Just Do It. Even $10 will help. I don't have much money left to give, but I'm still hustling. There's a lot of work left to get through the primary, not to mention John McCain.
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Election 2008
Hey fam, sorry for such a late post. I've been traveling and am in San Fran for the weekend. If you want to meetup, I'm holding "office hours" Sunday afternoon in The Mission. Details here. Would be nice to put a face to some of your names.
Now, on to business.
I am relieved to begin the shift from primary to general election mode. With the Wrath Of The Math having been determined by voters in March and accepted by the media this week, with Rasmussen concluding there's no point (or money) in polling Clinton vs. Obama, with Hillary somehow one-upping her race-baiting beyond even my wildest dreams, let's move on.
One of the things I've appreciated most about Obama is his first-hand experience with and respect for grassroots organizing. I've been a part of it firsthand in VA, TX and PA, and this weekend, his campaign takes it up another notch with an unprecedented, massive, 50-state voter registration drive: Vote For Change
For those who didn't know, Obama ran ProjectVote in Illinois many years ago. Check this video for some background.
Here's the campaign's description of Vote For Change
On May 10th, Barack Obama is launching Vote for Change, an unprecedented 50-state voter registration and mobilization drive. More than 100 events will be held across the country that day. Obama volunteers will register new voters as the start of a six-month voter registration drive. We can change Washington if more Americans get involved, get registered and show up to vote on November 4th. If millions of new voters get involved, a powerful message will be sent to the special interests that dominate the old politics. This is an important time to find more people in your community to register to vote. To attend a May 10th Vote for Change launch event in your area, click on your state above. Recent voter registration drives have registered more than 200,000 new Democrats in Pennsylvania, more than 165,000 new Democrats in North Carolina, and more than 150,000 new Democrats in Indiana. Those numbers just scratch the surface of what's possible.If you're a Democrat living abroad, you're included too! Obama will run circles around John McCain. He's putting his effort where his mouth is and has already proven an ability to engage new people in the political process. What's starting tomorrow has the potential to be huge. Wherever you are, consider being a part of it. There are millions of us who want more from our government and our politicians and more from ourselves. Help take that step and get involved. At a minimum, you'll meet some neighbors. That's how some revolutions got started. :) Head to the Vote For Change site, and see what's up in your area tomorrow and beyond.
cross-posted to jack and jill politics
I thought I'd edit this USA Today headline to reflect what's really going on.
Links:
- USA Today story
- dnA's badass analysis
- Pam's House Blend more badass analysis
Posted over at JJP. I'm just trying to drive more link juice because Jay Smooth has created a one minute masterpiece.
Guests include me, Casey Lartigue and Carmen Van Kerckhove
Topics
- Sharpton & NY pray-ins -- response to Sean Bell verdict
- Primary results including: Obama Passes 1,500,000 Donors, Clinton's lack of black votes and reuniting the party
- Using the news about the death of Mildred Loving, matriarch of interracial marriage to talk about the state of interracial marriage today. Examples: Mary Wilson of the Supremes & Barbara Walters/Edward Brooks
cross-posted to jack and jill politics
Step 1. Tell people to bet on an underdog horse in the Kentucky Derby that not only loses to a horse named "Big Brown," but breaks both of its legs and has to be put down in front of everybody.
Hillary, God is trying to tell you something!
Step 2. Send out negative mailers in Indiana, one of which attacks Obama on guns by using the image of a gun that doesn't exist! Trying to connect with rural Hoosiers, Clinton's folk used the model of a $2,200 German gun that was often used as... A SNIPER RIFLE. You can't write comedy this good people. Step 3. Claim you don't listen to economists and refer to facts as "elite" in trying to defend your flamboyantly stupid gas tax holiday idea. It's a stupid idea proposed by a person who assumes all Americans are stupid. It's not only pandering but condescending and dangerous. From Robert Reich
When asked this morning by ABC News' George Stephanopoulos if she could name a single economist who backs her call for a gas tax holiday this summer, HRC said "I'm not going to put my lot in with economists.” I know several of the economists who have been advising Senator Clinton, so I phoned them right after I heard this. I reached two of them. One hadn’t heard her remark and said he couldn’t believe she’d say it. The other had heard it and shrugged it off as “politics as usual.”Just substitute the term "scientists" for "economists" and you have yourself a working model of President George W. Bush who couldn't be bothered with things like "evidence" and "facts." Soon, Hillary will explain that "a higher power" told her that the gas tax holiday was a good idea and then she will explain that she knows how hard it is for people to put food on their families. I wouldn't misunderestimate her if I were you. Not satisfied to dis every single economist, Hillary went a step further... (from TPM)
Could she name a single economist who agrees with her support for the gas tax holiday? Hillary sidestepped the question, and tried to use the complete dearth of expert support for the idea to her advantage, pointing to it as proof that she's on the side of ordinary folks against "elite opinion" -- a phrase she used twice. "I think we've been for the last seven years seeing a tremendous amount of government power and elite opinion behind policies that haven't worked well for hard working Americans," she said. A bit later she added: "It's really odd to me that arguing to give relief to a vast majority of Americans creates this incredible pushback...Elite opinion is always on the side of doing things that don't benefit" the vast majority of the American people.Sadly, this works on some people. From the NY Times Blog
Senator Barack Obama has derided the gas-tax suspension as a gimmick that would save consumers little and cost thousands of jobs. Kara Glennon, a member of the audience at a town-hall-style meeting, seemed to agree. Gas prices are “not academic” for her, she told Mrs. Clinton, because she makes less than $25,000 a year — and then she accused Mrs. Clinton of pandering. “Call me crazy, but I listen to economists because I think I know what they studied,” she said. However, in an interview afterward, Mark Moorman, another audience member and a firefighter, said he shared Mrs. Clinton’s mistrust of experts. Political candidates cite economists but they “never say anybody’s name, or where the study came from,” Mr. Moorman said. “So as far as me, it doesn’t have no relevance.”This is such dangerous ground. Hillary is playing to people's ignorance and stupidity. By labeling sound facts and evidence as "elite," she's making it acceptable and desirable to be stupid. More than her irresponsible threats against Iran, this strategy makes it clear that Hillary would continue the third term of the Bush administration. She's doing exactly what Bush did: obscure your multimillionaire lifestyle by falsely identifying with an idealized version of "regular folk" and deriding "fancy" things like facts and education by labeling them as "elite." For seven years, we've suffered under the reign of a man who governed from his "gut" and dismissed the advice of scientists, teachers, military experts and more. That hasn't worked out so well. Democratic voters and superdelegates need to put this horse down.
That's what's up.
cross-posted to jack and jill politics
It's a given around these parts that Hillary Clinton is full of excrement and John McCain wouldn't know sound economic policy unless it made a personal attack against his family then asked him to campaign for it in the next election cycle.
Still, something has been rubbing me the wrong way about how both of these people are calling for taxes on gasoline to be waived this summer, you know, to ease the burden on the American consumer.
Call me crazy, but it seems like the last thing we need to do is encourage more use of fossil fuels up in here. It's getting a little hot. I've been happy to discover that my brain does, in fact, work, and that I'm not alone.
Jonathan Alter of Newsweek
Hillary Clinton has now joined John McCain in proposing the most irresponsible policy idea of the year—an idea that actually could aid the terrorists. What's worse, both of them know that suspending the federal gas tax this summer is a terrible pander, and yet they're pushing it anyway for crass political advantage. Clinton and McCain have learned a destructive lesson from the Bush era: as Bill Clinton said in 2002, it's better politically to be "strong and wrong" than thoughtful and right. The goal is to depict Barack Obama as an out-of-touch elitist. By any means necessary. I could highlight a long debate among economists on suspending the gas tax, but there is no debate. Not one respectable economist—and not one environmentalist or foreign policy expert—supports the idea, unless they are official members of the Clinton or McCain campaigns (and even some of them privately oppose it). To relieve suffering at the pump, send another rebate check or provide tax credits or something else, but not this.And Thomas Friedman of the Times
It is great to see that we finally have some national unity on energy policy. Unfortunately, the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away. Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer’s travel season. This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. What a way to build our country. When the summer is over, we will have increased our debt to China, increased our transfer of wealth to Saudi Arabia and increased our contribution to global warming for our kids to inherit. No, no, no, we’ll just get the money by taxing Big Oil, says Mrs. Clinton. Even if you could do that, what a terrible way to spend precious tax dollars — burning it up on the way to the beach rather than on innovation? The McCain-Clinton gas holiday proposal is a perfect example of what energy expert Peter Schwartz of Global Business Network describes as the true American energy policy today: “Maximize demand, minimize supply and buy the rest from the people who hate us the most.” Good for Barack Obama for resisting this shameful panderingYou hear that? Obama is not pandering, and this is an issue that actually matters. This is policy. This is meat and potatoes. This is war and peace and pollution in our cities and lungs. McCain is so caught up in his crooked pander he can't find the keys to the Straight Talk Express much less operate the gas guzzling terrormobile. Ms. Hillary, poor thing, is willing to wield any weapon against Obama, even if that thing is the most ass backwards energy policy possible. Solutions for America, my ass. It's nice to see that a lifetime of "experience" has taught these two clowns how to trade our very lives and security for a few political points. Next. Update: my people I apologize. I failed to leave you with something to do. Please head over to Hillary Clinton's website, and John McCain's. Ask them a few questions. Feel free to use or edit the following: For Hillary: Dear Senator Clinton, you have rightly acknowledged America's energy challenge and the need to invest in green energies. Given your stated positions, why do you support a gas tax holiday which encourages the use of fossil fuels and rewards the very oil companies you criticize? Please change your position on this critical issue. For McCain: Dear Senator McCain, having served in the military, you know what it means to defend this country which is why your support of a gas tax holiday confuses me. By encouraging oil consumption, you'd be rewarding the regimes of nations hostile to our national security, making us even more beholden to terrorists. Please help keep America safe and reduce our dependence on foreign oil this summer driving season.