Barack Obama officially announced his candidacy today. You can read his announcement speech here. I’d like to hear people’s thoughts about Obama. I like him personally, although he’s not perfect…no one is. I worry about whether he is savvy enough to weather a full campaign, but I have no confidence in the dinosaurs that actually have experience running Presidential campaigns. I don’t think I have to worry very much about major gaffes. He can probably make up for any factual errors and he is not prone to saying impolitic things. I need to see his policy positions, but for a Senator he is a solidly progressive voice. As a Presidential candidate, he is a good deal to the left of anyone since Mondale. I can’t really complain on this score. And I think he actually has a lot of potential, if elected, to not only break down some significant barriers, but to really start healing the partisan divide in this country. I’m keeping an open mind about him. And, even though I once hoped he would not run, now I am glad he decided to. I look forward to watching his campaign.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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is in my diary. Obama’s Best Fit is in the US Senate.
If we have not already withdrawn from Iraq by then, we will going to be withdrawing soon after, whatever non-Republican gets elected. Either way, once we leave we will be dealing with the aftermath of The Great Mistake for a very long time.
We are looking at the biggest national deficit in history. This will be aggravated by an impending housing crisis, the holding of our national debt by China, and other financial problems. Someday we could end referring to the 1930s as the era of the First Great Depression, much as we now speak of the First World War.
We will need to find a way to employ our citizens in something other than McJobs.
We will be facing the consequences of global warming.
We will be weakened abroad by the actions we took in the previous eight years.
And none of this addresses terrorism, racism, immigration, poverty, hunger, education, health care, and other problems, real and pereived, that were carried over from the previous millenium.
The person I want as President of the United States is the person who can best navigate these troubled waters.
If Obama is that man, damn straight I’ll vote for him.
I felt that Obama’s speech today was very timid, and moreover I feel that Obama is not very far too the left. I think that he has been coopted by the Wall Street wing of the party represented most conceretely by Robert Rubin’s Hamilton Project. His rhetoric about “hope” parallels the sort of things that the Hamilton Project stands for. Tactical modifications to sustain the economic status quo with no recognition that we need someone who is willing to use the State to protect American workers and familes against the negative consequences of the market.
Political economy will be the issue in 2008, and Obama thus far has shown a tendency to capitulate to the way things are, rather than challenge the system. I his keynote speech for the founding of the Hamilton Project, Obama’s proposed solution to the employment crisis created in this country created by trade was retraining. That we have PhDs seeing their positions shipped overseas appears to have eluded the Senator.
I guess we’ll just have to “hope” that things work out ok.
I agree. Reading that speech was basically nothing more than pretty words…anyone could have given that speech. It really gave no clue or insight into Obama that I could see. If he doesn’t get off the whole ‘hope’ thing and start talking about concrete plans he’ll be defined by that soundbite and nothing else.
One thing I didn’t like on a real personal level was his dragging his faith into the speech right off the bat. I suppose I shouldn’t nitpick about that but I’ve had it with religion even hinted at in speeches.
Also while he was against the war I noticed in his speech he mentioned we had to go after the ‘terrorists’ with a strong military…to me that’s completely wrong thinking..it’s not the military’s job to go after terrorists.
I have nothing against Obama but right now I certainly can’t picture him as President and Commander-in-Chief.
Posted last evening: Great Black Hope or A symbolic day for America?
Obama is:
Inspiring
Definitely ‘a storybook’
Liked his retort when challenged on his lack of experience.
Obama is a serious campaigner. On NPR, Weekend Edition, it was reported Obama has raised over $21 million in a very short time. He has bagged some big donors and fund raisers as Josh Marshall at the TPM crowd been tracking
Meanwhile in New Hampshire, Hillary was challenged on her vote for the Iraq war. Seeking to clarify her vote, she’s reported to have said: “I didn’t vote for Pre-emptive war”
In our barn, we have little green pigs that will fly on cue. Over in New Hampshire, they’re not buying that Hillary excuse.
Sorry, I can’t share your enthusiasm for this retort. Not only is this the way politicians standardly respond to this sort of criticism, it completely misses the point.
Look, people who say that X lacks the experience to do a certain job well are claiming that experience (greater than X possesses) is a necessary condition for doing that job well.
Pointing to people with greater experience who have done the job poorly not only doesn’t rebut that claim, it doesn’t even address it. Rather, it rebuts the claim that experience is sufficient for doing the job well — which is not the claim that the critic was making, and probably not a claim that anyone would make regarding any job.
Thus, this retort might be rhetorically devastating (causing people to think, “Wow, great response!”), but it’s a straw man argument; it projects onto the critic a position different from, and easier to refute than, the one he/she actually expressed — and then refutes it.
I hope I don’t sound peevish, but this is rather a pet peeve of mine.
I gave you a 4 because you correctly used neccesary and sufficient in a normal sentence.
quite correct, it’s not answering the charge that he has no experience to do the job by saying “well these other guys did a lousy job, too!”
Politicians are by nature rhetoricians. Unless I’ve failed to comprehend, I think your agrument confirms Obama’s retort. I’ll let 3 posts speak to your comment.
obama also lacks experience, even if he chooses cheney and bush as his strawmen.
What’s missing from information about any of the candidates is who will be in the cabinet. To whom will the next President turn, for example, for sage advice on military matters, including disengaging from Iraq?
Experience in dealing with Congress — being able to win opponents over, knowing the best approaches to compromise and legislation — comes from years of service in Congress. If Obama doesn’t have that experience, how will he make it up?
I’m currently supporting Obama. My support is soft at the moment, but the only other candidate I can see myself supporting at this time (Edwards) has done a couple things recently that have driven me away from him for some time. First, he made some stupid comments on Iran that took him some time to clarify. Secondly, I think his campaign isn’t making a genuine effort to do netroots outreach. In the whole fiasco over Amanda and Melissa, it became evident that the campaign hadn’t bothered to really even acquaint themselves with those two. Additionally, Edwards had never even spoken to them before the ‘uproar’ over their postings as it related to Catholics. To me, it shows a truly shallow effort to reach out and engage the netroots. I know Edwards has posted and responded at Daily Kos before, but there’s a little more to netroots outreach than that.
For now, Obama’s the candidate I support, and his speech today was a good first step. And his presidential campaign logo is kickass.
Agreed on the campaign logo, it’s genius. I love the “it’s morning again in America” element to it…
i am glad you enjoy the logo. now prepare yourself for obama’s endless references to god and the almighty.
Heh, well, I can’t vote for or against him, but I can appreciate a slick PR campaign when I see one. 🙂
Although to be honest, I wouldn’t mind Obama’s faith being a big part of his politics as long as it’s not a big part of his policy, if that makes sense. Obama can talk about God all he wants, as long as he doesn’t say that God told him to bomb Iraq or ban abortion or the like. If he wants to promote basic human values like compassion, charity and cooperation through his faith, that sounds fine to me.
Religion has no place in political discourse. And I will not support a candidate who believes it does, as it is retardataire.
Yeah, because the “I Have A Dream” speech was really “retardataire”.
We don’t get a civil rights movement without the black church being involved in politics.
But MLK’s use of religion in order to give figuration to black liberation is quite different from using it to establish one’s credibility with voters. bad comparison. get real.
you are netroots for obama coordinator, which to me signifies more than lukewarm support. is this the result of adam b, or are you seriously considering obama a viable candidate?
i have many concerns about obama. first is the scandal surrounding the property he and his wife purchased in chicago. his explanation that he will never again involve himself with someone of the likes of reszko simply fails to cut the mustard. second is his wife’s relationship to the university of chicago hospital, a hospital that overcharges its patients while forcing the university’s students to accept a terrible policy that does not cover basic services. head administrator of the hospital, michelle obama’s policies in now way dovetail with any committment to fair, accessible and affordable health care. third is his support for problematic trade agreements as well as his unwillingness to block judicial nominees such as brent kavanaugh, who broke into democratic senators’ computers during the 2003 filibusters. i know for a fact that obama does not respond to constituent mail in a timely manner, and his staff has laughed at constituents who telephone with tough questions. that he runs his office in such a manner is of real concern to me and many others. his support of pro-war candidates instead of anti-war candidates during the primaries last year in illinois is also a problem, especially as he is now affiliating himself with those who want immediate withdrawal. that he claimed to be against the war, then remained silent for almost two years while support pro-war candidates and now is vocal about his opposition reveals he is unable to take a stand until after he feels his stance is popular. i am also concerned about his relationship to the chicago machine, particularly that of daley and emanuel. i also want his supporters to explain how he could accept campaign contributions from a corrupt bank in the uptown neighborhood of chicago and then support the thirty year old son of the the founder of that bank for state treasurer. if anyone knows anything about illinois politics, they know obama is steeped in the machine he claims he is against. it is a nice logo, but i am not one to be duped by the oxymoron many call commodity aesthetics.
thanks, but no thanks.
call me when an authentic politician with a real message emerges.
i take issue with the way you address your colleagues at dailykos. i also find your flaunting of your degree at dailykos somewhat undignified.
regarding michelle obama, she still works at an institution that overcharges its patients while exploiting the student body it serves. i wonder what community she is serving.
tammy duckworth did espouse the rhetoric of withdrawing when they stand up. obama, moreover, aggressively campaigned on her behalf, even appearing in commercials.
daley and obama announced mutual endorsements within the same week. instead of supporting african-american progressives from the west and south side, he endorsed the machine candidate who was more than glad to reciprocate. the transparency of the whole affair was beyond offensive.
and perhaps we should discuss the reszko deal and the relation obama has to alexi goullianis, the state treasurer for whom obama campaign whose father’s bank, the broadway bank, gave loans to known organized crime participants while also bankrolling obama’s 2004 campaign. reeks of machine politics to me.
thank you for your response. i look forward to your rebuttal.
If you can find any evidence that I’ve “flaunted” my degree, I’d love to see it. Beyond that:
imagine obtaining a pap smear for half the price at northwestern than at university of chicago. and imagine paying ten times less at planned parenthood. imagine many students having to have surgery done at rush or at northwestern because they cannot afford the university of chicago. just compare prices for any procedure online.
Funny, according to their website, pap smears are automatically covered as part of the mandatory “Student Health & Wellness Fee”.
If you want to provide links or evidence, I’ll look at them, but you’re not proving yourself to be credible.
i am credible, as my friends have had to deal with this problem, especially when it comes to having the operation one has when one discovers they have a virus that requires the removal of a portion of the uterus. dismiss it all you want, but these are the experiences of real people, and i can provide you an email address if you want the details of one student’s medical history.
poor service, poor outreach to students, poor student clinic practices, no attempt to modify the program. this does not look good for obama.
your tendentiousness also ruins your credibility.
You said I should “just compare prices for any procedure online.” I did.
And the idea that Obama is accountable because his wife works someplace that may or may not be ideal — but not in anything she has control over — is ludicrous.
it does, however, complicate any health care platform he may have, especially as his wife is part of the very bureaucracy that results in exorbitant health care prices. and the surgeries my friends have had to pursue at other hospitals instead of the one at the unversity they attend is evidence enough. your little citation on a pap smear is just the surface. pap smears are covered, but that is just preventative. real medicene costs money, and students who live on very little deserve coverage, not the inconvenience of having to compare hospitals and beg administrators to transfer records when they have a hospital on their campus. bad community relations.
only a pundit would invalidate real experiences with a citation of a pap smear expense. truly callous.
You brought up pap smears, so that’s why I looked it up. Don’t blame me because your own arguments collapse upon inspection.
Again: Michelle Obama isn’t responsible for everything the Hospital does, and neither is her husband.
to address your petty argument: i did not have the threat of cervical cancer, a friend did. her experience with the university of chicago was horrid, and she cried on the phone to me many times. she did have the threatened part of her uterus removed, however. i also recall a student in the english department who died as a result of her inability to afford medical procedures at the hospital, and the english department now has a fund in her name for emergency medicene its students cannot afford. that is a sad commentary on the hospital’s relation to the student community.
they actually are. 2.3 million or something within that range to Duckworth during the last two weeks for a terrible commercial that clearly did not work.
she raised 800,000 with the help of kerry, clinton and obama before the primary.
look at the reports yourself. or just ask any cegelis supporter.
you are just trying to invalidate me just as you invalidate anyone who disagrees with you at dailykos. it will not work this time, even if you have a JD from Chicago. for you are not the only one who holds powerful degrees.
I looked: she raised $521K in the last month of her primary campaign, and barely over a million in total.
You are making stuff up. That’s why your arguments have no merit.
raised with the help of kerry, clinton and obama. also, his appearances in television commercials on her behalf, interveiws on stephanopolous, etc etc. and the expenditure was on her behalf by the dccc. but the coordinated message created by clinton, kerry and the chicago machine on duckworth’s behalf still existed. and she raised a lot of money just before the primary in addition to all the free media illinois politicians gave her. more evidence of machine politics.
I didn’t realize there was a law against incumbents picking to endorse someone in a primary.
i guess from a legal standpoint a lot of egregious behaviour is considered acceptable. but from an ethical standpoint it is not, and this is why i consider his engagement with machine politics in many instances when i consider his candidacy for President. viewing the world through the myopic lens of the law only gets on so far. it may have its material rewards, but it does not necessarily make one a good citizen.
Rezko – Obama stated it was a mistake he would never repeat. that is not an explanation, and it certainly warrants more investigation.
blurring distictions for the benefit of your preferred candidate does not reflect well on you or on your candidate. i must say you are a bit overzealous.
cegelis advocated withdrawal and a timeline, while duckworth would not commit to such a timeline. obama now calls for a timeline, but only know that he knows a clear majority, not a mere majority, want such a plan. but he came almost a year too late.
and he got involved in an election against a community activist, endorsing a machine candidate instead. how this in any way dovetails with his committment to the grassroots or to the roots he claims to have in community activism is beyond my comprehension. it cannot be spun. he is a machine politician who uses the rhetoric of grassroots while playing the same game establishment candidates play.
i do not trust candidates who lie.
Cegelis was a lousy candidate who couldn’t fundraise and wasn’t going to win the general election.
that is an opinion, and the candidate the machine ran against her lost despite a last minute 2.3 million dollar investment. someone who advocates for election reform should not prop up carpetbaggers who require millions of dollars to run a campaign, especially when 800,000 of that money was spent to oust the community organizer, activist candidate in the primary. another contradiction.
Your claims are not borne out by the FEC filings. At all.
Do other people here take you seriously when you just make stuff up?
she raised 800,000 before the march primary, and there was a two million dollar expenditure from the dccc on behalf of duckworth during the last two weeks of her campaign. check the filings.
Actually, there is no such expenditure listed in the FEC filings. Look for yourself, because you clearly haven’t yet.
then you need to look harder, for i remember seeing it when reviewing the 24 hour filings during the last week of the election. it was a major media purchase. major. 2.3 million.
I am not your research assistant. You’ve lied repeatedly throughout this thread, and it’s not my job to save you.
i have not lied. i have typed what i know, what i have read and what i have heard. because it is not my job to comment on obama’s candidacy, i do not feel compelled to do all the requisite research. and i do not feel it is my responsibility to demonstrate to you or to anyone else where every document i reference is located. i read the fcc reports; i saw the expenditure; and i remember a certain candidate lost an election we should have won. since you are an avid reader of blogs, perhaps you can read the threads posted on late dccc expenditures. the 2.3 million dollar investment was commented on by many bloggers, and i imagine the citations to the document are there.
thank you for calling what i have written a batch of lies. your intention was to enter the thread and invalidate me, and i will have none of it.
l.g.
it’s reasonable to respond to assertions with requests for links, particularly when he is willing to provide links for his assertions.
It’s impossible to have a fair debate when one side is making assertion based on memory only.
What I’d do is take some time, when you have it, to find the links for your recollection, refresh your recollection, and make a solid case that you can back up. You seem to have a lot of good points, but its hard to weigh them without links.
I didn’t realize you were referring to the general election, because all your talk was about how unfair everyone was to poor Christine Cegelis. Yes, the DCCC spent a lot on that general and lost, but who could fault them for trying to win an open seat?
It’s not my job to comment on Obama’s candidacy either. I just choose to use Google and verify what I say. You just say whatever you think might be true.
I will write a diary when the time requires it. because this is a comments thread, i did not think i had some grand burden of proof to fulfill. i normally do not engage in debates during a primary, but i am just so tired of Obamamania. I will compose a diary soon, and all the citations any needs, including scanned medical bills if they so require them, will appear in due time. And notice I am not the only one to rely on memory. Adam also states “to my memory” on many occassions. Thank you for the admonition or recommendation.
and i am referring to the general, not the primary. the point, as it has clearly been lost, is that your candidate also lost, despite having obama and the machine behind her. they should have stuck with the community activist they actively undermined.
you claim no one is forced to accept a health plan, but you do not know that many students, perhaps not students in the (para)professional schools, cannot afford other plans. besides, students at other institutions, particularly harvard and berkeley, enjoy student health plans that provide quality health care at very little expense. students have threatened to riot, but the chancellor of the school stated unambiguously that he would expel any student who would organize. and the plan and the coverage offered by the student clinic has not changed. you can callously dismiss students who rely on a university to provide health care, but that would be unfair, unless, of course, one does not understand the plight of the typical graduate student. because the university of chicago is a private hospital that enjoys a loose affiliation with the university it supposedly serves, students are one of the communities with which the hospital conducts outreach. the service is terrible; the clinic is too expensive; normal procedures are not covered by the insurance the university provides; and the clinicians do not inform students if a test or an IV is covered by the student plan. this is terrible outreach, and those who are in charge of the student clinic have no responded to student concerns for five years at least. if this is her idea of community service, i wonder how she can serve as a spokesperson for universal health care, especially as the university of chicago is a very wealthy hospital. regarding kavanaugh, he was involved in the hacking of computers, and this was discussed more than once and by more than one senator during the hearings. perhaps you need to watch them, and perhaps you can find yet another quote where obama triangulates his way out of his vote for yes on cloture.
Kavanaugh was not involved in the hacking of computers. He was asked about this during the hearings, denied all involvement, none was proven, and he was confirmed easily.
Here’s the hearing transcript:
you are quoting orrin hatch. but reports stated he was involved in memos to that effect. and he was also on bush’s legal team at the time when these activist judges were before the judiciary committee. other democrats did not vote for cloture, why did obama?
Link to any such report. And I quoted Kavanaugh and Hatch; no other Senator asked him these questions.
articles noted his involvement, however loose, to the hacking of the computers in order to learn democratic strategy. and even if he was suspected, this is not something a judge should even be near. article after article mentioned the scandal as i recall.
and no, i will not provide citations. i am involved in a skype conversation, and i am recalling what i know i read. you are obviously much more committed than i am, and i am now coming out against obama for the first time in public. the knowledge is cumulative. and no, unlike you, i have not endorsed any candidates.
Great. Then it shouldn’t be hard for you to find one. Forgive me for not relying on your recollection. No rush.
the roll call speaks for itself. he voted with the centrists on the cloture motion. and this was someone on bush’s legal team who views the judiciary as a political office and not a legal office of distanced and objective people of dignity. his vote against cloture speaks for itself, especially when kavanaugh was under suspicion.
You said, “regarding kavanaugh, he was involved in the hacking of computers, and this was discussed more than once and by more than one senator during the hearings.”
I’ve demonstrated that was untrue. So you back off. Where is your evidence that Kavanaugh “views the judiciary as a political office and not a legal office of distanced and objective people of dignity”.
Obama voted against confirmation on Kavanaugh, for what it’s worth. He just believed, I guess, that he was entitled to an up or down vote.
oh yes, the up or down vote. i do not believe someone who rendered the judiciary into a rubber stamp for the president deserves an up or down vote. i and many other democrats in the senate also do not believe someone remotely related to the crisis that occurred with dick durbin’s computer deserves an up or down vote. and the symbolic vote is just symbolic.
you clearly have more investment in politics than i do, which is why i do not feel the need to cite when having a conversation with a relative oversees in another language. besides, i am an ordinary voter, and this is what i know based on my review of the articles and data made available to me. i may have been inconsistent once, and you can focus on that one inconsistency, but that does not undermine the edifice of my thought. and besides, if i were to remove the tendentious glue from all the cobbles you have mustered to demonstrate your point, all we would be left with is a bunch of rubble.
You are making things up, over and over again. There is no connection between Kavanaugh and the hacking.
If you want to have a real discussion, start using facts.
article after article stated that he was under suspicion, and i personally have reason to believe he was involved. after all, he forced unqualified, activist judges through that committee. you do this at daily kos, and now you are doing it here. you start flame wars, cite whatever you want willy nilly, fail to understand that others may not feel the need to cite articles or whatever else when they are engaged in a conversation on skype while participating in a flame war, as this is what it is, on a blog, and, moreover, engage with someone for whom they have little to no respect. you are condescending, and you will do anything to invalidate another person’s argument. this is why i have no interest in convincing you otherwise, for you are already convinced your position is the correct position. you can justify anything you want, and you know this as you are an attorney, and you know all evidence is inherently factitous. and you are just here to try to humiliate and win, and i am frankly not interested in such antics.
i have just highlighted the contradictions of which i am aware, and you have done nothing to invalidate them. you may think you have, and i am sure you are very proud of yourself, but i believe you have demonstrated once again why many just refuse to engage in any discussion with you. and it is, frankly, a huge waste of everyone’s time. but again, if you insist…
“Article after article”. Find one. Or any support for the notion that Kavanaugh — who never was a Senator — forced any Senator to do anything.
I demand evidence because you print lies and offer them as fact. I know you don’t care about facts; I just want to make sure everyone else reading this thread knows that too.
i never said he was a senator. but he was involved with bush’s legal team. that is obvious. and in the print reports i read from the ap his relation to the scandal involving the hacking of computers was an issue for many senate democrats. i never said he was a senator, and i did not bookmark the article for future reference. and regarding right now, i simply lack the will to satisfy your legal desire for me to produce evidence. i guess you and others can perform the search and read the news articles generated at that time.
just because one provides a citation does not always make one’s statements true. and besides, this is an informed opinion i have formulated over time, and one generally casts a vote with one’s opinions in mind. you obviously have an opinion, and i respect it. what i do not respect is your contention that only you possess the facts. the arrogance of your apodictic tone along with the ad hominem statements you regularly generate make it very difficult for me to want to engage seriously in any conversation you may want to have. i guess one can say i just lack the will.
I’m not the only one who possesses facts; indeed, I had to look up some of this myself to verify it. But at least I show an interest in finding out what the facts are.
Use Google. Come back when you’re ready to discuss facts and not fictions.
I will continue to respond in the comments thread as i see fit. when i write a DIARY, i will provide all the links required to buttress my argument. to be quite frank, i loathe primary debates, as it becomes less an argument about the quality of the candidates and the perceptions many have of their performance but more of a battle between egomaniacs who desire to outwit one another. i will have my diary in response to your various claims in due time. i am still engaged in a very interesting conversation on skype, and i do not know when it will end. so relax until i have my chance to write my assessment of the candidate you support.
It’s amazing how many lies you can type while you’re so busy. Bye.
and daley, by the way, vetoed the big box ordinance, which would have forced wal-mart and other large merchants to pay a living wage to its workers if they were to have stores in chicago. obama, in other words, endorsed a man who does not support local communities or the lower wage workers who live in them. obama, in other words, supports a man who supports increased ghettoization and exploitation of the already battered inhabitants of the city daley has gentrified at their expense. this is anything but progressive. it is, in fact, machine politics at its worst.
The Big Box ordinance should have passed. I don’t believe that when you endorse a candidate, you have to support everything he’s ever done.
and it is now the topic of almost every aldermanic race in chicago. it is a very big deal here, and i do believe one has to take a stand on such issues, especially as that issue preceded the endorsements by less than a month. bad move. bad for chicago; bad for obama.
It’s a group on Obama’s website, not some official ‘position’. Stop trying to make it into something more than it is. Secondly, I have no idea why you’re linking Adam to this. You truly are paranoid.
If you guys want a pure candidate, run for office yourself. No one is perfect, but as of now, Obama is the one I have the least concern about. Furthermore, he’s the candidate who truly inspires others to believe that there can be a change in the cynical politics that the right-wingers and people like you on the left participate in.
I think it’s highly ironic that many of the people who are cutting down Obama now were old enough to remember RFK, who had just as little electoral experience on the federal level and similarly didn’t have specific policy details either – except for a message of hope and ending a war gone terribly wrong.
That’s my two cents, and you need to stop being bitter.
sorry, but i was born a lot later than RFK. i just happen to know a little more than you about politics in hyde park and in chicago. and no, i am not an extremist, but i do have a committment to social justice.
that are largely ignored. This part of Obama’s speech grabbed my attention:
With the Democratic party deciding the primary candidates, supporting Lieberman after he lost the primary, the corporate owned MSM controlling the spin and the think tank deciding our foreign policy, I do feel reduced to silly letters and phone calls.
Recognizing a problem is the first step to fixing it. For that, I give Obama kudos.
Clark would probably be my first choice, if he should run. I’m still torn about Obama. I feel that he’s voted more for (one-sided) “bipartisanship” than in support of the public’s needs and wants.
Your quote on “they get the access, you get to write a letter,” may be especially vivid in looking at his incoming mail. I’ve read a complaint today that Obama’s staff is dilatory in answering their e-mail, while Sen Durbin generally answers all of his within a couple of weeks.
There is a check-off box on Obama’s webform as to wanting a response or not, so I’ve never worried about answers. What is no doubt Obama’s concern is the problem of lobbyist influence preventing good legislation that is more equitable and desirable.
Obama has a good track record on ethics, achieving some reform in both the US and Illinois senates. Getting the K-Street influence arm-wrestled out of DC is now harder to do with Atty Gen Gonzales eliminating a US Atty such as Carol Lam, who was in the midst of corruption investigations and indictments that had tentacles leading to Congress. Heck, ALL of the turnover in suspect at that level.
I thought it was interesting that Obama was the only of the Big Three not to buy blogads on the day he announced. At least, they aren’t up yet, which seems like a mistake.
I used to view Obama as a threat to “my” candidate, I’m a John Edwards supporter, but the more I read about him the less I like him because he seems too much like a triangulator. His “present” votes in the Illinois legislature on issues like abortion and gun control bother me more than anything. But, there is also all this talk of bipartisanship, and misquoting Lincoln to suggest he believed in such tripe.
Lincoln was a fighter who never reached for the middle ground, far from it, at least until the war was over.
sorry, but i am not interested in triangulation or in politicians who mistake image for authenticity. i also cannot support a candidate who claims he is against insider politics while engaging in the tactics of the chicago machine. and lastly, his problematic votes on abortion and gay marriage in the illinois state legislature really cause major concern for those of us who do believe in civil rights.
Friday’s WaPo:
You can find Obama’s speech in support of his vote against a Federal Marriage Amendment here.
Hi adam, I read that and thought to myself, “Gee, Obama couldn’t walk his talk on abortion rights because he was afraid of someone bringing it up in a political campaign?”
Since you put this up in Obama’s defense, am I reading this wrong? Or is this as much a defense of his pro-choice stance that can be made? As someone who volunteers her time at PP, I’m getting a little tired of women’s rights being the red-headed stepchild of politics.
No, because his seat was safe. He was using it as a way of providing cover for other legislators to say, “This bill doesn’t merit an up-or-down vote,” and it was defeated.
but he did not represent his constituents, who are largely liberal students, liberal professors and liberal african-americans. i guess he does not vote in the interest of his constitutents. that is not very progressive, and it certainly does not reveal a committment to local politics and local, grassroots organization.
I’m well aware of who his constituents are; I used to be one of them. The bill was defeated. Hyde Park overwhelmingly supported him in the Senate primary.
that is unrelated to the issue at hand.
You said he was doing things you believe the community didn’t support. Hyde Park loves him plenty. It’s related, because otherwise, why did you bring it up?
locals always vote for the local candidate. none of these issues surfaced during that primary, and i imagine they will once the primaries begin. let us hope that people will vote on substance and not on image and rhetoric.
such an explanation does not cut the mustard, especially as he was more concerned about votes than actual legislation that would secure the rights of gay men, lesbians and heterosexual women.
Funny, because Illinois amended its Human Rights Act to cover discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, a bill for which Obama was a chief sponsor.
but voting absent to give political cover when one’s constituents certainly would want one to vote otherwise is the issue. and discrimination is sometimes the result of the lack of opportunity given to gay men and lesbians in other spheres. maybe if you were a gay man or lesbian you would understand why this present vote is so offensive.
You said Obama wasn’t concerned about “actual legislation that would secure the rights of gay men, lesbians and heterosexual women. “
Clearly, you’re wrong. And he didn’t vote “absent”.
marriage is a right. voting absent on abortion rights also affects the rights of other constituencies oppressed along the axis of sex and gender, by the way
on gay marriage he voted present also while sitting in the illinois legislature. look, i know he was your professor, but perhaps you need to take a step back and get an objective view of your candidate.
From what I can tell, that, too, is completely false. I can’t find anything on a “gay marriage” vote while he was in the state senate.
You, like the Bush administration, cannot create your own reality by your say-so.
I have not checked the record, but many here and at other blogs have stated that he voted present on a gay marriage bill. and even if he did not, the present vote on late term abortion is beyond inexcusable. and yes, a present vote on such legislation affects people of all sexualities.
Lots of people said there were WMDs in Iraq too. He did not vote “present” on any gar marriage bill.
The late-term bill was defeated, and his vote was for strategic reasons expressed above. Planned Parenthood supported his decision, but I guess the people on the blogs and the imaginary ones in your head are more credible.
It is always pleasant to have someone dismiss you and your arguments by calling you insane. I imagine you, an egomaniac, is a paragon of mental (and physical) health. The strategic reasons, even if endorsed by Planned Parenthood, are inexcusable, and it reveals a committment to party and not to principle, which contradicts what he now espouses. Given all the other contradictions I discuss, this is a real concern, and I imagine women who rely on elected representatives to defend their rights would not understand his shrewd strategy when in their third term.
Planned Parenthood endorsed the move because it would help keep pro-choice legislators in office. The principle was “let’s not lose good legislators because of this vote.”
I’m sorry you don’t understand this, because his strategy resulted in the ban being defeated and women’s rights being defended.
Let me understand this.
The idea was that there were a bunch of downstate democrats that didn’t want to vote against this bill and have used against them as a baseball bat. But they didn’t want to vote for it because they are pro-choice.
SO, the idea was to get a bunch of people to vote ‘present’ and then the downstate legislators could say “I’m not chicken, this was just a partisan vote that had no chance of passing’.
So, since Obama had a safe seat he volunteered to be one of those people that swelled the ranks of the ‘present’ vote. Is that correct?
My recollection, confirmed by that WaPo piece, is that they needed some leading, unquestionably pro-choice legislator to vote “present” as a way of marking this as a legitimate way for pro-choicers to vote.
Ok. That makes sense. Hardly standing on principle but a reasonable parliamentary strategem.
I apologize to everyone about the seemingly interminable conversation i had to have in this thread. as you can see, my interlocutor was quibbling over many niceties unrelated to the broader concerns i had. trying to invalidate everything i wrote as i rapidly repsonded to his comments, i may have made a small error here or there. but the concerns remain, and i hope to never have to engage in such a counterproductive conversation ever again. as one can see, nothing was accomplished during the exchange except the production of a lot of heated text.
Sure, because who needs “niceties” (i.e., “facts”) when you’ve got “broader concerns”?