My personal Barack Obama for President blog is now online. I will be making my election commentaries there and leave this blog for mostly local (or unrelated national) issues.
Along with the launch of that new blog comes two new items in the lj4a store. Check them out!
His speech tonight was amazing. He combined genuine praise for Hillary, showed respect for the good things McCain has done, and attacked with both logic and wit the faults in the McCain campaign.
The gem comment was “We need to be as careful getting out of Iraq as we where careless getting in”. Brilliant.
I really hope that the party will be able to come together. Now that we have a presumptive nominee, I have a couple of ideas I am going to roll out over the next couple of days. So stay tuned.
To all those Hillary supporters who are saying that they wouldn’t vote for Obama, I have two points.
A) She would accept the V.P. nomination if it would help the Democrats win the White House. She is a team player, you should be too!
B) Imagine the idea of eight years of Hillary as V.P. followed by eight years of Hillary as President. Sixteen more years of a Clinton in the white house. That should be music to your ears and should drive the Conservatives crazy.
Just sayin…
I have been trying to figure out the exact problem the Democrats are having this election. It shouldn’t be that hard. You have a Republican presidential candidate who is going to follow in the footsteps of President Bush if elected. Well, I figured it out.
This election should have been a referendum on the Bush Administration and those Republicans who continue to blindly follow Bush’s failed policies. However, it has become a referendum on “making history” and how we should do it (by either electing a black man or a woman to be our president).
This is not just a recipe for failure in the 2008 general election. This also loses sight of the main point of fighting for civil rights. We are not supposed to be supporting people because they are a woman or belonging to a minority group. We are supposed to try and treat all people equally regardless of their gender or ethnicity. As Dr. King said, judging people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.
And yes, I completely understand and accept the argument that a black person is likely to think that a black president would understand the needs of the black community (just as a woman might think that a woman president would understand the needs of women). That is all well and good for the individual. However, for the party as a whole, we need to get off of the idea that electing our candidate will make history. We need to get back to the idea that if John “Bush Wannabe” McCain gets elected, that our rights and civil liberties will BE history.
According to Bayou Buzz, LAGOP Executive Director Matt Parker (Jindal’s homeschooled homeboy’s brother in law) stated this about Mary Landrieu and her failure to respond to Nagin’s endorsement of Barack Obama:
Today’s endorsement raises more questions than answers. In a press release announcing today’s endorsement, Nagin cited ‘Obama’s advocacy for the people of
Louisiana and working men and women across the county’ and specifically his work to address the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Does Mary Landrieu disagree with Nagin? Why won’t Landrieu stand up and let Louisianans know why she won’t endorse Obama?”
Say what?!?!?! Mabye Landrieu doesn’t want to take sides. Maybe Landrieu would be happy voting for either of the two Democrats against John 100 years in Iraq McCain. Maybe Landrieu figures that she can be silent in a race where the presumptive Republican nominee didn’t get the most votes in the Republican primary. Maybe Mary Landrieu didn’t feel that she needed to make an anouncement over an endorsement by someone else. Or maybe, just maybe, Mary Landrieu doesn’t feel the need to answer to the head of the party who is trying to unseat her. I would at least go with the last one, though others may be valid as well.
This is just a silly question raised by Matt Parker. Now, is he the voice of Cartman? Or is that Trey Stone? See, I got the names mixed up and even those are better questions than the brainchild of Homeschool’s brother in law.
The idea that Nagin’s endorsement raises more questions than it answers is absurd. I guess the Republicans set the bar low when they chose their executive director.
Much has been said about Obama’s former pastor and his comments about America and white people. Those comments should not be excused (and Obama denounced them). However, if Wright was white, and he spoke badly about gay people in his church, how much outrage would there be? How many hateful things are said by clergy in white, extremist, evangelical churches about homosexuals? How many of those offended by the words of Wright will agree with (or even cheer for) the anti-gay statements made in their own church? Isn’t it hypocritical of someone to be offended at the same thing they are guilty of supporting?
Just sayin
I cannot cite who said this because the person who posted it on another forum did not cite it as well. I am sure the author, whoever he is, would not mind the argument in support of Obama not leaving his church or abandoning his pastor to be spread on the net:
Obama could have distanced himself from his Mother and Grandmother. I know too many individuals who have done that very thing… for lesser issues.
This is, obviously (to me), not Obama’s style, rhetoric, or history.
Apparently, from what I understand, all of Obama’s life he has resisted the temptations he may have experienced to distance himself from those with whom he disagrees and instead he continues to interact with them in ways that help bridge any political and religious (and other) gaps that may exist between Obama and others with whom he interacts.
His relationship with his minister, obviously (to me), reflects this outlook Obama has regarding human relationships. His failing to alienate himself from his minister, and his church, due to some important and profound differences in their outlook, is consistent with his beliefs that our differences are not nearly as important as are our shared goals.
Obama has been consistently preaching this idea for a long time… ever since I have been watching him. Why should it be a surprise or a shock to me, or to anyone else, that he practices what he preaches, even when it comes to his Church and his Minister?
Had Obama decided to separate himself from his church and his minister, that would have been behavior that is, obviously (to me), antithetical to his message and the way he has conducted his life heretofore.
If Obama had separated himself from his church and his minister, that would render his message of unity, tolerance, and understanding, nothing less than rank hypocrisy on his part.
There is the also the argument that i have been making in that we are not blaming people who have not left the Catholic Church even though the clergy has shown a history of tolerating child molesters. Why havn’t they left? Well, because they still believe in the core beliefs of the church even though some of the people in charge have done things they do not agree with. And as the argument above states, they also find the common ground shared instead of focusing on the differences.
Perhaps if more people looked at the common ground that they share instead of the differences we would be in a much better place.
On the issue of race he stated:
“But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races,”
I couldn’t have said it better myself. There are people today who got attacked by dogs, who got hit with fire hoses, who had to sit at the back of the bus. To expect them to not be angry over the past failures of our country is absurd. And while the conclusions that some reach that are based on that anger are sometimes wrong, that doesn’t make the anger any less justified.
“But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.”
Exactly.
In response to a question on why Barack Obama is the front-runner, she said:
If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman [of any color] he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept
Again, Democrats need to invest in people who will help them say things the right way. First of all, there is no way to claim to know what position the mythical “white Barack Obama” would be in if he was running for President. As a caller to WWL rightly said this afternoon, it is highly possible that the mythical ”white Barack Obama” would have already locked up the nomination since there are still, unfortunately, some people who still look at race when walking into the voting booth.
What Ferraro should have said, and what I think she meant, was that Barack Obama has been successful in many states because of his race. The polling numbers clearly show that voters who are black are coming out to vote and a super-majority of them are voting for Obama. Clearly, Obama is doing well in Southern States where a large percentage of the Democratic Party are Black. His success in those races have enabled him to obtain and retain the lead. So his race may very well have HELPED.
However, her assumption that those voters would not have come out in support of the mythical “white Barack Obama” is clearly flawed because there is no way to know what voters who are Black may have done. Barack Obama is an exceptional person and I feel that he would likely be a star in the party if he was blue.
Obama’s response shows he really doesn’t understand what she was saying.
If you were to get a handbook on what’s the path to the presidency, I don’t think that the handbook would start by saying, ‘Be an African American named Barack Obama.’ I don’t think that would be generally considered an advantage, and it certainly wasn’t when I was running for the United States Senate or the presidency
Of course such a handbook would not say that. However, it would be foolish for anyone to claim that Obama’s race has not helped him. It is just also foolish to claim that Obama would not be in the lead if he was another race, or a woman.
And where do we get that handbook…..
According to a report by truthout, the Democrats believe they have a shot to give a Democratic President a 60 vote, filibuster proof, Senate. This will be the first time since Carter that such a Senate would exist. This would mean that the Democrats would have to get 10 new Democratic Senators. Someone in the article stated that 60 would be the target and that only 9 seats will be needed. However, on issues pertaining to the war, I believe Joe Lieberman would aid the filibuster of legislation he disagrees with. So if we want a truly filibuster proof Senate, we need 10 new Democrats. Here is a map of the seats that are up for grabs, the darkest red states have two Senate races.
Now lets look at the Obama electoral map and the Clinton electoral map.
Obama has the lead in WA/NM/CO/WI/VA/ME/NH and is very close in TX.
Clinton has the lead in NM/WI/ME.
Assuming that the Democrats can hold on to their red state senators, a Hillary campaign may help the Democrats gain 3 seats. However, an Obama campaign may be able to gain 7 (or possibly even 8) seats. This, of course, doesn’t take into consideration the strength of the Democratic candidate in those races. It only takes into consideration the coattails that someone may be able to ride if a particular candidate is the Democratic nominee.
The bottom line is that most likely, the Democrats will probably not be able to get a 60 vote majority in the Senate. However, I do applaud people in the party for aiming high. Getting 54-57 seats would be nothing to sneeze at. However, in aiming high, we need to make sure we do not lose any seats. The Republican goal of gaining 2 seats is much more modest than our goal of getting 60. I would hate to see us shoot for the stars and in doing so cause the Senate to turn Republican for our next Democratic President.
