Let’s be honest. We didn’t really expect Congress to come up with a "bold" stimulus plan, did we? But do we agree that NO action will only aggravate our current crisis?
The GOP surprised us when it failed to respond more constructively to the bipartisan overture from Barack Obama. I personally witnessed the precedent-setting bipartisan dinner for his defeated opponent (my photo of the President-elect at the dinner honoring McCain, January 19) and noted the subsequent meetings with Congressional Republicans. And what did we get in the way of proposals from the loyal opposition? More of the dogma-driven, supply-side ideology that contributed to our current mess: tax cuts!
On the other hand, GOP critics have a point: the bill that passed the House and was embraced by Obama essentially is an accumulation of favorite Democratic spending proposals.
What is missing is CHANGE. The CHANGE Obama advocated in his campaign for the Presidency. The CHANGE that won him a resounding mandate to govern for four years. The CHANGE from policies that have worked to benefit few and imperil many. Where are the first steps toward affordable health care, a sustainable green economy and alternative energy? And why are we not moving boldly to address the systemic failures that underlie the current crisis in credit markets?
Obama asked for ideas. And Paul Krugman and Robert Reich, among others, obliged. But what these brilliant men offer is predictable: rationales for orthodox Keynesian solutions and concern about labor market distortions, respectively. More is needed, not just in additional spending, but in fresh ideas that advance the President's policy agenda. So, if suggestions are still welcomed, here is my two-cents worth. And please do keep the CHANGE.
Health Care
Obama has promised the nation affordable health care similar to his own Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), to be available to all by the end of his first term. There is no need to back off this goal. Health care is one of the largest drags on our economy and the stimulus bill provides a real opportunity to begin managing its cost. In addition to the bill’s provisions to help state governments fund Medicare and work projects, I suggest that the federal government reimburse all state and local governments for their employer's share of health care for the rest of this year. In exchange, recipients may not fire government workers and must commit to integrating their health care plans with the existing FEHBP starting in 2010. That provides additional and immediate financial assistance to state and local governments, while paving the way for the establishment of a Public Employees Health Benefits Program. By January 2010, the federal government’s negotiated health care program would expand its base and economies of scale. The next step will be to apply the system to businesses, and subsequently to capture the un- and under-insured.
Energy Independence
Most honest leaders recognize that in due course government will have to produce the substantial additional revenue to pay for the stimulus. But good luck finding a politician willing to propose increasing taxes of any kind. So let me suggest instead a hefty tariff on imported oil to fund the “green economy.” A tariff of 50 percent or more on the landed cost of all imported energy (probably with some form of accommodation for our NAFTA partners) can be justified because of national security as well as the external costs to our environment inherent in the use of fossil fuels. And such a levy would promote conservation, subsidize domestic production, and help to fund and protect our investments in alternative energy. This is a measure that should be welcomed by Republicans who advocate "drill, baby, drill” as well as environmentalists interested in promoting clean energy. The windfall earned by American producers could be invested domestically or taxed as profits. And while there may be a marginal increase of fuel cost at the pump, it will pale in comparison with the amounts we forked over to foreign potentates rather than our own Treasury these past few years, when oil was effectively 200% greater than its current price.
Reestablish a ‘Risk-Free’ Investment Benchmark
Explanations for our current credit crisis and financial market meltdown abound, including the Washington Post's excellent series. But absent from all the expert analyses is any mention of the Treasury Department's October 2001 decision to discontinue issuing 30-year Bonds. That decision, on the heels of 9/11 and the cusp of Bush's costly war on terror, both lowered mortgage yields and prompted increased sales of bundled mortgages marketed as alternative 'risk-free' instruments, which in turn fueled the housing bubble and distorted both government and corporate credit point spreads. Treasury Bond auctions have resumed, but a clear provision to finance America’s recovery through borrowing would repair yield spreads – both between short and long term sovereign debt and in relation to all other debt instruments. Transparent budget financing will help re-establish more realistic risk pricing and global confidence in the US economy. But the 30-year Bond will not regain its position as a benchmark for 'risk-free' long-term investment if Fed meddling in the market, as it proposes to do with its planned purchase of Treasuries from troubled banks. In fact, this central-bankers-gone-wild approach will only create a greater Treasury bubble that will seriously aggravate our problems. Once markets are allowed to properly price the cost and risk of our recovery without Fed manipulation, global confidence in the US economy has a chance to be recover.
So Pay the Bill, and Keep the CHANGE
Barack Obama attended his last inaugural event, the Staff Ball, at the DC Armory on January 21. But he arrived after a performance by the opening act, Arcade Fire. So here are some insightful lysircs from their “Intervention”:
You say it's money that we need
As if we're only mouths to feed
I know no matter what you say
There are some debts you'll never pay
The message is relevant to the stimulus bill now before Congress. We can act responsibly and cautiously if we:
The Obama team made what I consider to be a political masterstroke yesterday by announcing their selection of respected former Congressman Leon Panetta to head the CIA.
Former intelligence analyst Greg Treverton, now with the Rand Corporation, said Panetta's experience as a former White House chief of staff might give him a unique understanding of the presidency and its needs for intelligence. "One of my experiences with people like Panetta who have been chief of staff is that they have a clear sense of what is helpful to the president that most senior officials don't," Treverton told me. "They get it. What he could do and couldn't do. And that's an interesting advantage Panetta brings. Knowledge of what the presidential stakes are like, how issues arise, and what they need to be protected from, for better or worse."
Retired CIA deputy director for the East Europe division Milt Bearden said Panetta is a "brilliant" choice. "It is not problematic that Panetta lacks experience in intelligence," Bearden e-mailed. "Intel experience is overrated. Good judgment, common sense, and an understanding of Washington is a far better mix to take to Langley than the presumption of experience in intelligence matters. Having a civilian in the intelligence community mix is, likewise, a useful balance. Why not DNI?"
Well, what could be the problem, considering that many successful past CIA directors have lacked direct intelligence experience (e.g. George H.W. Bush)?
"I was not informed about the selection of Leon Panetta to be the CIA director," incoming chairwoman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) was cited by the Los Angeles Times. "My position has consistently been that I believe the agency is best served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time."
Yep, that's right. As the Republican obstruction machine opposition in Congress gears up to turn some of Obama's appointments into partisan political theater, the incoming Democratic chairperson of a key intelligence committee decides to publicly cast doubts on one of Obama's key appointments.
Can't we Democrats even wait until Obama is inaugurated before we start shooting ourselves in the extremities?
To those of you who so kindly congratulated me for Tuesday’s election outcome, as if Barack Obama’s victory resulted from my personal and deeply committed efforts. I thank you for your generous comments.
To those who may have wondered how I fared in “radio silence” for six weeks on the Ohio battleground. Be assured that I survived.
To those who do not know me or are unfamiliar with my previous descriptions of the realities and ironies of the 2008 election. What follows is the final chapter of my life as a political activist, a missionary for democracy, an apostle of Change. Hopefully you will also understand how it is that for the first three nights after I returned home I woke up from the same dream in which I wander nameless streets in search of faceless voters.
The Buckeye State
On September 23 I joined the Ohio Campaign for Change as a member of its newly created Vote Corps. The invitation had warned of 14-hour days, seven days a week, right up through Election Day. I accepted because the Obama campaign considered this important enough to make it a paid position and because it was in the one state McCain had to win to become President.
I left home certain that my life experiences -- in retail sales, as diplomat and political officer, and Obama volunteer in seven states – would be useful in the Buckeye State. Stopping at Starbucks on the way out of Burlington that Sunday morning, I noticed the first trace of red on the outer edge of a leaf on a small maple tree in the parking lot. I realized that by the time I returned to Vermont the leaf peepers would have come and gone. Fortunately, it turned out to be a mild autumn in Ohio that showcased the Buckeye State’s own colorful foliage.
The Akron Vote Corps
A hundred of us reported to Columbus for Vote Corps training and by the first night we were already deployed across the state. I was assigned to the city of Akron, birthplace of Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James and Pretenders’ singer-songwriter Chrissie Hynde, who wrote about her birthplace in “My City Was Gone”. The Akron Campaign for Change Office was headed by Regional Field Director Max Lesko. In charge of Summit and Portage Counties, he proved himself a very capable and genial manager. My hosts, Cathy and David, and their daughter Nicky, lived in a northwest suburb. Their friendship and cozy accommodations would be my home for the next six weeks.
At first the Akron Vote Corps consisted of six whites, from metropolitan DC, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Texas and California. Like most of the Obama staff and volunteers I met during the primaries, they were young and well-educated. In fact, I was two-and-a-half times their average age. By the end of the second week we lost one and gained five new members. Our new team-mates were all African Americans, from California, Texas and Georgia. Their average age was early forties and many had worked on Kerry campaign. One of my first initiatives was to buy half a dozen fingerless gloves for our new friends from the warm weather states. Our Vote Corps was rounded out by a “Lead,” a young lawyer from Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown’s Washington staff.
The Vote Corps’ mission was to register voters, identify supporters and get out the vote for Barack Obama. Our primary targets were “Sporadics,” first time voters and people who voted Democratic in the past, but did not always turn out. For a while we were also instructed to knock on every single door in a targeted neighborhood. I successfully resisted attempts to create competition within our group for most doors knocked, “Doors” being the campaign’s primary measure for the work accomplished by staff and volunteers. My feeling was that competition focused on this imperfect metric would distort our effort, demoralize some members of our group, and sacrifice quality for quantity. For in the end, the real measure of our success would be the vote count on Election Day. And to that end, it was would be our diligence after the “knock” that would impact the outcome.
Registration
Our first task was registering new voters and re-registering people who had moved before the deadline of October 6. We knocked on doors and scoured bus stops and other public places to register as many people as possible. Most people were already registered, as they clearly understood the importance of this election. Those who had not yet done so enthusiastically signed up, particularly in the African-American community. My first Saturday in Akron, I missed my first grandchild’s first birthday party back in Virginia. But my reward on that day was registering many first-time voters, including former felons who had recently regained the rights of other free men and women.
Many of our Sporadics were transients who frequently moved from one run-down Akron neighborhood to another. This city was in decline for a long time, and the recent economic downturn just aggravated conditions. In older residential neighborhoods there are a growing number of abandoned homes or houses soon to be vacated due to lost jobs or foreclosure. Many porches are marked by hand-painted signs announcing “Copper Already Stolen” or littered with trash by people who have given up. It is in this environment that we spread our message of Hope and Change.
Starting on September 30, we entered “golden week” when voters could both register and vote early. Ohio’s new rules allowed “no fault” early voting by absentee ballot or in person. A single polling place was created for Summit County at the Job Center in northeast Akron. The Job Center is well-known, because job losses here have been ongoing there for many years. The building, also known by locals as “the old library,” is next to another landmark, the County’s Auto Title Office. For those without cars, bus number 12 took people there from downtown in 15 minutes.
Early Voting
Registration and early voting at the Job Center was very convenient. Open every day, including Saturday and Sunday, there were 50 polling booths and seating for voters waiting for their paper ballots. But many Ohioans, especially African Americans disenfranchised in previous elections were suspicious. They worried that ballots were going to “disappear,” as reportedly happened in 2004 in Cuyahoga County. Overcoming these legitimate concerns required some persuasion. Our most important argument was: “Barack Obama wants his supporters to vote early.” That usually did it. We helped to spread the word that this process would protect, not suppress voting rights. And by November 3, the early vote turnout had grown from hundreds to thousands, the wait from 15 minutes to three hours.
By my third week I had developed a routine for creating a multiplier effect in conversation with early voters. Once they had made an Early Vote Commit, I introduced community organizing techniques to build on the widespread desire to help Obama get elected. Within the family, a grandparent or parent, or maybe the principal driver would agree to take responsibility for getting the entire household to vote early. I also encouraged that voters take along a relative or friend, or a neighbor who needed a ride.
Finally, I would make the following pitch:
“I’m working for Obama and I want you to work for him too. So I’m going to deputize you. No badge, no pay, just the satisfaction of knowing you helped to elect Barack Obama."
That always earned a smile. Then I continued:
"Now I'm sure you know someone who wouldn’t vote unless you drag their lazy a-- to the Job Center to vote. Do you know anyone like that?”
I could tell when they were hooked. Eyes turned skyward. Faces revealed minds thinking of who they would get to early vote. A knowing smile indicated they knew exactly who they would take along. In closing I urged them to let everyone know how easy it was to vote at the Job Center and that Obama wanted them to do so. By the time I left their door, the early voter had been empowered and had taken ownership of the Obama campaign. Now it was their campaign too.
Get Out The Vote
During our last week in Ohio, the Vote Corps was dissolved. We were detailed to assist Field Organizers with their neighborhood teams of volunteers, which were part of the Ohio get out the vote (GOTV) strategy at the precinct level.
I was assigned to Barberton to work for Sol, an energetic field organizer from Texas. My main “turf” was the south Akron neighborhood of Kenmore. Unlike my earlier work with Sporadics in largely African American neighborhoods, I was instructed to “persuade” and “motivate” the remaining “Undecided” voters. But with Election Day closing in fast, there would only be minutes to talk to any single voter.
In Barberton and Kenmore, the Undecideds were predominantly white, working class Democrats. Most did not want to vote for McCain, but were not yet sure about Barack Obama. I understood their concern. Not only was Obama a relatively new and unknown political personality. Most of these voters had supported Hillary in the March primary. And like voters elsewhere, they were being bombarded with smear emails, Republican mailings about Ayers and NRA propaganda warning Obama would take away their guns.
With openly racist voters there was the curt “Thanks for your time.” But it was not difficult to pull the other undecided voters off the fence, especially with the credibility of being an older white man with a knowledge of history and 23 years of federal service under five US Presidents. These voters knew that Obama and Hillary shared a common policy agenda and that she was campaigning hard for the Democratic ticket. They also recognized Rove tactics and our argument that: “They can’t win with the truth, so they are attacking him with lies.” Second amendment concerns were easily neutralized with Biden’s quote: “No one’s taking away my Beretta.” But the simplest most effective argument was “Are you happy with the way things are going or do you want change?” And Change is what voters wanted more than anything this year.
Election Day
November 3rd and 4th were taken up with the final GOTV effort, primarily distributing door hangers and reminding voters of their polling places. From 3:30 pm on Election Day until it was too dark to read house numbers, I scoured for remaining undecided voters who had yet to cast their ballots. I actually found several and they agreed to go to their local poll station, which by then was no longer crowded.
I was at the Barberton volunteers’ party at Lake Anna Hall when MSNBC announced Ohio for Obama. Having already won Pennsylvania, I knew it was all over except for reaching 270 electoral votes. While happy, I was so physically and mentally exhausted that the victory did not seem real. I headed back to my host family home and watched the candidates’ speeches before turning in and resting for the long drive home. Now as my dreams of knocking on doors in Ohio recede, the enormity of our achievement and the challenges facing Barack Obama are coming into better focus. I have no idea what my next step will be, but I will continue to do what I can to get our country back on the right track.
Epilogue
After 40 days of walking the streets of Summit County, I had knocked on or distributed campaign literature at over 4000 doors.
More importantly, I had in-person conversations with more than 1500 voters and obtained about 1000 Early Vote Commits, which probably understates the number of people who were convinced to go to the Job Center. Along the way I also helped remove several hundred bad addresses from our “Turf,” easing the task of later attempts by volunteers to find our voters.
The Akron Vote Corps’ effort over five weeks contributed greatly to the early vote turnout, which by Election Day totaled 90,000, or fully one-third of the 272,000 ballots cast in Summit County. And while he won Ohio’s 20 electoral votes with 51% of the state’s popular vote, Barack Obama won Summit County with 57.45%.
wizinit is the nom de guerre of a veteran diplomat and fan of the late columnist Art Buchwald who writes serious analysis and political satire. If you would like to be notified whenever he posts a new article join Food Tasters For Obama.
I feel great. Things are looking great for the first time in a long time. The polls have never looked better (up in Florida?!). The voter registration numbers are off the hook. Sarah Palin looks destined for disaster in tomorrow's debate. With every upward tick in a tracking poll, with every superb performance by Barack in a Presidential debate, my confidence in the inevitability of 2008 grows.
But what really is inevitable? This is inevitable.
I just watched all the Sunday morning talk shows and one overriding theme emerged. Nearly everyone, Democrat or Republican, that got up and talked about our current economic crisis largely blamed the lack of oversight and regulation. Let me repeat that.
The emerging consensus is that a lack of meaningful oversight and regulation over the financial services and mortgage industries is now causing us to socialize both industries and put at risk at least $1 trillion of taxpayer money to bail it out.
In light of this, the choice for President in this coming election has now become absolutely and unarguably clear. McCain has spent his nearly three decades in Washington being aided and abetted by Phil Gramm and his cronies in push through every possible measure to keep the financial and mortgage industries from being subject to meaningful oversight and regulation.
[McCain's] record … suggest[s] that he has never departed in any major way from his party’s embrace of deregulation... [H]e has consistently characterized himself as fundamentally a deregulator [yet] he has no history prior to the presidential campaign of advocating steps to tighten standards on investment firms. McCain has always been in his party’s mainstream on the [economic] issue. In early 1995 … McCain promoted a moratorium on federal regulations of all kinds. 'I’m always for less regulation,' he told The Wall Street Journal last March…. 'I am fundamentally a deregulator.'
The bottom line: John McCain's loving embrace of the fundamental Republican dogma of "deregulation, deregulation, deregulation" has caused the worst financial crisis in American history since the Great Depression.
John McCain, Phil Gramm and their Republican cohorts got us into this mess. It would be, at this point in history, absolutely and profoundly wrong for the American people to reward John McCain's failure by electing him to lead the world's biggest economy.
Period.
There is no more room for debate. None.
------------------------------
This is the video library that we need to circulate far and wide to highlight how wrong John McCain has been (and will be) on the economy:
Obama Campaign on McCain's Disgraced Economic Advisers:
Obama Campaign on McCain's belief that the "Fundamentals of the Economy are Strong":
I got the call last week and tomorrow I leave for the American heartland to join the Obama campaign officially. My “deployment” is not a total surprise, as I did my “basic training” in Chicago at Camp Obama in June 2007 and since then have volunteered in seven states. Independent of the campaign, I conducted “psy-ops” on the net as a blogger and worked with other supporters in “rapid response” to online critics and negative media. But now I am called to official duty and by this time next week I will be on the “front lines” in a crucial swing state.
Am I to be part of a Pre-electoral “Surge”, a sort of “counter-insurgency doctrine” applied to this election in the closing days of the Presidential campaign? That may be what Obama’s deputy national campaign director Steve Hildebrand has in mind to ensure Victory on November 4. He is the “four-star general” who won the first battle for the nomination when Obama took the Iowa caucus. Lately Hildebrand has been moving his troops around in what looks like an attempt to “clear, hold, and build” support in swing states. That is where organization, registration, and turnout could deliver the vote margin that spells the difference between “victory and defeat.”
Reports from Georgia confirm Hildebrand has “drawn down” his forces in Georgia and redeployed elsewhere. That does not imply Obama has abandoned Georgia, but does mean a greater reliance on remaining staff backed by an army of local volunteers who delivered a decisive primary win. At the same time, the redeployment reflects a need to strengthen Obama’s presence in states where he lost to Hillary Clinton and did not develop as much grass roots support. It looks and sounds like its erstwhile namesake in Iraq, but this surge too can only succeed if certain other conditions apply.
Perhaps the most important of those conditions is “political reconciliation.” The Denver convention speeches of Hillary and Bill Clinton marked a symbolic end to internal Democratic opposition to Obama’s nomination. Some small “rebel factions” of the party had intended to continue “resistance”. But John McCain’s subsequent nomination of Sarah Palin as his running mate sparked a “civil awakening” and the rebellion fell flat. Now former adversaries are working to elect Obama and avoid the frightening prospect of a “fundamentalist” religious right Republican Administration. What remains for the Obama forces is to reassure independent voters and moderate Republicans that Obama is a “safe” choice who will represent their interests.
The Obama campaign also benefits from improved intelligence on voting conditions in some key swing states where there were serious problems at the polls in 2000 and 2004. His base is alert to Republican tactics designed to intimidate and disenfranchise voters, and sabotaging elections. As they obtain “actionable intelligence” the campaign will be able to address problems promptly. And after replacing some local elected officials with Democrats, they can count on better cooperation to ensure the integrity of the electoral process.
As I leave for the front I anticipate this will be my last posting for a while. But I expect that this surge too will succeed “beyond our wildest dreams.”
It was just four months ago that the call went out on these pages for supporters to join Food Tasters for Obama. Now some wise-guys (here, here and here) are suggesting that it’s John McCain who should hire a food taster. It is an idea even he has toyed with.We don’t believe that he needs to or will do so. But just for fun we’ve devised the following Letterman-like Top Ten Reasons Why John McCain Will NOT Hire Food Tasters.
10. He doesn't know how to post a job opening on Monster.com
9. Republicans would consider him an "elitist"
8. His high dosage of Metamucil already flushes all toxins from his body
7. Sarah Palin would fire them and replace them with Wasilla High School grads
6. He’s not sure where they would sit in the mess hall
5. The deaths of Socrates, Napoleon and Lenin were covered in courses he failed at Annapolis
4. He loves to gamble with dice, VP selections and, of course, with his health
3. You don't eat barracuda – it eats you
2. Lipstick (just had to mention that, because it seems to be on everyone’s lips lately)
And finally, the number one reason McCain will not hire food tasters:
1. He doesn’t need to because on November 4 Barack Obama will eat his lunch
The McCain campaign has kept up the drumbeat for weeks now charging Barack Obama would raise your taxes, even though they leave out the fact that this only applies to those who make over $250,000. They also don't mention that those are the same people who were the only real beneficiaries of the Bush tax cuts.
Well Johnnie Mac's tax claims are effectively moot now that the Bush Administration has stepped in to salvage Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (no relation to the candidate, except that neither can keep track of how many houses they own). For overnight, the Treasury has levied a whopper of a tax, except instead of sending you a bill you have to pay from you checking account by April 15, they have just gone ahead and charged it to your credit card and left it to the next guy to work out payment terms.
Okay. Before the campaign gets really serious again, here is your chance to vote for Sarah Palin -- that is for the best impersonation.
And there are two really great impersonators too. You may already have seen Saturday Night Live's "A Nonpartisan Message from Sarah Palin & Hillary Clinton". In case you missed it, click on the pic for Tina Fey and Amy Poehler in their SNL opening skit:
But Tina's got competition! Here name is Lisa Vega (aka Lisa Donovan), who was once featured on MADtv, and she has done three Palin sketches already. The first had her corner Obama on a stairwell as he comes home, and she browbeats him till he turns into the "angry black man"; this may explain why the clip is no longer available. But her parental guidance skit called "Is McCain Palin's Bitch?" is already a YouTube classic, and showcases the other side of Sarah:
You can click on the photo. That's Dan Oster as John MCcain.
So here's your guilt-free chance to vote for Sarah Palin (impersonator, that is). Please cast your vote below in the comment section.
If it is true that the great majority of American voters can only be reached through sound bites. and then only by a limited number of such sound bites, well that's what we'll need to give them.
sound bite - noun, a brief, quotable remark, or excerpt from a speech, made as by a politician and suitable for use on TV or radio newscasts: often a dismissive term implying superficiality.
YourDictionary.com
Eistein utters the ultimate sound bite:
I'm sure you can come up with your own summary phrases to describe Barack Obama's plans for the country. Please add your ideas in the comment section below. But for starters, here are my seven. I hope you'll agree they are appropriately short, sufficiently limited in number and accurately descriptive.
Don't be surprised if you start seeing and hearing bites like these from Barack Obama in ads and the Presidential debates.
A Government that Respects the Constitution
Take the War to our Real Enemies
Restore Fiscal Discipline and Tax Fairness
A Growth Economy Fueled by Innovation and Energy Alternatives
Affordable Healthcare for All Americans
Learn to Value Education
Honor Service to Country and Community
wizinit is the nom de guerre of a veteran diplomat and fan of the late columnist Art Buchwald who writes serious analysis and political satire. If you would like to be notified whenever wizinit posts a new article click on the logo to join Food Tasters For Obama.
(I'm promoting this because I think it is an interesting piece of work and so grateful to have it posted at OMS. I'm sure barath would support me saying also that the ultimate answer to "Where should I volunteer?" is to be found by asking the Obama campaign. They have the demographic data and know the game on the ground better than any presidential campaign ever.
Let's go change the world!!
- promoted by jlarson)
Volunteering is going to make or break this election. And like it or not, some states are more important than others for the next 60 days.
I've been asked many times "where should I volunteer to make the biggest difference?" To answer that question, I've made an easy-to-use Google map using data from 538.
Just click where you live on the map below and it'll tell you where you should volunteer to maximize your ability to help elect Obama. (It'll open a google map in a separate window because I can't embed maps here.) Below the fold I'll tell you why the map is the way it is.
Many people over the last several months have asked me why I am so worked up over this election. Prior to November of last year, I had switched off any interest in politics and hadn't much cared about national elections for, oh, something like 10+ years. My answer to the question always involves two important elements.
The first element of my answer is my enthusiasm for Barack Obama as a person and a candidate. Once I took the time to research and learn more about him, I saw in Obama one of the most fundamentally decent politicians to run for the office of President in recent memory. I found him to be intelligent, engaging, contemplative, honest, forthright and candid -- all qualities that have been so obviously missing over the last eight years. Listening to him speak and reading what he wrote sold me on his story, his commitment to this great country, and his fundamental decency and quality of character. However, my enthusiasm for Barack Obama as a candidate is only one aspect to why I am so passionate about this election.
The second and perhaps more passion-inspiring aspect to my enthusiasm for electing Obama is my deep-seated need for the American electorate to say "Enough!" to all of the terrifying qualities that we have seen infect and and spread throughout our communities and government over these past eight years. Above nearly every other consideration on the table at this point, I desperately need to see America send up a powerful and resounding rebuke to the tone, tenor and ideology underpinning one of the most necrotic, corrupt and incompetent administrations in American history.
You may call me naïve for saying this but I yearn to wake up one day and not be afraid to learn what my government has done in my name. I am profoundly tired of waking up to learn that our country has unconstitutionally exceeded the powers of the executive branch, tortured terrorism suspects, illegally populated the Justice Department with people whose primary qualification was the sufficiency of their partisanship, mishandled domestic national disasters resulting in the deaths of thousands of people, obstinately refused to address climate change, illegally revealed the identity of a covert CIA agent, used hatred and fear of gays and lesbians to scare up votes in an election season, stymied research into embryonic stem cells based on religious faith alone, instituted a Pentagon propaganda campaign to sell an unjustified war, invaded a country that never participated in an attack on American soil and never posed an existential threat to our national security, and pathologically lied to the American people about every matter, large or small -- with all of these acts done in our name without a shred of meaningful accountability brought to bear upon any of the misguided criminals involved in their perpetration.
To put it mildly, I am ashamed, and profoundly so. Nearing as I am the age of 32, you'd think that my shame and cynicism would have led me to give up on any hope for honesty and competence in my elected leaders -- and for a while, I had. However, I see in Obama a golden opportunity (perhaps the last one we'll have in a long, long while) to forcefully cast off the last eight years of unchecked lies, misdirection, corruption, misinformation, illegality and incompetence.
As Obama himself has admitted, he is of course an imperfect messenger -- just as any person seeking the most powerful office in the world would be. However, this election means much more to me than just electing a person to fill a role -- it can also mean that we, as Americans, have borne witness to the evil that has been done in our name and have decided to forcefully and unequivocally declare that we will stand for it no longer!
With the two primary aspects to my passion for electing Obama being laid out above, please permit me go one step further and explain one of the main ways this passion gets channeled on a day-to-day basis.
I have gone through most of my life in a position of relatively comfortable middle-class privilege. My stepfather was a college professor and my mother an accomplished artist and homemaker. My sisters and I generally didn't want for anything. I came out of the closet in high school at the tender age of 13 and was lucky enough to grow up in a loving family that accepted me fully for who I was. Coming out so early, however, left my still-forming psyche fully exposed to the harsh winds of a culture and society that is still too often prone to demonizing gays and lesbians for no reason other than the gender of the person they choose to love.
I became involved in politics and activism during my teen years in the small town of Eugene, Oregon during an unfortunate episode in our state's history when a radical right-wing organization called the Oregon Citizen's Alliance successfully placed an initiative on the statewide ballot in 1992 called Measure 9 that would have revised the Oregon constitution to read:
All governments in Oregon may not use their monies or properties to promote, encourage or facilitate homosexuality, pedophilia, sadism or masochism. All levels of government, including public education systems, must assist in setting a standard for Oregon's youth which recognizes that these behaviors are abnormal, wrong, unnatural and perverse and they are to be discouraged and avoided.
To this day, reading the language of Measure 9 still brings tears to my eyes. To my teenage mind, it was one thing to understand that certain people in my country and community with antiquated medieval morality hadn't yet evolved to the point that they could accept me for who I am. It was quite another thing, however, for the people of my state and local community to be voting on a constitutional amendment to permanently and explicitly stigmatize me in the highest law of the state as "abnormal, wrong, unnatural and perverse".
Thankfully, Measure 9 failed, but only by a margin of 44% in favor to just 56% opposed. As I look back on it, I think this was the first concrete time in my life when I truly sat back and thought, "Dear God, there is an enormous percentage of the population out there for whom ignorance and gullibility is a virtue and who are capable of using their ignorance as a sword to strike out and try to hurt other people, and the country, with their vote!" This general realization about the fundamental nature of a large portion of the electorate eventually drove me into a self-induced fog of anger and cynicism that was only more strongly reinforced by America's reelection of George W. Bush after much of the information that has recently driven his approval ratings into the low 20s was already evident.
The upshot of all this background information is how it reflects on my outlook today. Although I labored in a fog of anger and cynicism for 15-odd years, it wasn't enough to completely kill off my hope for an episodic emergence of the inherent goodness in people that I never stopped believing in. I still fundamentally believe that a large majority of people in this country and around the world have, at their core, a well of goodness that can be easily shrouded by any number of suppressive factors, i.e., abuse, privation, religious fundamentalism, divorce, deaths in the family, etc. Although all-too-often lying dormant, the shroud covering this inherent goodness within us is periodically peeled back to allow for radical, transformative change, e.g., abolishing slavery, giving women the right to vote and ending segregation.
Over the last seven or more years, the shroud covering many of our better instincts was metastasized by, among other things, the tragic events of 9/11. Too many of us retreated into our cocoons and gave our government free reign to run roughshod over many of the rights we hold dear and slaughter tens of thousands of innocent civilians in order exact vengeance upon a shadowy and intangible threat that emerged from a world to which we often pay far too little attention and spend little time trying to understand.
Owing much to our lust for vengeance and a profane President and his administration that, unchecked by any authority, has taken every opportunity to knowingly and vigorously violate the cherished morals, ethics, values, laws and international standards we once held so dear, we are now at a precipitous crossroads in our country's history. This is not just a fight against the poisonous depravity of the Bush administration, this is also a fight against our lesser instincts, our apathy and our complicity in what our government has become. It is not enough to simply write off the last eight years as the result of some compartmentalized bad actor and his cronies occupying and mismanaging the White House. We must systematically, and with great wisdom and purpose, reject and denounce the entire paradigm of accepting the presentation of falsehoods from those who would seek to govern us, justifying the torture of prisoners as an evil means toward a noble end, and cavalierly relinquishing the rights and freedoms for which so many brave souls have fought and spilled their blood over the centuries of our proud country's history.
In this election, the Republican candidate for President has embraced and expanded upon all of the worst instincts and tactics that drove our current President into the White House. With every new day, John McCain and his surrogates have proven in new and creative ways how much contempt they possess for concepts such as honesty, dignity, integrity, candor, humility and compassion. It is not enough to get angry about the fact that they put out jaw-droppingly obvious lies and misdirection on a daily basis. We must dig deeper and fight the very premise that underlies their shameful and dishonorable tactics: the idea that selling lies to the American electorate will work because we are too stupid, comfortable, uninformed and apathetic to realize that they are deceiving us! The next time you hear a McCain surrogate parrot talking points that falsely accuse Obama of wanting to raise taxes on people making $42,000 per year or claim that McCain is not, and has not always been, 100% committed to criminalizing abortion, dig below your righteous anger and react more strongly to the fact that we are responsible for giving them the impression that they can shamelessly peddle their lies with impunity. The stakes are too high in this election, and the challenges we face are too great, to simply leave this despicable premise unchallenged.
Fighting John McCain's dishonorable underlying premise does not just involve simply going to the ballot box and voting for Barack Obama on November 4th; it requires a much greater commitment than that. In past elections, when faced with an uninformed friend or relative that promulgates a new lie du jour that emanated from a surrogate of the opposing campaign, many of us have all too often held our tongues in order to avoid making waves or having others think less of us. This needs to end, quickly.
We have a civic duty, at this point in our country's history, to become properly informed about the facts underlying all of the main issues circulating in your family and community and, when faced with a lie promulgated by the McCain campaign, not only speak out forcefully, with limitless respect and patience, against the particular lie under discussion but also enter into a discussion of McCain's underlying premise. The impact of refuting a lie will always be less significant than helping someone come to realize that the systemic pattern of lies and misdirection put out by the McCain campaign presupposes that we are all too stupid, comfortable, uninformed and apathetic to realize that they are deceiving us.
I know that, like me, your view of national elections and politicians has all-too-often sprouted from a fertile bed of cynical cop-outs, e.g., picking the lesser of two evils, thinking that your vote doesn't count, believing that all politicians are just craven liars and discounting the election because it doesn't matter who you choose because they'll all screw you over anyway. At this moment in history -- when we are faced with record oil prices coupled with an ever-dwindling, non-expandable supply of fossil fuels, an economy with sectors not far off from permanent systemic failure and a standing and moral authority in the world worse than at any point in the last century -- we cannot allow ourselves to take false comfort in these reassuring, emotionally protective clichés.
The polluted nature of the McCain campaign and its occasional temporary successes, achieved using dishonorable means, must not flag our resolve or beat us back from facing every attack with every last shred of energy we can muster. At the risk of hyperbole, I truly believe that there are fundamental virtues at stake in this election that John McCain and his surrogates have chosen to both ignore and defile: honesty, dignity, integrity, candor, humility and compassion, to name but a few. Dig back to a time in your youth when you yearned with every fiber of your naïve and unspoiled being to be a defender of Truth, a person of integrity and a defender of the helpless and infirm. Find the passion you once felt, channel it back into the present day and let it give you succor on days like today, when it feels like the enemy advances and the headwinds against your struggle are too great. In the end, we must do everything we can muster to ensure that Truth -- absolute, objective and immutable Truth -- and timeless Virtue prevail against the forces of inertia and cynicism that have kept us chained in our self-shackled prisons for far too long.
Inspired by his observation of the Chinese Government’s efficient management of the Olympics, George Bush has evidently returned to Washington full of exciting ideas he hopes will ensure John McCain’s victory in November.And there is some evidence suggesting that some of the Chinese tactics have already found their way into John McCain’s 2008 Presidential election campaign.
Like those intimidating Chinese drummers in the opening ceremonies who were instructed to smile, John McCain has been smiling a lot in his own public performances.But his handlers, worried about invidious comparison with Barack Obama, are not taking chances. Like the sweet little girl who was also in the opening ceremony, they will train McCain to lip-sync his acceptance speech while the words are spoken by one of his movie star supporters.But it is not yet clear however which of McCain’s prominent thespian endorsers' characters will provide the voice.So far, the three nominees in the category of Nominating Acceptance Speech are: Clint "Dirty Harry" Eastwood, Sylvester "Rocky" Stallone and Arnold "Terminator" Schwarzenegger.
But none of the Chinese measures has excited Republicans as much as the “passport solution”. The GOP is taking its cue from China’s women’s gymnastics team, which was able to demonstrate that its athletes met the International Olympic Committee’s 16-year old age requirement by presenting Chinese passports. So they are applying for a new passport that McCain can present as his government issued photo ID. It will address concerns of some voters who believe McCain is too old by showing that he is only 35.That will both meet the Constitution’s minimum age requirement and should reassure voters that he could easily serve two full terms as President.As an added bonus for those constitutional scholars who question if McCain meets the Consitution’s “natural-born” requirement because of his birth in Panama, the passport will list his place of birth (POB) as Panama City, Florida. Problem solved.
wizinit is the nom de guerre of a veteran diplomat and fan of the late columnist Art Buchwald who writes serious analysis and political satire. If you would like to be notified whenever wizinit posts a new article click on the logo to join Food Tasters For Obama.
Yesterday's Republicans for Obama conference call hosted by Jim Leach was notable for the image of nonpartisan appeal it projected -- and not simply because the people on it were Republicans. The rhetoric employed by the Republicans endorsing Obama reveals part of the Obama campaign's fall strategy -- to position Obama as the traditional, common-sense candidate and McCain as the dangerous radical.
Such imagery runs counter to the framing of McCain as a comfortable, reliable presence and Obama as a dangerous, unfamiliar figure. And it seems discordant with Obama's own positioning as an outsider to Washington who will bring change. Looked at more closely, however, and this branding of Obama as being more traditional than McCain is central to the theme of Change You Can Believe In. If pursued successfully, the rhetoric voiced yesterday will make it very difficult for John McCain to win the presidency this November.
More about the conference call and how it reveals a major aspect of the fall campaign strategy after the jump.
Barack Obama will soon release the third book in the deal he signed just after being elected U.S. Senator four years ago. It's a campaign book, details below the fold.
Back in February, I warned about the hyperbole coming from the Clinton campaign about Kosovo's declaration of independence. I argued it would set "a new precedent for a potentially explosive series of other pro-Russian areas of the Caucusus to declare independence, such as Transdniestr from Moldova, or South-Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia." And I applauded the more cautious and even-handed Obama campaign statement.
Interestingly, the events in Georgia are offering a new chance to contrast foreign policy approaches:
Obama’s statement put him in line with the White House, the European Union, NATO and a series of European powers, while McCain’s initial statement[...] put him more closely in line with the moral clarity and American exceptionalism projected by President Bush’s first term.
A McCain adviser suggested that Obama’s statement constituted appeasement, while Obama’s camp suggested that McCain was being needlessly belligerent and dangerously quick to judge a complicated situation.
“I strongly condemn the outbreak of violence in Georgia, and urge an immediate end to armed conflict,” Obama said in a written statement. “Now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint and to avoid an escalation to full-scale war. Georgia’s territorial integrity must be respected.”
Obama added briefly that the international community should get involved. More than an hour later, as more details of Russia’s incursion into Georgia emerged, he cited Russia more directly: “What is clear is that Russia has invaded Georgia’s sovereign — has encroached on Georgia’s sovereignty,” he told reporters in Sacramento.
McCain’s statement was longer, more detailed and more confrontational.
"[T]he news reports indicate that Russian military forces crossed an internationally recognized border into the sovereign territory of Georgia. Russia should immediately and unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory.
“The government of Georgia has called for a ceasefire and for a resumption of direct talks on South Ossetia with international mediators. The U.S. should immediately work with the EU and the OSCE to put diplomatic pressure on Russia to reverse this perilous course that it has chosen.”
Thanks to all who signed up and participated in the Barack Birthday Bake Off. There are four Food Tasters for Obama logo t-shirt winners instead of three, because we had a tie in the "organizing ideas" category. The winners (three wonderful recipes are avaiable below the fold) are:
Best Recipe: Erica Rivera's Black and White Birthday Cake (an original recipe)
Best Photo: Hanneke Hoogstrate's Berry Spangled Baked Cheesecake and Banoffi Cheesecake on the Batavia (Jakarta Indonesia's colonial name, providing one more degree of separation from the candidate) ship's chest (posted on her Dutch website at http://www.blago.net/_baking_08/08_04_berry_tart.php)
Best Organizing Ideas:
--David Levy's (who prepared a Unity Pound Cake for 60 at an outdoor party of the Prince George's County MD office), and
--Michaele Camp (whose Sour Cream Pound Cake won the Bake Off hosted by Gena Bowser and Sharon Wilkerson at the Urban Tea Loft in Chandler AZ)
The GOP surprised us when it failed to respond more constructively to the bipartisan overture from Barack Obama. I personally witnessed the precedent-setting bipartisan dinner for his defeated opponent (my photo of the President-elect at the dinner honoring McCain, January 19) and noted the subsequent meetings with Congressional Republicans. And what did we get in the way of proposals from the loyal opposition? More of the dogma-driven, supply-side ideology that contributed to our current mess: tax cuts! 
Inspired by his observation of the Chinese Government’s efficient management of the Olympics, George Bush has evidently returned to Washington full of exciting ideas he hopes will ensure John McCain’s victory in November..jpg)
But none of the Chinese measures has excited Republicans as much as the “passport solution”. The GOP is taking its cue from 
Best Recipe: Erica Rivera's Black and White Birthday Cake (an original recipe) 
