008 | PLAINTIFFS CLAIM VOTING MACHINE BREAKDOWNS AND LONG LINES WILL DISENFRANCHISE VOTERS 'A PERFECT STORM' IMPACTING THE RIGHT TO VOTE PHILADELPHIA, PA – A coalition of Pennsylvania voters and civil rights groups, led by the NAACP State Conference of Pennsylvania, filed a lawsuit today in federal court in Philadelphia seeking to ensure that voters receive emergency paper ballots on Election Day when 50% or more voting machines become inoperable at any polling site in the state. The lawsuit, filed against Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Pedro A. Cortés, alleges that voters will be disenfranchised when they face the burden of having to wait hours in line, due to voting machine breakdowns, in order to exercise their constitutional right to vote.

"Pennsylvania's Secretary of the Commonwealth has issued a directive to all Pennsylvania counties requiring that emergency paper ballots be distributed only when 100% of voting machines malfunction on Election Day," says Jonathan Abady, a partner at the New York-based law firm Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady, and co-counsel for the plaintiffs. "If left unchanged, this standard will place an undue burden on voters across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania."

In his declaration filed with the lawsuit, J. Whyatt Mondesire, the president of the NAACP State Conference of Pennsylvania, states: "One of the major impediments to members exercising their right to vote is the long lines frequently encountered on election day…Thousands of members have faced serious delays in voting when machines have broken down in the past and this problem will be much more severe this year when unprecedented numbers of voters will be coming to the polls."

In addition to the NAACP State Conference of Pennsylvania, the plaintiffs include individual voters who reported long lines and voting machine breakdowns during the state's primary election in April, as well as the Election Reform Network, a local election integrity organization. The plaintiffs are represented by Voter Action, a national voting rights organization, the law firm of Emery Cell Brinckerhoff & Abady, and the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia.

View complaint here:
http://www.voteraction.org/files/PA%202008%20%20Complaint%20(00016006).pdf

View Plainfiff's Memorandum here: http://www.voteraction.org/files/Final%20MOL%20in%20support%20of%20PI%20(00016007).pdf

Editorial Page Victories Clarify: Obama will win 2-1 in Electoral College! 4 part compendium: Endorsements at OpEdNews: Washington Post, Houston, Detroit, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, Salt Lake,Philadelphia, Portland, Bangor, Sacram

Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 12:56:46 EDT

OpEdNews has been the site of choice to post the growing list of major and minor newspaper endorsements for Obama. The Editorials are quoted generally in full, with interspliced commentaries from major editors and commentators, explaining what is behind the Editorials.

Part I Obama's Editorial Endorsements: including Washington Post, Fidel Castro, Richard Lugar, Chuck Hagel, & more!

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Obama-s-Endorsements-The-by-Stephen-Fox-081016-633.html

*******

Part II Editorial Page Endorsements of Obama Denver Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francsico Chronicle, Los Angeles Times

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Editorial-Page-Endorsement-by-Stephen-Fox-081017-544.html

********

Part III New Endorsements: Salt Lake City Tribune, Bangor and Brunswick, Maine, Philadelphia, Miami, Portland, Kansas City

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Endorsements-Salt-Lake-Ci-by-Stephen-Fox-081018-476.html

********

More Obama Endorsements IV: Sacramento, Katie Couric, Malaysia, Houston Chronicle, Detroit, Waco Tx (sort of)

http://www.opednews.com/articles/More-Obama-Endorsements-IV-by-Stephen-Fox-081019-492.html

Small Business Owner "hearts" Obama's new plan

Tricia — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:58:04 EDT

I am a sole proprietor and am very impressed with the plan laid out yesterday by Barack Obama on fixing the economy. I am astounded at his $3,000.00 tax break for every new employee. It's a brilliant way to grow business, expand the number of jobs, and create an atmosphere of success in this country.

The roads and schools are in sorry shape. I drive around North Philly and almost used to envy the people in Iraq getting all that new infrastructure. Granted Bush demolished Iraq, but the Republicans also demolished Philadelphia. Deregulation, softening of state rules, global incentives, and hatred of unions caused this great city to be brought to it's knees.

I understand everyone says that 'these manufacturingoba jobs won't come back'. But I disagree. Local manufacturing is a human need. An honest day of actually making something rather than a service economy where you are paid for hours of your life in case someone needs you.

I was talking about Ben Franklin to my young adult children to encourage them to get jobs. I said he started out making candles. My son said "At least he got to actually make candles, instead of being in meetings where they discuss the color of next years candles" Ha! He'd hit it on the nose, we are so far removed from the product of our work. We'd like to be closer to our work, closer to our food, closer to our families than this corporate global marketplace allows.

Small business will make things and make them well if given preference over communist gulag labor in China.

So here's to the New American Revolution!

Huzzah!

Driving to Philadelphia with my daughter to see Obama

Mike — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 22:15:48 EDT

I wake up for work at 5 AM and I look forward to sleeping in on the weekends. Sleeping till 7 is wonderful and if I get up past 8 I feel as if I wasted a morning. So, getting up this morning should not have made a difference. Except, this morning, my 14 year-old daughter was also getting up at 5. I saw the events for this weekend in Philadelphia. I thought this would be a good day trip we can make together. There are none on Long Island and I can't think of the last one in the city. There is no need to have events like this in New York since we're not a swing state, and I knew seeing Obama would be a memorable event for both of us. We pulled out the driveway in the night. Clear sky and the stars were brilliant. Traffic was not a factor except when we reached the Verrazano bridge and there was a back up. I stopped at my usual rest stop just after exit 7 on the NJ Turnpike. We bought some coffee and muffins and took exit 6 for the Penn Turnpike. Onto Route 1 which is full of lights. During this time, Amanda was listening to her music on her ipod and the faint sound of Bloc Party could be heard over the talk radio I was listening to. I was concerned about parking, and getting there in enough time to see the Barack. As we were approaching Germantown which is on the North West side of Philly, we saw some young couples pushing strollers and then we pulled onto Germantown Trpk and traffic was slowing. There were more people and I felt as though we were getting close to a baseball game. A playoff game. Between The Yankess and The Sox. Traffic was not moving. Parking was a distant dream, but I saw a car pull behind a building. I saw lines stretch from both sides into the park and felt we may not be able to get in. But we did. We parked and signed up and were given stickers and then tried to find the end of the line. We walked down two blocks and turned and I saw another line of people and police appearing confused. I walked towards the Turnpike and then cut though a parking lot and could see the park and then found a stair case that led to a back entrance to the park. After passing through security we approached the stage and were about 10 yards from the stage. I could not believe how close we were. It was a beautiful day. The feeling in the crowd was relaxed and I felt as if I was with family. Doris, an older black woman asked if I can take pictures for her - no problem. I wanted to make sure she was in front of me to see Obama up close and she did and I still took pictures with her camera. There was another woman who I took shots for. The message was there. Telling those who were around us that we drove down from Long Island caused surprise and a sense of how blessed we were to witness this event. There was a prayer before the opening remarks. Thank you God.

If anyone knows how to send this letter about Palin and professional sports to newspapers...

Scott E. Smith — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 22:34:17 EDT

------I have already emailed a copy to the NY Times, LA Times, USA Today, and Washington Post------

Please feel free to forward the text of the below letter to any news organization or sports franchise. I don't really know how to go about obtaining contact info. for newspapers and quite honestly don't have the time. The hockey game at which Palin is supposed to be at is Oct. 11. Also, feel free to submit to any other blogs, message boards, etc...Please reply with what you have done with this letter (who you sent it to, where posted, etc...) THANK YOU!!!!

Open letter to all professional sports owners and league commissioners:

It is disgraceful to me, and I’m sure many Americans, that owner Ed Snider of the Philadelphia Flyers is using the 20 million dollar tax payer-funded Wachovia Center to promote his personal politics in an election year. Owner Ed Snider is a GOP (Republican) donor and is involved with the group Freedom’s Watch. Freedom’s Watch believes that President Bush’s Iraq War policies should be supported. Freedom’s Watch is engaged in lobbying.

When the residents of Philadelphia and the State of Pennsylvania funded this venue to the tune of 20 million dollars, it seems highly inappropriate to allow any political party the right to use the venue during a sports event when the overwhelming majority of people in the audience aren’t there to engage in partisan politics. People watch sports and attend live events to support their team. To many, viewing sports either live or on television, serves as a means of escapism. To have Sarah Palin, or any other politician seeking our Nation’s highest offices by allowing them to ‘drop the puck, throw-out the first pitch, opening coin toss, etc…’ at this time in an election year shows poor judgment because you selfishly want to impose your partisan politics on those in attendance and watching on television. This has nothing to do with hockey or hockey moms, just your own political agenda and it makes me sick!

Furthermore, what is the opinion of the NHL Mr. Bettman? Do you think this is a good idea? I’m also curious to know what other pro sports organizations and leagues think about this. To voice your opinion to the NHL, you can call (212) 789-2000. To tell the Philadelphia Flyers what you think (215 )465-4500.

Sincerely,

Scott Smith

First Canvassing Experience - Philly, 9/27

Nada — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 23:51:02 EDT

I was really surprised at how easy and how interesting canvassing was, and I would recommend it to anyone - with the caveat that there are times when you just need to nod and smile, nod and smile, at some of the things that come out of people's mouths. I'd like to encourage anyone who hasn't tried it to go out and give it a whirl. I hope that my discussion below will give you a sense of the highs and lows, and also the kinds of responses to expect.

There is a lot of latent racism. I would say that I knocked on about 100 doors, talked to about 50 people, and had longish conversations with about 20. Of those 20, 8 were significantly influenced by racism. I even had a woman say that she was going to consider withdrawing her vote from Obama if she heard anyone else "play the race card" and claim that race was a factor in people's votes - she was sick of it. Mildly, I noted that 3 of the 8 undecided voters I had talked to so far were leaning away from Obama because of race. Her reply - "Well, there are always a couple." I could only encourage her to stick to her own trust in Obama, who has refrained from (bent over backwards to avoid) anything that might resemble "playing the race card", whatever his supporters might say.

It's galling, but I had to ask myself, "What's going to make them less racist in the long run - me arguing with them, or them electing Obama president?" Usually my reply was, "Thanks for letting me know how you feel. I understand that it can be a consideration. What other issues are important to you?" However, I did have one good comeback to "He's just going to take care of his own," which was "You know, they said the same thing about JFK and Catholics." (This was a Catholic neighborhood.) What I wanted to say, of course, was "Good God, imagine what it would be like if a president took care of black people! We might see something approaching equality in this country."I was really happy, though, to see how willing people were to talk to me and my canvassing buddy. We had a couple doors slammed in our faces, but mostly we just had to show that we were willing to listen and respect people's opinions, and then we'd get people to open up to us.

There was a lot of concern that Obama will be weak on crime. Now, I can point out the amply demonstrated (1) link between economic welfare and crime until I'm blue in the face, but I think pointing out that Obama is supported by the National Association of Police Organizations, especially the Chicago policeman's union, worked a little better. Also, Obama does have a number of talking points on crime, but they're slightly hidden.

One person asked why Obama wasn't supported by the Bricklayer's Union (he is now - they originally supported Clinton), so I wrote to barackobama.com, asking them to add the BAC endorsement to the labor endorsement page, along with NAPO and the International Firefighter's Union.

I also heard a lot about Obama's lack of experience and purported softness on terrorism. I'm not going to go into length about the responses to those, since I think they're covered amply elsewhere.

Finally, I did encounter one camo-wearning gent who was very concerned with Obama's support for hunters. He was actually great to talk to - he reminded me a lot of my dad. I didn't quite sway him, but I earned a slight ironic grin for, my hi-larious point that for all that Bush-McCain-etc seem to support the Second Amendment for now, they're pretty willing to trash the rest of the Constitution, so how long is any one Amendment going to last in that sort of environment? (Oh man, massive erosion of civil liberties, it is to laugh.)

I also wanted to link to a WikiHow article on being persuasive (I realized that I naturally fall into habits like mirroring - they're very effective) and to mention a "Good Cop-Bad Cop" technique that worked for my buddy and me. One great thing about canvassing in pairs is that whoever isn't talking can simply observe, and judge how well the message is actually harmonizing with the voter's own wavelength. It even provides the opportunity to experiment slightly. Once, for example, my partner was enthusing about CHANGE and HOPE and THE FUTURE, and I saw the eyes of our cynical middle-aged male voter simply glazing over. So I butted in - "[X] here is the optimist, but I take a slightly more pessimistic view of things. There's no way that Obama will be able to eliminate poverty or make the world love the United States. But I know for a fact that politicians can change things, because of the way things have changed in the last eight years. [significant look; nod nod nod] McCain is just going to continue steamrolling down that same path, making things worse and worse. Obama can't make everything better, but ..." etc.

Anyway - good luck with your canvassing! Please give it a try, even if you're a little intimidated. People are really eager to talk about their opinions.

---
1 For example, see Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point (discussion here) or hey, America's Finest News Source.

PHOTOS: Michelle Obama, Joe Biden, Ed Rendell and Mayor Nutter!

Vincenzo — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 19:40:12 EDT

Interesting people and places captured in these two sets. The first set is from the Joe Biden "Community Gathering" at Linvilla Farms in Media, PA. The second set is of Michelle Obama, Jill Biden, Ed Rendell and Mayor Michael Nutter at the Francis Myers Recreation Center in South West Philadelphia.

The Fire in Philly: on Registering Voters in North Philadelphia

Yvonne Wu — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 18:55:08 EDT

Canvassing in Northern Philly yesterday was fantastic. It was my first time going door-to-door, and I can't wait to go back and do more. With 3 weekends left to register voters, our purpose was to confirm that each adult in every home is registered, to register those who are not, to find out their voting preference, and to recruit volunteers. In the brief training, we were warned that the greatest challenge in our going into the predominantly black neighborhood would be voter apathy ("what difference does my vote make? It won't change anything...Yeah, yeah, I'm registered.")

But I knocked on 77 doors and, aside from only two who refused to talk to me, and one die-hard Hillary supporter, I was met with quiet but deep enthusiasm. As I introduced myself, "I'm a volunteer with the Obama campaign and I'm just making sure everyone is registered to vote," I saw smiles catch, inner pride awaken, and resolute answers, "Yeah, I'm registered." When I asked if they knew who they would be voting for, I got, in playful "duh" kind of tone, "O-BA-ma!" I met none who was undecided. Almost all had that understated fire.

I recruited no volunteers but seemed to catch the interest of many when I told them about the new Obama office near them which just opened two days ago. Many requested additional flyers so they could pass on the information. They nodded assuringly when I encouraged them to make sure their friends and family were also registered and to send them our way if they weren't.

This was not an apathetic group but one eagerly anticipating the opportunity for something that could finally be theirs.

Republican presidential candidate John McCaincut short his first public appearance without running-mate Sarah Palin after chanting supporters of Democratic rival Barack Obama interrupted his speech.

Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 01:45:00 EDT

PHILADELPHIA - After lunching with a roundtable of women at Philadelphia's Down Home Diner,
McCain shook hands with supporters and strode up to a podium to deliver a
statement. But as he spoke, chants of "Obama, Obama, Obama" filled the room.

Reporters craned forward trying to hear the Arizona senator. Unfortunately
for McCain -- and possibly overlooked by aides who planned the event -- a
section of the diner opened up to a market where a crowd had gathered behind
a cordon.

A large contingent of Obama supporters showed up, mixed with some who
had bumper stickers reading "Democrats for McCain".

"It's time to leave the talk behind and start shaking up Washington and
fixing our economy, taking care of the problems facing our families. We're
going to give a tax cut to every family with a child," he said.

His words were barely audible.

McCain's supporters shouted "John McCain", "John McCain," "John McCain". The
duelling chants nearly drowned out the presidential hopeful's voice.

"Pennsylvania is a battleground state as we can tell," McCain said.

Meanwhile Palin, the Alaska governor, was on a flight back to her state.

<http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/johnmccain>

The Voiceless Victims of Sexism

Keite Young — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 06:50:59 EDT

As a Black man, it is incredibly encouraging to see that while there are some hurdles we have yet to confront, the state of race relations in this country have progressed even within the last two years. Honest conversations about race are being had from a national media level to the exchanges around the water cooler to the local community centers and playgrounds of our neighborhood schools.

What is troublesome about the state of civil rights in this country is a growing rift between men and women on the issue of sexism. Now, tackling the age-old argument of miscommunication between the sexes or how we may think and perceive things differently is frankly a subject that I believe is too big and broad to be properly addressed in one speech or even one lifetime. But speaking to the inequality that exist between the sexes in the workplace and the public forum by someone who has the eyes of the world trained on them could at the very least spark conversation and a shared awareness in both men and women that has been dormant for too long.

Barack here on June 13 and other ways you can get busy!

Priscilla — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 19:41:56 EDT

Obama supporters, CHAB members and friends:

I'm writing you because you worked hard to get this campaign to the point it is at today and now your work is paying off - it is time to gear up again for the General Election here in Philadelphia! Barack Obama will be here on June 13. He will attend two fundraising events that evening:

Reception in Center City. Barack will take questions and photos, sign books, etc. Proceeds will benefit the Obama For America campaign. Those who maxed out (contributed $2300) during the Primary can elect to have their June 13 contribution go toward the General Election. This will be a great opportunity to hear Barack's perspectives first hand and to show your support as the the campaign faces the new onslaught of negative ads, which are beginning already in battleground states like ours.Ticket prices for this event range from $1000 - $2300.
A second event is the Democratic White House Victory Fund Dinner with Barack Obama. It is designed to demonstrate unity and raise funds for the Democratic National Committee. It will be a more intimate dinner with even fewer participants than the reception. The attendees for this dinner will be those who raise $20,000 for the evening or who write a direct check for at least $10,000 to the Democratic White House Victory Fund Dinner. Why are we doing this?The RNC has $40 million already in its coffers; the DNC – at around $4 million – is woefully under funded at this point.
Please contact me immediately at 215.353.7432 if you have interest in attending and/or helping to raise funds for either event.Read additional text for ways you can help local campaign with housing, office space and other needs.

Vote for Change Voter Registration Drive Results for May 31, 2008

David from Philadelphia, PA — Sat, 31 May 2008 12:59:37 EDT

Today we went out to the Headhouse Market around 10:30 this morning. By 12, it started raining, and half an hour later, raining seriously. We called it a day.

Registered by me:
Prior running total: 56
Day 6 total: 2
Total to date: 58

Registered by my volunteers:
Prior running total: 87
Day 6 total: 4
Total to date: 91

More tomorrow.

Vote for Change Voter Registration Drive Results for May 25, 2008

David from Philadelphia, PA — Sun, 25 May 2008 18:54:29 EDT

We tabled at the base of the Chestnut St. bridge, at Front & Chestnut Streets. It was another beautiful day.

Registered by me:

Prior running total 50 (4 days)
Today 6
Total to date 56

Registered by my volunteers:

Prior running total: 52 (1 day)

Today 35
Total to date 87

It might be too ambitious, but I hope to register another 2,000 voters between now and the deadline of October 5.

Vote for Change Voter Registration Drive Results for May 24, 2008

David from Philadelphia, PA — Sat, 24 May 2008 22:03:49 EDT

I organized a voter registration event at a music festival at Penn's Landing today. It was the first time I organized an event. Over 100 people signed up as volunteers, which was great, but only about 20-25 showed up. There were too many of us to cover just the music festival, so I sent teams of 3-4 people out into Center City, mainly to the Gallery or Rittenhouse Square.

We're registering people again on Sunday.

I personally signed up 7 people today, and my volunteers signed up 52 more. Since Vote for Change start, I have volunteered on 4 days and registered a total of 50 voters as of today.

During the run-up to the Pennsylvania primary, I worked for 10 days and signed up 294 people.

My plan for this blog is to track how we do in Vote for Change over the summer.

Hope & Change in Philadelphia

Jamie in Norwich — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 23:36:35 EDT

Last weekend (April 18-20) six carloads of Vermonters hit the ground in eastern Pennsylvania. We canvassed in Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Allentown, Doylestown, Abington and Philadelphia. Were you in Pennsylvania too? If so I'd love to hear from you!

Friday afternoon my group arrived in Philly just in time to go to the Center City Obama office, get rally tickets and walk to the rally. Already a vast river of humanity was flowing to the rally site adjacent to Independence Hall (below). By nightfall there were 35,000 people - an all-time record crowd here to see Barack!

While we waited for Barack to show up, the sound system belted out hope-mongering songs like Brooks & Dunn's Only In America and Earth, Wind & Fire's Shining Star. (For a complete playlist email blackice09@gmail.com.) After the third time through the playlist, will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas got up on stage and led us in a rousing rendition of the Yes We Can song (below).

When Barack finally walked on stage, the cheering was so deafening I had to put my fingers in my ears for 2-3 minutes before the noise subsided. Barack gave an impassioned speech (photo below), interrupted by countless bursts of applause - watch the entire speech here - then stepped off the podium to shake hands at the front of the crowd. People started reaching over each other trying to shake Barack's hand, and suddenly we were being pushed forward with an irresistible force. Thankfully no one was crushed or trampled. When Barack moved past us the pushing let up.

Saturday morning I went out to Northeast Philly (photo below) with another volunteer who had just flown in from Santa Barbara, CA. We set out on foot to canvass a nearby neighborhood. What an experience! Surprise #1: A lot of voters were still undecided. Surprise #2: Many of them were eager to ask us questions - and they listened thoughtfully to our answers. This is how canvassing is supposed to work. (Unlike here in New England, where most voters had already made up their minds and didn't care to listen.)

My favorite voter contact was a young stay-at-home mom with 2 young kids. When we first knocked on her door, she leaned out of an upstairs window, said she was about to jump in the shower, and asked us to please come back later because she wanted to talk to us. We did, and this time she came to the door with her hair wrapped in a towel. She said she was worried about the future - thanks to the rising cost of gasoline and other essentials, her husband's income was no longer enough to pay their bills. I explained Barack's plans to help middle-income taxpayers with tax breaks financed by repealing tax credits for oil companies and enacting a windfall profits tax. I also said Barack would work to make college more affordable by making the federal student loan program truly nonprofit and offering a free college education to partcipants in a national service program. By the time we left, she was 100% for Barack and ready to convert her husband too!

Saturday evening we were joined at dinner by US Congressman Patrick Murphy, who represents the area northeast of Philly. Only thirty-nine years old, Patrick is the only Iraq war veteran in Congress, and he was the very first member of Congress from outside Illinois to endorse Barack. (Many more have followed his lead!) Like Barack, Patrick is an inspirational leader who is committed to ending the Iraq war and moving our country in a new direction. And that means electing more people like Patrick Murphy to Congress in November.

Read the sequel: Sign wars, a waffle and a slumlord in Scranton.

Thoughts on Philly, etc.

Gina E. — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 19:36:36 EDT

It's been 2 days since Tues. and I think I'm finally able to articulate my feelings about this '08 election year.

I hesitated to get involved in Obama's campaign, not because I don't believe he can make a great President, but because I did not want to get my heart broken again. I have been voting Democrat for 24 years now. My first presidential election was 1980. I voted for the losing candidate. I don't have to remind you who won that year. Subequently, I canvassed for Jesse Jackson in '88. For the 2nd time, I supported the losing candidate. I remained loyal and also voted for and supported Dukaukis. That debate where he talked about what would happen if his wife got raped really angered me. His response torpedoed his whole campaign. I knew he was a goner after his weak response.

Of course I finally got to celebrate in '92. I truly enjoyed the Clinton years. Because of the thriving economy, I was able to survive as a struggling actress in Los Angles. Then there was 2000 and '04. Disapointment again as I watched a democratic system (the voting recount) that made no sense to me. I would really have liked to see Hillary Clinton's tenacity during the Supreme Court deliberations that year. Yes, I think if you really want to be the President, you have to be strong and stand your ground if you think you're right. The gov't is more than 1 person and could have survived in my opinion a recount into the spring of '01.

Poem-Philadelphia

Magdalena — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:39:10 EDT

I am a third generation Philadelphia native (who now resides in Burbank CA) that is honored and humbled by your selfless service and dedication to the likes of me and countless others in this country, some of whom openly denigrate you from a place of fear. I am certain without a shadow of doubt that you will unite our world and (with ALL of our help) create a new America that truly is a symbol of freedom, prosperity, and peace. Senator Obama, I speak from my heart when I make the plea to help unite our country and unite our world. The following is a poem I wrote for my father who was laid to rest in Philadelphia in 2004. He was a Republican and at times affected by the racial divides which happened in Philadelphia in the late 50's through the late 60's. He respected his wife and daughter, who were both ardent Democrats and I sometimes like to imagine him switching parties from heaven because he finally found the unifying force we so desperately need. Dad...if you're listening, repeat after me....O-BAMA...O-BAMA.

Pulling into tenth street

Groaning whistles permeate

Bus after bus wearing hound insignia

Polo or Armani of the working class

Craving steak forgotten hour break

Taking stand behind cracked plexiglass

Sighing realization five so far away

Clock watching and ticket taking

Without fail day in and day out

Worker bee humdrum life

Pouring Fatherly wisdom

Remember American might

Ocean floors will tremble son

Union man through and through

Evening monotony settling

Scoreless game mocking life

Bottom of the wretched eighth

Arrival sign reads Atlantic City

Slumped shoulders emerge

both weathered bus ends

Sin city pilfering sparkles

Former upturned mouths

Surprising handful note

Avian pear shaped birds

Pidgeons cooing gallantly

Welcoming travel weary eyes

Perched above rumbling midsections

Punting fatigue smack dab center

Crumpled clothed man, middle aged

Forgotton self taking stock

Reaching into deep pockets

Bread heels pocket crumbs

Feeder for swarming summer birds

Shadowed face forgotton time

Good to meet you spoken naturally

Two men circling birds

Back slapping comradery

Settling sun sounds punched clock

Worn traveler working man

Walking side by side

Smiling sidewalks pleased

Overhearing tell-tale talk

Gavin Floyd’s rotton pitch

Kindrid strides pushing forward

Ale house barstools beckoning

Brotherly philly love

Video: Obama Rally in Philadelphia 4/18

Ben — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:40:00 EDT

Me, my son and his friend went to the AMAZING rally on independence Lawn in Philly Friday April 18th. To watch our video click here: http://web.mac.com/blloyd1/main/Movie%3A_Obama-rama.html

OBAMA WON PHILLY! take that!

Abigail — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 12:17:29 EDT

Well Its a lot more low key here today, I think the majority of people are walking around in shock, I mean we knew it would be hard, but the city was so Fired up it was easy to think the rest of the state would agree with us. But as I was walking to class this morning in Center city I came to an intersection where a woman was handing out free metro newspapers, will Hillary's face on the front, and as I reached up to take one she saw my Obama pin, and tapped it with her free hand and said- "Yup, well we still got this!!" that was a nice little moment, I nodded and told her we sure did.

Yeah that's right I am still wearing my PIN! Woot woot, represent!

Honestly how dumb do Nutter and Rendell feel when their city does not agree with their endorsement!?!? Philly went for Obama, by one account by 64% and I'm sure that number will increase as the rest of the numbers come in! We Love you OBAMA! Come back anytime!

Obama wasn't on the ballot in Philly!

EMPulse — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:17:30 EDT

This was posted to a thread on Fark.com earlier tonight:

"I voted for Obama in Philadelphia today, Port Richmond which is heavily pro-white. When I went in to vote I was given a slip of paper that said it was the "Official Democratic Ballot" that only had Hillary on it and Hillary's superdelegates (and various local officials that were largely uncontested). After I had voted I asked what the piece of paper was and why Obama wasn't on it. The woman just said that I could have pushed his button and asked if "You voted for these people right?" (pointing to the Hillary superdelegates).

I brought that piece of paper to the closest Obama headquarters and they're filing a complaint, supposedly."

Here's the ballot in question.

What can we all do? Get the word out. Tell news organizations and others to see for themselves that something is rotten in the state of Pennsylvania.

United States’ Muslims call on Obama for change

funkfresh01 — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 21:28:03 EDT

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/96760D5C-448D-46A0-BB99-91D3A2546AA9.htm

By Sarah Brown in Philadelphia

Source: Al Jazeera

As the US city of Philadelphia prepares for its most closely watched political primary in generations one significant part of the population seems to have already picked their man.

Muslim-American community leaders, activists and voters in the city of brotherly love, as Philadelphia is known, say Barack Obama is by far their preferred candidate.

Philadelphia's Muslim community is one of the most significant, in terms of size and in terms of prominence, of all US cities.

Philly is alive with the sound of "OBAMA!"

Abigail — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 18:09:25 EDT

Hey Hey, my fellow hopemongers! I am elated!!! As I sit here and type this I hear Obama's voice and the YES WE CAN song blasting from speakers on top of an OBAMA car, its truly moving. The first time I heard it I ran to my wind, pulled the blinds up and looked down the 6 stories to the street, I was secretly hoping it was Barack, even though I know he is in Indiana tonight. I had the biggest doppy smile on my face all day whenever I was walking around Philly! We have so much visibilty its INSANE!! ON Broad street, right near City Hall (the building with Penn on top) there was this huge group of people with signs dancing on the median a "Granny for Obama" in a wheel chair- and they were getting honked at like no ones business! Philly is fired up! Then after doing more errands for school, I saw two college kids on their bikes riding down Walnut each with an Obama flag trailing from the back of their bikes. THIS CITY IS FOR OBAMA! No doubt in my mind. So remember, whatever the outcome is tonight, there is a lot of love here, people are excited to be a part of something bigger than themselves, to be held accountable and help make THAT CHANGE!!! I love this! The primary can go on as long as Hillary wants, I don't care, its not going to make a difference, out Guy will win the nomination and then the Presidency, all the while winning more people over with his goodness and honesty and giving each upcoming state the chance to be a part of something so HUGE and HOPEFUL!! love you guys

My Incredible Trip To Philadelphia

Candace N. - V.O.B — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:04:06 EDT

I went to Philly this past weekend to volunteer. From the moment I arrived the people of Philly were very friendly and helpful. When I needed directions or when I was talking to folks about Senator Obama they always had smiles on their faces and did not seem to mind my questions. There are no words to describe the wonderful people in the Obama camp in Philly and the volunteers that help canvass and make calls. They are simply an awesome group of people. No one "tooted" their own horn for all of the work that they have done and they were genuine in showing appreciation for the work done by volunteers. They were humble, passionate and hard working. The day that I participated, several volunteers including the one canvassing with me worked from early in the morning until late in the evening. I was awe struck by their dedication.People from all walks of life, from various ethnic groups and religions all banded together for one great common cause to help get out the word about Senator Obama. The Lady that I canvassed with was French, we later joined up with a woman from Bolivia and two young men that traveled from Japan. We all instantly clicked and had lunch together before heading back to do more canvassing and to make calls. I was especially inspired by the two young men that traveled all the way from Japan to help with the campaign. They said they traveled to America to help because they feel that Senator Obama will help change the world for the better. My trip to Philly was an experience that I will cherish for the rest of my life. I hope to go back to Philly during the general election and bring my children so that they can help and experience what I did.

Obama Rally in Philadelphia

Corrinne Davies — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 15:05:09 EDT

I took off work early on Friday to attend the Obama Rally in Philadelphia at Independence Park. The amount of people that showed up to hear Obama speak was insane. The lines were wrapped around the buildings, crowds of people were on the lawn across the street and positioned on adjacent sidewalks. The event was listed as open to the public and tickets were not needed to attend but what they failed to mention was that tickets were available prior to the event which would ensure you could listen to the speech from the same block that the stage was set up on. Anyone who simply RSVP’ed for the event has to sit on the grass across the street which is alright except sitting on the grass with a cast on your foot is not an easy task.

When I first walked up to the venue a volunteer noted that I had crutches and told me to speak to one of the head volunteers at the end of that street and that they would be able to get me a ticket and seating accommodations. I’m a shy person and asking for help is not something that comes easy to me. I limped on down to the end of the block but got directed across the street, obviously I had not found this “head” volunteer I was suppose to speak with. I circled back around and crossed the street again, sheepishly asking for accommodations, repeating what the first volunteer had told me to do but this staff member must have gotten sick of telling people all day that there were no tickets left and quickly brushed me off while mentioning that there was a handicapped entrance on the right side of the street.

I headed to the right side of the block but found no such entrance or volunteer that could assist me. I continued on to the front of the block were I met the sweetest volunteer near the press/media entrance. I had stopped to lean against something and try to cool down. At this point my face was pouring with sweat, my ankle was throbbing, my throat was dry and I was beginning to shake and getting light-headed. I spoke with this gentleman for quite a bit. He even offered to give up his blue *special seating* ticket to me but I didn’t feel right taking that from him. He also mentioned that I could go to the left side of the block at the very end and go in through the handicapped entrance there, he wasn’t sure if there was seating there but he figured there must be some sort of accommodations. I asked if I needed a ticket for that entrance but he didn’t believe so. I took a few more minutes to compose myself before heading off again.

A woman passed by and noted that I wasn’t in very good shape; she asked if she could help me. I told her I was fine but she must not have believed me because she told a police officer a few feet away that I didn’t look well. The officer than approached me and asked me the same question, again I reassured him that I was fine, just tired of walking in circles in the heat. He did offer me some water which I accepted graciously. My mouth had gotten so dry and the water really hit the spot, my hands stopped shaking and I didn’t feel as light headed. I was still sweating like crazy but decided it was time to head off and find this entrance.

I slowly made my way to the opposite side of the block at the very end and ran into some volunteers that were very eager to assist me but didn’t know what to do because apparently that handicapped entrance required a ticket which I did not have. I mentioned that I was told I didn’t need a ticket for this entrance and that the volunteer on the other side had offered me his blue ticket which I declined because I thought I could get in over here without a ticket. I was running out of energy very quickly and told her I didn’t think I could walk all the way back to him, get the ticket and come back to this location. She then gave me the name of a volunteer on the right side of the block in the middle area who was handling handicapped seating or something so I headed around the block for the second time trying to find this woman. When I got there I only found a few volunteers but nobody knew where she was or who she was.

At this point I was ready to give up and trying not to cry. I decided I would head back to the front of the block where I met the sweet gentleman volunteer the first time around. I had pretty much decided I would sit on the sidewalk near the media entrance, behind the wall and hope I could hear something. I came back around and propped myself up against the fence. The volunteer came up to me and asked me what I was doing back here, I explained my little ordeal/adventure and said I was going to give up and camp out here for the evening and just listen to the speech. I could tell he felt sorry for me. He said it was ridiculous that I had to walk around the block twice and that nobody could help me out. He started offering to pay my cab fare to have a taxi drive me to the right entrance; he asked the police officer if there was anything he could do. The officer mentioned that he had no control over the event and suggested that he ask the Obama staff if they would allow me to cut through the press entrance. He spoke with them for a few minutes but it seemed much longer and eventually they agreed to help me out.

I got a little press pass badge and they directed me to an area where I could sit. I got a nice little bench all to myself. The risers were in front, with all the camera men and photographers standing on top. I managed to find a position where I could see the stage and the microphone. Occasionally, a photographers head got in my way but overall I was pretty excited with my location. The crowd was fired up. The only downside of being where I was is that I wasn’t part of the crowd and missed out on that excitement.

Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas and Ed Kowalczyk, lead singer of Live performed some live music before Obama went on. Once I Obama went on stage I stood up on my bench for a better view and used one crutch for support. I enjoyed the speech and I loved when he pledged to "declare independence" from Washington politics. He used the word independence a lot in his speech and I found it very fitting considering the historic location. "Here in the city and the state that gave birth to our democracy, we can declare our independence from the politics that has shut us out, let us down, and told us to settle."

Overall, I love watching Obama and I love listening to him speak. I’m fired up. I have a few pictures and videos from this event that I will eventually post on the snapfish site once I get them uploaded to my computer. I hate driving into Philadelphia, I hate the traffic and the parking but this was worth it. I would love to shake his hand someday just to share with him how thankful I am that he has come around, that he is running for president and that he really wants to change things in Washington. I’ve always hated politics but now I finally have something I can believe in, some reason to hope and to get interested in politics.

Printable Pennsylvania for Obama Signs

Dan — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 09:55:54 EDT

Pennsylvania - we really need you to show your support this Tuesday!

I put together some ready-to-print 8½ by 11 inch signs just for Pennsylvania. If you live in PA, please print some out and tape them up in your car, in your house, give them to other supporters or use them as signs! Email your friends and family asking them to do the same!

4 OBAMA PA License Plate

Pennsylvania for Obama

Allentown for Obama

Altoona for Obama

Bethlehem for Obama

Erie for Obama

Harrisburg for Obama

Lancaster for Obama

Philadelphia for Obama

Pittsburgh for Obama

Reading for Obama

Scranton for Obama

Philly for Obama

Yinzers for Obama

Obama '08

Barack Obama's campaign finds a culture clash in Philadelphia

N. Julio Barthson - E-Campaign Leader — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 01:56:19 EDT

Barack is decided to take us away from the old ways and bring us towards the new...

An Open Letter From A Philadelphian

Erik — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 19:34:10 EDT

Senator Barack Obama,

When I was a young man, I had faith in things. Simple things like the gift of the American Constitution, that I can feel proud of my country, and that if I was scared of something, I would be safe at home. My teachers and civic leaders told me these things, and I felt free to prove it to myself. I was told that I had a say, that I had a vote, that my opinion mattered, and that my government was my protector. For 28 years of my life, I believed these things, and they made me feel proud, and safe, and free. It took 6 years to lose my faith, but I never expected to loose my fears.

The old fears I held were enough for anybody. They were healthy fears, held by many people. They weren’t overbearing, they just sat on the periphery of my mind. They were not eminent fears; they rarely came to the surface. My faith in America, and the leaders we were given the right to choose, kept those fears in perspective; at bay, but no longer. Today, my up is down, my black is white, and I don’t know what to fear, for my faith is almost gone.

STEPHANOPOULOS:You have a very cool style. And I wonder, how much of that is tied to your race?

KravitzKravitz — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 20:57:20 EDT

Yes folks. Stephanopoulos actually asked if being cool is an inherently black trait. In May 2007.

But make sure you also see the second article in this post, "The Conciliator." And remember it too is from May 2007.

     SENATOR BARACK OBAMA ON “THIS WEEK WITH GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS” from ABC News... MAY 13, 2007

    ...

    STEPHANOPOULOS: When we sat down in Des Moines, I asked Obama where he got that confidence.

    ...

    OBAMA: Well, you know, I think it comes from the set of experiences that I brought with me to this race.

    As somebody who worked as a community organizer in Chicago, not knowing anybody when I arrived and being able to pull people together around the issues that folks were facing after they'd gotten laid off of work; the work that I've done as a civil rights lawyer and a constitutional law professor.

    And then in the state senate, being able to get Democrats and Republicans together around tough issues like reforming the death penalty or expanding health insurance for kids -- those skills seem to have translated in Washington.

    ...Did Someone Say 3AM?...

    STEPHANOPOULOS: What's the most difficult crisis you've had to manage in your public life?

    OBAMA: Well, you know, the truth is, in my public life as a legislator, most of the difficult tasks have been to build consensus around hard problems.

    And what I think the country needs more than anything right now is somebody who has the capacity to identify areas of common interest, common good, build a consensus around it and get things done.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: That is part of the job. There's no question about it.

    OBAMA: Yes.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: But you know a big part of the job of a president is what you do in a crisis...

    OBAMA: Right.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: ... the crisis you didn't expect.

    OBAMA: Right.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: And you never really ever had to deal with something like that, right?

    OBAMA: Well, what I think is absolutely legitimate is that my political career has been on the legislative side and not in the executive branch.

    Now, that's true for a lot of my colleagues, you know, who aren't governors.

    And one of the things that I hope over the course of this campaign I show, is the capacity to manage this pretty unwieldy process of a political race. And one of the great things about the press is that they're going to be watching very carefully...

    STEPHANOPOULOS: Every move you make.

    OBAMA: ... every move you make, and to make sure that people have a sense of how I deal with adversity, how I deal with mistakes, who do I have around me to make sure that we're executing on the things that need to get done.

    ....

    STEPHANOPOULOS: One of your heroes is Abe Lincoln. He was ruthless when he had to be. Can you be ruthless?

    OBAMA: You know, I think that somebody who has arrived where I am out of Chicago politics has to have a little bit of steel in him.

    I have not made a promise -- and I won't make a promise -- that I'm going to be able to perfectly balance the budget immediately.

    What I can say is that we're going to pay as you go; that if I start a new program, I'll find a way to pay for it; if I want tax cuts, then I'm going to find a way to pay for them; and that, over the long term, we get a stable budget that is not simply running up the credit card on our children.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: You've also said that with Social Security, everything should be on the table.

    OBAMA: Yes.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: Raising the retirement age?

    OBAMA: Everything should be on the table.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: Raising payroll taxes?

    OBAMA: Everything should be on the table. I think we should approach it the same way Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan did back in 1983. They came together. I don't want to lay out my preferences beforehand, but what I know is that Social Security is solvable. It is not as difficult a problem as we're going to have with Medicaid and Medicare.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: Partial privatization?

    OBAMA: Privatization is not something that I would consider, and the reason is this: Social Security, I think, is -- that's the floor. That's the baseline. Social Security is that safety net that can't be frayed, and we shouldn't put at risk.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: Your candidacy brings the issue of race right to the top...

    OBAMA: Right.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: ... of the national conversation. You've been a strong supporter of affirmative action...

    OBAMA: Yes.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: ... and you're a constitutional law professor, so let's go back in the classroom. I'm your student, I say, "Professor, you and your wife went to Harvard Law School. You've got plenty of money. You're running for president. Why should your daughters, when they go to college, get affirmative action?"

    OBAMA: Well, first of all, I think that my daughters should probably be treated by any admissions officer as folks who are pretty advantaged, and I think that there's nothing wrong with us taking that into account as we consider admissions policies at universities.

    I think that we should take into account white kids who have been disadvantaged and have grown up in poverty and shown themselves to have what it takes to succeed.

    So I don't think those concepts are mutually exclusive. I think what we can say is that in our society, race and class still intersect, that there are a lot of African-American kids who are still struggling, that even those who are in the middle class may be first generation as opposed to fifth or sixth generation college attendees, and that we all have an interest in bringing as many people together to help build this country.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: Sandra Day O'Connor wrote that in 25 years, affirmative action may no longer be necessary. Is she right?

    OBAMA: I would like to think that if we make good decisions and we invest in early childhood education, improve K-12, if we have done what needs to be done to ensure that kids who are qualified to go to college can afford it, that affirmative action becomes a diminishing tool for us to achieve racial equality in this society.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: You have a very cool style when you're doing those town meetings, when you're out on the campaign trail. And I wonder, how much of that is tied to your race?

    OBAMA: That's interesting.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: One of your friends told the New Yorker Magazine that "the mainstream is just not ready for a fire-breathing black man." Did you turn down the temperature on purpose?

    OBAMA: You know, I don't think it has to do with race. I think it has to do with when I'm campaigning, I'm in a conversation. And what I don't do when I'm campaigning is to try to press a lot of hot buttons and use a lot of cheap applause lines, because I want people to get a sense of how I think about this process.

    OBAMA: I want them to have some ability to walk through with me the difficult choices that we face.

    (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

    OBAMA: We're spending $275 million a day, a day, in Iraq.

    (END VIDEO CLIP)

    OBAMA: And I think that one of the problems with political speeches is that we all know what folks want to hear. We know who the conventional, stereotypical enemies are on any given issue, and we have a tendency, I think, to play up to that. And I actually think that we're in this moment in history right now where honesty, admitting complexity is a good thing.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: How about passion? How about anger? I mean, you've written about how you dealt with issues of anger. Don't you think sometimes voters need to see that too?

    OBAMA: Oh, absolutely, and I think they do see it. Listen, the one thing that I don't think people are going to be able to accuse me of is not being able to give a fiery speech. I came onto the national scene after getting folks fired up pretty good.

    (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

    OBAMA: There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America. There's the United States of America.

    (END VIDEO CLIP)

    OBAMA: But keep in mind, I'm not interested in bringing people together just for the sake of bringing people together. I'm not naive enough to think that if we all hold hands and sing "Kumbaya" that somehow health care gets solved or, you know, education gets solved. Right now, what we need to make significant progress on these problems is to be able to build enough bridges to get things done.

    So, I'm furious about the young men that I see standing on corners on the South Side of Chicago without hope, without opportunity, without prospects for the future. I am furious about the mothers I meet here in Iowa who are giving me hugs and telling me about their son who died in a war and asking, did their son die for a mistake? It breaks my heart. But what I know is that the only way we're going to solve the problem is not to assign blame. It's to say, "Here's a vision for the future that we can do something about."

    STEPHANOPOULOS: You've had to ask for Secret Service protection awful early in this campaign. Were you reluctant?

    OBAMA: Yes.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: Why?

    OBAMA: I'm not an entourage guy. You know, up until recently, I was still, you know, taking my wife Michelle's grocery list and going
    to the grocery store once in awhile. And so obviously it's constrained, but I'm obviously appreciate of their efforts. They're extraordinarily professional.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Durbin, your friend, who talked to the review board, said a lot of the threats that were coming in are racially motivated. How serious are they? How much are you told? How much do you worry about it?

    OBAMA: You know, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it or considering the details of this. But just to broaden the issue, are there people who would be troubled with an African-American president? Yes. Are there folks who might not vote for me because I'm African-American? No doubt.

    What I'm confident about, though, as I travel around the country, is that people are decent at their core in America. The vast majority of folks want to do the right thing.

    If I don't win, it's not going to be because of my race. It's going to be because I didn't project a vision of leadership that gave people confidence. It's going to be because of something I didn't do as opposed to because I'm African-American.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: You've been thinking about running for president a long time. Your brother-in-law says he talked to you about it in the early '90s.

    OBAMA: He might have brought it up. I'm not sure.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: So you dispute that?

    (LAUGHTER)

    OBAMA: You know, what's wonderful about this whole process is that everybody has -- everybody looks at me now through the lens of where I am now. You know, I had my high school teacher saying what a wonderful, studious guy he was. And I was goofing off the whole time, and they were calling up the principal. I think there's a lot of self-correction that takes place (inaudible).

    STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, but there's one more. Valerie Jarrett, a good friend of the family says, you told her in your Senate race, "I just think I have some special qualities, and wouldn't it be a shame to waste them."

    OBAMA: That, I think I probably did say.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: What are they?

    OBAMA: I think that I have the capacity to get people to recognize themselves in each other. I think that I have the ability to make people get beyond some of the divisions that plague our society and to focus on common sense and reason.

    OBAMA: And that's been in short supply over the last several years.

    You know, I'm not an ideologue. Never have been. Even during my younger days when I was tempted by sort of more radical or left-wing politics, there was a part of me that always was a little bit conservative in that sense, that believes that you make progress by sitting down, listening to people, recognizing everybody's concerns, seeing other people's points of views, and them making decisions.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: One final question. Everyone is going to be watching this on Mother's Day, and a lot of America is going to get to know a lot about you over the next year, but they're never going to know your mom. She passed away a little more than 10 years ago. What's the most important lesson she taught you?

    OBAMA: She was the sweetest soul I've ever known, and I think that quality that I just talked about, the capacity to see the world through somebody else's eyes or to stand in their shoes, is what she gave to me in great abundance. And I think that capacity is what's needed right now in this moment.

    There have been other moments in history where maybe some other skills were needed, but I think bringing the country together -- and, by the way, bringing the world together -- so that there's that sense of mutual recognition is something that I get directly from my mother. And I think her spirit acts powerfully on me throughout the course of this campaign.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator, thanks very much.

    OBAMA: Thank you so much, George. I appreciate it.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: The roundtable is next with George Will, Cokie Roberts and Sam Donaldson. And later, Brooke Shields.

Transcript exerpts from - Lynn Sweet, Chicago Sun-Times. The scoop from Washington May 31, 2007

Steph also refers to this article, from The New Yorker.

The Conciliator
Where is Barack Obama coming from?
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/05/07/070507fa_fact_macfarquhar?printable=true

He's talking to farmers about ethanol.

Interesting point about when he gets into detail as opposed to rousing rhetoric.

"This mode of his is often called professorial, and Obama himself likens these forums to the constitutional-law classes that he taught at the University of Chicago. But “professorial” implies that he seems cerebral or didactic, and he doesn’t. Despite the criticism he has received for being all inspiration and no policy, Obama has so far stuck to what appears to be an instinct that white papers belong on Web sites, not in speeches."

"Obama’s calm is also a matter of temperament. The first thing almost everybody who knows Obama says about him is how extremely comfortable he is with himself. “He was almost freakishly self-possessed and centered,” Christopher Edley, Jr., one of Obama’s professors at Harvard Law School, who is now a dean at Berkeley, says. There is something freakish about Obama’s self-possession—it’s conspicuous, it draws attention to itself, like the unnatural stillness of someone able to lower his blood pressure at will. He doesn’t strive for an Everyman quality: he is relaxed but never chummy, gracious rather than familiar. His surface is so smooth, his movements so easy and fluid, his voice so consistent and well-pitched that he can seem like an actor playing a politician, too implausibly effortless to be doing it for real. "

"“When I read the book,(Dreams Of My Father) I was surprised—the confusion and the anger that he described, maybe they were there below the surface, but they were not manifest at all.” Asked about this, Obama says, “You know, what puzzles me is why people are puzzled by that. That angry character lasts from the time I was fifteen to the time I was twenty-one or so. I guess my explanation is I was an adolescent male with a lot of hormones and an admittedly complicated upbringing. But that wasn’t my natural temperament. And the book doesn’t describe my entire life. I could have written an entirely different book, about the joys of basketball and what it’s like to bodysurf as the sun’s going down on a sandy beach.”

“Barack used to say that one of his favorite sayings of the civil-rights movement was ‘If you cannot bear the cross, you can’t wear the crown.’ ”

He married Michelle Robinson, a woman who already owned the memories and the roots, who was by birth the person he was trying to become: the child of an intact, religious black family from the South Side. He took a job organizing a South Side community that was disintegrating but that he hoped, through work and inspiration, to revive. Later, rejecting the agnosticism of his parents and his own skeptical instincts, he became a Christian and joined a church. “I came to realize,” he wrote in his second book, “The Audacity of Hope,” that “without an unequivocal commitment to a particular community of faith, I would be consigned at some level to always remain apart, free in the way that my mother was free, but also alone in the same ways that she was ultimately alone.”

(a/k/a in difficult times, one clings to...see where that comes from?)

"Obama’s voting record is one of the most liberal in the Senate, but he has always appealed to Republicans, perhaps because he speaks about liberal goals in conservative language. When he talks about poverty, he tends not to talk about gorging plutocrats and unjust tax breaks; he says that we are our brother’s keeper, that caring for the poor is one of our traditions. Asked whether he has changed his mind about anything in the past twenty years, he says, “I’m probably more humble now about the speed with which government programs can solve every problem. For example, I think the impact of parents and communities is at least as significant as the amount of money that’s put into education.”

"After Obama’s Convention speech, Republican bloggers rushed to claim him, under headings such as “Right Speech, Wrong Convention” and “Barack Obama: A Republican Soul Trapped Inside a Democrat’s Body.” The Convention speech was uncharacteristically Reaganesque for Obama, being almost uniformly sunny about America, which he called a “magical place”; these days, he tends to be more sombre. Even so, Republicans continue to find him congenial, especially those who opposed the war on much the same conservative grounds that he did."

“The issue of the Second Amendment came up and Fried is pretty much a Second Amendment absolutist. One of our classmates was in favor of gun control—he’d come from an urban environment where guns were a big issue. And, while Barack agreed with our classmate, he was much more willing to hear Fried out—he was very moved by the fact that Fried grew up in the Soviet bloc, where they didn’t have those freedoms. After the class, our classmate was still challenging Fried and Barack was just not as passionate and I didn’t understand that.”

Obama is, in fact, committed to respecting the opinions or cultures of others even when religious beliefs aren’t involved. “There are universal values that I will fight for,” he says.

When I saw you at the Convention what really struck me was that you told a story from the beginning to the end of that speech—a story about your life, about how it fit in with the larger American story—and it built to a point where people wanted to applaud, rather than using forced applause lines. Democrats just haven’t done that. And Barack said, That’s exactly what I try to do.” That is Obama’s theory of speeches, and it seems, also, to be his theory of campaigning: don’t try to score huge points at every moment, don’t kill yourself for every vote—a campaign is a long, slow story, and you don’t want to exhaust your audience or yourself. “One weekend I was with him they were making a big deal about his school in Indonesia being a madrassa,” Valerie Jarrett says. “I said, ‘How could they have even run with this story? It’s so completely inaccurate!’ He said, ‘You know, we’ve contacted the school and the principal’s gonna explain what kind of a school it is and we’re gonna refute it all. You need to just calm down. This is gonna be fun! Valerie, you’re not a guy but let me explain it to you in sport terms. It’s like we’re in a basketball game, and I’m gonna fumble the ball, and someone’s gonna steal the ball, and I’m gonna miss a free throw, but we’re gonna win the game. You can’t get yourself worked up over every little thing that somebody says about me or you’re gonna go crazy.’ ”

Washington “held out an offer of collective redemption.”

But redemption is brittle. ... charisma is misleading, that revolutions are illusory, that real change is slow...

Obama's Biggest Crowd (35,000) Yet

Joyce — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 13:48:39 EDT

Saturday, Apr. 19, 2008

(AP / PHILADELPHIA) — Barack Obama was greeted by the largest crowd of his campaign Friday night in Philadelphia.

Some 35,000 people jammed into Independence Park to see the Democratic presidential candidate, four days before this state's crucial April 22 primary.

Frank Friel, director of security at the Independence Visitor Center, made the official estimate.

The crowd exceed the 30,000 who greeted Obama and Oprah Winfrey in December in Columbia, S.C.

Obama told the crowd the United States is at a crucial moment in its history, much like what the founding fathers faced in Philadelphia.

"It was over 200 years ago that a group of patriots gathered in this city to do something that no one in the world believed they could do," Obama said. "After years of a government that didn't listen to them, or speak for them, or represent their hopes and their dreams, a few humble colonists came to Philadelphia to declare their independence from the tyranny of the British throne."

The Illinois senator called Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton a "tenacious" opponent but said it was time to move beyond the politics of the 1990s.

"Her message comes down to this: We can't really change the say-anything, do-anything, special interest-driven game in Washington, so we might as well choose a candidate who really knows how to play it," Obama said.

Bruce Springsteen-Streets Of Philadelphia

Otto Holland — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 12:33:10 EDT

It is hard for a grown man to acknowledge that a video made him cry but there are so many reasons for us to cry after knowing that what we face as a nation is about to change. I believe in tears of joy as so many Americans have done over these past months. Not only are Americans crying but there are millions across the world who are shedding tears of joy also.

God Bless America!

God Bless Barack Obama!

Thanks Bruce, you said it right. It is time for change AND the time has come!

Link to video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L9_8vwx2w8

Spread the Word: Free "Embrace the Change" Gospel Concert, Sunday Apr 20 at Bright Hope Baptist Church

Spencer Critchley — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 12:14:04 EDT

It's free, it stars Dewayne Woods, Micah Stampley and Antwaun Stanley, and it's for Barack!

Click here to sign up.

Click here to see a flyer.

(Updates earlier post.)

Canvassing in Philly

Megan Kaminski, Intern NY 21 — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 08:12:31 EDT

Hi everyone ( my sister and her friend),

I went to Philadelphia to canvass for OBAMA = ) last weekend. I convinced my two awesome friends living in DC to meet there. It was their first times and they did an awesome job. We stayed with an absolutely lovely family.

The couple we stayed with had a gorgeous house and made us a fabulous send off breakfeat with french toast. They had this beautiful fund raiser lastt saturday with the best food. I am in Scranton, PA so I will give you a blog on that.

Take care all,

Megan

Getting ready to CANVASS in Philly!

Abigail — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 12:04:17 EDT

I'm getting for this weekend!

Woot woot!

My friend is traveling my train down from Boston to canvas with me on Saturday! Unfortunately we are unable to go to the Rally here In philly on Friday night- tonight... ; (

Luckily I have already seen Barack in Delaware, so I'm turning my disappointment into a positive and concluding that someone else will be able to go in place!

I made copies of the flyers and posted them and distributed them at my grad school, so hopefully some inquiring minds will go from there!

I'll report back after sat on my canvassing experience. Its a little strange to think back on when I canvassed in Feb in DE. I had to wear a winter coat, gloves and a hat! And now its almost 80 degrees here today, reminds me of what Barack says about campaigning for 15 months- babies have been born and are now walking and talking!!

Crazy business!!

Congressman Roemer at "Days of Hope" Obama event in Philadelphia tomorrow (Friday)

Spencer Critchley — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 19:01:22 EDT

Hi all,

Excuse me for just dropping in - am in Philadelphia for a week volunteering for the campaign and want to help spread the word about this event tomorrow:

Friday, April 18, 2008
10:15 - 1:15 PM - Project H.O.M.E.
(Housing, Opportunities for Employment, Medical Care, Education)
Volunteers and Former Congressman Tim Roemer will tour a neighborhood and serve the community.
Contact: Dave Ederer, david.ederer@villanova.edu, 716-348-9944

Two Big Newspaper Endorsements in PA

Chuck — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:33:17 EDT

The Philadelphia Daily News (that is considered the blue collar, btw) and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette have both come out with endorsements for Barack Obama.

From the Daily News 4/17/08:

Obama has raised $240 million overall, with half coming in contributions of less than $200. People who contribute to political campaigns can feel they "own" a candidate and so Obama would owe allegiance to the wide swath of America that has financed his campaign.
Based on his experience in running a quarter-billion-dollar enterprise with thousands upon thousands of volunteers, we could expect an Obama administration to be well-managed and cost-effective, with the president choosing forward-thinking advisers committed to his program, demanding that they work as a team and pay attention to details.

From the Post-Gazette 4/16/08:

This editorial began by observing that one candidate is of the past and one of the future. The litany of criticisms heaped on Sen. Obama by the Clinton camp, simultaneously doing the work of the Republicans, is as illustrative as anything of which one is which. These are the cynical responses of the old politics to the new....
Pennsylvania [...] needs to take a strong look at the new face and the new hope in this race. Because political business-as-usual is more likely to bring the usual disappointment for the Democrats this fall, the Post-Gazette endorses the nomination of Barack Obama, who has brought an excitement and an electricity to American politics not seen since the days of John F. Kennedy.

ABC debate or Nat'l Enquirer expose'

Chesco Bill — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:58:26 EDT

I was sorely disappointed by ABC and the tabloid questions presented last night. I don't know how many times Obama could have said "Let's talk about the issues that Americans face on a daily basis". Still, it took almost 50 minutes to get past "guilty by association" and it took Barack pointing out that two weather underground members were pardoned by William Jefferson Clinton.... so, what's worse? Association by neighborhood, board members of a charitable org, having funds raised (ok - that might be a small problem) OR...... married to the guy who pardoned two weather underground members, board member of Wal-Mart, having funds raised by Geraldine Ferraro and Norman Hsu.

C'mon..... all of that is simply misdirection.

I think Hillary said the most important things last night.

Q1. Do you think Sen. Obama is electable?
HRC answer: Yes, yes, yes.

Q2. Would you extend the deterrent if Israel were attacked.
HRC answer (paraphrased): I would unleash a massive attack, not only for Israel, but would create an umbrella for many nations in the Middle East.

Now that second answer astounds me. Don't we already have an Imperial President? Sen. Obama's response was much more tempered and took into account the fact that Congress must be involved.

That's about all I can say about the "debate" last night. Nothing about the candidates or their positions were really debated by the participants. C'est la vie - that's the world we live in today, yeah, yeah....

Peace!

Last Night's Debate.

Chris Comninel — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:04:30 EDT

Many people are saying that Barack had a tough night and that it was perhaps one of his worst performances among any of the debates. Well I just have a few words to say about that.

Do you expect someone who is constantly grilled on trite, trivial issues to be in a happy or excited mood when answering such questions. He answered the questions thoughtfully and with care, he was reasonable. Sorry if thats not exciting for everyone but maybe its more important to have a reasonable president than an charismatic or hot headed president.

Lets think about what really makes a good president, and judge the debate that way. Please make up your own minds and don't listen to the talking heads. All they care about is ratings and excitement.

The Collapse of the National Press

Kevin Rogers — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 10:36:36 EDT

The Collapse Of The National Press: Some words for everyone to think about today if you are as irate and dejected about that farce called a "debate" last night. Deplorable. Keep your heads up though, this thing will be over soon. Kevin

After the first forty minutes of last night's Democratic debate, it was clear we were watching something historic. Not historic in a good way, mind you, but historic in the sense of being something so deeply embarrassing to the nation that it will be pointed to, in future books and documentary works, as a prime example of the collapse of the American media into utter and complete substanceless, into self-celebrated vapidity, and into a now-complete inability or unwillingness to cover the most important affairs of the nation to any but the most shallow of depths.

Congratulations are clearly in order. ABC had two hours of access to two of the three remaining candidates vying to lead the most powerful nation in the world, and spent the decided majority of that time mining what the press considers the true issues facing the republic. Bittergate; Rev. Wright; Bosnia; American flag lapel pins. That's what's important to the future of the country. What a contrast. Only a few weeks ago, we were presented with what was considered by many to be a historic speech by a presidential candidate on race in America -- historic for its substance, tone, delivery, and stark candor. Last night, we had an opposing, equally historic example -- and I sincerely mean that, I consider it to be every bit as significant as that word implies -- of the collapse of the political press into self-willed incompetence. You might as well pull any half-intelligent person off the street, and they would unquestionably have more difficult and significant questions for the two candidates.

It was not merely a momentarily bad performance, by ABC, it was a debate explicitly designed to be what it was, which is far more telling. It is certainly true that a case could be made that the moderators explicitly set out to frame even the supposedly "substantive" questions according to GOP designs. The implicit presumption of success in Iraq when, nearly an hour into the debate, the moderators finally deigned to mention the defining current event of this campaign. Gibson, as moderator, lied outright about the supposed effects of capital gains tax cuts, and dogged the candidates over it to a greater extent than any other economic issue: does he really believe that of all the economic challenges facing this nation, the most pressing of them is supplication towards a decade-long Republican bugaboo? Gun control? Affirmative action? These are the issues that are most compellingly on the minds of Democratic primary voters, in 2008? Or were the questions taken from a 1992 time capsule, insightful probes gathering dust for a decade and a half until they could find network moderators desperate enough to dig them up again? But even slanted questions could be forgiven, of the press; what was more inexplicable was the intentional wallowing in substanceless, meaningless "gaffe" politics.

It says something truly impressive about the press that a few statements by a presidential candidate's preacher bear far more weight to the future of our nation than the challenges of terrorism or war. It is truly a celebration of our own national collapse into idiocracy that we can furrow our brows and question the patriotism of a candidate, deeply probe their patriotism based on whether or not they regularly don a made-in-China American flag pin, but a substantive discussion of energy policy, or healthcare, or the deficit, or the housing crisis, or global climate change, or the government approval of torture, or trade issues, or the plight of one-industry small American towns, or the fight over domestic espionage and FISA, or the makeup of the Supreme Court -- those were of no significance, in comparison.

If a media organization set out to intentionally demonstrate themselves to be self absorbed and ignorant, they could not have accomplished it better. It was not just a tabloid debate, but the tittering of political kindergardeners making and lobbing mud pies. It was politics as game show. The moderators demonstrated that to them and their supposed "news" organization, the presidency of the United States of America is about the trivialities of_politics_, which were obsessed over ravenously, not about the challenges of American governance, which were fully ignored. Certainly, as mere citizens we could ask little of the network that unapologetically brought us The Path to 9/11, a fabricated conservative pseudo-documentary laying the blame for terrorism at the feet of everyone loathed by the far right. But it is not simply ABC that bears the blame: surely, one could expect similar drivel from any of the other networks or cable channels who have so successfully and self-importantly dimmed the national discourse, these past ten years.

For his part, the chairman of the written intellectual wisp, the New York Times' David Brooks, marveled at the "excellent" questions: We may not like it, but issues like Jeremiah Wright, flag lapels and the Tuzla airport will be important in the fall. Remember how George H.W. Bush toured flag factories to expose Michael Dukakis. It’s legitimate to see how the candidates will respond to these sorts of symbolic issues. Indeed, how dare his peon readers whine about these things: this is how the political game is expected to be played by the grand masters of our discourse. Symbolic tours of flag factories! Checkmate! That is the elite idea of "issues" in our national debate. Piss on the war, and screw the economy -- somebody find a goddamn flag factory to tour! That is how our most elite media figures like to see political opponents "exposed" as... well, what exactly? What does touring a flag factory prove, other than the media in this country is so astonishingly gullible, tin-headed and shallow that you can actually tour a damn flag factory and get praised for it by our idiot press as being a bold, disarming move against your opponent?

Truly, we have become a nation led by the most lazy and ignorant. It seems impossible to mock or satirize just how shallowly the media considers the actual world ramifications of each election, how glancingly they explore the actual truth behind political assertion or rhetoric, or how gleefully they molest our discourse while praising themselves for those selfsame acts. And that, in turn, is precisely how we elected our current Idiot Boy King, a man who has the eloquent demeanor of a month-old Christmas tree and the nuance of a Saturday morning cartoon. It seems impossible, but we may yet have an election season in which we can be in a slogging, five-year-long war, and mention the fact only in glancing asides. We may yet have a series of Republican-Democratic debates in which the most pressing issues of the economy are entirely ignored, so that we can more adequately explore the "patriotism" of the candidates as expressed by their clothing. We may have yet another campaign season carefully orchestrated to leave all but the most glancing and hollow of themes untouched, while our press achieves multiple orgasms at every botched line, every refused cup of coffee, every peddled character assassination or character assassination-by-proxy peddled by the sleaziest of paid dregs. A campaign, in other words, perfectly suited to the bereft, rudderless, and substanceless self-pronounced guardians of our democracy.

Perhaps, if nothing else, it is time to take back the debate process and insist once again on moderators chosen for competence, expertise and neutrality, rather than network or cable network fame. The elites of our press have managed to botch the task time and time again; perhaps it should be left to someone with an actual interest in doing the job.

Daily News Endorses Obama!

Ben — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 09:10:01 EDT

VOTE FOR BARACK OBAMA

THE CHOICE in Tuesday's Democratic presidential primary is not only the one between a white woman and a black man. It's a choice between the past and the future.

More specifically, the nation must decide how to face the future racing toward us in the form of slumping home sales, unstable financial markets and increased joblessness - and staring at us from the Green Zone in Iraq and the beds at veterans hospitals.

Should Democrats choose someone who will employ hard-won - even bitter - experiences gained in a past Democratic administration, or reach beyond political truisms toward a new (and untried) model of governing?

Neither choice is obvious. Perhaps that's why the race has gone on for so long.

But the long slog through 44 primaries and caucuses has confirmed for us that Sen. Barack Obama's vision of change - and the way he plans to pursue it - is what we need right now. Badly.

Barack Obama Rally in Philadelphia

Michael Kotyk — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:02:25 EDT

Join Barack Obama at an On Track for Change Rally in Philadelphia this Friday, April 18th. Below are the details for this event:

On Track for Change Rally in Philadelphia with Barack Obama

Independence Mall
Market Street and 5th Street
Philadelphia, PA

Friday, April 18, 2008
Gates Open: 6:00 p.m.

***Public transportation is strongly recommended***

The event is free and open to the public; tickets are NOT REQUIRED but an RSVP is encouraged. Space is available on a first come, first served basis. Please RSVP using the form to the right.

For security reasons, do not bring bags and please limit personal items. No signs or banners permitted.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/philadelphia

OUT OF TOUCH!! video of Hillary and McCain

Abigail — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:41:31 EDT

I read a suggestion this morning on the blog to make a video of Hillary and McCain's out-of-touchness, in response to the hooha they are creating about the bitter comments....

It's not my dream version of it, I would love to have actual clips of the Hillary "misspeaking", etc but its a visual photo message that is under 4 mins, so that;s good!

Maybe when I graduate, I'll have more time to make proper videos ; )

here's the link!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEwG-EReGOw

HELP! Will phone bank for 2 tickets to COLBERT when he's in Philly??

Abigail — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:31:47 EDT

Hi all!

So I missed the boat in getting two tickets to see Colbert... sigh...

I just turned in my Grad school thesis on Monday, I have three weeks until I graduate, and I am planing a wedding all at the same time, while I have an OBAMA blog IV hooked into my arm for the campaign! I'm canvassing for Barack in Philly the weekend before the primary (I rescheduled my bridal shower so I could canvas! I canvassed in Delaware two days leading up to Feb 5th! I'm housing friends who I recruited to come down and canvas from NYC and Boston!)

Point is- I'm a worthy volunteer who would love to see Colbert when he comes to Philly.

I WILL phone bank over 250 calls for tickets!!

Can you help me out?? if you are friends with Colbert or with one of his peeps, could you see if I could get two tickets! Heck I'll take just one, my finace will get over it!

Or let me know where the show will be recorded so I can camp outside to try and get in?

thanks!!!

OBAMA '08

donate to PA schools!

http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/viewChallenge.html?id=18369&zone=0

Wow! Philadelphia Daily News - HOW HILLARY LOST MY VOTE by BabyBoomer Mom Clinton Supporter

Julie Hensley — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 12:27:39 EDT

If this tide picks up steam... look for a blowout win for Obama on April 22.

This woman supports Clinton but realizes that the party is over for the Clinton campaign and that she needs to support Obama to avoid the McCain Presidency. The author is Ann Rosen Spector - a psychologist and adjunct Professoer at Rutgers-Camden.

http://www.philly.com/dailynews/opinion/17414309.html

Read it and Share it! In the Philadelphia Daily News! Now we just need to have the sister piece published in Pittsburgh!

The Gay Vote in PA

Jay from Cherry Hill, NJ — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 08:25:30 EDT

The publisher of Philly's biggest gay news outlet is too busy shilling for Mrs. Clinton that he's yet to admit he has a few secrets of his own.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJnuLWxpmE0

Painting the city "Barack"!

Abigail — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 17:36:12 EDT

I created a group that was recently approved!

please check it out and join!

Let's show our cities the change OBAMA has already inspired by revitilizing an area with an OBAMA mural!!

you can network and connect with people in your area through this group!

BTW- I want to start one in Philly, please contact me so we can get this going!

"Painting the city "Barack!"

http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/PaintingtheCITYBarack

"Racist!"

Abigail — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 12:57:01 EDT

ON Friday Night I was walking across the city of Philadelphia with a friend on our way to "First Friday" which is our gallery opening night for seeing art in the city ever month...

I had my HUGE Obama pin on my coat, wearing it LOUD and PROUD... and as I walking this white man, in a preppy/business outfit muttered under his breath as he passed me "Racist!"

Of course I didn't respond, because this was ridiculous!! I "turned the other cheek" ; ) ! I assume that he was referring to the Rev wright..

I have volunteered for this camp in DE, and I have received far worse response to my OBAMA pledge in Delaware- outside a polling location than what I heard yesterday. I just think its silly that people who are let's face it un informed about the issues, about the events- choose to use me, a young adult with a pin- as a speaking board to the campaign.... And I know that's what I am up against when i wear the pin, I'm representing my support of this great Candidate. I get it. And by even writing this log I am using his words to speak to the camp- the community. But I do so for awareness and for healing.

Ultimately this man's response simply reminded me of my twin Brother's arrogant and mis informed reuplican view point about OBAMA. Isn't it amazing that with all the crap with this war- we have seen how this adminstration is LYING to us and how the MSM feeds on this and just perpetuates these lies out of laziness and for a sensationalism that will produce ratings and something to talk about around the water cooler- generating gossip that is empty and false. It also made me realize- these people who are misinformed- are the ones who still think we should stay in Iraq, who don't see ALL of the bad things about the war, and instead only a few... So this is what we are up against essentially... But there are more of us who are informed than those who are not (HOPE)!

This comment this man made also sparked a conversation btwn my friend and I about OBAMA, about Rev Wright, America, 9-11, our standing in the world... and in the end it was a great conversation. By then we were in old city where the galleries were open and I saw more OBAMA love down there, with pins, signs and volunteers talking with the people on the street.

so for perspective- it was just one man, but he does represent people out there- people in my own family. But I could no more disown or dislike that man than I could my own brother! ; )

In closing- and in remembrance of MLK- what we need to do is- LOVE, love these people who are misinformed and help them understand in every small way- how OBAMA is the change our country needs.

We The People

Jordan M Dillard — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 03:05:32 EDT

Philadelphia. April 4th, 2008

I feel change around me. People are transforming their opinions before my eyes and ears. An atmosphere of change and hope is being created here in the United States Of America. The fear and hate of the last 8 years is waning.

Our road is not easy. The way is narrow, and the pitfalls are many. Only honesty, positivity, and the politics of tomorrow, not yesterday, will deliver us to the future we so dearly need.

Barack Obama can travel this road. Not because he can talk about it, but because he walks its path. His life and its choices, represent the best America has to offer. Lets all celebrate Barrack Obama, and elect him President Of The United States Of America in 2008

Volunteer In PA now!

Jordan Dillard

Wow, I have a blog!

Mary — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 14:27:51 EDT

I didn't realize that I could blog right on myBO. This whole networking site is just amazing and revolutionizes how campaigning should be done. This mix of grassroots organizing and technology is too, too cool. EVERYBODY can be involved, as they should be. What you do here affects YOU.

I'd love to channel Senator Obama's energize through my work with his campaign and through such tools as this blog. My most recent work on this campaign includes a week-long 'springternship' at the Philly Headquarters on Sansom Street - one of the coolest experiences I've ever had.

My work in Philly is not complete, however, as I am definitely returning to prepare for the Primary on the 22nd...

FIRED UP!

I SAW THE BUSES TODAY! in Philly

Abigail — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:25:44 EDT

So I was walking back from Lunch to school and in center city and we saw all of these HUGE buses!! And they were OBAMA's and then I saw that he was in Philly today. Dang it, I wish I had been at the market. But I was wearing my pin with pride!! That counts for something... well at least I'm trying to make myself feel better.

lol

AND there are guys around the city selling t shirts and buttons, some from stands other from duffle bags. the city is buzzing!

Introduction

Andrew Marcinko — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:46:46 EDT

It seems appropriate to begin with a little introduction, because I'm sure it will be easier to understand what I have to say if you know better where I am coming from. I'm a 19 year old college student attending the University of Florida. I'm originally from just outside the Beltway on the Maryland side of the river. My father's in contract law and my mother is a high school teacher. Both are liberal, neither is heavily involved in politics.

I myself am a psychology major, and have no real political aspirations. That being said, I have long had a strong interest in politics, albeit often of a cynical nature. Kurt Vonnegut and Jon Stewart are two individuals that I look up to for their political ideals.

There's nothing more upsetting to me than being marginalized in the political process due to my age. Perhaps that is why so many of my generation have turned to cynicism for relief. And don't get me wrong, I know Mr. Obama's goals are selfish in reaching out to the youth vote. He sees a largely untapped block of voters that if motivated could easily propel him to the presidency. However, even being used is far better than being completely ignored.

I do personally believe Barack Obama will make a great president. I recently drove to Philadelphia during my spring break to volunteer at the campaign headquarters, and I urge everyone to do whatever they can to support his campaign. However, perhaps Zach de la Rocha of the political band Rage Against the Machine says it best:

"The challenges that we face, they go way beyond administrations, way beyond elections, way beyond every four years of pulling levers, way beyond that. Because this whole rotten system has become so vicious and cruel that in order to sustain itself, it needs to destroy entire countries and profit from their reconstruction in order to survive - and that's not a system that changes every four years, it's a system that we have to break down, generation after generation... Wake up"

Catching up!!

Tovala — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:01:53 EDT

It has been a while since I last wrote on this blog. 3 weeks in fact, but forgive me my absence. I have been working hard on the Obama campaign here in Texas and many things have taken place since then. So I will start from this moment and go backwards and fill you all in on the happenings on the campaign trail. Firstly, I received an internship in Philly to work for the Students for Barack Obama while on Spring Break. I am typing this blog 30,000 feet in the air on Continental Airlines. I am excited but the road to getting me on the plane was quite hellish. First, I saw my friend off to NYC. She had the audacity to leave her minivan with me because I am the responsible one. Needless to say I was in a car accident because some idiot decided to slam on his brakes causing the woman behind him and myself to hit each other. Of course he kept driving, oblivious to the mayhem he caused behind him. Unfortunately, through all this, I came to find out that my friend only had liability insurance and her vehicle was totaled. The SFBO did a fundraiser and raised $600 dollars for me including $440 given to me by my boss who was impressed by the fact that I was sacrificing every thing so that my friend was not assed out. She felt it showed I had character, which caused her to have pity on me. I realized that my friend’s string of bad luck spilled over into my life the day she brought me her car. I know now not to ever drive anyone’s car. Also, I had already purchased my airfare to Philly and the ticket was non-refundable so my family and friends gave me another $200 so that I could eat while on my internship since I had gave $400+ to my friend’s car fund, emptying out my nest egg. Sidebar--I am currently looking for full time employment, if anyone in the Houston area know of any openings in a law firm or government agency please email me. After all that, I arrived 20 minutes late for my flight but the one of the workers took pity on me when he heard I was on my way to intern for Obama in Philly and now I am on my way. I am one of those people who refuse to freak out in the midst of grief and stress. I kept a level head and spun my wheels until things were taken care of. Hopefully, my friend will have a car by tomorrow so that she can return back to Austin and my life can return back to normal and I can begin to repay my family and friends what I owe them. New York The wonderful state of New York has sworn their 55th governor who happens to be their first black American governor and the first blind governor in this nation’s history. I find it quite amazing that black Americans are making history all over the place this year because of circumstances. First, Barack Obama and now, Gov. Patterson. I am amazed at how everyone in New York are opened to the possibility but also sadden that Gov. Spitzer represent the day of old politicians who did not practiced what they preached. This scandal is just another blemish on the American political history and another sore spot in the Clintons’ campaign. What people do not know is that Gov. Spitzer was a super delegate that supported Senator Clinton. He was forced to step down because of his $80,000 involvement in a prostitution ring. Which by the way was what he built his career on—that is, prosecuting government officials for their involvement in the seedy business of prostitution. I find it ironic but not unbelievable. Just a few years ago, we found out that Strom Thurman, a fanatical supporter of segregation and a self proclaim racist had a bi-racial—half black—daughter. I have come to find that those who are fanatical about particular things tend to be those who are guilty of indulging in those very, same sins. The one thing that did actually disturb me about this incident was how Gov. Spitzer’s wife stood by his side as he announced to the whole world that he is another man guilty of not only illegal dealings but also of humiliating his lovely wife who stands by him solemn and near tears. As a woman, this situation borders on abuse. I find it quite distasteful that he allowed her to stand there with him. Even if it were her idea, as a man of integrity—oh yeah he has proven that he lacks integrity-- he should have told his wife that this walk he had to walk alone and refrain from humiliating her further. 2 months ago the Gov. of Michigan did the same thing to his wife. It makes me ill, and believe me I can taste the bile in my mouth, that women in this country have not come much further from the women of the 1800’s who stood by their men no matter what. I need to step off of my soap box before I drown in the deep end, but needless to say this month has been rife with scandal. The good thing is we have another super delegate throwing his hat into the ring for Obama. Woohoo. Philadelphia, PA Currently, I am in Philly helping out with the campaign while on Spring break. I have met many people since I have been here. Took pictures with “Black Thought” at a student rally and took pictures of Caroline Kennedy when she came into the HQ to phone bank. I have had a rough and tumble ride in Philly. My luggage was lost by the airlines when I first got here. I had to spend $50 on my first day for cab fare because my ride had his car locked in the garage—he showed up too late to retrieve it. I have gotten sick and have had my debit card stolen by the security guard who frisked me at an event—I will never see it again, I had to cancel it—and was harassed by a wino on the train. Despite all this I have met the most brilliant of minds, although most of them were a bit narcissistic and micro-managing. I was especially moved by Sen. Obama’s speech on race last week. I liked the fact that he did not let anyone push him into a corner and pretty addressed an issue in this country that needed to be addressed for a long time. I was very proud that he did not throw his pastor under the bus but instead stood firm on his loyalty to the man while denouncing his words. I particularly loved the fact that he brought into the light the grievances that both whites and blacks feel toward each other and at the same saying to each respective groups that these grievances are real and need to be dealt with by working together. I shed a tear when I heard the “We are the ones song” two days ago for the first time—and I am not the least bit emotional--but seeing little Zoe Kravitz all grown up moved me. I almost swallowed my tongue when I saw Bill Richardson endorse Obama--now that's an interesting turn of events and was equally sadden that Michigan and Florida have to suffer and not allow their voices to be heard because the democratic party in their respective state did not stand up to their Republican councilmen when they moved the primaries up knowing full well that their democratic constituents would have to pay the price for it--of course this was done on purpose to cripple the democratic party. I am somewhat perturbed that Donna Brazile, Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean have not put an end to this bickering between Clinton and Obama and pressure Hillary Clinton to end what is becoming a dirty campaign that has begun to split the democratic party. Let's end this nonsense and form a unified front and stop giving the Republicans ammunition against the front-runner. And for God's sake don't say on national TV that you think Sen. McCain would be a better C.I.C than the guy in your own party. And then say after discrediting him that you think that he would make a good VP--what? Everyone knows that Sen. Clinton cannot catch up to Obama's tally and what is up with her saying that the smaller states do not count--what is she going to be the President of the big states? What happened to running for the President of the United States? Interesting. Despite it all, this movement has proven time and again that when people unite as a stalwart front they will not and cannot be moved.

Obama: Clinton Can Run "As Long As She Wants"

Chris (Madison, WI) — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 20:13:11 EDT

I've already seen some commentators trying to portray Obama's comment as a sign of his arrogance.

I think that's wrong, wrong, wrong. I think his comment's a sign of his strength and his understanding of the endgame, and we should make sure the media and the public get that point.

OBAMA mural for Philly!

Abigail — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 11:46:12 EDT

I was inspired by a recent post of some OBAMA murals that have been painted in Brooklyn recently.

I know that Philly has a great Mural arts program and murals are EVERYWHERE! So I was thinking we should paint a mural, or two especially before OBAMA gets here- to get people jazzed up.

So this is what we need:

SPACE - ie- a wall- that is legal and visible, someone donates the side of their house, or store, etc...

PAINT- we could use regualr House paint, donated if people have leftover sitting in their basement (I'm good at mixing!)

BRUSHES- I'm an artist and I could supply the little that I have. But we could jsut buy some big brushes at the hardware store or even at a dollar store!

PEOPLE/ VOLUNTEERS- to help paint the mural!

So contact me and let's get this thing rollin It would be a great Sunday afternoon activity!!

I've already contacted some people through OBAMA WORKS- so let's network so we can get painting!!

(also if you are reading this and you are not in Philadelphia- but are in an upcoming state- start the works for your own mural in your area! Remember you need to have permission for the space so its not considered graffiti!)

March 4 Obama

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 15:34:42 EDT

UNITE AND MARCH FOR CHANGE!

Five major PA cities,

March for OBAMA April 20th! SIGN UP and Join!

Link

Help Us Create Large Obama Events!

Jill 4 Obama — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 08:33:30 EDT

YOU ARE NEEDED TO HELP PLAN LARGE EVENTS IN PENNSYLVANIA!

http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/organizing/4ry9f

Events: The Details - GO TO ..... Events ..... TO CREATE ONE !

Create Listing of Large Groups to Host Private or Public Events (Organizing)

HELP WITH EVENT PLANNING: Help in planning for the final weeks of the campaign in Pennsylvania. Barack staff and local campaign offices will plan many events in the final weeks of the campaign. They will benefit for our helping to identify groups of 50 or more that would be willing to host private or public events when we have guests that visit Pennsylvania to support Obama.

Please provide the following information about any large groups which are interested in hosting or attending events in the final weeks of the PA primary campaign. (Go to EVENTS, Link Above, to sign up and provide this information.)

Chris Matthews is right about PA...

Spin360 — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 10:37:46 EDT

Don't agree with everything he says, but Chris Matthews is offering very good advice to the Obama Campaign on closing the gap in Southwestern and Middle PA.

This morning, he said...

Go to the campuses of these small town schools in middle and Southwestern PA like IUP, Cal State, Edinboro and connect with the kids -- let them bring their parents and grandparents.

He's right. The heart of what he's been saying is that these folks want to feel like they can talk to you in a bar, grab a beer...

They want to know that you are going to use that *good education* to make life easier for them and that you are a patriot.

Come on Obama, you can take a day or two to get to Southwestern PA and knock on doors. Put on a sweatshirt and hit some of these doors in the Mon Valley. Don't give PA to Clinton, at a minimum, you *can* close the gap to keep them quiet. The media and Clintons will spin SWPA and middle PA as the measure of how well you will do in the General Election with Reagan Dems and white men. It is a good use of time and money to narrow in on Clinton in these parts of PA.

Pat Buchanan and Matthews are from these parts, please listen to them on the Southwestern PA strategy -- they get the mentality and trust me, it's different.

Talk radio has recently been saying that "You haven't even taken the time to come here." Now granted, this doesn't mean that they will vote for you, but it is another talking point for them to bash you over the head on.

You've got to spend some time here, and not just at the last minute, but right now. Don't assume that Pittsburgh's Mayor and County Executive speak for the people. And I'm pretty certain most of Pittsburgh's City Council is for Obama.

We need to see you, Obama, nobody else will do. BTW, do you like the Steelers or Pirates or any of the teams in this part of the state? These folks *LOVE* their sports teams, and I do mean *LOVE*.

Let's get creative on connecting with these folks!

Barack Obama’s speech in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at Constitution Center

! ! Leonel Picun — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:45:19 EDT

Barack Obama’s speech in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at Constitution Center MARCH 18, 2008"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union"

Audio: http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=88478467&m=88484093

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWe7wTVbLUU

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787. The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations. Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time. And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign - to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren. This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story. I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible. It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one. Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans. This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough." We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn. On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike. I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed. But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam. As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters....And in that single note - hope! - I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories - of survival, and freedom, and hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about...memories that all people might study and cherish - and with which we could start to rebuild."That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias. But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality. The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American. Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments - meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities.A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us. This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time. Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding. This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union. For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances - for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.Ironically, this quintessentially American - and yes, conservative - notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change. The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen - is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper. In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well. For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.We can do that.But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change. That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time. This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together. This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit. This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned. I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election. There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today - a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta. There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there. And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley." "I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

And now for something completely different

Chip Roberson in Sonoma, CA — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:39:21 EDT

After nearly 16 years of bitter and divisive politics where very little has been achieved by either party, we hear the refrain, "it's time for a change". The concept of "change" is so over used in political campaigns that it has lost any real meaning to most of us. Yesterday, however, Senator Obama stepped forward, headlong into adversity, and showed us something completely different.

President Obama: A Dream Worth Fighting For

democrattotheend — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 14:17:04 EDT

I started out really excited about Barack Obama running for president, but I was hesitant to get on board early on. In 2004, I had been a hardcore Deaniac for months before anyone had even heard of him. I watched him make an improbable rise to frontrunner status only to see it all come crashing down after Iowa. When Obama began running for president, I held back and did not get my hopes up because I was afraid I'd get my heart broken again.

It wasn't until after Iowa that I was ready to even start rooting for Obama, and it was after South Carolina that I decided I just couldn't stay on the sidelines anymore. But since I have gotten involved, I have had this nagging feeling that something would happen to upset the apple cart and make everything fall apart just like what happened with Dean four years ago. And in the past few weeks, particularly since last Friday, I've been afraid that that moment has come. My respect for Obama did not waiver, but I had my doubts about whether or not he was ready and whether America was ready for him.

fter hearing his speech yesterday, I knew he was not only ready to be president but ready to be a great president. As John Robin Baitz wrote yesterday, "This, then, is what it means to be presidential. To be moral. To have a real center. To speak honestly, from the heart, for the benefit of all." I may be young, but I have enough knowledge of history and enough experience in Washington to know that it is rare that a politician as honest and authentic as Barack Obama comes along.

For years, I have watched "West Wing" and hoped that one day we'd have a candidate and maybe a president who is as genuine and moral as Josiah Bartlett (or either of the candidates vying to succeed him in later seasons), a president who was willing to put principle above politics at least once in a while. I thought Barack Obama might be that leader, but after yesterday I am convinced. Obama proved yesterday that he has the vision, courage, and integrity to be president.

The question now is, is America ready? Are we enlightened enough to put aside racial tensions in order to elect an extraordinary leader? Or we pass up this chance because we are just not ready, because we haven't reached that point in terms of racial reconciliation? Nobody knows, and the recent polling data as well as the outrage to what feels to me like a manufactured controversy over Obama's pastor are not encouraging. But for anyone who loves this country but recognizes that we have yet to live up to our full potential, the vision Obama eloquently laid out for America yesterday is a vision worth fighting for.

So, so proud...

Vietnamese Alabaman from Long Beach, CA — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 13:49:27 EDT

As someone who has dedicated his life to achieving justice in all its forms, I am so proud of Obama and his latest speech in Philadelphia. It was brave and brilliant. He could have run away from the recent drama, but instead he ran into the storm. Why? Because he knew it was the right thing to do, for himself, the campaign, and most of all, the nation. Obama subverts all conventional notions in politics, and for that alone, he should be commended and elected. This time, he stood and spoke, not for his own benefit, but the nation's. That he can be so composed and insightful in times of so-called "crisis," I can't understand how he does it. I love my academics and theorists and writers, but only Obama could have gotten on national/world television for an hour and spoke to the everyday person about race. He got the most mainstream audience to think and consider and reconsider Race in America, the most wiped under the rug topic of all time, for a day and soon a week to come. And he regularly commends mainstream media for its sensationalism over and over while doing so. Who else could do this?

Per the speech, in reality, many who work on race, in race, know that negative critiques of this country are quite common. What surprised me is that, those opinions are so shocking to others. That information gap, that communication gap, those two very different Americas, are what surprised me in this maelstorm. There is also a philosophical conversation going on, that continues to this day, on both sides, all sides, and that is: How do you show your love of nation? Do you express love and gratitude and appreciation at all times, never wavering, never dissenting? OR can you love it, while still critiquing it? I guess, we all know Obama's answer.

Some Notes on Barack's Speech Today

Michael Kotyk — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 21:56:15 EDT

I was incredibly lucky to be among the audience at the Convention Center in Philadelphia to hear Senator Barack Obama's speech on race. Considering the very poor and inaccurate reporting by local TV stations here in Philly, I consider myself to be blessed to have been there.

Let say right off that I do not believe any man (or woman) should be held accountable for the remarks made by another person. I believe that each man's (or woman's) words should speak for themselves. I do not, and never will, hold Senator Obama accountable for the remarks made by Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

But, as said in Mr. Obama's speech, Mr. Wright is the product of his generation. He took part in and lived through both the Jim Crow era and the Civil Right's Movement. Rev. Wright, therefore, sees things as being static. Mr. Obama, however, sees things as changing, slowly, but inevitably. During the 50s, 60s and 70s, it would have been an unheard thing to see a man such as Barack Obama running for the Office of President of the United States. We have come far in regards to race relations but we also still have a very, very long way to go.

The Speech

John Manrique — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:39:43 EDT

Today Barack Obama delivered a speech on race in America. In anticipation, the media and talking heads were describing it as "damage control," and the cynics spun it as gasping oration from a drowning candidate. In the echo of its final word, only one description comes to my mind: COURAGE.

This speech is a brave one for any person to deliver. The words and reality covered are direct, genuine, not always comfortable, but completely honest. For a candidate running for the office of President of the United States to stand and deliver this message speaks more about an individual’s character, conviction, leadership, integrity and heroism, than any chronicle of years in Washington or characterization of qualifications ever could.

This speech is not spin, towing the party line, or more of the politician-speak that numbs us all. On the contrary, this speech is an honest and direct dialogue with the nation about issues we all need to face rather than dismiss because they make us feel uneasy or are "tough to deal with."

This is a speech that only a President of the United States could deliver. This is a speech that made me reflect on my own life, perceptions, flaws, and brought genuine tears of hope to my eyes. This is a speech that further swells my pride in America and the potential this great land offers us all. This is the speech we needed, the vision to guide us, and the hope to deliver real change.

This speech further defines and underlines who Barack Obama is … our next great American President.

This speech defines "leadership" for me...

josephwouk — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:26:45 EDT

It refused to ignore any "truth" from any side of the racial divide, and yet, encouraged us to work together to make our country better.

No "political correctness" here. No "sellout" of anyone or any position. The anger felt by both blacks and whites against inequities in our system were put in the proper context, to wit, that it is the corporate special interests that have betrayed US all.

US.... Americans. All colors. All religions. We're ALL being hurt by this corrupted system. If we allow ourselves to slip back into divisive racial finger pointing, we're never going to be able to fix the problems we're facing as a nation, and increasingly as a "planet".

If this speech doesn't unify us as a country, I don't know what could.

Do we really need another 9/11 to bring us together?
Do we need to slip into another great depression?
Do we need to face the dissolution of the United States into the Red and the Blue?

Or maybe, just maybe, enough people will hear this speech and be inspired to truly "MOVE ON" and get to work on solving our nation's and planets problems.

If I weren't an agnostic, I would get down on my knees and pray for that to happen.

For all our sakes... especially our children who can't yet vote,

Barack on race

Davec — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:19:42 EDT

This entire campaign has been based on the opportunity for change…..The recent uproar over comments made by Barack Obamas former Pastor has again presented this campaign with another opportunity for change. I knew it would be necessary for “my candidate for president”, Barack Obama to address the issues of race in such a way that he could demonstrate his unique ability to unite people from many walks of life under the cause of positive change for all Americans. He didn’t hide behind the curtain of blame but rather faced the questions of his association to his former pastor with courage and dignity. His message to our nation that it is high time that we deal with race rather than push it aside for another day is exactly what we needed to hear. Our conditioned responses to our differences are learned responses based on painful and complex experiences and relationships from our pasts. But every waking day brings with it a new opportunity to improve our conditions and change our responses to each other.

My candidate for president, Barack Obama is able to connect with people on a level that transcends race, gender, age, and economic status. He possesses something that is so genuine, so real that many become drawn to him, his ideas, his words, his way of thinking. He completes our dreams by causing us to wake up and realize that our hope for a better tomorrow is absolutely possible but only if we decide that the status quo has to go in order for real change to occur.

Transcript of Barack Obama’s Speech on Race

Mike Underwood — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:01:39 EDT

The following is the text as prepared for delivery of Senator Barack Obama’s speech on race in Philadelphia, March 18, 2008.

“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

“People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn’t need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish – and with which we could start to rebuild.”

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man who's been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American – and yes, conservative – notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I’d like to leave you with today – a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King’s birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn’t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”

“I’m here because of Ashley.” By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

Why Philly For A Speech On Race?

Gerry Filippatos — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 09:49:47 EDT

Senator Obama will be brilliant today. He will show us his presidential abilities by re-educating the public about the troubled history of race relations in our country that stem back to out founding fathers. Philadelphia was the birthplace of our Constitution -- which we should all revere as the magnificent organic document of our governance -- but which should all also remember contains the "3/5 Compromise" that treated African Americans as only 3/5 of a person for political purposes. Perhaps Senator Obama will address this historical fact as a way of saying that while we have much to share with pride as Americans of all races, creeds, and colors, we must also acknowledge and move beyond our sad and embittering history of racism. Dr. Wright was not right when he spoke as he did of our America, but he was also not wrong to be bitter about our country's legacy of racism. Barack Obama, however, as part of a new generation that transcends historical racial divides, will turn the page and lead us to a new era of racial harmony and understanding.Yes he will ... Yes We Can!

Obama speaking from Philadelphia this morning at 10:15Eastern Time

Denise from Medford — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 09:45:25 EDT

MSNBC has an article discussing what he will probably be discussing, Rev. Wright included:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23685624

Denise

The Bigger picture on Rev Wright

Abigail — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 19:28:56 EDT

As I was walking around Philly today with my OBAMA pin on my jacket- I kept thinking- what would I say if someone on the street saw my pin and asked me about Obama. And what would I say if they brought up the rev Wright information from this past week?

So I am going to list some ideas to clarify my thoughts -for me, and to share some ideas with fellow OBAMA supporters.

First there is the bigger picture:

OBAMA is winning, and his odds of winning the dem nomination are very good. Obviously Hillary and her people are- freaking out and therefore doing EVERYTHING in their power to stop this- we have seen their kitchen sink get bigger and greasier over the past weeks.

The biggest smear and "fear" thus far was the belief that Barack is actually a Muslim, which we know is not true. And although this smear might have worked with some- with those who choose to believe everything they read and not research for a second opinion- Overall the Muslim smear has failed, in that it just wont stick. Let me say that EVEN if Barack was MUSLIM it shouldn't Matter!! My god, are we that sad!

And furthermore- why does it even matter what Our President's religion is!? Did this christian qualification come with the Religious right and their backing of George W?

Since the Muslim smear seemed to cool off- the media, or whoever moved on to another aspect of Barack while still in keeping with the topic of his faith and the source of this faith. Because as mentioned above the President's faith is apparently a qualification! (doesn't sound like a separation of church and state to me!)

Also- let us remember this is a slow news "week" until PA in April- and lets just look at what went down last week.

1) Ferraro quotes, and then stepping down

2) The Spitzer thing- which could have had a larger impact on Hillary- with her connection to him and her own experience with her Husband fooling around followed by an Impeachment

3) Rev Wright 20 yrs experience boiled down to 2- 30 sec clips.

At the end of the week people seem to be freaking out over #3.

I think Barack's statement on the matter was great, and I would agree- with the point that I too would want people to judge me by MY actions and not those of my church, or religious lead, or family members. For example I love the men in my family, but I sure as hell would not want their "speeches" to speak about my character. I agree with Obama that Wright is coming from another generation that expereinced turmoil during the 60's and as a result many people within the community have been hurt and are still resentful- However this was not his experience. We must look at the bigger picture of Obama- he is the example of America- he is a melting pot!!! This is Awesome.

The good from all this:

I know many in the MSM and any closeted racist who was just jumping to find a reason to not vote for Obama that appeared "legitimate"- would agree with me on this next point- BUT I think that Obama's attendance in the church speaks to his approach on working with people. Like Lincoln, who surrounded himself with people he disagreed with from both parties- he did so in order to make the best informed decision. To have all sides of the argument known, to not turn a blind eye to such beliefs and opinions that are in fact a large part of how some of today's African American's feel.

if you ask me, we don't listen enough, or communicate enough with those who differ from us. Hence- WAR.

How are you suppose to help a man if you have not put yourself in his shoes?

Here are some interesting articles on the Wright issue from the Huffington Post:

Enjoy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/denise-clapsaddle/obamas-rejection-of-past_b_91662.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-kurashige/obamas-crisis-and-mlks-_b_91807.html

Pennsylvania

LPeters — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:09:16 EDT

Pennsylvania's blue-collar workers and rural residents are smart, practical people who will vote their own self-interest like anybody else. The Obama campaign needs to show them how he's not an "airy-fairy" thinker, but a pragmatist who gets things done.

Seems to me this would be a great time for the campaign to buy a full page ad in the Philly Inquirer listing all of the legislation Senator Obama was instrumental in passing in Illinois. That legislation speaks directly to the concerns and needs of blue-collar workers and rural folks who don't know yet that Obama is to them what Harold Washington once was to the forgotten of Chicago.

Don't tell them, they won't believe it. Show them with a list of legislation passed on their behalf then punctuate that with TV/radio testimonials.

Philadelphia-area students hold a mock election

Soldierette!! (CENSORED) — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 00:24:12 EDT

Philadelphia-area students hold a mock election

By Jeff Gammage
Inquirer Staff Writer

High school senior Meghan Devonshire has set up the voting area between two competing bake sales in the cafeteria - smart politics, as the sugary aroma of cupcakes and chocolate-chip cookies draws students her way.

"Shana, vote!" Devonshire calls to a friend, who ambles over.

On a table are slips of paper, blank but for the names of candidates who are running or have run for president this year - Clinton, Obama, McCain, Huckabee, Paul.

The mock election is a precursor to April 22, when many students from Garnet Valley High School will cast their first real votes in a Pennsylvania primary that, for once, may decide the Democratic nominee.

"Where's Ralph Nader?" a student asks, looking over the ballot.

"He dropped out," somebody answers.

Actually, somebody else corrects, Nader just dropped in.

"Can we vote?" asks Leah Coan, 17, tugging on the arm of her boyfriend, Tom Winter.

"Absolutely," Devonshire answers.

Whom do they favor?

"John McCain," they answer simultaneously.

At 18, Devonshire, "Viv" to her friends, is no stranger to activism. Last year, she was among four young women who won a settlement stemming from a 2005 incident at a Barnes & Noble store - they were tossed out of the store where Sen. Rick Santorum was promoting his book.

She organized the mock election because she wants students to get involved. And she wonders how the voting will turn out.

Garnet Valley is a 1,400-student school in Glen Mills, a Delaware County community of old farmhouses, rolling hills and impressive wealth. Nearly everyone graduates, nearly everyone goes to college, nearly everyone is white.

An hour before the voting is to start, two dozen students gather in a classroom for a meeting of their group, Speak Up. The discussion moves from censorship to sex education before turning to politics.

"Everyone seems to pick their favorite candidate, but they don't really know what the person stands for," says 16-year-old Isabella Fehlandt.

"It's like a high school popularity contest," agrees Joseph Morris, 15.

Most of the students were 8 or 9 when George W. Bush was elected president. He's all they know. That, and endless, to-the-death war between Democrats and Republicans.

Wajeeha Choudhary, an 18-year-old senior poised to vote for the first time, is excited about Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

"It's almost unfair," she says, "because I want both."

One woman says that even though she's liberal, she respects John McCain enough to vote for a Republican.

"Don't do it!" someone calls out, provoking laughter.

"I was talking to my mom," Morris resumes, "and she was really scared, because she thought I was a Republican. But of the three, I like him the best. He seems the most grounded."

The first of three lunch periods is ending, and with it the first third of the voting. A few stragglers head out into the hallway, books in hand.

"I voted 'undecided,' " says Barathi Chinnappan, 16.

About 50 students have cast ballots. Over the next two periods, 140 more will follow.

The results?

Arnold Schwarzenegger gets a write-in vote. So does Nader. And Mitt Romney and Bob Dole. One student voted for Darth Vader.

Obama wins easily with 81 votes. McCain is second with 56, Clinton a distant third with 20. Paul gets 16 and Huckabee 8.

"I was a little bit disappointed by our turnout," Devonshire says. "I was also surprised that Barack Obama came out on top of John McCain. We live in a fairly conservative area, a fairly Republican area. I guess it shows how well he sits with teenagers."

Rendell again

Steven — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 10:28:03 EDT

Rendell again

I have been thinking about what I wrote yesterday, especially as regards Ed Rendell, and trying to figure out what it is that creeps me out about his statement that some Pennsylvanian voters “probably were not ready to vote for an African-American candidate.”

A couple of replies to this from Pennsylvanians have said, basically, that I should lay off Rendell, because he was just being honest about racism in Pennsylvania, at least among some Pennsylvanians, which exists, as one commenter said: “sad but true”. And there is something to this—Rendell’s own spokesman said that Rendell was just being “realistic” when he said this to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. And, after all, Ed Rendell, appears to all the world to be a good guy. He was a good, effective and popular mayor of Philadelphia and also a good, very popular governor of Pennsylvania, a unifier and not a divider and the last person one would suspect, or should suspect, of being a racist, especially given his (not particularly emphasized) Jewish background. So perhaps it was just a statement of fact after all?

Yet I am not alone in thinking that, if so, it was a very unfortunate statement, one which Rendell, who had endorsed Clinton, ought to have known better not to make, given the sensitivity of such issues. The Philadelphia Inquirer came to the same conclusion. (http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20080215_Editorial__Rendell_on_Obama.html)

So there was a “sin of commission” inasmuch as even if it was an “innocent” statement of mere fact, it opened up Rendell and the Clinton campaign to the charge of roiling the racial waters (see yesterday’s blog).

But what I have figured out is really bothering me is not the sin of commission but the sin of omission. Perhaps I have missed it, and supporters and fans of Rendell please correct me if I am wrong, but surely there should have been some accompanying expression of OUTRAGE, and even SHAME, from Rendell about the fact that, in 2008, over forty years after the Civil Rights Act, in the state of which he is governor, the state that is supposed to epitomize “brotherly love”, founded by the Quakers, a group who did more than almost any other to fight slavery, there are still thousands of individuals, perhaps hundreds of thousands, who are “not ready to vote” for a black man. That is to say, it is not simply that these voters are looking at the respective character and policies of the candidates involved and then making their choice for Clinton (and no one demands that individual voters MUST vote only for Obama), but rather than, no matter how brilliant the candidate, how great his policies, these voters are “not ready to vote” for the candidate if he is black. There are, in other words, even in 2008, a huge number of bigots and racists populating Pennsylvania, by the account of that state’s own governor.

Rendell himself quantifies the number of such hardened racists (for that is what they are) as making up about 5% of the gap between him and Lynn Swann in the 2006 gubernatorial election. I assume this means 2.5% of the Pennsyvanian electorate is thus racist—if the proportion holds in the state’s population as a whole, then 300,000 Pennsylvanians are racist. Consider that the next time you go there for a vacation.

These figures come from Rendell himself, in his analysis of why Obama probably would not do so well in Pennsylvania, and not as well as Clinton, and I suspect he is telling it as it is, but what I find off-putting is the completely matter-of-fact manner in which, apparently, he stated this. If I had been elected with the help of bigots and racists to my position, would I not be at least embarrassed about it? Embarrassed enough to say that this is a stain on my election? That I am going to dedicate myself to fighting this plague of prejudice and bigotry, and tell those of my supporters who think this way that this is totally unacceptable to me, to other Pennsylvanians, and indeed to all decent Americans? That not even being “ready to vote” for a black man is not some psychological malady, or a reasonable excuse, but wrong, deeply wrong? That in the state of Ben Franklin, to think thus is completely unreasonable, un-Pennsylvanian and, indeed, in 2008, radically un-American?

After all, given the country’s history, is there any greater crime against the meaning of the United States of America than prejudice, bigotry and discrimination against African-Americans? Should one not try to combat it vigorously and decry it wherever it exists, especially amongst one’s own supporters?

Yet, from the report of Rendell’s discussion at the Post-Gazette, Rendell appears to have blithely used this continuation of America’s “original sin” as just one more debating point. And that, at the end of the day, is deeply disappointing not only concerning Rendell, but also about the state of American politics in general. No wonder some African Americans still find it difficult automatically to feel pride in their country. But let’s hope the nomination of Barack Obama as Democratic candidate and his eventual election as President of the United States of America will at last prove to Americans and to the rest of the world that the American mission of enlightenment, fairness, liberty and basic decency is not a mirage, but a living reality. And we should recommit ourselves to making that happen.

And it would be nice if Rendell himself stood up for equality and decency and forcefully asserted that the idea that any voter in Pennsylvania, of whatever party, and especially in the Democratic Party, was “not ready to vote for an African-American candidate” is totally unacceptable, indeed unforgivable, in today’s America.

Reporting from my small corner of Philly

Abigail — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:47:48 EDT

I'm a grad student in Philly and I attend an art school- so most students- young and older tend to support Obama. But as we see in the past elections- this is one of Obama's strongest demographics- students.

But I have had an insight into another demographic in Philadelphia that tends to be Hillary's strong hold and an area we should address in order to win PA- that areas is the "old school dems".

A friend of mine, who is a 50yr old female -says she is split btwn the two, however she is currently leaning towards Hillary. This friend of mine has been involved in the political scene for quite some time and is also a friend of the city's Mayor who has endorsed Hillary. So this example is a tuffy- but a very valid insight!

So here are the two biggest issues that I have seen through our conversations about this election.

1) he is inexperienced

2) and Hillary has been "Vilified" by the press. (which I think is actually the biggest issue, but people tend to fall back on number 1 because its more "rational")

I will say that reasoning with such supporters is a a difficult task and I can't imagine what it would be like if they weren't your friend, but rather a stranger. Either way you cut it, its hard. And this hard fact is why- by tonight's exit polls from Mississippi- show that around 83% of voter's have already made up their minds weeks before an actual primary- so our work is cut out for us in PA.

My point is- We have to hit the experience issue HARD. And this is why we should not keep going after the nitty gritty- down in the gutter stuff of he said she said. Basically what Obama's been doing this whole time- staying above the fray. Because- since some Hillary supporters feel she has been vilified- SO DO NOT GO THERE.

Focus on the specifics of their time in the Senate and compare their records and show how HE is the NEW POLITICS. Now you might be talking to these old school dems, so that "new" argument might not return results- (because they are still in the past and don't see what was so wrong about the first Clinton administration, nor do they see how electing a Clinton would make our democracy look like an american monarchy- they feel that is not an issue!)

BUT this is one thing that these old school dems CAN agree on you with- AT the END of the Day they want a democrat in the white house, and they are afraid of the Democratic party being torn apart. They want the party to remain unified.

Now of course I'm biased and I feel that- if Hillary is nominated without the most delegates (which, let's face it- the math is against her at this point- making her nomination potentially undemocratic- and what does that say to the world (not to mention all of us))- that the US - the home of democracy isn't even democratic on our OWN soil!

SO- keep this story in mind- and FOCUS on the specifics of what they have accomplished- and offer to email them the websites that show these contrasting achievements - so they can see it for themselves and not just take your word for it.

all the best and happy calling!

btw- I'm happy to have a further conversation about this, but my post was getting rather long, so email me, or comment below to continue on this topic.

Major Daily Papers in Pennsylvania: Pittsburgh and Philadelphia Blog and Letter to the Editor Links

Julie Hensley — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 00:57:13 EDT

These are tough one folks! The tone in the media has changed -as if you didn't know!

Please forward, crosspost, link to this information. Basically make use of it in any way that could benefit Barack Obama's campaign.

It's important to get lots of letters to these outlets and try to get into the blogs and leave comments. These are just links for the Major Dailies in Pennsylvania. I'll have the links available for other daily PA papers within the next couple days.

Philadelphia Inquirer – Blog: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/blogs_columns/

Philadelphia Inquirer – Letters to the Editor and OpEd: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/Write_to_Us__Letters_and_Op_Eds.html

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – Letters to the Editor: http://biz.post-gazette.com/contact/comments_form.aspx?ID=40

(guidelines for submission): http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/03001/322207-209.stm

Pittsburgh Tribune Review – Letter to the Editor: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/letters/send/

How Obama Can Win The Pennsylvania Primary

Ken — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 13:48:02 EST

Greetings. As a fellow campaigner, I'd like to humbly share a few ideas with my colleagues in Pennsylvania on how Barack Obama can win the primary based on supplementing the campaign's exisiting strategy with some additional tactics based on the state's unique historical and demographic profile to: 1) win the working class vote, 2) win the rural vote, 3) slam dunk the urban voters, 4) recover from advisors' gaffes, and 5) win the City of Brotherly Love. Herewith follows a list of ideas of which one or more may be cross-postable and/or threadworthy:

Philadelphia... Here We Come!

N. Julio Barthson - E-Campaign Leader — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 19:41:46 EST

Let's go win Pennsylvania for Barack. Let's go...

Texas Tears & Pennsylvania's Promise

Yvonne from Euless, TX — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 02:10:58 EST

HIGHLIGHTS FOR SKIMMERS: Many of us Texans tried, not all Republicans listen to Rush, and (IMPT!): hopefully Obama will remember Ben Franklin for Pennsylvania. Seriously.

LONG VERSION:

Tonight I attend my first caucus ever. And I'm a 44-year-old college instructor. But until the Obama campaign took it upon themselves to instruct the rest of us in the "Texas Two-Step" (thank you!), I thought it was enough to vote. Silly me.

I met wonderful people, and a few Republicans who were there to vote for Hillary Clinton simply because, ala Limbaugh, they think Clinton will be easier to beat. (I have news for you, Republicans. While we Democrats cannot rest on our laurels, neither Obama NOR Clinton will be that easy to beat). I can't call the sneak-voters "wonderful," but they WERE good practice in respecting instead of villifying one's enemies. We are all of us the USA, after all!

Despite them, the Hillary crowd was smaller in my district, near DFW airport, than the Obama crowd. Of 16 delegates, Obama got 9 and Hillary got 7.

I also met a cool Republican 19-year-old who wasn't sure for whom she'll vote in November, but voted Obama because she wanted to make sure that IF a Democrat won, it would be the Democrat she most liked. That seemed fair.

AND I get to be a District Delegate!

But then I came home, watched the coverage--and saw that Obama lost Texas anyway. Nooooh! And we were so hopeful!

Okay. Good practice in practicing the Zen concept of non-attachment. What's important is that a Democrat gets into the White House. And Obama still has more delegates.

But it sure would be nice if he wins Pennsylvania.

Which gave me this idea. I'm no campaign whiz, so I'm sure the people in the know can decide if it's any good. But here goes: INVOKE BEN FRANKLIN, Senator Obama! The state of Pennsylvania is huge on Ben Franklin, and rightly so, but I'm speaking as a Texan and an afore-mentioned college instructor. In particular, I teach American Literature 1 every year, and my students LOVE Franklin. Why wouldn't they? This guy was SMART!

Most important elements to consider? 1) Franklin was about the common man, too. He established the first public lending library (in PA). He left money in a trust to Philadelphia for educational purposes, and if I remember right, they're still spending the interest. 2) Franklin was, as is Obama, an excellent speaker.

One great quote attributed to him may not be his -- it's only from a book he PUBLISHED, so the citation is uncertain): Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

But we probably shouldn't imply that any Americans don't deserve safety. What can be directly attributed to Franklin is, ""Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power."

But even more important? Check out his Speech at the [Constitutional] Convention (which James Wilson delivered for him). "On the whole, Sir, I can not help expressing a wish that every member of the Convention who may still have objections to it, would with me, on this occasion doubt a little of his own infallibility, and to make manifest our unanimity, put his name to this instrument."

Talk about unifying! And if anyone understood change and "Yes We Can," it was Franklin.

On to Pennsylvania....

Leadership Training Was Full of Energy

Michael Kotyk — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 22:14:57 EST

On Saturday, March 1st, three members of the Cheltenham for Obama group, Mohammed, myself and my wife, Lis, had the pleasure of attending the Philly for Obama Leadership Training in Center City. It was an electrifying experience.

For myself, I was really inspired by what I saw. The energy level in the room, which was standing room only, was enormous. America has a energy crisis. If it could have bottled up the energy in that room, our problems would have been solved for the next half century.

What really impressed me, though, was the wide diversity of Barack Obama supporters. It was if I was seeing a cross-section of America for gathered, side by side, in unity, were people from all walks of life. Business execs, large and small, sat next to blue collar workers and homeless people. Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts sat next to college students and peace activists. Homosexuals sat next to heterosexuals. Christian, Muslim and Jew sat peacefully by one another. Blacks, Whites, Asians and Latinos gathered together in common cause.

Obama Camp Hits The Ground Running In Philly (Daily Kos)

Erik — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 04:31:37 EST

The Obama campaign set up shop in Philadelphia today. After a briefing on canvassing tactics and breaking up into neighborhood working groups, it was time to hit the streets in earnest.

Here are a collection of photos from the Center City office and the article from The Philadelphia Inquirer covering today's launch of PA for Obama.

Pics and more at Daily Kos.

Philly is Obamaville!

Howard Hemsleyfrom NYC Kicks off Phila Voter registration drive today at Broad an Olney, N. Phila

Danielle Clarke USA Vietnam Vet — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:04:33 EST

Howard Hemsleyfrom NYC Kicks off Phila Voter registration drive today at Broad an Olney, N. Phila

Yes another New Yorker has come to Phila to help with our voter registration drive. Lynn came with Joe last sunday to Malcom X park and today Howard Hemsley came and created = Firing Up Philly! #1 (Community Service)
Wednesday, February 20 at 1:00 PM
Broad Street and Olney Avenue (Philadelphia, PA)http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/communityservice/4rgxj

Howard Hemsley and me collected 31 more completed registrations and yes i had to leave at 4pm and Howard is still there until 6pm. I am sure he has gotten another 30 more completed. I had met Howard at CampObama in NYC last yr and then at the NY rally. He is 69 and looks like he is 40 and he is a delegate in NY. Wow if you get the chance to volunteer with him please do so. Howard says he will be doing another voter registration drive this friday and then next monday and wensday and friday etc etc etc until march 24th.

join Howard and me friday = Firing Up Philly #2 (Organizing)
Friday, February 22 at 1:00 PM
52nd & Chestnut Streets (Philadelphia, PA) http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/organizing/4rlwl

Make sure you do come and don't just sign up.

Danielle Clarke 215-237-0952

PS: I am going to Ohio Feb 26th and won't be back until March 4th so please help Howard when i am gone. He is the greatest and very very responsible.

Philadelphia Inquirer Endorses Barack Obama

Sarah Ramey — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 13:51:04 EST

Breaking news: The Philadelphia Inquirer, one of the nation's largest newspapers, just endorsed Barack Obama:

"Inquirer’s Democratic endorsement for president: Obama"

Change.

Democrats are so sure Americans want a change from the eight years they have endured under President Bush that the party thinks winning back the White House from the Republicans is virtually guaranteed.

But only if the right nominee is chosen for the office.

...in an election where change is the operative word, would the former first lady represent that? After two Bush presidencies, many Americans don't see change in a Clinton dynasty. Hillary's high negatives in polls may have more to do with her husband's behavior as president than anything she has done since. But those negatives suggest she could be a catalyst for division when the nation longs for unity.

Given that, BARACK OBAMA is the best Democrat to lead this nation past the nasty, partisan, Washington-as-usual politics that have blocked consensus on Iraq; politics that never blinked at the greedy, subprime mortgage schemes that could spawn a recession; politics that have greatly diminished our country's stature in the world.

Obama inspires people to action. And while inspiration alone isn't enough to get a job done, it's a necessary ingredient to begin the hard work.

Obama's appeal to Americans to have the audacity to hope, even in the face of tragedies such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, has fallen on fertile ground. Americans want desperately to believe they can overcome any difficulty - given the right leadership.

But the Illinois senator has shown on the campaign trail that he offers more than pretty words. In debates and speeches, he has provided details of a White House program that, with adjustments, could produce the outcomes this nation needs.

On the war, Obama wants to have all combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months, while maintaining a force in the region for targeted strikes on al-Qaeda. On the economy, he proposes tax credits for working families and a mortgage credit to help lower-income homeowners. He proposes a national health insurance exchange to help individuals purchase coverage. He wants to do better than No Child Left Behind to improve education.

The question is whether a first-term U.S. senator with no major record as an Illinois legislator is ready to be president. His life story says yes. This former community organizer knows how to bring people together to beat the odds. Others who seemed an unlikely fit rose to the occasion once in the Oval Office. Obama could do that, too.

DELAWARE COUNTY + CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT 7 Obama supporters PLEASE GET READY FOR "PETITION DRIVE" + "CAUCUS WATCH PARTY + POTLUCK" - "TOMORROW IN PHILA PA" 3PM

Danielle Clarke USA Vietnam Vet — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 12:20:45 EST

DELAWARE COUNTY + CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT 7 Obama supporters PLEASE GET READY FOR "PETITION DRIVE" + "CAUCUS WATCH PARTY + POTLUCK" - "TOMORROW IN PHILA PA" 3PM

Those of us who are petition drive leaders will be bringing petitions and discussing what happened at our meetings earlier tomorrow (Saturday) at Drexel University meeting where the campaigns director will release to us the petitions for Pennsylvania.

Remember the petition drive starts Jan 22nd for getting Barack H. Obama on the ballot and the delegate petition drive starts jan 24th for those who are running as delegates to the conventions in august 2008 in Denver Colorado.

Your invited to "Nevada Caucus watching and Obama Meeting" on Saturday, January 19 at 3:00pm.

CLICK BELOW LINK TO JOIN US PLEASE :)

http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/nevadawatchparty/4vsts

Event: Nevada Caucus watching and Obama Meeting "Cheer for Barack and find out how to get Obama on the ballot in PA"

What: Club Party Host: Philadelphia for Obama

When: Saturday, January 19 at 3:00pm

Where: Unite Here Union Hall

for any questions please feel free to call me / Danielle Clarke at 215-237-0952

...................... ............. ................. ............. ........ ....... . ..............

BELOW IS A REPOST OF THE ABOVE EVENT AS LISTED BY THE HOST JOSH:

Nevada Caucus watching and Meeting (Nevada Watch Party) This Saturday, November 19th, is the Nevada Caucus.

We will gather from 3:00 PM to cheer Barack on and watch the results.

At 5 PM we will discuss upcoming events and plans for the petition drive to get Barack Obama and his delegates on the ballot here in Pennsylvania.

The Philadelphia watching parties for both Iowa and New Hampshire have been great events, I expect that this one will be as well.

Please bring food and drink to share, this event is a pot-luck.

Our location is particularly appropriate for this caucus as we are at the Unite Here Union Hall. Unite Here has endorsed Obama and and one of there affiliates, the Culinary Workers Union, is expected to really help his efforts in Nevada.

Time: Saturday, January 19 at 3:00 PM Duration: 3 hours

Host: Josh Uretsky Contact Phone: 267-230-6739

Location: Unite Here Union Hall (Philadelphia, PA) 22 S. 22nd Street Philadelphia, PA 19103

MAPQUEST = http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?address=22+S.+22nd+Street&city=Philadelphia&state=PA&zipcode=19103&country=US&cid=lfmaplink

What I've done so far...

Abigail — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 00:31:22 EST

I'm excited. This is really great to get behind some one who I actually trust and believe in.

I really enjoyed the email that was sent out today. Its nice to know that I was not the only one who donated the other night after the NH caucus. Its very easy to watch the news, to pay attention to the media hype and feel that there is a great challenge ahead. Don't get me wrong, there is still work to be done and through continued commitment- progress will be made.

So, what I've done so far- being a student, who is currently working through her last canned goods in the cabinet, I could only personally donate so much. So I have begun to send out emails to others who might be interested in donating to Obama's campaign.

I just finished an email to my Senator, Senator Biden- asking him to endorse Obama. If I knew that I would start this blog I would have copied the email so whoever looks at this little blog would have been able to read it. Oh well, I do have to say that it was a tactful email- writing to a former Democratic presidential candidate has the potential to be awkward, but I think I did a good job.

I've done little things too, joined a Barack facebook group, posted similar items to my profile, as well as asked my friends on the network to consider donating to Obama.

I continue to watch video clips online, and participate in polls. If anyone else has read the tipping point, they would know that little things can have a rippling effect and cause things to "tip". So even taking a Poll on Ellen.com can send a message- even if its- That Ellen watchers support Barack, yeah it might be a specific dynamic, perhaps primarily women, but hey, that's what the reporters were saying after NH- that Hillary has a better corner on the women vote. Yeah, maybe in NH...

WHAT I Plan to do, Or WOULD Like To DO:

Since I live in Philadelphia, but am registered in Delaware, I am looking into some Philadelphia events. Currently there aren't any actually in the city that are listed- so that only says to me that that needs to change. So tomorrow I will look into it- find a venue that a group of supporters could inhabit to watch an upcoming debate, or to have a brainstorming- fundraising event. We'll see, the possibilities are endless!

And that's what I love about this campaign, the grass roots focus- you have to give responsibility to the American people in order to gain their trust, interest and attention! because lord knows that has not happened for a long time, if anything this current administration has left the American people out of the loop- with restricted information, and an unwillingness to answer questions. Its a disgrace.

So I'll keep posting as things come up. If you are in the Philadelphia area and would like to help me organize an event, let me know! Thanks.

Get it started

Amirah Naim — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 12:24:12 EST

Hi Guys!

I am inviting you to my blog. Yes, I am on the bandwagon. The purpose of this blog is to have some impact on the primaries in our respective areas. It is a good place to meet to discuss upcoming events, rallies and voter registration.

It goes without saying that I hope you all are registered to vote and eligible to participate in the upcoming caucauses, primaries and conventions. If you are not, we need you. If you don't know how, let me know and I can help.

Get involved or do.not.complain.

PHILA Dem debate rally - GOBAMA08 = Yea Darrell Hyde cheerleader + Philly Says OBAMA WINS

Danielle Clarke USA Vietnam Vet — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 14:06:54 EDT

I was there at 6am holding the best location for our Campaign.

Darrell Hyde was our best cheerleader !

I was out there with him but he had the chants !

The hillary campaign again broke the rules with giant signs and bull horns but were down the street. The politico interviewed me after i went down the street to confront the man with the bullhorn.

I made sure edwards people and gravel people were next to us with Biden on the other side to keep us from getting infected.

We had the hope sign posted exactly across the street from the front door of the debates above my 3 ft by 8 ft banner i bought back on march. The round signs laminated which were under the OBAMA08 signs on sticks looked great :)

We had two banners + 60 OBAMA08 signs on the guard rails.

Lastly ACT UP CAME MARCHING IN WITH AT LEAST 500 PEOPLE WITH SIGNS SHOWING THE EVIL HILLARY CLINTON'S HEALTH PLAN

It was great because hillay did have the outgoing crooked mayor streets gang helping her as she would have never had enough supporters without them.

The confrontation between the true people of color and many races of ACT UP versus the "paid" hillary clinton was so great.

The Hillary people looked so depressed when the 4 times amount of ANTI HILLARY SUPPORTERS OF ACT UP CAM MARCHING IN.
They had drums and burning sticks and mask and signs making Hillary look like the eveil woman she is. It was so great. ACT UP was a powerful force.

Obama supporters also chanted with JENA 6 SUPPORTERS TO HELP BRING ABOUT CHANGE FOR THE JENA 6 !

DARRELL HYDE our great cheerleader had a great chant 1 2 3 4 elect obama end the war 5 6 7 8 BARACK OBAMA IN 08

OR

He said WHEN I SAY O YOU SAY OBAMA O the crowd chanted O B A M A
WHEN I SAY END YOU SAY WAR he says WAR we all said END THE WAR

WE ALSO HADE A GREAT GROUP OF YOUNG TEEN FEMALES FROM DREXEL WHO HAD PRACTICED CHANTS WHICH REALLY HELPED THE CROD GET INSPIRED.

WE HAD THE MOST DIVERSE GROUP THERE. It was so wonderful and i am so happy for Phila for being there.

WHEN I SAY FIRED YOU YOU SAY READY TO GO

FIRED UP !!!!!

ANOTHER WRITE UP by Liz from NJ

Link

It's late, but I couldn't wait to give you all a brief account of the scene outside of the building at Drexel University where the Democratic Debate was held this evening. We arrived about 6 pm to find a large group of Obama supporters well equipped with signs, and banners, and even meatball sandwiches. Thanks to Daneille, our group of about 100 was positioned directly across from the main entrance to the building. I met supporters from Baltimore, Reading, and Philadelphia. There were lots of reporters, and cameras catching our chants of "1,2,3,4, let Obama end the war, 5,6,7,8, we want Obama in 08". A small group of Edwards supporters just down the street from us got a special treat when their candidate arrived got out and shook some hands. He was the only candidate that entered thru this main entrance, although everyone was hoping for a glimpse of some of the others, especially Obama. At one point, a small group of people including one person with a megaphone, (which is not supposed to be allowed), stood in front of the Hillary supporters, and gave a short speech. Whoever it was, the reporters seemed to think it was somebody important because they all came running(someone said it was Senator Lautenberg). It was disheartening to see that the Hillary supporters felt they didn't have to follow the same rules as everyone else, but it also made me proud to be an Obama supporter.After chanting and cheering and waving signs for 3 hours, we headed home to watch the debate on TV. (Only people affliated with Drexel could go to the debate, and there was a lottery to determine who got tickets). And that was actually the best part of the night because after watching it, I was again reminded why I was willing to be tired, hoarse, and also have a headlight missing from my car when I returned to the parking lot. Because of Barack Obama! And as an added bonus, the MSNBC poll which asked who won the debate came in at Obama 29%!!!!!Hillary 21% and ....I also took lots of pictures which I hope to post tomorrow if I can figure out how.Fired Up! PS: I had twice the space reserved but i did SHARE IT WITH EDWARDS SUPPORTERS AND GRAVEL SUPPORTERS AND THE ANTI PHILLY CASINO PEOPLE.

MORE OF MY THOUGHTS:

I felt it was best to make sure hillary people were wayyyyy down the street and i also felt its best to help Edwards people who will join us when Barack wins in Iowa.

The biden people had a large contingent and with the edwards people and Obama people we all united in a ***STOP THE WAR CHANT***

That was great and sent a great message to the debates and those viewing our rally.

For a time we had half our people over with tim russert holding signs and chanting etc and so our group was doing two major actions.

The hillary people tried to get their signs in front and center but there was no room for them so it was great i made sure to save these spaces for the other candidates supporters.

The biden people came 2nd about 11am and one edwards supporter from NC held the edwards space from 12 noon on and then gravels people came and i spilt the edwards space so gravel had a space.
The hillary people came with giant 2x4's and built giant stands they laid against the wall to hold their ILLEGAL signs up high but then i used a bicycle rack turned up like a ladder to climb and hang my giant 3 ft by 8ft banner on the wall and then i had to stand on my tippy toes on top rung of the ladder / rack to hang the HOPE SIGN the highest right across the street from the debate front doors and it was 4 ft higher than any other sign.

anyway we have to do what we can but we have to be legal and not stoop the the level of the low life clinton people who later moved their large signs to the racks / line. however, they were wayyyyyyyy down the street which was so great.

make sure you camp out at the nevada location and be ready to get the good exposure location.

hugs Danielle

MY DAILYKOS BLOG BELOW:

Obama Supporter Helps Edwards People at Rally

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/10/31/112421/68

EDWARDS AND OBAMA SUPPORTERS UNITE THE PEOPLE UNITED WILL NEVER BE DIVIDED

POLL

Are you United against Hillary ?

yes 89% 119 votes

no 10% 14 votes

Barack in Newark NJ!!! SPREAD THE WORD

Danielle Clarke USA Vietnam Vet — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 20:20:58 EDT

Barack in Newark NJ!!! SPREAD THE WORD

Just in case you haven't heard yet, Senator Obama's going to be in Newark on Monday, the 22nd!!

Here's the link to get your ticket:

https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/c2cnj

Also, an invitation is attached for you to print out and give to friends or hang up around the neighborhood. Let's show the world that Newark is for Obama!!!!!

Contact Vinson Cunningham at (212) 763-4850 or vcunningham@barackobama.com for more information.

Thanks for the outstanding support,

Vinson Cunningham

New York Finance Assistant

Obama for America

(212) 763-4850

Barack in Newark NJ!!! SPREAD THE WORD

Danielle Clarke USA Vietnam Vet — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 20:17:13 EDT

Barack in Newark NJ!!! SPREAD THE WORD

Just in case you haven’t heard yet, Senator Obama’s going to be in Newark on Monday, the 22nd!!

Here’s the link to get your ticket:

https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/c2cnj

Also, an invitation is attached for you to print out and give to friends or hang up around the neighborhood. Let’s show the world that Newark is for Obama!!!!!

Contact Vinson Cunningham at (212) 763-4850 or vcunningham@barackobama.com for more information.

Thanks for the outstanding support,

Vinson Cunningham

New York Finance Assistant

Obama for America

(212) 763-4850

NY + NJ +Delaware RESIDENTS => OCT 30TH Democratic Presidential Debate Watch RALLY + PARTY - Philly Road Trip! .. PLEASE START YOUR OWN EVENT

Danielle Clarke USA Vietnam Vet — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 11:38:20 EDT

Come to phila pa for october 30th democratic debates. Tuesday, October 30 at 4:00 PM

Duration:7 hours

Host:Josh Uretsky

Location:Wynn Commons (Philadelphia, PA) 36th and Spruce

We are going to hold a rally outside of the October 30th Democratic Presidential Debates here in Philadelphia.

The Debate itself is on the Drexel campus, the rally will be on the UPenn campus at Wynn Commons.

We are planning to arrange entertainment and speakers for the rally. The debate is scheduled to start at 9 p.m. EST and we will arrange for a simulcast of the debate

We have people coming from maryland

see link http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/4vdh8

and NJ and Delaware

and 62 signed up from phila

SEE LINK for this event = http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/4vc5l

We need people to arrange transportation to come to Phila pa area from NY NJ + Delaware state

so please spread the word.

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CREATE YOUR OWN EVENT AND GET THE WORD OUT.

Danielle Clarke 215-237-0952

THIS TUESDAY "COMMERATE BARACK OBAMA'S 5 YRS ANNIVERSARY OF HIS 2002 ANTI-WAR SPEECH" In Philadelphia Pa with his Grassroot supporters

Danielle Clarke USA Vietnam Vet — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 15:33:08 EDT

Phila Pa October 2nd 30 minute speech + Rally in
center city Commemorate Baracks 5 yr aniversay of his
2002 speech

Turn the Page on Iraq Rally
Time: Tuesday, October 2 at 5:15 PM - 30 minutes
Host: Monique Sherman
Location: Outside Independence Park Visitor's Center
(Philadelphia, PA )
599 Market St.
Philadelphia, PA 19106

Monique Sherman has sent you an invitation to 'Turn
the
Page on Iraq Rally' -- click here to view the
invitation
and submit your response:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/4v3ht

PS: I will have a new banner with official logo on it
there and this message will reach over 100 people who
will also bring their friends.

I will also be out tuesday before the event alerting
the public in that area.

Please tell your friends and lets make this a big
event and thanks to monique for doing her job setting
this up and getting the permit.

Drexel to Host Debate

Rob — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 10:55:53 EDT

Drexel to host Democratic presidential debate here

By Larry Eichel

Inquirer Staff Writer

The Oct. 30 Philadelphia debate among the eight Democratic presidential candidates will take place at Drexel University.

Philip Terranova, the university's vice president for university relations, made the announcement Friday morning. Such details as the availability of tickets were not immediately available.

The debate, which has been officially sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee, will be produced by NBC News and televised on MSNBC.

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Driving to Philadelphia with my daughter to see Obama

If anyone knows how to send this letter about Palin and professional sports to newspapers...

First Canvassing Experience - Philly, 9/27

PHOTOS: Michelle Obama, Joe Biden, Ed Rendell and Mayor Nutter!

The Fire in Philly: on Registering Voters in North Philadelphia

Republican presidential candidate John McCaincut short his first public appearance without running-mate Sarah Palin after chanting supporters of Democratic rival Barack Obama interrupted his speech.

Recommended Reading: "Obama & the Black Church"

The Voiceless Victims of Sexism

Barack here on June 13 and other ways you can get busy!

Vote for Change Voter Registration Drive Results for May 31, 2008

Vote for Change Voter Registration Drive Results for May 25, 2008

Vote for Change Voter Registration Drive Results for May 24, 2008

Hope & Change in Philadelphia

Thoughts on Philly, etc.

Poem-Philadelphia

Video: Obama Rally in Philadelphia 4/18

OBAMA WON PHILLY! take that!

Obama wasn't on the ballot in Philly!

United States’ Muslims call on Obama for change

Philly is alive with the sound of "OBAMA!"

My Incredible Trip To Philadelphia

Obama Rally in Philadelphia

Printable Pennsylvania for Obama Signs

Barack Obama's campaign finds a culture clash in Philadelphia

An Open Letter From A Philadelphian

STEPHANOPOULOS:You have a very cool style. And I wonder, how much of that is tied to your race?

Obama's Biggest Crowd (35,000) Yet

Bruce Springsteen-Streets Of Philadelphia

Spread the Word: Free "Embrace the Change" Gospel Concert, Sunday Apr 20 at Bright Hope Baptist Church

Canvassing in Philly

Getting ready to CANVASS in Philly!

Congressman Roemer at "Days of Hope" Obama event in Philadelphia tomorrow (Friday)

Two Big Newspaper Endorsements in PA

ABC debate or Nat'l Enquirer expose'

Last Night's Debate.

The Collapse of the National Press

Daily News Endorses Obama!

Barack Obama Rally in Philadelphia

OUT OF TOUCH!! video of Hillary and McCain

HELP! Will phone bank for 2 tickets to COLBERT when he's in Philly??

Wow! Philadelphia Daily News - HOW HILLARY LOST MY VOTE by BabyBoomer Mom Clinton Supporter

The Gay Vote in PA

Painting the city "Barack"!

"Racist!"

We The People

Wow, I have a blog!

I SAW THE BUSES TODAY! in Philly

Introduction

Catching up!!

Obama: Clinton Can Run "As Long As She Wants"

OBAMA mural for Philly!

March 4 Obama

Help Us Create Large Obama Events!

Chris Matthews is right about PA...

Barack Obama’s speech in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at Constitution Center

And now for something completely different

President Obama: A Dream Worth Fighting For

So, so proud...

Some Notes on Barack's Speech Today

The Speech

This speech defines "leadership" for me...

Barack on race

Transcript of Barack Obama’s Speech on Race

Why Philly For A Speech On Race?

Obama speaking from Philadelphia this morning at 10:15Eastern Time

The Bigger picture on Rev Wright