Sonia Sotomayor has served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit since October 1998. She has been hailed as “one of the ablest federal judges currently sitting” for her thoughtful opinions, and as “a role model of aspiration, discipline, commitment, intellectual prowess and integrity” for her ascent to the federal bench from an upbringing in a South Bronx housing project.
Her American story and three decade career in nearly every aspect of the law provide Judge Sotomayor with unique qualifications to be the next Supreme Court Justice. She is a distinguished graduate of two of America's leading universities. She has been a big-city prosecutor and a corporate litigator. Before she was promoted to the Second Circuit by President Clinton, she was appointed to the District Court for the Southern District of New York by President George H.W. Bush. She replaces Justice Souter as the only Justice with experience as a trial judge.
Judge Sotomayor served 11 years on the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, one of the most demanding circuits in the country, and has handed down decisions on a range of complex legal and constitutional issues. If confirmed, Sotomayor would bring more federal judicial experience to the Supreme Court than any justice in 100 years, and more overall judicial experience than anyone confirmed for the Court in the past 70 years. Judge Richard C. Wesley, a George W. Bush appointee to the Second Circuit, said “Sonia is an outstanding colleague with a keen legal mind. She brings a wealth of knowledge and hard work to all her endeavors on our court. It is both a pleasure and an honor to serve with her.”
In addition to her distinguished judicial service, Judge Sotomayor is a Lecturer at Columbia University Law School and was also an adjunct professor at New York University Law School until 2007.
There are many vital issues that Sotomayor should be asked about, obviously including her views on executive power limits, which -- as Charlie Savage noted this weekend -- are largely unknown. One's view of her selection should be shaped by things that are as yet unknown. But judging strictly from what is known, Obama deserves substantial credit for this choice. There were choices available to him that would have been safer among the Respectable Intellectual Center (Diane Wood) and among the Right (Elena Kagan). At his best, Obama ignores and is even willing to act contrary to the standard establishment Washington voices and mentality that have corrupted our political culture for so long. His choice of Sotomayor is a prime example of his doing exactly that, and for that reason alone, ought to be commended.
I am slightly more comfortable with Obama wielding unchecked executive power than Bush doing so. But both make me uncomfortable -- possibly so uncomfortable that I would refuse to move back to the US and be subject to them. There is always a swing of the pendulum, and whatever powers you grant to someone you believe worthy of them will eventually be thrust into the hands of someone who isn't.
I hope to see discussion of executive power during the confirmation hearings but doubt that I will.
They say in Spider Solitaire, theoretically every hand is winnable. I never have the patience to try thinking through each move or using "undo" to make a crappy layout winnable. In fact, if on the first layout I don't have several moves to expose hole cards, I'll usually re-deal. But that's just a game. It's not deciding who will become the most powerful leader in the world.
I got a direct challenge from a precious friend yesterday, Liza Cowan, who was a leader before I was out of junior high, whose blazed trail literally saved my life. She's an artist, not a politician, but she said "We have to win this election. There's nothing more important right now." She's 59 and has two children about to enter adolescence (her second go-round at parenting). They've both girls, so she's not looking at them being drafted if McCain wins, but she's sharp enough to not see that as a consolation because she lived through the Vietnam era draft, which scarred us all in different ways. She's made the decision to do at least one thing every day, one concrete action, to make sure Obama wins this election. She asked me to do the same.
So here we go. My goal is to come up with a simple act you can do every day that, directly or indirectly, helps us put a sane, accountable human being in the White House and/or restore basic human rights to the daily life of America. I'll aim for an action besides donating money, because (a) giving money is something we already know how to do and (b) if you're like me, you don't have money to give. Although as Liza says, lots of people can afford ten bucks.
There's two main reasons to engage in direct action like this. One is that this groundswell is what this election is all about -- it's how we've gotten this far. The Republican strategy is to feed their extremist minority with a VP choice whose extremism they're keeping under wraps and pass it off as populism, i.e., "She's a hockey mom". They pacify their corporate overlords by NEVER passing legislation which benefits the average working person, and they dupe the rest of the country into voting for them by any lie available. They lie, they lie, they lie. But we are ravenous for the truth out here, and direct action will bring you into contact with the truth. You'll feel better afterward.
The second reason is that we are afraid and feeling some degree of despair about how things are going. It's bad out here, and looks to be getting worse. We've gotten out of the habit, in too many ways, of learning how to deal with these feelings. We take drugs, we watch TV, we complain on a blog, we sit at home and snark at our family. We think it may be too late. We want reassurance that we have not made a disastrous series of mistakes which have dumped shit in our own backyards, destroyed our economy, made us a joke in the rest of the world, and divided our landscape into enemy camps. We want Hope. And Change.
But the reality of hope and change, we're starting to realize, involves work and mess. Some people don't know how to step past the despair to do the actual work, and for those folks, McCain is offering Change Lite. He's offering absolution -- or, for those of you without a Christian background, atonement/redemption without fasting or self-examination. Except, of course, the bill will come due the day after he's elected, with interest and penalty charges.
The only way through despair is through it. Don't make any major decisions while you're at your worst; accept any offer of help; and move your body/mind according to the best thinking you had before you got desperate until you feel a little better. Keep going ("Proceed as the way opens"), and eventually you'll arrive at Change. The key is to move. Taking action is a direct contradiction to despair. Don't spend a lot of time processing it in advance, just act and process later if necessary.
Today's suggestion comes from Democracy For America. They've put together a 30 second video they're thinking about running on TV, which consists of excerpts of an interview with Phillip Butler. As their explanation states, "Dr. Phillip Butler is a veteran and a former prisoner of war at the “Hanoi Hilton” with Sen. McCain. He knows the real McCain. Now he has shot a 30 second ad with our friends at Brave New Films to make sure Americans hear the truth."
We've already run the extended interview from which this ad was taken here at Group News Blog in the post by The Littlest Gator Being a POW Is Not A Resume Builder.
Click on this link for Democracy for America, watch the video if you have not already, and tell them yes if you'd like to see wider exposure. Of course the point of this, from their vantage, is to add names to their database and hit you up for money. But they're a good place to donate if you agree with their strategy, and you don't have to give money to add your voice to this movement. I'm not affiliated with them in any way, by the way -- this is just about the video. Here's a transcript of the DFA ad:
Screenshot of Phillip Butler, Commander U.S. Navy (Ret.), POW Hanoi 1965-1973. (All items in quotes below are spoken by Dr. Butler.)
"Hell, I'm 70 years old and I've lived through being a prisoner of war, I'm going to tell it like it is.
A fellow POW on John McCain: Reckless. Erratic. Unfit to lead.
"The prisoner of war experience is not a good prerequisite for a President of the United States. He was well-known as a very volatile guy, and he would blow up and go off like a Roman candle.
"John McCain is not somebody I would like to see with his finger near the red button."
The YouTube URL for this longer interview is here. You could send this to everybody in your e-mail box (especially all those friends and relatives who are not solidly Democratic) with the Democracy for America link to contradict the fairly wacky notion that being a prisoner who was tortured over 30 years ago makes someone a good President, especially since John McCain has refused to outlaw torture by our own government. (Can somebody please check the box "Fails to learn from own experience"?)
And, lagniappe for today: The postcard graphic at the head of this post was designed and printed by Liza Cowan. She's already given away or mailed out a thousand of them, and she's extending an offer to the readers of Group News Blog: Send her a self-addressed stamped envelope with postage of 59 cents on it, and she'll mail you ten of these postcards for your own use. The addy is Pine Street Art Works, 404 Pine Street, Burlington, VT 05401. Or, if you or your organization wants more, e-mail her at Liza(at)pinestreetartworks(dot)com. If you use this graphic elsewhere, please be sure to give her copyright credit and link to her blog.
I welcome comments about what you've done today, or recently, to get our Democrat in the White House or more progressives in government. Feel free to share suggestions. Just, please, don't blog whore (i.e., use this as an opportunity to promote an individual's blog instead of that belonging to an organization or a particular cause) and don't engage in hate speech. If Obama is not your first choice, that's fine, find another action which DOES promote your vision of progressive government and tell us about that.
The primary fight is over. Hillary Clinton has lost.
Everything you're seeing now is theater, designed to let her gracefully ease her supporters from backing her for President, into backing the nominee of the Democratic Party, Barack Obama. Clinton will concede officially by June 15.
What she is doing now -- from the joint fund at the DNC with Obama, Clinton and the DNC -- lets her start to retire her campaign debt, campaign in a larger sense for party unity, and make clear to her supporters it is indeed over. The General Election has began -- which is why President Bush is attacking Senator Obama.
So...
That means it is time for "looking back" articles on Clinton's loss.
As the Democratic nomination contest slouches toward a close, it's time to take stock of what I will not miss.
I will not miss seeing advertisements for T-shirts that bear the slogan "Bros before Hos." The shirts depict Barack Obama (the Bro) and Hillary Clinton (the Ho) and are widely sold on the Internet.
I will not miss walking past airport concessions selling the Hillary Nutcracker, a device in which a pantsuit-clad Clinton doll opens her legs to reveal stainless-steel thighs that, well, bust nuts. I won't miss television and newspaper stories that make light of the novelty item.
I won't miss episodes like the one in which liberal radio personality Randi Rhodes called Clinton a "big [expletive] whore" and said the same about former vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro. Rhodes was appearing at an event sponsored by a San Francisco radio station, before an audience of appreciative Obama supporters -- one of whom had promoted the evening on the presumptive Democratic nominee's official campaign Web site.
I won't miss Citizens United Not Timid (no acronym, please), an anti-Clinton group founded by Republican guru Roger Stone.
Political discourse will at last be free of jokes like this one, told last week by magician Penn Jillette on MSNBC: "Obama did great in February, and that's because that was Black History Month. And now Hillary's doing much better 'cause it's White Bitch Month, right?" Co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski rebuked Jillette.
I won't miss political commentators (including National Public Radio political editor Ken Rudin and Andrew Sullivan, the columnist and blogger) who compare Clinton to the Glenn Close character in the movie "Fatal Attraction." In the iconic 1987 film, Close played an independent New York woman who has an affair with a married man played by Michael Douglas. When the liaison ends, the jilted woman becomes a deranged, knife-wielding stalker who terrorizes the man's blissful suburban family. Message: Psychopathic home-wrecker, begone.
The airwaves will at last be free of comments that liken Clinton to a "she-devil" (Chris Matthews on MSNBC, who helpfully supplied an on-screen mock-up of Clinton sprouting horns). Or those who offer that she's "looking like everyone's first wife standing outside a probate court" (Mike Barnicle, also on MSNBC).
But perhaps it is not wives who are so very problematic. Maybe it's mothers. Because, after all, Clinton is more like "a scolding mother, talking down to a child" (Jack Cafferty on CNN).
When all other images fail, there is one other I will not miss. That is, the down-to-the-basics, simplest one: "White women are a problem, that's -- you know, we all live with that" (William Kristol of Fox News).
I won't miss reading another treatise by a man or woman, of the left or right, who says that sexism has had not even a teeny-weeny bit of influence on the course of the Democratic campaign. To hint that sexism might possibly have had a minimal role is to play that risible "gender card."
Most of all, I will not miss the silence.
I will not miss the deafening, depressing silence of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean or other leading Democrats, who to my knowledge (with the exception of Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland) haven't publicly uttered a word of outrage at the unrelenting, sex-based hate that has been hurled at a former first lady and two-term senator from New York. Among those holding their tongues are hundreds of Democrats for whom Clinton has campaigned and raised millions of dollars. Don Imus endured more public ire from the political class when he insulted the Rutgers University women's basketball team.
Would the silence prevail if Obama's likeness were put on a tap-dancing doll that was sold at airports? Would the media figures who dole out precious face time to these politicians be such pals if they'd compared Obama with a character in a blaxploitation film? And how would crude references to Obama's sex organs play?
There are many reasons Clinton is losing the nomination contest, some having to do with her strategic mistakes, others with the groundswell for "change." But for all Clinton's political blemishes, the darker stain that has been exposed is the hatred of women that is accepted as a part of our culture.
Was Clinton's loss due to Misogyny?
No.
And I don't think Ms. Cocco is saying so either.
What she is saying is, in running for President, Clinton exposed how deeply the sexism, the hatred of women, the fear of women goes in the United States.
I agree.
In addition to the generalized sexism in America, let us ask...
Is there a lot of hatred of this particular woman?
Yes. The right-wing media has worked in concert since 1992 to define who the Clinton's are. A large part of that has been a deliberate intentional effort to paint Hillary Clinton as an emasculating bitch. Her negatives are enormous. She's not liberal enough for the far-left liberals, and the conservatives hate her with a fiery passion.
Then we get to the campaign. Hillary Clinton came into the 2008 campaign with the best organization in democratic politics, and a political history -- which means people owed her favors -- going back decades. This was when she (and President Clinton) were calling in their markers.
Except they screwed up. Their overconfidence and vaunted trust in their inner-circle, cost them everything. They believed they would win the nomination by Super Tuesday, and they should have. If they'd simply paid attention to how the nomination is actually won, instead of their theories about how it could be won, Hillary Clinton would have won the nomination on Super Tuesday and no one else would have come close.
Instead, Clinton -- on the advice of Mark Penn and crew, ignored the caucuses, and went with a "big state" strategy. FAIL.
There simply weren't enough delegates in the big states, given proportional representation, for Clinton to win the nomination outright. And by failing to set up a GOTV operation in the smaller caucus states, Clinton gave the younger, inexperienced Obama organization the opportunity to run the table in the small caucus states for two straight months, giving Obama an insurmountable lead in pledged delegates, and a momentum, financial, and media advantage Clinton would never again be able to match, let alone beat.
After all, in the planning of the Clinton campaign, the race was to have been over Super Tuesday. Her team had no plans for a primary campaign past February.
The primary race wasn't lost by Clinton because America hates women, although it cost her. The race was lost because Clinton picked poor advisers and trusted them to a fault about a vital strategy. Obama didn't win because a wave of change sweept across America which he rode to victory, although it helped him. He won because he was in the right position at the right time, when Clinton made an unforced error, and he had perfectly positioned his campaign when she made her error.
Obama understood the rules -- WIN. Clinton didn't understand the rules -- FAIL.
Racism, women hating -- both are present in America in large quantities. But neither made the crucial difference in the 2008 Democratic Primary.
The crucial difference was, Obama understood the rules deeply; Clinton didn't.
There's more...
In speaking before the Knesset, the Israeli legislature, Bush was told to attack attacked Obama by describing him as a Nazi appeaser. Only Bush would have the balls to use the Israeli parliament as a political prop.
In his speech, Bush said, “As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.
Notice how the boy king says "an American senator"... He of course doesn't bother to mention that of course that quote is attributed to a Republican Senator, William Borah (R) from Idaho. Not that I can find a single attributable source for this quote, well... except for Glenn Beck and I am sure he isn't full of shit.
The Obama campaign was aware of the attack.
This is an unprecedented political attack on foreign soil," Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs says on CNN. "It's, quite frankly, sad and astonishing that the president of the United States would politicize the 60th anniversary of Israel with a false political attack.
For me it would be quite frankly astonishing if Bush didn't politicize the 60th anniversary of Israel. I am saddened that Israel let him.
249 days to go. Honestly, I think these next months will be some of the most dangerous under this administration as the frat boy comes to realize, more and more, that his days in the limelight are rapidly waning.
There's more...
UPDATE: Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama has apologized to WXYZ reporter Peggy Agar for calling her "sweetie" during a campaign stop Wednesday in Sterling Heights.
Obama apologized in a voicemail he left on Agar's cell phone at 3:16 p.m:
"Hi Peggy. This is Barack Obama. I'm calling to apologize on two fronts. One was you didn't get your question answered and I apologize. I thought that we had set up interviews with all the local stations. I guess we got it with your station but you weren't the reporter that got the interview. And so, I broke my word. I apologize for that and I will make up for it.
"Second apology is for using the word 'sweetie.' That's a bad habit of mine. I do it sometimes with all kinds of people. I mean no disrespect and so I am duly chastened on that front. Feel free to call me back. I expect that my press team will be happy to try to make it up to you whenever we are in Detroit next."
LISTEN TO THE VOICEMAIL IN VIDEO PLAYER RIGHT (Voicemail is followed by video clip of the "sweetie" exchange)(GNB NOTE: To hear the voicemail/watch the clip, you have to go to the linked page.)
In a posting on the New York Times Political Blog titled "Obama: Hold On, Sweetie," reporter Jim Rutenberg pointed out this wasn't the first time Obama used the word: "Back in Pennsylvania in early April, Senator Barack Obama took some heat for calling a female factory worker 'sweetie,' in Allentown."
Obama casually refers to grown women in adult jobs as “sweetie,” then lets himself off the hook for doing so: “That's a bad habit of mine. I do it sometimes with all kinds of people.”
Really? What other “kinds of people” do you you call “sweetie,” Senator? Male reporters for The New York Times? Football players? Children? I can get young children. Grown women? Yep, we know that one already.
Who else?
This is sexism on its face with NO commitment to change.
What, it isn't sexism? Oh... it's just a “bad habit.”
Here. Let me change it around for you...
“Second apology is for using the word 'boy.' That's a bad habit of mine. I do it sometimes with all kinds of people. I mean no disrespect.”
If Hillary Clinton said that on the trail to a grown black male television reporter at the same Detroit auto factories, it would LEAD THE FUCKING NIGHTLY NEWS ON EVERY NETWORK IN AMERICA: “Hillary Clinton called a black reporter 'boy' today.”
But Barack Obama calling a grown woman “sweetie” while patting her on the shoulder and turning away, well, that barely rates a mention. It's funny. He issues an apology. An obviously insincere apology at that, one in which he makes zero commitment to changing his behavior, excusing it as a “bad habit” and whamo, he's off the hook. Not to mention way too few liberal blogs calling him on this obviously sexist bullshit.
(Incidentally, note that Obama didn't even have the ovaries to call the reporter directly. He called her voice mail, which is what you do when you want to make sure your “apology” sounds totally sincere on her tape, leaving her the tape to play for everyone as proof of “like totally” how sincere you are, and most important, making certain you don't have to confront in any way the woman whom you demeaned, overlooked, and made less than, her male counterparts. Don't actually deal with the issue; this way, you can keep your “bad habit.”)
This isn't about Clinton, by the way. I see no realistic path for her to the nomination. This is about holding our candidate presumptive to account. Someone must.
This is about sexism. What Obama did makes all women (and men, and children, because feminism impacts all of us) less than. It was a sexist act.
Men don't get to call women "sweetie", "honey", or "darling," and they sure as hell don't get to do so as nominee presumptive for POTUS. Obama doesn't get to slide on this as a "bad habit." He wants to smoke? Fine. That's his bad habit; I don't care. He uses sexist language, it damages all women, men and children, which means he gets to clean up his act. Starting with calling women by their names.
It's a matter of respect.
Women are people. They vote.
Sometimes, when treated with respect, women even vote for Democrats.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama on Thursday did not rule out selecting rival Hillary Clinton as his vice presidential running mate if he ultimately defeats her in a race in which he has an almost insurmountable lead.
"There's no doubt that she's qualified to be vice president, there's no doubt she's qualified to be president," Obama told NBC News.
In a CNN interview, he said he had not wrapped up the Democratic presidential nomination, but when he does, he will start going through the process of selecting a running mate.
"She is tireless, she is smart. She is capable. And so obviously she'd be on anybody's short list to be a potential vice presidential candidate," said Obama.
According to a CBS News/New York Times poll released last week, a majority of both Obama and Clinton voters say they would favor a so-called "Dream Ticket" involving both candidates.
The most interesting part of this to me is:
According to a CBS News/New York Times poll released last week, a majority of both Obama and Clinton voters say they would favor a so-called "Dream Ticket" involving both candidates.
I'll say that ONE MORE TIME (emphasis added.)
According to a CBS News/New York Times poll released last week, a majority of both Obama and Clinton voters say they would favor a so-called "Dream Ticket" involving both candidates.
A majority say they would favor a so-called "Dream Ticket."
Huh.
Not on this blog. *cracks up*
But then, GNB READERS DO NOT REPRESENT either the
Democratic Party or
General Election voters.
We (at GNB) are much more the future/technological side of the Netroots Party.
Many of you hate Senator Clinton. Or at least, her politics. (Frankly, it's kind of hard to tell with some of you.)
I don't think Clinton would take the VP slot if offered, and I don't think Obama will make such an offer. We talked about this yesterday in How Clinton Might Leave.
That said, discuss:
a) the election pros/cons if Clinton is on the ticket.
Having Clinton on the ticket shores up the Hispanic and women's vote, as well as the older white poor, working-class and middle-class vote. Yes, it gives the Hillary-haters something to get angry about, but frankly, the right-wing who were going to be angry in the general election at Hillary, were going to be going nuts already at having an African-American heading up the ticket. Overall, I think it's a boost, and ensures a win.
b) the signal it sends about business as usual politics v the transformation of politics as usual.
This is the biggest problem, by far in my view. It ties Obama to the past, instead of the future. On the other hand, being President isn't about the person at the top, so much as it's about the team around you. I'm MUCH more interested Obama Cabinet choices than I am about his VPOTUS choice. The Cabinet runs the country, day to day. The Vice President goes to funerals.
c) if Obama can just wait it out, or if power politics call for him to put an end to this now.
I don't know what her price is. I gave you my speculation yesterday, and doubt it's the Vice Presidency. However we've got this Reuters article all alone out there, and Senator Obama himself talking about Senator Clinton and the VP slot, so I'm posting up.
DOES THE SITUATION (Clinton's almost 1700 delegates) require Obama to act, or can or should he wait it out? Remember... the point is to win the nomination, not to purge the party of the Clinton's, attack the DLC, strike out against the Blue-Dogs, or all that jazz people get so hepped up about. Obama's intent here is to win the nomination, and go on to win the Presidency. That's it. Everything else is gravy.
Got it?
a) pros/cons of Clinton being on the ticket, b) "politics as usual" v. Obama's current campaign, and c) does the situation (the politics) require Obama to make a VP offer?
Obama's taking, if not the high road, at least the moderate road now, in a memo to Superdelegates, calling the Clinton strategy "entertaining" but not "legitimate."
Second, this is analysis, not what I necessarily think personally is the best solution for the country or for either the Clinton or Obama campaigns. It is however, what I think is happening, from a political point of view, and what will get Campaign Clinton to concede the nomination fight.
In the face of the Clinton campaign's promise to fight on -- which they must say to show strength for their negotiations over terms of quitting -- what are the promises from the Obama Camp which would induce Clinton to quit, and support Obama with her full strength, not just for show?
1) Clinton needs her campaign debt paid off by Obama, so she leaves the campaign not owning anyone money. This includes her personal loans to the campaign. This part is simple. Clinton will fight and fight and fight, till Obama agrees. The winner paying the loser's debts is also fairly traditional.
2) Clinton will want some promotions -- say, President Clinton to the next Supreme Court opening, and her to Senate Majority Leader. That has the advantage of being such a powerful position she'd be unlikely to ever run again for President. Further, it plays to her strength. She's much more a legislator, than an executive.
3) She needs a major plank, perhaps health care, which has always been her signature issue, to go her way. Then Elizabeth Edwards will be happy, and Clinton can say to her supporters that my campaign made a difference. It stood for something. It changed what we have fought for all these years. Finally... finally health care in America is going to change. YOU made that happen. Together we won. THAT would be worth the whole campaign to her, in the years to come, politically... to be able to take credit for health care, especially if as Senate Majority Leader she was then in a position to not just sponsor the legislation, but oversea and control its passage.
4) Lastly, Clinton doesn't need Campaign Obama to let her control the VP pick, but she'll want a veto over Bill Richardson, because she and President Clinton are PISSED at Richardson right now. Heh.
The up-side for Clinton being Vice President would be that the odds of Obama being assassinated during two terms of office, which are much higher of course, for an African-American Democratic President than any President we've ever had before. The race-bating has already started as LM and Maggie point out.
The down-side is, being VP is a thankless, powerless job (Cheney not withstanding) and Clinton would unquestionably be locked out of power in an Obama administration. Her style is the opposite of Obama's, and to Obama's most fervent supporters (admittedly, the Obama-manics are at best, perhaps 10-15% of those who will hopefully vote for Obama) Clinton is the epitome of everything wrong with Democratic politics; putting Clinton on the ticket would upset this part of the party.
Further, if Obama should die with her at VPOTUS, Clinton would instantly become the center of the worst paranoid conspiracy shit-storm in U.S. history. Clinton is a fiercely intelligent woman, who must also balance out the opportunity to get close to her life-long dream of becoming President of the United States. Perhaps it is necessary in this sexist country for a woman to become Vice President before one can become President. Everything considered, I suspect Senator Clinton will go for the surer route to real power -- Senate Majority Leader.
Give her these four points, a major photo op with Clinton and Obama where they make lovey-dovey and endorse, and she pulls out May 21, the day after the next major round of primaries (so she goes out after a major victory.)
Don't, and Clinton goes scorched earth at the May 31 meeting, working to get Florida and Michigan seated, and takes it till stopped by the Super Delegates, Dean, or Denver.
These are my predictions. Remember -- I'm usually wrong on short-term political predictions. *laughs* My track record on technology is first rate, same with long term speculation about the future... I'm not as good as Sara is as I don't have the discipline and training she has, or the vocabulary (thus, the distinctions.) But my track record is good.
Short-range politics... not so much. But it's fun to play.
Enjoy yourself in comments (and please, no personal attacks.)
"My attitude is that Senator Clinton can run as long as she wants. Her name is on the ballot and she is a fierce and formidable competitor," said Obama, adding that the notion that Democrats have been split by the prolonged nominating contest "is somewhat overstated."
Clinton, a New York senator, on Friday vowed to stay in the White House race, rejecting mounting pressure from some Democratic leaders to bow out and let the party focus on defeating the presumptive Republican nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain, in the November general election.
Clinton trails Obama in the race for 2,024 Democratic nominating delegates. But she says she can still beat the Illinois senator and that all Democrats should get a chance to vote.
"There are some folks saying, 'well, we ought to stop these elections,"' she told a rally in Indianapolis.
"I didn't think we believed that in America. I thought we of all people knew how important it was to give everyone a chance to have their voices heard and their votes counted," Clinton said.
Holding out an olive branch to her supporters, Obama said Clinton "obviously believes that she would make the best nominee and the best president and I think that she should be able to compete and her supporters should be able to support her for as long as they are willing or able."
"I think it is important to pivot as quickly as possible for the superdelegates or others to make a decision as quickly as possible," Obama said, to give the nominee time to choose a running mate and plan for the party's convention in August.
Obama also downplayed fears that the contest will continue to divide Democrats in the election against McCain.
"You can't tell me that some of my supporters are going to say 'well, we'd rather have the guy who may want to stay in Iraq for 100 years because we are mad that Senator Clinton ran a negative ad about Senator Obama. And I think the converse is true as well," he said.
Meanwhile, former Vice President Al Gore said Thursday he expects the heated Democratic race will be resolved, according to The Associated Press.
"What have we got, five months left?" Gore told the AP. "I think it's going to resolve itself, but we'll see."
Gore didn't say whether he expected the race to be settled before the Democratic National Convention in August.
Gore's name has been invoked among some Democrats as a neutral party elder who could forge a compromise between the two candidates, or even appear on the top of the presidential ticket himself.
Earlier this week, Rep. Tim Mahoney, D-Florida, suggested Gore, the party's 2000 presidential nominee, could assume the role of a compromise candidate if neither Clinton nor Obama could broker a deal.
"If it [the nomination process] goes into the convention, don't be surprised if someone different is at the top of the ticket," Mahoney told a Florida newspaper, adding Gore could be that choice.
We're all tired of primary season.
Yet even as tired as everyone is, Senator Obama is giving Senator Clinton room to campaign. This is a gracious act by a gracious man. Senator Obama is taking the high road, all the way to Denver.
Please keep the pie fights to the threads -- such as this one -- which are about Obama/Clinton, and leave the rest of the threads to other concerns.
Eventually, all this will be over. Till then, keep breathing. *smiles*
There's more...
She has $3 million in the bank, he has $30 million. They have blown through a lot of money. Guess where most of it went?
Consultants
Honestly, these 2 candidates have little separating them, he has health care plans, she has health care plans. They both are fine. Howard Dean likes to say if you want to elect a candidate who matches your own beliefs, run for office. Look there are plenty of things about Barack Obama that I do not like, but I will keep them to myself until we kick John McCain's ass. As far as Hillary, it's not her I don't like. It's that campaign. It's those consultants, the whole lot of them.
That is why we have to beat that campaign. It's not about Clinton or Obama. We have to whip these worthless "media consultants." They are the ones who book the candidates on Russert, and Matthews and keep them relevant. They are the ones that keep the Sunday Bobblehead Circuit running. They give money for advertising, instead of organizing a precinct. Tell candidates to run to the right. Tell them to seek the endorsement of some crazy bastard like Hagee. They won in 2004, they beat Dean bad, but in the end they lost, like they always do. Kerry lost, and in that we got rid of Shrum his media consultant campaign manager. We have to beat this campaign because we have to beat these people, Mark Penn and all the rest of them. It's the first step in taking this fight to the media. If we get rid of the media enablers, we can start to focus on the media.
Of course she is out of money. Penn was getting millions a month. Millions. Now we know why she went "grassroots" in Pennsylvania, and why Obama went on the air with an ad first. She can't afford to do more. Like I said, I don't dislike her, but she sat at this table. She hired these people to represent her. Lobbyists and Media Consultants. Dean threw all of these people out of the DNC. We need to do the same.
There's more...
Just over one month to go till the Pennsylvania primary, and Pennsylvania 12th District, veteran, and anti-Iraq war activist Congressman John Murtha (D) has endorsed Senator Hillary Clinton for President.
“Sen. Clinton is the candidate that will forge a consensus on health care, education, the economy, and the war in Iraq,” Murtha wrote in a statement about his decision.
Murtha, who represents the 12th district of Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, was an early and sometimes inflammatory critic of the Iraq war. As a retired Marine Corps colonel and the first combat veteran of Vietnam elected to serve in Congress, Murtha’s voice on Clinton’s behalf could prove especially valuable in both inoculating her from anti-war criticism and bolstering her claim that she is the most qualified to serve as commander-in-chief. That message is the backbone of Clinton’s appearances this week.
“Her experience and careful consideration of these issues convinced me that she is best qualified to lead our nation and to bring credibility back to the White House,” Murtha said. He said he “whole-heartedly” recommends Clinton to all voters in his state.
Clever. If Obama does do better -- but loses -- he wins. If he loses, it's what he expected. And in any event he will still do fine with Pledged Delegate Votes, and end up ahead overall.
Assuming the game doesn't change radically.
Six months ago almost no one predicted the race would still be ongoing after Super Tuesday. That's why we have elections -- to see what happens.
Murtha's endorsement of Hillary Clinton will swing some Pennsylvania votes.
Imagine this 30 second ad, run heavily next October. I think it would be devastating among undecided and swing voters.
"What does Barack Obama really believe in? His spritual teacher for 20 years has been Jeremiah Wright. Wright wedded Obama & his wife. Obama named his book from a sermon of Wright's. [insert video of favorable comment about Wright by Obama]. What has Jeremiah Wright taught Obama? [Insert rabid clip of Wright capped by "God Damn America!! God Damn America!!"] We need a solid patriot to lead our nation. Someone we can trust. Vote John McCain 2008."
I go to church every Sunday, and frankly, I never received the memo that says you're obligated to agree with everything that a pastor says in a sermon. I thought the idea that you're allowed to actually disagree with him or her is inherently "American". So what's JB's problem, again? Let me get this straight. This guy JB is switching his vote from Obama to Clinton because Obama's pastor, from whom he's publicly disagreed on repeated occasions, made inflammatory remarks during a sermon in a service that Obama never attended. Can we please try to wrap our minds around the stupidity of that notion? If JB loved America as much as he apparently claims, he'd take his vote a hell of a lot more seriously than that.
Late Update: TPM Reader JM:
Agree wholeheartedly with JS, and completely fail to understand the hyperventilation over this issue. I mean, I saw Chris Matthews (Chris Matthews!) on the Today Show this morning saying that everyone knows that this guy doesn't represent Obama's views and that voters understand that you shouldn't necessarily be held accountable for everything and anything any of your associates utters in public. You know you're deep in the weeds when Tweety is your voice of reason.
I think that this drawn-out primary season is starting to drive people nuts.
and TPM Reader MM:
Oh Good Lord,
The problem with we Democrats is that every new issue that comes up gets us running around in circles, flapping our hands and screaming that the sky is falling.
A big part of why I voted for Obama is that he is NOT like that -- he stays cool under pressure, and he plays the long game.
The Wright thing will get worked out. The candidacy will survive. Obama is not John Kerry (he's a much more gifted politician, for one thing, and a better strategist).
Bottom line: we have two strong candidates who are in a real struggle for the nomination. Interest in the election is the highest it's been in years. That's healthy in a democracy. Much healthier than the kind of easy coronation we've gotten used to.
Everybody take a deep breath. The sky is still firmly overhead.
While the traditional media will screw up the coverage, we can watch the speech ourselves, and read the intended text.
I do think if Obama is the nominee, we will see 527 ads along the lines suggested above. THEY WILL BACKFIRE.
Obama is demonstrating how to run a campaign which takes the high road, yet fights back. He is not letting others define him. This is clearly landing strongly within the Democratic Party.
The question remains, how is it landing with Independents and potential cross-over Republicans?
The latest numbers I've seen show the Rev. Wright problem has been hurting Obama. Three to four days from now, we'll know if this speech has reversed the damage.
My guess -- yes.
I am moved by Senator Obama's speech. Pure courage. Grace under fire. I am proud he is running for President.
“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”
Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.
This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.
This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.
I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.
Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.
This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.
And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.
On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way
But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:
“People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish – and with which we could start to rebuild.”
That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past.” We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. 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.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.
Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities.
A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.
This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. 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.
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.
This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
But I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.
Ironically, this quintessentially American – and yes, conservative – notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.
The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.
There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today – a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.
There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.
And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.
Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.
Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”
“I'm here because of Ashley.” By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.
There's more...
A party-run primary or caucus has been ruled out, and it's simply not possible for the state to hold another election, even if the Party were to pay for it. Republican Speaker of the Florida House Marco Rubio refuses to even consider that option. Florida is finally moving to paper ballots, which is a good thing, but it means that at least 15 counties do not have the capacity to handle a major election before the June 10th DNC primary deadline. -- Congresswoman Karen L. Thurman Chair, Florida Democratic Party.
Which only leaves Michigan. It appears there is a compromise re-vote on the table. The state party co-chair and the Obama campaign are considering it.
Clinton supporters in Michigan are arguing that legislative leaders won't spend time working out those details in the first place without a preliminary nod of approval from the Obama camp -- leading Hillary spokesperson Phil Singer to allege that the Obama camp is "blocking the people of Michigan from being able to vote."
But the Obama campaign denies that it's raising procedural objections in order to stop the revote from happening. -- TPM Election Central
If I was the Obama campaign I would be cautious about any deal the Clinton campaign worked out with state legislators. Reasonable so.
There's more...
The blog D-Day reports on Bush's endorsement of John W. McCain. I imagine McCain was wondering the entire time if there was some way he could get un-endorsed. His life really sucks. And I don't mean, just having to stick his nose into George W.'s pit and take a big wiff while the camera's whir and click.
(Some of us DFH's are intentionally calling St. John, John W., to draw attention to how similar the volatile lad is to George W.
Yes, we know his actual middle name is Sidney. Not as much fun. *grins*)
This Bush/McCain press availability is hilarious. The press keeps asking over and over again "Mr. President, is this the worst endorsement that John McCain would ever want" and he got his back up and now he's practically shouting back at the press corps. McCain tried to talk and Bush cut him off. The press pissed him off and now he's yipping like a stray dog. McCain kept saying "I'll appear at events when it fits with the President's heavy schedule," and I'm sure that schedule will suddenly fill up. This was awful.
Brian Williams and Tweety Matthews tried to put the best spin on this, calling McCain a "warrior" and saying how committed he is to his country (not like those softie DemocRATs). But you can't really put a spin on this display.
Bush was all about pulling McCain under his wing, saying that "there's not going to be any change in Iraq and in fighting terror" if McCain comes to power. I'll go a step further, there wouldn't be ANY change. McCain wants to revive the "Just Say No" campaign and continue the Drug War. He's just as just as anti-science as Bush, blaming vaccinations on the rise of autism in the face of all available evidence. His economic policy includes more tax cuts and privatization of Social Security, which is at odds with his own website that's trying to hide the similiarities. His healthcare "plan" won't cover anybody and would amount a big tax increase on employers. He leads a privileged life thanks to his heiress wife and uses his charitable donations to benefit friends and family. And his campaign is suffused with lobbyists (always has been) and would continue corporate control of government.
McCain's negatives HAVE to be goosed. He's an unprincipled politician with a long Senate record full of inconsistencies. That has to become the conventional wisdom in the populace, if not in the media.
This break in your regularly scheduled Clinton-Obama Celebrity Deathmatch, has been brought to you courtesy of me, "Doc" Wendel, reminding you the actual battle is against John "McSame" McCain and the Republicans.
Hey look... an uncommitted Super-delegate!
Ah. I was only kidding.
It's Friday. Leave work early and have some fun.
There's more...
Senator Clinton reprises her now famous "3 AM phone call" in her speech. Just what you want to do during a victory speech -- kick your opponent in the balls.
Senator Obama reprises his "Bringing America Together" talk in his speech. Laying out his differences from Senator McCain, he vows not to be swayed from his stand.
Both Clinton and Obama we could say, are playing to their strengths.
As Josh Marshall suggests at TPM, I bet the superdelegates hold off till they see how Obama responds to Clinton's attacks. If he handles the attacks well, the SD's will wait till after next weeks' elections, then start moving towards Obama. Furthermore, I agree with Hubris below, after a week (and two more predicted wins for Obama) the party leaders will move in if Obama is doing well. (It's an opportunity for folks to make certain he can handle himself in the general election against McCain.) However... If Obama bobbles Clinton's attacks, then Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow and we'll have six more weeks of increasingly negative campaigning.
The race is Obama's to lose. For Clinton to win, lots of stuff would have to break her way. On the other hand... John W. McCain is the nominee of the Republican Party. How 'bout them apples?
This is going to be such a fun week/month/summer. (That was sarcasm.)
The background press release is out: 
