cross-posted @ One Million Strong
Debate Schedule
October 30, 2007 – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
November 15, 2007 – Las Vegas, Nevada
December 10, 2007 – Los Angeles, California
January 6, 2008 – Johnson County, Iowa
January 15, 2008 – Las Vegas, Nevada
January 31, 2008 – California
Obama Campaign Close the ($$$) Gap!!! We did, only the gap was closed in 3 days versus the 5 days that FirstRead is reporting.
obama, ridin’ that bike to where?
Read kid oakland
For Obama, Not Politics as Usual
Obama Faithful
Excerpts From an Interview with Barack Obama
Q. Why have you not been more aggressive distinguishing yourself from Senator Clinton?
A. “We never planned on winning this thing in September. Our strategy has always been based on making the case to voters when they were paying attention and that is in late October, November, December. We feel like we’re on schedule. There’s no doubt that it’s important for us to make the case to the voters as to why I would be the strongest nominee and, more importantly, why I would be the best president for this particular time in history. I expect to make that case forcefully over the next couple of months.”
Q. How are you reassuring contributors?
A. “People who signed up for my race, I think, were pretty clear and have always been pretty clear that I was going to be the underdog. It’s not like that people got into this race with blinders on. We’re running against the most established brand in the Democratic Party for the last two decades, as well as strong candidates like Edwards who have been running for the last four years. So I think our supporters, our donor base, always understood that this was going to be a tough fight.”
Q. But if you’re running against an established brand, don’t you have to draw contrasts?
A. “Our first job was just getting known, and we’ve been able to do that in the early states. It’s interesting. I think what we’ve found was there was a lot of awareness of me as someone who delivered a speech in 2004, not much awareness of my track record as a community organizer, as a civil rights lawyer, a law professor, a state senator, a U.S. senator. There has been a lot of biographical work that we’ve had to do over the last several months, and where we’ve done it is in the early states; we’ve found ourselves in a very strong position to win.”
Q. Why would you be a better uniter than Senator Clinton?
A. “There is a legacy that is both an enormous advantage to her in a Democratic primary, but also a disadvantage to her in a general election. She, I think, represents a lot of old arguments.
“I recognize that she has reached out to Republicans in a very deliberate way in the Senate, but if you look at how she is perceived nationally, I think people perceive her as a tough, competent, intelligent person. But there’s no sense among independents or Republicans that she’s going to bring a new language to our politics.
“On the one hand, I think people know what they are going to get with Senator Clinton. On the other hand, if you believe that the country needs big change, if you believe that business as usual is not sufficient to solve health care or institute a major energy policy or help to heal racial divisions or religious divides in this country, then my candidacy looks more appealing.”
Q. Has she been truthful to voters about what she would do as president?
A. “No.
“I don’t think people know what her agenda exactly is. On Social Security, in the last debate, she was very explicit about not wanting to disclose how she would approach it. On Iraq and Iran, I think there has been a tendency to go back and forth in her positions. Now, it’s been very deft politically, but one of the things that I firmly believe is that we’ve got to be clear with the American people right now about the important choices that we’re going to need to make in order to get a mandate for change, not to try to obfuscate and avoid being a target in the general election and then find yourself governing without any support for any bold propositions.” more
Obama Lashes Out at Clinton
Buttery Voice for Obama
Question and Answer with Michelle Obama
Obama Apperances and Campaign Events
October 29, 2007 – Michelle Obama with Congressman Patrick Murphy, Philadelphia, PA
October 29, 2007 – Conversation with Barack Obama, Cedar Rapids, IA
October 29, 2007 – Countdown to Change, Charlottesville, VA
November 1, 2007 – Countdown to Change, Durham, NC
November 14, 2007 – Countdown to Change, San Franciso, CA
Obama’s Opposition Mailer for The Iraq War
Michelle Obama in Slate
new new hampshire ad, “change we can believe in”
Hillary Clinton is Wrong For This Country
No More, Mr. Nice Guy
Black Farmers and Obama
Clinton v. Obama, Gallup, and Historical Precedent
Regular readers of mine know that I am not at all inclined to write off Barack Obama. This is not to say that I think he is the likely nominee of the Democratic Party. My point has simply been that people are underestimating his chances.
The reason I think this is three-fold:
(a) The guy has a real message that he has honed over the last few months. It could resonate with Democrats, who presumably are the most desirous of a national course correction. As evidence of this, we cannot overlook the fact that he has had donations from more than 300,000 individuals.
(b) He has raised $80 million to date. He will be able to compete as well as any presidential candidate ever has.
(c) He is fully staffed in Iowa and New Hampshire. He’ll be blitzing both states with advertisements. He could win one or both states and turn those national numbers upside down.Most pundits who are favoring Hillary Clinton so heavily (and remember – I am not saying that she is not favored; my objection is that people are favoring her too heavily) are using the polls – most often the national polls – to support their point. I have argued that this line of analysis is problematic because the national polls are too volatile. more
Obama Loggin’ the Most Time in Iowa
Heart and Mind of Michelle Obama
Audio/Video
Clinton/Obama Battle for Black Voters Heats Up; Ben Affleck; History Repeating; The Women’s Conference in California (look under Presidential Spouses); New Iowa Ad “Wind”
Convincing Voters is Key to Victory
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., said convincing enough voters he can bring about systemic change to the politics of Washington – not race – is the greatest obstacle to victory in 2008.
“I have a stronger track record than any candidate in the race in consistently working to open up a government and making it more accessible to the people,” Obama told reporters, after formally signing up Monday to appear on the first-in-the-nation primary ballot.
On that score, Obama wrote the following on a souvenir election notice Secretary of State Bill Gardner has candidates sign every four years, which is placed in the state archive: “It’s time for a real change.” more
shoutouts: L C Johnson on valerie plame wilson and the ultimate betrayal; bonddad, on it, as usual; black kos; evangelical crackup; dengre on hillary and the tan family; turkana; perspective people! by cosbo; teacherken, keepin’ it real; dishwashers for hillary; clammyc; FishOutofWater; fema and their fake reporters; obama in st. louis, wonderful photos
Announcements/Campaign Events
Obama opens up two more offices; Colorado Straw Poll; Columbus Mayor Mike Coleman Endorses Obama; Columbus Rally; SEIU Wisconsin Endorses Obama
Obama and Mountain Top Coal Removal
Democrats Invest Heavily in Iowa
Iraq War, No. 1 Issue in Presidential Race
Obama Fights to Overcome View He’s Inexperienced
Myths and Facts in Iowa
Most Money in Utah
Candidates Cash
Govenor Deval Patrick Endorses Senator Barack Obama
Over 9,500 attended the rally. One that will be remembered for many. I diaried the event here.
inevitability
Obama Go On Offense
Nobody is saying American voters are crazy, just that we are not especially rational. When reason and emotion collide, we go with our gut–roughly four out of five times. That is the core message from “The Political Brain,” a recently published book by Drew Westen, a clinical psychologist at Emory University. Westen is one of a small group of liberal social scientists who believe they may hold the key to the Democratic Party’s future. Democrats, they say, must do what Republicans have excelled at: appealing to people’s prejudices and hearts instead of their brains. That insight may be particularly important this political season, when Barack Obama’s skin color makes it impossible for him to avoid talk of race and John Edwards has chosen to define himself largely by issues of class.
Race and class are among the most loaded issues in politics, as Republicans well know. Many candidates have tried to walk a delicate line where they benefit from racial fears and yet appear to be nonracist. Ronald Reagan managed to do that in 1980 by taking his crusade for “states’ rights” to Philadelphia, Miss., best known as the place where civil-rights workers were murdered in the 1960s. “Republicans talk about race, but they talk about it through code … and put the Democrats on the defensive,” says john powell, executive director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University. (powell does not capitalize his name as a nod to e. e. cummings and to the political consciousness of the 1960s.) Democrats ought to engage, says powell. Just as many Republicans have relied on negative, latent racial appeals, Democrats should rely on positive, explicit racial appeals by evoking ideals like fairness, equality and common destiny. Newsweek
Obama: Role for Gore if He Wants
A Social Security Swing
Obama Will Take Up Arms to Protect You
obama at the national summit on agriculture and rural life in ames, ia
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icebergslim’s last word: tolerance. stank ho’ bitch. and daily kos.
Much has been written in this diary, about what happened in our community, yesterday. In fact I visited the diary in question, which is now deleted, and could not get past the images.
The first thing in my mind was WTF? For real. I mean, how anyone can post something like that, is beyond my senses. Then yes, of course, the reason is all about Barack Obama and the McClurkin controversy. But what happened is that the diarist used this moment, to not open dialogue, but to create another wedge issue.
The only reason he chose those particular images was to incense and open dialogue for racist and hate mongering. He was successful. Yesterday. A sad and bad day on Daily Kos.
This brings me to another painful incident in my life. I used to work for Washington Mutual. I travelled. In Irvine, California through the week, though my home office was in Illinois. Yes, I travelled on Sunday and was home Thursday evening or Friday afternoon. Ouch.
Anyway, the company had a big, huge project to bring their mortgage boarding to Windows compliance. This meant traveling around and training lending centers in the United States, etc.
It was a great job and I loved my co-workers across the United States. But an incident that happened changed me about Washington Mutual.
I and two other women had finished having drinks and dinner. We stayed at the Embassy Suites in Irvine, and we all decided to call it an evening and go to our rooms. There was a gentleman who was with the group, others were with us, as well. Anyway he asked if we (three women) would like to go to a sports bar and continue the conversation. We all declined and was at the elevator, practically pushing the button when all of a sudden the words, “You are nothing but a bunch of stank, ho, bitches anyway.”, was hurled at us. Stunned. We looked at each other and the man turned beet red.
One of the young ladies in our group was outraged, so much; tears were spilling from her eyes. I put on my “civil rights” hat and called my manager, woke him up.
What happened after this is what shocked me. We wanted this man fired. But the manager in Illinois “protected him”. He went to anger management classes, recused from flying anywhere but kept his job. But what happened to the three women was far worse.
We were retaliated against, written up bogusly, and one woman force from her job.
We got together and had to sue Washington Mutual for sexism, racism, job retaliation.
In the end, after having to file in federal court, the Bank settled. And it was not until a lot of dirty laundry about this department, manager and supervisors was revealed. All complicit were fired, the department totally revamped, and the three of us walked away, with a check from Washington Mutual.
Was this adventure nice? Worth it? No. I had a great job with wonderful friends and had to fight for basic respect and decency in the workplace. And yes, Washington Mutual had on the books, as long as the company paid for you in another city; you represented the company, after hours.
This brings me to daily kos. kid oakland is right on this statement.
It is not the whole statement that got me, but what does this mean about Daily Kos to allow such material on its site? That is what he questioned. What does it mean? Does it mean the next diary talking about Hispanics as “wetbacks” is acceptable? I would think not, but after yesterday, I think different.
Either the admins were asleep or did not deem it necessary to do anything. And are there any minority admins on kos? If not, believe me, if they were on board that diary would have been deleted. But the damage is done and it is too, late.
All this brings me to this.
Many need to remember that if not for the fight and death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. there probably would not be an avenue for Daily Kos, today. The man walked and talked tolerance. His followers, followed the lead. That is how they made a difference. And for this we have the Civil Rights Act, which many fall under, for which many are “protected” to this day.
We need to remember what tolerance is about. We all need a reminder and dose of it.
And we need to start right, now.
After you listen, remember, tomorrow is a new day for us all. Peace.
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michelle in algona, ia
fall is here, the trees are changing, i am raking leaves….remember to focus on obama and not the drama
email me @ icebergslim1047@hotmail.com