cross-posted to Jack & Jill Politics
Many of you have written to let us know about this video by will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas. It's inspired by Obama's speech after New Hampshire and has mad celebrities in it. It's ridiculously powerful and gives me goosebumps! No one is making bomb ass videos about any other candidate.
We will not have another politician capable of inspiring such widespread emotion and belief in the possibilities of this country for a long time.
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cross-posted to Jack & Jill Politics
Blog readers, here's yet another account from an Obama volunteer, Marisa Darden, who traveled to South Carolina. It's a letter she sent out to friends and gave us permission to post here...
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Hey All,
I know I haven't spoken to some of you in quite awhile, but I wanted to share a little bit about a weekend that has really changed my belief on politics and this upcoming election. I've been wanting to send this out for days, but it's been more than difficult trying to encapsulate the true depth and emotion that I feel when I think about the tremendous history that is being created, and how one candidate so emphatically embodies our nation's future.
I have been a Barack Obama fan since his DNC speech in 2004. While I was excited to know he'd be running for president, I have been in awe of his campaign from afar, subconsciously worried about his chances at a real shot for the White House, and reluctant to put my full weight behind this rising star. I signed up to help in the South Carolina Primary, mostly because I wanted to do something, rather than just sit and bitch and complain about the state of politics today. I signed up a few days before the Iowa Caucuses.
Wednesday after class, I drove to Kingstree, South Carolina, located in Williamsburg County. The county is the second poorest county in the state, and is overwhelmingly African-American. More information about the county can be found on Wikipedia. While I had motivated several other Duke Law students to come down and participate, no one else wanted to skip school (ha!), so I went alone, really not knowing what to expect. Obama had about 80 paid staffers in South Carolina, and three of them were mobilizing in this county. They had a great ground effort going, but it was clear they needed our help. About 2 hours before I got there, 7 Harvard post-graduate students had also come to Kingstree to help, and they turned out to be a godsend, taking me under their wing and providing hours of entertainment and fun. The campaign arranged for me to stay with a family in neighboring Greeleyville, where me and the Harvard kids all stayed.
It turns out I made a great choice coming down early, because Senator Obama was coming to Kingstree the next day! Bright and early last Thursday, the other volunteers and I made our way to one of the two high schools in the county to set up and prepare for Obama's visit. The crowd was almost all Black, but spanned all ages. It was an amazing turnout for a Thursday morning, and Sen. Obama spoke for 30 minutes, giving a similar version of his stump speech. The crowd was clearly enthralled by the Senator, though they got bored pretty easily when he went into too much detail about his policies. This crowd responded to the rhetoric mostly, and there was very little Clinton-bashing, even though Bill Clinton had been in the area the day before, disparaging the Obama campaign. After the rally, the Senator came out to thank all the volunteers, was very polite, and shook everyone's hand. We were all really excited, and motivated to keep working towards his win.
Friday, I spent the day going door to door in Kingstree and Greeleyville, stopping at homes that had been earmarked by the campaign as Obama supporters. Door to Door isn't exactly accurate, particularly in Greeleyville, where it seemed as though we were going "quarter-mile to quarter-mile" because the houses were so far apart. This was where the county's poverty was most apparent because most of the homes were permanently placed double-wide trailers that were run down and dilapidated. A few highlights from the day:
- I fell through a porch
- I received a marriage proposal (I said maybe... hold the gifts)
- Chased by a rotweiler on a very long leash...
- I met an 86 year old African-American woman who had 11 children, all grown and successful. She told me that she felt this election wasn't about her because she was "on the way out." Instead, she was voting for Obama because she wanted her grandchildren to see that they could achieve anything and be anything they put their mind to. She told me that she hadn't seen anything like this since Dr. King, whom she met in the 1960's.
- A group of construction workers told me I was "preaching to the choir" about Obama, because their pastor had told them all about the campaign and Obama. I heard this a lot- pastors played a tremendous part in the grassroots campaign. Those of you from the south aren't likely surprised how entwined religion and politics are, but I guess I had never seen it in action. I walked away grateful that the pastors were on our side.
cross-posted to Jack & Jill PoliticsI'm in a California hotel after giving a talk to students at the Five Colleges consortium in Claremont. (great students BTW).I turned on Anderson Cooper, and he had Claire McCaskill and Stephanie Tubbs Jones on talking about Obama and Clinton, respectively. Tubbs Jones tried to act like Florida was such a big deal, blah blah.Then it occurred to me what really bothers me about her:Stephanie Tubbs Jones doesn't close her mouth when she's not speaking. Look!
Thanks to Redlasso, I present the entire Ted Kennedy speech which you cannot yet find on YouTube.
The entire transcript is available at HuffPo
cross-posted to Jack & Jill Politics We've been fortunate to have some folks in South Carolina willing to share their experiences during the primary week. Below we have another dispatch. This one is from Hugh, and he offers some details and insights into what it's like to canvass for Obama, the importance of election clerks and more. Enjoy, and thanks to Hugh for sharing.
All went quite smoothly here in Anderson County. Over the course of the day we had a combined total of 30 phone bankers, canvassers, and poll checkers at my house: white, black, Indian-American, young (16), old (65), male, female. Our precinct went 2-1 for Obama, both against Clinton and against Edwards, matching their combined total. The clerk of elections in our precinct was an advocate for all voters, going out of his way to assist those without the straightforward credentials, guiding them with provisional ballots, changes of address forms, etc, and spending substantial time on the phone with the county office to track down where folks needed to be if they were in the wrong place.Our election protection attorney, a law student from the University of Tennessee, supposed that about five percent (~30) of the voters might not have otherwise been counted had the clerk not been such a staunch advocate for all of them. For rural upstate South Carolina, the epicenter of neo-confederate thinking, to have such a clerk was refreshing. Of course this was not the case at all precincts in Anderson, but our election attorneys were there to fight for the voters. The law student was very moved by the day. He had only just gotten involved, and had expected to lift a finger for Obama in Tennessee, but now he will "work his ass off."Other than a few hours of phone calls, I spent the entire day canvassing a small "turf" of about 80 houses, repeatedly hitting doors and pestering folks until they voted. The day before these same doors had received precinct-specific door hangers reminding them to stand up and be counted. They did. This turf went 4-1 for Obama, with respect to Clinton and with respect to Edwards, thus he doubled their combined totals. I suspect that about 5 folks might not have gotten to the polls had I not pushed them more than once. This is what happened all over the state in precincts the campaign targeted for the get-out-the-vote operation. By the end of the day, our supporters started to get annoyed that we were calling them so often to confirm they'd voted. Redundancy fosters robustness though, and I think they will forgive us, especially if they catch a glimpse of Obama's victory speech.
The entire democratic party in South Carolina is ecstatic about the grass roots network now alive in South Carolina. Many of us will be spending time in Georgia and our team will remain in place to make phone calls to folks across the country. However, I do doubt this network can fully re-emerge for the general election for anyone other than Obama. In Pickens, Oconee, and Anderson counties, these new grass roots were cultivated by a 22 year old jewish girl from Maryland named Rachel Levine, who arrived at the Greenville office in June as an unpaid volunteer. I cannot overstate the credit she is due as a local field organizer -- after a month she was recognized for her efforts and started getting paid. She was tireless and it was so gratifying to see her exuberance last night. She knew the 20 pt margin was possible, and she hopes to be back here for the general election if Obama makes it through. Relative to all other counties in the entire country, these were some of the most pro-Bush counties in his 2004 re-election. Despite this, she decided that she could.As I walked the neighborhoods I had a big roll of Obama 08 stickers, and I gave them out to a handful of young kids -- ages 8, 10, 12 or so -- who were outside entertaining themselves in front of their respective houses. One african-american kid was climbing a dogwood tree in his front yard --- hands and feet each on a different branch. I offered him some stickers, gave him about ten, and warned him gently to not go too far out on the limbs because dogwood trees are especially gorgeous in the springtime. He knew who Obama was and as I walked on down the road he announced from the tree "My name is Barack Obama, and I approve of this message!"
cross-posted to Jack & Jill PoliticsI have been sitting on this post for two weeks. Much has already been said, but seeing Darryl Fears's article in the Washington Post has forced me to finally hit the publish button. The article begins:
For nearly two decades, Yvette Wider, an African American, adored Bill Clinton, once described by a famous black novelist as the nation's first black president.But now, after Clinton's "fairy tale" remark about Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) in New Hampshire and a statement in South Carolina that Obama had put a political "hit job" on him, Wider said she feels she hardly knows the former president. "I was surprised to hear him make a comment like that, because I thought he understood our people better," said Wider, who said she will vote for Obama in Saturday's South Carolina primary. "It made me think he's been playing us all this time."Wider's sentiments are echoing across black America -- on blogs, Web chats and talk radio, where Clinton is being attacked as never before.Finally.You see, I used to love Bill Clinton as well. I've met him on two occasions, once at my high school, the other at the White House when was enrolled in the Washington Association of Black Journalists teen training program. Clinton evoked all sorts of wonderful feelings in me. I assumed he was a great a president as most Democrats seemed to publicly think he was. But I was in high school during his first term and distracted by college during his second. I missed a lot, and over the past few years and especially months and most especially, weeks, I've come to a different view.I now start with a basic assumption that he was a good, but not great president. I used to long for the days of Clinton. No more. That longing could only exist when contrasted with President Brush-Clearer. But the low standards of subsequent administrations are no excuse to lionize the past and make it something it was not.Here's my timeline of The Clintons (yes, they are a "they" and deserve to be capitalized):Pre-Obama Conventional Wisdom - 1992 through 2006: Bill Clinton The Savior
- Plays sax on Arsenio Hall
- Isn't physically uncomfortable around black folks
- Looks good in black church and can handle the pulpit. Claps on the beat.
- Referred to affectionately as "the first black president"
- Appoints prominent black folks to positions of power
- Expands Earned Income Tax Credit
- Presides over booming economy
- Moves to Harlem. Which is about the whitest thing you can do in New York, but the rest of America doesn't know that.
- Gets all statesmanly with global aids initiative and tsunami recovery goodness
- Civil Rights OGs back Hillary
- Hillary Clinton has majority of black support in polls
- Meme spreads of Obama's lack of black cred
- Sharpton says "not a lot of black folks grew up in Hawaii"
- Jesse Jackson says "Obama is acting white" with regard to Jena
- Andrew Young says "Hillary Clinton is as black as Obama"
- Shelby Steele publishes book, "Why Barack Obama Can't Win"
- Obama wins Iowa Caucus, spilling hope-filled egg all over Steele
- Baratunde aka Jack Turner begins his next book, "Why Shelby Steele Can't Write"
- The Madrassa Emails
- The MLK History Lesson
- The Drug Dealer Comments
- The Shucking and Jiving of BET's Bob Johnson
- and dozens of other offenses including blaming all of this on Obama. (see: Clinton Attacks Obama Wiki )
- Black folks realize they can have a real first black president. Why settle for a wack substitute
- All folks, not just black, start to publicly dig into the past and challenge the assumptions of Bill's blackness and his greatness
- The mass incarceration of black men, due largely to a failed "War on Drugs" which is as farcical as our current "War on Terror." In 1995 Bill Clinton had a chance to bring crack and cocaine drug sentencing into line. He did not. A generation of black men got their education in the prison industrial complex.
- There was the deregulation of the banking industry under Treasury Secretary Rubin which created the incentives and lack of oversight that allows the current subprime crisis. Rubin came in from Wall Street and returned a hero.
- There was the expansion of media consolidation, one of the most insidious attacks on our democracy. Media ownership. Communications licensing. All sold off to the most moneyed of interests.
- There was the missed opportunity to set us on a path of a sane energy policy that would anticipate the coming supply crunch rather than wallow in the temporary glut of low prices. No energy efficiency. No investment in renewables. Just the digging of a deeper hole
- (Update: I left this out but twas on my list). There was "welfare reform" which forced mothers into the workplace with nowhere near adequate health or child care options
- There was the sitting by and watching millions of people get butchered in Rwanda
- There was the set of trade deals that lowered our standards and helped gut America's ability to provide for itself, setting the stage for our current vulnerable position
They called up yesterday after having discovered the Clinton Attacks Obama wiki we set up and wanted to talk about it. I think the taping went well. Check your local listings :) The show is run out of WNYC in New York and airs tonight (Fri Jan 25), probably between 6pm and 9pm depending on your location. Show website. Update Jan 28: The show is now available online. Go check it out
cross-posted to Jack and Jill Politics
One of our South Carolina voices is blogging much if his experience on his own blog at Anderkoo, having traveled down to SC to volunteer. I found this worth sharing, as it echoes what our own dnA has been writing about.
I was waiting for the moment when the Clinton campaign would re-spin the racial dynamic of this contest, and it finally came today. I have to give them credit: they have mastered the art of sour grapes. First, they — not the Obama campaign — raised the issue of race (it is almost never to a black candidate’s advantage to go that route). After letting it stink for a good weak, attempting to inject codewords like “young man” and “frustrated” into the national psyche, today Mr. Clinton knocks over the chess board: “They are getting votes, to be sure, because of their race or gender, and that’s why people tell me that Hillary doesn’t have a chance to win here.” All these bursts of anger are about as authentic as Hillary’s tears: genuine, to be sure, but also coldly calculated. Deploying the political equivalent of method acting, our alleged first black President now suggests that black folks will vote for someone with a dark complexion on that criterion alone, and is thereby doing his best to marginalize a group of voters who are finally, finally having their day in the national electoral sun. What’s more, it’s a one-two punch, one designed to scare white voters by labeling Obama as the black candidate. It’s a shameful moment for the Clintons and for the Democratic Party.Read the complete post here.
cross-posted to Jack & Jill Politics
This is a big deal.
A very short note from one of our correspondents on the ground in South Carolina. This one is an Obama volunteer and writes about the effect of Hillary hammering Obama on his "present" votes in the Illinois legislature:
it's becoming clear why clinton was hitting obama so hard on those 100 out of 4000 "present" votes -- tonight's HRC phone bank push is targeting pro-choice women in SC claiming that he voted "present" on abortion issues in IL.For the record, Obama fully supports a woman's right to choose. He has a 100 percent rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America. As our wiki points out, this attack (#30) was used in New Hampshire, possibly to great affect. The founder of NH NARAL was manipulated into signing an anti-Obama mailing by the Clinton campaign and is upset with the campaign for abusing her, as reported in this Washington Post article:
Katie Wheeler, a former state senator, said the Clinton campaign had not given her background information about Obama's record on abortion rights when it asked her to sign the letter calling him weak on the issue, and said that, as a result, she did not understand the context of the votes that the letter was attacking him over. "It should never have gotten to the point where anyone thought Obama was not pro-choice. I don't think the Clinton campaign should have done that. It was divisive and unnecessary...I think it was a mistake and I've spoken to the national [Clinton campaign] and told them it caused problems in New Hampshire, and am hoping they won't do it again."This is the type of nonsense that makes me wanna go oops upside a Clinton head a few times. This is the type of nonsense that divides a party unneccessarily. Of all the things to attack a Democrat on, why oh why would you choose his pro-choice bona fides?
cross-posted to Jack & Jill Politics Sorry to get this up so late. I'm sure yall would have liked a thread to share your thoughts on last night's debate, but some of us are still holdin down the day job, ok? :)Let's get to it. I didn't actually see most of the debate. I read the entire transcript and saw a few exchanges on YouTube and read many second hand reports. What impressed me from the transcript was Mr. John Edwards who seemed to evoke the most powerful spirit of Dr. King in reminding everyone of the Poor People's Campaign.He could also afford to sidestep the Obama-Clinton battle much of the time but seemed eager to jump in as well (with his comments on taking money from lobbyists or defending his trial lawyer fundraising, for example).I liked Clinton when she stuck to advocating her policies. The Green Collar jobs. A freeze on home interest rates. She was sounding mad progressive. I did not like the intentional misrepresentation of Obama on Reagan. We need to get past all that. Similarly with the "present" votes in Illinois. But she knows there is no room for nuance in these forums, and she's trying to spread as much dirt on Obama as possible. Felt like a bit of scorched earth campaigning going on.Part of me had to rethink my entire anti-Clinton perspective. When O hit her hard with that "sometimes I'm not sure which Clinton I'm running against," I thought on the one hand, "hell yeah, go get em." But the other side was like, "oooh, it would be nice to have two Clintons attacking and distorting McCain or Romney's positions." It was a dark thought, based in the cynicism in which we've been soaked as a society.Obama appeals to something more positive in me, but damn the dark side looks good sometimes. As for Mr. O, I'm so glad he jumped in and started swinging, because folks are right, if he can't take the heat from Clintons, much as I despise what they're doing as divisive, he can't take it from the Right who will call him everything but his name and then some. I absolutely hate the tactics the Clintons are using (thus, the wiki), because if she gets the nomination, I doubt she can win the general (and she'd almost certainly hurt down ticket Dems in red states). If Obama gets the nomination despite the Clinton tactics, then we know we have a winner. As for the debate questions. I think too many tried to instigate more race-based personality battles than were necessary, but at least there were no dumbass questions about clothing. Here are the questions I would have asked. I tried to get something for everybody and, of course, all for the American people.
- What do you consider to be the primary cause of the subprime housing implosion? (this is designed to test their ability to diagnose a problem even before proposing solutions. Will they lay the blame at shady mortgage agents, uneducated buyers, the deregulation of banking and housing, securitization of mortgage debt? etc)
- Despite calling ourselves "the land of the free," the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any nation in the world, with over 2 million people in prison, over half for drug-related offenses. The state of South Carolina was ranked next to last in its ability to reintegrate former prisoners into society. Whether through overzealous sentencing guidelines or a failed War on Drugs, something is clearly wrong with the U.S. prison system. As president, what would you do to fix it?
- Most oil industry analysts agree that the world has reached its peak production of oil and as a consequence will face a dramatic increase in prices as demand outstrips supply. Considering how critical low-priced fossil fuels are to our system of industrial agriculture, transportation and suburban living -- especially here in the Southeast -- describe your plans to ensure or alter the so-called "American way of life."
- In August, over 1,800 National Guardsmen from South Carolina were deployed to Afghanistan, the largest single unit deployment from the S.C. National Guard since World War II. These soldiers, for the most part, left full-time jobs to serve their country as part of the year-long commitment. In the aftermath of this deployment, families -- many of whom include kids -- have been left without their primary breadwinners. How would you ease the economic strain the war has had, and will continue to have, on these and other military families, particularly at a time when there are real worries of a recession?
- This question is directed at Senator Clinton. You have repeatedly claimed that you have 35 years of experience while referring to Barack Obama as a part-time state legislator who began his White House bid after just one year in the U.S. Senate. However, in terms of holding elected office Senator Obama has 11 years, you have eight and Senator Edwards has six. In fact, Dennis Kucinich leads the three of you with 12 years in elected office including two as mayor of Cleveland. Isn't experience in which you are accountable to voters more important?
- This question is directed at Senator Obama. You have based your campaign on an inspiring vision of a united America and your victory on a strategy of winning over Democrats, Independents and even Republicans. But as we have seen often, America doesn't always remain united. Bill Clinton faced withering attacks from the right after the 1994 election gave control of Congress to the Republicans. What do you do if you're elected, and your coalition falls into old partisan habits?
- This question is directed at Senator Edwards. Since your 2004 campaign, you have become a strong voice against poverty and what you consider to be disproportionate corporate influence in our democracy. Many refer to your campaign as populist and admire your passion. However, your Senate record seems not to reflect this message. You voted for the Iraq War, No Child Left Behind, the Patriot Act, permanent normal trade relations with China and a bankruptcy bill which makes it more difficult for people to clear debt. You have since claimed that you regret all of these votes. Why should voters believe you won't make the same regrettable mistakes as president.