Category: Barack Obama

Don’t let the CNN decide which Candidates you see and hear.

Mike’s going to put the Network feed on a screen, stand in front with a pause button, and interject his answers and commentary. He’ll catch up  during the commercials. Alternative debate live stream 8PM Eastern, 5 Pacific.

With this morning’s announcement that John Edwards would be suspending his quest for the Democratic nomination for president, the media reform movement has also dropped out of the campaign.

Edwards was the only candidate to have directly addressed the problem of the media in this country. He recognized the danger of unregulated corporations controlling access to the media megaphone that all candidates and initiatives rely on if they harbor any hope of success. His own candidacy was a victim of the exclusionary predilections of Big Media.

Who will carry on the fight for media reform now that its strongest advocate in the race has withdrawn?

Brought to you by…

News Corpse

The Internet’s Chronicle Of Media Decay.

Crossposted at Daily Kos

In a stunning political development this evening according to the Associated Press, the Florida Supreme Court has intervened in the Florida Republican Primary and declared George W. Bush the winner over Mitt Romney, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, and Mike Huckabee.

Senator John McCain, ever the patriot and loyal soldier, had this response

I knew in my heart of hearts that I’d never be able to win in a state full of geezers.  Even so, I’m delighted that the prize deservedly went to President Bush.  In anticipation of this development, I hopped on a plane to Washington, DC and personally congratulated the President. The voters of Florida have chosen wisely.

If you want to talk Democratic ideas, look no further than the Kennedy clan. They tend to be dismissed as People Magazine American Royalty, but that says more about our media than about them. With Senator Ted Kennedy and Caroline Kennedy having endorsed Barack Obama, and with the Clinton campaign reminding voters that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend have already endorsed Hillary, the Kennedy family is back making headlines. That can only be a good thing.

The Clintons deserve credit for having made our national health care crisis a national issue, in the 1990s. Of course, their plan was a byzantine mess, and it didn’t go nearly far enough. For that matter, none of the current leading Democratic candidates advocate single-payer national health care, so they’re all offering but different flavors of incrementalism. No surprise. As I keep writing, despite the campaign rhetoric, they are all basically traditional Democratic centrists. Of course, as I also keep writing, even as the Democratic candidates approach the major issues with nothing revolutionary, the Republican candidates rarely even notice there are issues to approach. We can argue over the nuances of the incrementalist approaches of Senators Clinton, Edwards, and Obama, but if you want a good, cynical laugh, take a look at the Republican candidates’ approaches. But if you want to talk about vision and leadership on health care, look no further than Senator Kennedy. He wrote a book about it. In 1972. He’s been advocating for National Health Insurance since the 1970s. Among many other issues on which he has consistently been ahead of the times, he’s also been advocating for clean, renewable energy sources, since the 1970s. In our government, there is no greater champion for people, the environment, and innovative ideas than Senator Kennedy. And that has been the case for decades.

I’m also a particular fan of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. I’ve long hoped he’d get involved in electoral politics, but I also understand the many and complex reasons for his not doing so. But my admiration of Kennedy has nothing to do with his father or his family; it has everything to do with his ideas. No one better articulates the rationale for environmentalism. The most common criticism of environmentalism is that it’s bad for the economy, and fundamentally opposed to capitalism. In a 2005 speech at the Sierra Club’s National Convention, Kennedy turned that around. Environmentalism is not only not bad for capitalism, it is a means of rescuing true free-market capitalism.

I think we can all agree that race baiting, whatever its origin in each individual case, is poisoning the well in the Democratic primary. It’s the issue that just won’t die; the one that needs a stake through its heart – ASAP, please.

Consider this quote from a TIME.com piece:

Obama’s impressive win meant all the more given the nature of politics in South Carolina, a state whose history is fraught with race and class. Some observers wondered if the state’s voters were becoming more racially polarized in the final days before the primary. That speculation was fueled by one late McClatchy/MSNBC survey that suggested Obama could expect to receive no more than 10% of the white vote, half of what the same poll had shown only a week before. But Obama instead won about a quarter of the white vote overall, and around half of young white voters, on his way to a commanding 55% of the total vote (Clinton finished second with roughly 27% and Edwards came in third with 18%). The excitement around Obama’s candidacy pushed turnout to record levels – a kind of surge, says Obama strategist Cornell Belcher, that “is something only Barack Obama is capable of bringing to the table.”

But that’s not the cute part.

The “cute part” was the title of the piece, which has been changed.

This link shows you a screenshot of the piece as originally titled.

In the current environment, you cannot tell me that that is an accident.

Well, you could tell me that….but I’d ask you what you were smoking.

Contact: [email protected]

‘Cuz I’m gonna.

Enough of this crap.

For the past week or so, the Clintons have demonstrated what a continuation of dynastic politics would be like in our federal government …a continuation of the divisive politics that has so characterized the past twenty years …Bush senior; Bill; W; and now, God forbid, Hill. America, the world cannot withstand another eight years of this type of politics. Nor can America live the next eight years in a foxhole as the Republicans, especially John McCain, would have us do. It is time for America to lift its sites, return to the time when America was indeed, the shinning light on the hill. America, as represented by our government, has a responsibility to its people and to the people of the world to rise above the fray and lead the world into the future. We cannot be that nation if we lower our sights to defending out of the Republican foxhole or bumbling along with stale ideas, ill-conceived policies, misspeaking and misunderstood presided-over by a two-headed leadership team. This country needs a singular voice to rally-around, who is responsible and capable of leading us into the future, mindful of the past but not constrained by its failures …a leader who is capable of bringing us along in quest of a higher vision for America and who accepts accountability for getting us there. The only acceptable choices are John Edwards and Barack Obama.

Tonight’s victory of Barack Obama was a lot bigger than anyone expected. Most pollsters expected a victory of around 10 points; only one predicted a victory of 20 points. While they correctly predicted the uptick in support for Edwards, they did not predict the huge margin of victory that Obama would take.

The X Factor in this race was the attacks of Bill Clinton on Obama this week. However, it turned out that these attacks created a huge backlash against Hillary and led to Obama’s unexpectedly wide margin. Obama’s victory will undoubtedly give him momentum going into the next race; however, the big question is how much?

The reason that I ask this question is because the next battle will be totally different than the four battles that came before it. In the previous four battles, the winner was the candidate who could do the best at practicing retail politics — this was a turf that clearly favored Obama. With his huge gift for oratory and his ability to draw some of the largest crowds ever for political campaigns, Barack Obama was able to generate the kind of grassroots support that propelled him to convincing wins in Iowa and South Carolina, a narrow loss in New Hampshire, and a tie in Nevada.

But this will be a totally different battle than the one before it, because it will be decided on the airwaves. Stump speeches will be important, but the candidates will have to try to appeal to audiences much bigger than the small audiences that they appealed to before. The battle will be won and lost based on who can create the best commercials that appeal to voters. So, if Obama cannot give people flashes of his oratorical skills in 30 seconds, then he will be in even more hot water than he is already — he trails by double digits in the all-important state of California. And that is on top of the fact that he is still trailing the delegate count to Hillary.

The NYT has 120 plus stories on ‘Clinton’ and ‘gays in the military’ between 92 and 93. If you want to know how the media was able to define Clinton as a divisive figure who alienated people a decade ago, look around. We’re living it. Then, as now, Hillary and Bill are being blamed for the divisions among us.

Campaigning on Race: Who here can deny seeing Obama as a person of color, first; and as an individual, second? Obama has been running on race from day one.

Reverse racism, fears of exclusion, and liberal guilt have been exploited shamelessly by Obama supporters. Policy positions more extreme and right-wing than those of either HRC or Edwards are shuffled to the side in order to present a candidate who voted with the party 97% of the time as an agent of change, rather than simply as more of the same in black.

How often do Obama supporters focus on the superficialities of appearance and ignore the deeply flawed roots of a campaign of cynicism, a campaign that owes so much to bigotry and gay-baiting.

Obama’s Ebenezeer St speech is a milestone in this campaign. Not because Obama spoke out against intolerance, he’s done that before. The Ebeneezer street speech is special because the speech, delivered in a church just a week before the South Carolina primary allowed Obama supporters, many of whom were shocked by the role gay-baiting played in Obama’s campaign, to forget that this campaign of ‘hope’ began by pandering nakedly to bigotry and hatred.

Obama preaches a message of inclusion, but sends anti-gay bigots into the south to drum up dollars and votes. Then he scolds bigots for coughing up the dough. The acolytes see in this astonishing cynicism further evidence of divinity.

Obama devotees place the Ebeneezer Street blindfold over their own eyes and those of others, celebrating themselves, forgetting the message of MLK, forgetting honesty, forgetting, at least until the SC election is over, that there would be no Obama South Carolina victory without bigotry and hate, without Donnie and Mary-Mary.

Gay hatred, bigotry, cynicism and lies will likely carry the day, this weekend, just as they did back in 92-94. When Obama supporters cheer themselves, their morality and their courage, perhaps they can raise a glass to Mariachi Mama, and her son who hung himself last month, and all the gay folks who have taken their own lives rather than endure the kind of hate promulgated from the stage of the candidate for change.

One of the key buzzwords of this Presidential race is change. The voices of change cumulated in a Democratic victory in 2006, and since then, the voices of change have only gotten louder and louder. Supposedly. And yet, when we look at the front-runners for the election, we see that the conventional candidates — Hillary Clinton and John McCain — are poised to take the nomination starting with Super Tuesday. A showing below 15% in South Carolina could doom John Edwards, while both Hillary and John McCain are leading by substantial margins in California. While the Republican primary is a lot messier than the Democratic primary, it seems that with his wins in South Carolina and Louisiana, Mike Huckabee’s home turf, it seems that McCain is an odds-on favorite to take over the Republican nomination.

This brings us to the question of change — do we really want change? The buzzword of this election has been change, yet we see the two establishment candidates, Hillary Clinton and John McCain, establishing themselves as frontrunners in the primary. It seems that people on both parties say that they want change, yet saying that they want change and actually having the courage to vote for change are two different things. It is a lot like a bad relationship — we say that we want to break up, yet when it comes time to actually do it, it is much more comfortable to stay in the relationship than it is to make a clean break and start over. We say that we don’t like where we are and want to move and make a fresh start; however, when it comes down to do it, we are more afraid of the unknown than we are of staying in a bad situation.  

I don’t write diaries because I’d rather counter punch than initiate.  Also, I fear my true self will be exposed, and it ain’t pretty.  I am a proud bleeding heart liberal, as are most of the people at this site, but I’m also a reluctant militant.  Peaceful means just don’t work in America, never have.

Recently, around MLK Day, King was praised for his great successes, and I disagreed.  Kids in the slums are worse off today than they were 40 years ago.  Their schools are still underfunded and poorly staffed, their healthcare is Bushian–the ER at the local hospital.  They stand a better chance of being incarcerated, of being poorly represented in court.  I really wish all Americans were forced to watch the Wire on HBO–it tells it exactly the way I saw it in NYC–and it’s ugly.  The only time ghettos saw an effort by government was in the 1960s–riots released federal hush money.

Politics looks better today because of Obama–and he’s a powerful symbol of Black advancement in America–except, I should add, that the advancement is only for super African Americans–you know, the Harvard educated guy.  Those old enough can be reminded of Sidney Poitier coming to dinner.  In the neighborhoods I worked in, successful men were drug dealers and pimps–and the kids wanted to be like Mike–the sports fantasy out of poverty.  On second thought, there were very few men around Bed/Stuy, many were “away”–euphemism for in jail.

Unions seem less discriminatory lately–many teacher unions are lead by people not white.  Maybe that’s because unions have been so weakened that it doesn’t matter anymore. Corporations have learned how to defend themselves–with governmental assistance–and very few strikes seem to take place, even less succeed.  MLK would have been mighty surprised by this turn of events because he was killed before St Ronnie’s paradigm of trickle down bullshit.

Before ending this rant, I want to include a counter punch I wrote today about party politics and healthcare, so here’s a quote from melvynny–my Dkos moniker–

Some of the money donated to the Dem party should be used to set up health insurance consultation offices and phone bank/web sites.  As Parade states, everyone with insurance eventually gets a claim rejected. If we had experts fighting for those claims we would accomplish 2 great things.  Everyone would be grateful to the Dem Party, and more people would get their claims processed correctly and promptly.

My  idea is to emulate Hamas’ tactic of giving social service and getting political allegiance in return.

The CBC/CNN debate in South Carolina is history.  One of the issues covered was that of Univeral Health Care.  The Big Three each have their plans, which are built upon some form of our current system of health insurance.  The other major plan is HR 676, The Conyers/Kucinich Plan for Medicare for All.

Raw Story now reports on its front page that Rush Limbaugh may not support any of the Republican presidential candidates. It seems that the right-wing political movement is now in its last throes, seeing that there is no clear favorite in the race and none of the current candidates can unite them like Ronald Reagan did.

And Limbaugh is hardly the only gatekeeper who may sit out this race. The Republican Party is controlled by many gatekeepers, including Dobson, Norquist, and many others. Dobson, for instance, has refused to give his blessing to Mitt Romney, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, or Fred Thompson. The fact of the matter is that the social conservatives who provide the boots on the ground only have one candidate — Ron Paul, who meets their purity tests on abortion, gays, gun control, immigration, and taxes. Paul does not have the blessing of one of the key wings of the Republican Party — the defense hawks and neocons, given his opposition to Iraq. However, the fact that he is the only antiwar voice in the GOP and 34% or so of Republicans do not approve of Bush’s handling of Iraq means that he is competitive.