Shifting

June 6th, 2008

OK, so … I’m still a bit poopy over the tone of what should have been a heart-lifting, vision-empowering, era-shattering moment of achievement, nominating only our THIRD African-American Senator since post-Civil War Reconstruction for President — this strong and purposeful stride toward the future has been slowed and tempered by our having to look back over our shoulder to see what baggage we’re dragging.

You see the pattern here? The Millennium celebrations were marred by the advent of Bush and its been a slog ever since. In these last years, there’s been a somber overlay on everything, a downward tit to every upward tat we manage, as we make this shift — the best of times, the worst of times. But it’s moving swiftly now… almost too quickly to grok in fullness.

Mrs. Clinton will concede this weekend but the smoke machine is still pumping, rumors are flying about what her people are up to and I don’t believe for an instant that we’ve heard the last from Hil — meanwhile, McRib is licking his lips over the possibility of scooping up her supporters.

I read one bloggers comments that mentioned Hillary’s enthused embrace of McCain’s leadership, “a man of honor who respects women” …. jeeeeeez! Doesn’t this woman READ? Ask CINDY, for cripes sake — the c**t who applies her makeup with a trowel! This gal REALLY needs a pair of majik glasses. Pfffft!

Barack met with Hil last night, resulting in reports that she will not be the VP — Edwards has also distanced from that possibility. And then … late yesterday afternoon — lo, the blue star in the heavens brightened:

“The DNC and the Obama Campaign are unified and working together to elect Barack Obama as the next president of the United States. Our presumptive nominee has pledged not to take donations from Washington lobbyists and from today going forward the DNC makes that pledge as well,” said Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean. “Senator Obama has promised to change the way things are done in Washington and this step is a sure sign of his commitment. The American people’s priorities will set the agenda in an Obama Administration, not the special interests.”

What??? Did that really happen?? Who’d a thunk it!

Hamas voted for Obama before they didn’t vote for him — there goes a McRib talking point. O’s strong message to AIPAC should pour soothing oil on all those who think his skin and name offers blanket acceptance of Muslim radicalism; and don’t get your progressive knickers in a twist over this. In order to secure the presidency, he will have to move to the middle and calm fears — let’s rely on his liberal voting record, more liberal than Hillary’s.

Considering the condition our condition is in, everything is about potential anyhow. We can’t jump from a fist-bump on Wednesday to a sit-down with Iran’s I’m-a-dinner-jacket on Thursday without the nation shaking apart — all these things take easing into. [Many of] the elders in this nation are still reeling over the shock of this generational thing … and doing all they can to stop it.

The bump, I might add, is making news. When I saw Barack and Michelle do it, just prior to his speech, I knew we’d get some fallout — but it also delighted me. The Right was Absolutely Horrified. Katie Halper over at 23/6 wrote in her post [titled The Obama Pound: In Historic Moment, White People Exposed to "Fist Bump" for First Time]:

The right-wing pundit who creatively described the pound between Michelle and Barack as “‘Hezbollah’ style fist-jabbing” must have read my post. His blog post no longer contains the following sentence:

Michelle is not as “refined” as Obama at hiding her TRUE feelings about America–etc. Her “Hezbollah” style fist-jabbing–mouth-twisted anti-American speeches is STRAIGHT from ISLAM!

One blogger tickled me with with this comment:

Nice. I love when white people do retarded/cute things. It happens a lot.

And there it is, there. The generational shift is beyond race and gender; while we’ve been focused on all these splits and differences, pointing fingers and raising ruckus, fuming about race lines and glass ceilings … a kind of alchemy happened and more of us have moved on than not. As we should — dropping old baggage right where we stand is how we’re gonna do this thing.

Right. Where. We. Stand.

The Obama’s, as those who saw his speech the other night will have noticed, are just plain comfortable in their own skin. WHEN did we last see a political family either so relaxed or so genuinely affectionate? The answer is … maybe never. And THAT is what the shift is all about, isn’t it.

It’s a generational shift, a populist shift, a switch of gears into what’s authentic … what’s NEW — and today, after years of commenting on what heinous thing the administration has done … although you should take note of the 50 permanent Iraq bases the Dub is demanding and the ratcheting up of threat to Iran — the Dark Side Neptunian influence is strong, Young Jedi’s … let’s talk about WHAT’S NEW!

The first two bits are op/ed’s — Morford says it the way I think it and brings the term “Lighworker” to the national conversation, and Guy Saperstein has summed up the problems with the Republican candidate perfectly — then, an article on the younger voters perceptions, another on Howard Dean and Obama united in the 50 state push [that should be something to watch with pleasure and work for.] You’ll find Sirota on populism in these weekend reads, and DO open the Mike Shaw piece for a picture of the “bump.”

There’s a cute snip from Reuters about Obama’s trip to see Rushmore — the guy who’s too elite cracks a joke and talks about his kids field trip. Which reminds me, Gracie, my grandarlin, just had her first field trip in Kindergarten — they went to Home Depot! The next one is to Target. Consumerism has replaced culture, dearhearts — political shift can’t come soon enough!

The last piece is dear to me — the Crow Nation has adopted our presumptive; and when he says that he will appoint Native American representation in his cabinet … I believe.

We may be too tired or angry or bewildered to process all that’s happening in this moment, but don’t forget to take a moment to FEEL this thing that’s taking place. We’re shifting — right here, right now.

Jude

Is Obama an Enlightened One?
Spiritual wise ones say: This sure ain’t no ordinary politician. You buying it?
Mark Morford, SF Chronicle
Friday, June 6, 2008

I find I’m having this discussion, this weird little debate, more and more, with colleagues, with readers, with liberals and moderates and miserable, deeply depressed Republicans and spiritually amped persons of all shapes and stripes and I’m having it in particular with those who seem confused, angry, unsure, thoroughly nonplussed, as they all ask me the same thing: What the hell’s the big deal about Obama?

I, of course, have an answer. Sort of.

Warning: If you are a rigid pragmatist/literalist, itchingly evangelical, a scowler, a doubter, a burned-out former ’60s radical with no hope left, or are otherwise unable or unwilling to parse alternative New Age speak, click away right now, because you ain’t gonna like this one little bit.

Ready? It goes likes this:

Barack Obama isn’t really one of us. Not in the normal way, anyway.

This is what I find myself offering up more and more in response to the whiners and the frowners and to those with broken or sadly dysfunctional karmic antennae - or no antennae at all - to all those who just don’t understand and maybe even actively recoil against all this chatter about Obama’s aura and feel and MLK/JFK-like vibe.

To them I say all right, you want to know what it is? The appeal, the draw, the ethereal and thing that keeps drawing millions of people in from all over the world, that keeps opening up and firing into new channels of the culture normally completely unaffected by politics?

No, it’s not merely youthful vigor, or handsomeness, or even inspiring rhetoric. It is not fresh ideas or cool charisma or the fact that a black president will be historic and revolutionary in about a thousand different ways. It is something more. Even Bill Clinton, with all his effortless, winking charm, didn’t have what Obama has, which is a sort of powerful luminosity, a unique high-vibration integrity.

Dismiss it all you like, but I’ve heard from far too many enormously smart, wise, spiritually attuned people who’ve been intuitively blown away by Obama’s presence - not speeches, not policies, but sheer presence - to say it’s just a clever marketing ploy, a slick gambit carefully orchestrated by hotshot campaign organizers who, once Obama gets into office, will suddenly turn from perky optimists to vile soul-sucking lobbyist whores, with Obama as their suddenly evil, cackling overlord.

Here’s where it gets gooey. Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul.

The unusual thing is, true Lightworkers almost never appear on such a brutal, spiritually empty stage as national politics. This is why Obama is so rare. And this why he is so often compared to Kennedy and Martin Luther King, to those leaders in our culture whose stirring vibrations still resonate throughout our short history.

Are you rolling your eyes and scoffing? Fine by me. But you gotta wonder, why has, say, the JFK legacy lasted so long, is so vital to our national identity? Yes, the assassination canonized his legend. The Kennedy family is our version of royalty. But there’s something more. Those attuned to energies beyond the literal meanings of things, these people say JFK wasn’t assassinated for any typical reason you can name. It’s because he was just this kind of high-vibration being, a peacemaker, at odds with the war machine, the CIA, the dark side. And it killed him.

Now, Obama. The next step. Another try. And perhaps, as Bush laid waste to the land and embarrassed the country and pummeled our national spirit into disenchanted pulp and yet ironically, in so doing has helped set the stage for an even larger and more fascinating evolutionary burp, we are finally truly ready for another Lightworker to step up.

Let me be completely clear: I’m not arguing some sort of utopian revolution, a big global group hug with Obama as some sort of happy hippie camp counselor. I’m not saying the man’s going to swoop in like a superhero messiah and stop all wars and make the flowers grow and birds sing and solve world hunger and bring puppies to schoolchildren.

Please. I’m also certainly not saying he’s perfect, that his presidency will be free of compromise, or slimy insiders, or great heaps of politics-as-usual. While Obama’s certainly an entire universe away from George W. Bush in terms of quality, integrity, intelligence and overall inspirational energy, well, so is your dog. Hell, it isn’t hard to stand far above and beyond the worst president in American history.

But there simply is no denying that extra kick. As one reader put it to me, in a way, it’s not even about Obama, per se. There’s a vast amount of positive energy swirling about that’s been held back by the armies of BushCo darkness, and this energy has now found a conduit, a lightning rod, is now effortlessly self-organizing around Obama’s candidacy.

People and emotions and ideas of high and positive vibration are automatically draw to him. It’s exactly like how Bush was a magnet for the low vibrational energies of fear and war and oppression and aggression, but, you know, completely reversed. And different. And far, far better.

Don’t buy any of it? Think that’s all a bunch of tofu-sucking New Agey bulls– and Obama is really a dangerously elitist political salesman whose inexperience will lead us further into darkness because, when you’re talking national politics, nothing, really, ever changes? I understand. I get it. I often believe it myself.

Not this time. ++

Obama in a Blowout: The Presidential Election Will Not Be Close
Charisma, change and vision vs. a gaffe-prone spent force: Obama will beat McCain and win 300 to 350 electoral votes.
Guy T. Saperstein, AlterNet
June 6, 2008

In early December 2007, at a time when Hillary Clinton was tracking 20-plus points ahead of the Democratic field in national polls, I published an article contending that Hillary Clinton was an inherently weak candidate, a beatable candidate, and that Barack Obama would be a stronger match against Republicans.

I argued that she had the highest “unfavorable” rating of anyone who ever had run for the presidency; that she was the only Democratic candidate who could unite and energize the Republican base; that she was running 10 to 15 points behind in generic Democrat vs. Republican presidential polls; that her head-to-head matchups with the Republican candidates were poor; that in Iowa, where she was the only female candidate with seven men, she was polling only 26 percent; that several Democratic U.S. Senate candidates had told me she would pull the ticket down in their states; and that Bill was a potentially large, uncontrollable liability (even I did not know how true that prediction would become!). Hillary never was “inevitable.” The evidence of her imminent demise was there for anyone who wanted to look.

OK, that was then, this is now.

The November presidential election is not going to be close. Barack Obama is going to beat John McCain by 8 to 10 points in the national popular vote and win 300 to 350 electoral votes. Obama is going to wipe out McCain mano a mano.

I am far more confident making this prediction than I was in predicting Hillary’s demise. There are many reasons why.

The Political Environment

The Republican Party is led — and branded — by an extraordinarily unpopular president, whose policies McCain has staunchly defended and supported (95 percent voting congruence in 2007). In the recent CBS News/NYTimes poll, Bush is at 28 percent approval, 65 percent disapproval; in the Hart/Newhouse poll, he is at 27 percent approval, 66 percent disapproval. While some presidents have fallen to low levels in the past, what is truly remarkable about Bush is how long-term and persistent voter disapproval of him has been, and the depth of voter sentiment: A May 12 Washington Post/ABC poll showed only 15 percent of voters “strongly approve,” while 52 percent “strongly disapprove.”

Voters think, correctly, that the country is on the wrong track. In the Hart/Newhouse poll, 15 percent of voters said the country was headed in the “right direction,” while an astounding 73 percent said “wrong direction.” Remember, these polls include all voters, not just Democrats.

On issues, Republicans are on the short end of everything except the military and national security. Among voters, in the NYTimes/CBS poll, when asked which party is better, on health care 63 percent say Democrats while only 19 percent say Republicans; the economy, 56 percent say Democrats, 28 percent say Republicans; sharing your moral values, 50 percent say Democrats, 34 percent say Republicans; and, dealing with Iraq, 50 percent say Democrats, 34 percent say Republicans. The Democratic Party has a 52 percent favorable and 41 percent unfavorable rating; the Republican Party has a 33 percent favorable and 58 percent unfavorable rating. A whopping 63 percent say the United States needs to withdraw from Iraq within 12 months; McCain wants to stay roughly forever — and attack Iran. The Washington Post/ABC poll asked, “Which party do you trust to do a better job coping with the main problems the nation faces over the next few years?” Democrats were chosen over Republicans, 53 percent to 32 percent.

The U.S. economy is sinking (while McCain has said he doesn’t know much about the economy); gas prices are skyrocketing; the housing market has collapsed and people are losing their homes; and the Iraq Recession shows no signs of abating.

McCain has been able to stay close to parity in polls matching him with Obama, but that is the product of the bashing Obama has taken from the Clinton campaign. Once that internal scrap is behind him and he can go head to head against McCain, his polling is going to soar.

Even in fund-raising, a traditional Republican strength, the Republicans are at a disadvantage. At last reported count, Obama had $51 million in cash on hand; McCain had $11 million. In the combined cash of the national party committees, Republicans had $55.5 million; Democrats $87.1 million. The netroots has raised unprecedented amounts of money for Democrats, especially Obama; labor unions have gone deeper into their pockets and are raising more money for Democrats than in prior elections; and, even business PACs have given more money to Democrats! Business blows with the wind, and it knows which way the wind is blowing.

Simply put, this is the worst possible time for any Republican to be running for president. And this is not simply my opinion; it is an opinion that has many adherents in the Republican Party and among traditional Republican supporters. Representative Tom Davis, from Virginia, in an internal memo to Republicans, recently wrote, “The political atmosphere facing Republicans this November is the worst since Watergate and is far more toxic than the fall of 2006.The Republican brand is in the trash can. [I]f we were dog food, they would take us off the shelf.”

The Candidates

While many ardent Democrats would disagree with this assessment, I personally consider McCain to be an honorable, decent man. I have enormous respect for — and cannot forget — the fact that he declined the opportunity to be released from a North Vietnamese prison because his father had been a Navy admiral and chose instead to stay with his comrades for 5½ years. Very few of us would have done that — I know I would not have. There is a loyalty and integrity there that we need to remember and honor. And, despite efforts to disparage the “maverick” label, the reality is that, for a substantial part of his political career, he was a Republican maverick on a variety of issues, including the environment, immigration, campaign reform, taxes and the budget. These are not inconsequential disagreements with the Republican Party, and he has been almost singular in being willing to disagree with the Republican establishment. But that is the previous incarnation of McCain, not the version we’ve seen for the last four years or the version who has to run between now and November.

The problem with McCain is that his brain is no longer working. There is something wrong. Many doctor friends of mine hypothesize Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is consistent with his 5½ years of great stress in prison and which can explain his violent temper, his memory lapses and his frequent mental disconnects. It also is possible that he is suffering mini-strokes, which cause momentary double vision, partial blackouts and confusion, and which could explain why he can say incredibly stupid things, sometimes the same dumb thing several times in one day, without appearing to understand what he just said. Whatever the specific cause, he is not healthy, and mentally he is struggling to hold it together.

What we are going to see in the general election from McCain is a ton of mistakes. The very thing the press likes about him, his candor and shoot-from-the-hip style, is going to kill him when the full weight of media attention is trained on him. He never has been a good speaker with a prepared text (last night, his speech was characteristically wooden, with several word confusions). The media has always loved the quick, gritty, candid McCain, but that version is gone; he now is a damaged, slower-thinking McCain, but his habits will remain the same. He will still try to be the quick wit, the maverick; it just isn’t going to work. And while McCain is still capable (with help) of firing off some zingers that hit, he will be unable to sustain a narrative — or fool the American voters — for the next five months. This is not just about being 71; it is about being a very old 71. It might be sad to watch, but I for one will have no sympathy. There is too much at stake.

Obama is the perfect candidate for Democrats, and a nightmare for McCain. Obama, who by every metric is a brilliant strategist, thinker and speaker, is going to run circles around McCain. McCain, who is not a very good speaker even on his best day, will appear slow, befuddled and confused; he will make gaffes. Obama will be charismatic, smart, thoughtful, high-minded, alert and substantive. It will be no contest. And adding to Obama’s natural advantages, McCain has just enough integrity to try to match up with Obama on issues. In that debate on substance, Obama’s overwhelming intellectual superiority and mental alertness will become obvious. There will be the believers, who have jumped aboard the Obama campaign and will continue to multiply, but there also is going to be another type of vote that is going to swing heavily to Obama: the default vote. Voters are going to default to Obama because it will become obvious that McCain simply is not up to the task of being president.

This is going to be the first not-close presidential election since 1988. You heard it here first. ++

Guy T. Saperstein is a past president of the Sierra Club Foundation; previously, he was one of the National Law Journal’s “100 Most Influential Lawyers in America.”

What He Overcame
Eugene Robinson, WaPo
Friday, June 6, 2008

There will be plenty of time to chart Barack Obama’s attempt to navigate a course between the exigencies of the old politics and the promise of the new, between yesterday and tomorrow, youth and experience, black and white. For now, take a moment to consider the mind-bending improbability of what just happened.

A young, black, first-term senator — a man whose father was from Kenya, whose mother was from Kansas and whose name sounds as if it might have come from the roster of Guantanamo detainees — has won a marathon of primaries and caucuses to become the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. To reach this point, he had to do more than outduel the party’s most powerful and resourceful political machine. He also had to defy, and ultimately defeat, 389 years of history.

It was in 1619 that the first Africans were brought in chains to these shores, landing in Jamestown. That first shipment of “servants” did not include any of Obama’s ancestors; it’s impossible to say whether some distant progenitor of his wife, Michelle, might have been present at that moment of original sin. Ever since — through the War of Independence, the abolitionist movement, the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the great migration to Northern cities and the civil rights struggle — race has been one of the great themes running through our nation’s history.

I’m old enough to remember when Americans with skin the color of mine and Obama’s had to fight — and die — for the right to participate as equals in the life of the nation we helped build. Watching Obama give his speech Tuesday night marking the end of the primary season and the beginning of the general election campaign, I thought back to a time when brave men and women, both black and white, put their lives on the line to ensure that African Americans had the right to vote, let alone run for office — a time when Democrats in my home state of South Carolina were Dixiecrats, and when the notion that the Democratic Party would someday nominate a black man for president was utterly unimaginable.

Tiresome, isn’t it? All this recounting of unpleasant history, I mean. Wouldn’t it be great if we could all just move on? Bear with me, though, because this is how we get to the point where, as Obama’s young supporters like to chant, “race doesn’t matter.” No one will be happier than I when we reach that promised land, and we’ve come so far that at times we can see it, just over the next hill. But we aren’t there yet.

This is a passage from an e-mail I received in April from an Obama volunteer in Pennsylvania: “We’ve been called ‘N-lovers,’ Obama’s been called the ‘Anti-Christ,’ our signs have been burned in the streets during a parade, our volunteers have been harassed physically, or with racial slurs — it’s been unreal.”

Yet the amazing thing isn’t that there were instances of overt, old-style racism during this campaign, it’s that there were so few. The amazing thing is that so many Americans have been willing to accept — or, indeed, reject — Obama based on his qualifications and his ideas, not on his race. I’ll never forget visiting Iowa in December and witnessing all-white crowds file into high school gymnasiums to take the measure of a black man — and, ultimately, decide that he was someone who expressed their hopes and dreams.

When historians and political scientists write books about this extraordinary campaign season, surely they will seek to assess what impact Obama’s race had on his prospects. But they will also devote volumes to exploring how he put together a fundraising apparatus that generated undreamed-of amounts of cash, and how his organization drew so many new voters into the process, and how his young supporters made use of social-networking Web sites such as Facebook and MySpace, and how his delegate-counting team managed to consistently outthink and outhustle everyone else. It will be written that Obama’s nomination victory owes as much to adroit management as it does to stirring inspiration.

Will Americans take the final step and elect Obama as president? Should they? Is this first-term senator up to the job?

We’ll find out soon enough. At the moment, to tell the truth, I don’t care. Whether Obama wins or loses, history has been made this year. Maybe there’s more to come, maybe not; but already — after 389 long years — it’s safe to say that this nation will never be the same. ++

Young voters: Obama’s race as an asset, non-issue
MARTHA IRVINE, AP
6/6/08

CHICAGO - For young voters, Rosa Parks’ refusal to sit at the back of a bus in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955 is schoolbook history. Even the racially charged 1992 riots in Los Angeles are a distant memory.

The United States is far from a blueprint for racial harmony, but for today’s young adults — all born after segregation was outlawed in the mid-1960s — race is not the issue it once was.

They have grown up with Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan among their highest-profile and wealthiest role models. And in their everyday lives, they are much more likely than their elders to have friends of another race, studies show.

Is it any wonder, then, that young adults have been the most willing age group to support a black man for president?

Primary exit polls conducted for The Associated Press illustrate the generational shift that has helped Barack Obama secure the Democratic presidential nomination. About 56 percent of Democrats younger than age 30 supported Obama. That number dropped steadily with each age bracket to a low of 30 percent for voters 65 and older.

Many young voters say a diverse background is an asset for a candidate.

“Rather than just being tolerant of race, we embrace and accept our differences,” says Alisha Thomas Morgan, a 29-year-old black state lawmaker in Georgia. “We all recognize that racism still exists. But I think younger people are much more willing to get over it.”

They also are more accustomed to seeing people of color in positions of power. The country has, for instance, had a black secretary of state for the past seven-plus years.

“I shouldn’t say we’re taking it for granted. But it’s not especially strange to us,” says Tobin Van Ostern, a junior at George Washington University who is spending his summer in Chicago as a leader for Students for Barack Obama.

Van Ostern, who is white, says he understands that Obama’s victory is historic.

“But it’s one that seems appropriate for the direction the country is going,” he says. “In numerous ways, it presents a new image of the United States to the world — and not just because of the color of his skin.”

Throughout the primary season, Obama supporters endured jabs from pundits and Hillary Rodham Clinton backers who called them “latte drinkers,” among other labels. To them, it seemed to suggest elitism and the notion that young adults were taken with the Illinois senator because it was trendy.

Certainly, the chance to vote for a black man is part of the appeal, Morgan says. “It’s fine if they vote for him because he’s African-American, as long as they don’t stop there,” she says. “But I would be voting for Obama whether he was white or whatever. The fact that he is African-American is a plus.”

The way Patricia Turner sees it, Obama’s race is just one factor that makes him more accessible to younger voters. Turner is a professor of African-American studies at the University of California, Davis, a diverse campus where she says no one racial or ethnic group is the majority.

She recalls a conversation at a recent university dinner where her table included a few Asian-American students and a white woman in her 30s who was married to a man of mixed race. Asked what struck them about Obama, they listed everything from his age and rearing by a single mother to the fact that he is biracial.

“There’s something about the sophisticated and complex ethnic identity that resonates with younger voters as well,” says Turner, who is black. “Younger people are able to say ‘we’ — and that ‘we’ includes Barack Obama.”

But exit polls also show that young Hispanics were more likely to vote for Clinton, as Hispanics were in general. Many people believe the complicated racial history between blacks and Hispanics has played a role in that outcome.

Some wonder if the welcoming attitude toward a black president has its limits, even among the most racially open young Obama supporters.

Young Han, 25, said race played little role in his decision to vote for Obama in the Washington state caucuses. But he wonders if his peers would be uncomfortable if Obama were a different type of black candidate.

“A person who talks in a black English, engages in ‘identity politics,’ and comes out of a marching, yelling-out-of-a-megaphone background might be considered ‘really’ black, whereas a Harvard-educated lawyer who looks non-threatening may be just a guy who happens to be black,” says Han, a Korean-American who recently worked for a Washington, D.C., civic education foundation teaching students about government.

“Whether this is a valid way by which to judge someone’s competence or legitimacy is whole other question. But I think that’s how things work.”

Like many others, he saw attempts to link Obama to his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, as a way to play on that dynamic.

Yet the Wright controversy did not seem to resonate much with young people, even at predominantly white, relatively conservative Clemson University, where political science professor Joseph Stewart Jr. monitored the reaction.

That is striking, says Stewart, a white Southerner who came of age during the civil rights movement. “I did not think I’d live long enough to see a black candidate who was taken this seriously,” he says. “I thought racism was just too deeply ingrained.”

He sees desegregation as “one of those subtle changes” that have influenced younger generations.

He also has found that many of the youngest voters have little sense of relatively recent incidents of racial strife — for example, the Los Angeles riots that followed the acquittal of the white police officers who beat Rodney King.

“So a lot of the acceptance and the lack of relevance of race is simply a lack of history,” Stewart says. “We usually think that’s a bad thing — but there may be some positives, too.”

For Turner, the progress made is notable and moving.

At age 52, she has vivid memories of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. So Obama’s candidacy is a reminder of how far the nation has come.

“There have been times in the Obama campaign when I think, ‘I wish Dad could’ve seen that’ or ‘I wish my mother were here’ to just see him holding his own,” Turner says of her parents, who are no longer living.

“They would have been proud.” ++

Obama And Dean Team Up To Recast The Political Map
HuffPo
June 5, 2008

Sixteen months after he launched his campaign for the White House, Sen. Barack Obama may, just now, be entering his campaign’s most perilous stage. Facing a rift of sorts within the Democratic Party and concerns over the scope of his political base, the Illinois Democrat is pursuing an unconventional path to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave: unlike those before him, he has pledged to redraw the electoral map by putting new, traditionally Republican states in play.

A slew of political factors will determine Obama’s success in turning red states blue. But the Senator, in no small measure, will be aided in his task by reforms that preceded his run for the presidency. For all of the hoopla surrounding the candidates, the 2008 presidential election will be the first truly national test of the viability and prescience of Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy.

Four years ago, when Dean was vaulted to the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee — following a failed presidential bid months earlier — he pledged to rewrite the rules concerning where and how Democrats would compete. In the subsequent months, resources and staff were invested into unconventional and even previously untouched locales. The idea was that the party simply couldn’t compete without a margin for error.

But at the time, party insiders, who believed Dean was stripping away important resources from key races, were privately and, on occasion, publicly livid.

“He says it’s a long-term strategy,” said Paul Begala, the longtime Clinton aide and Democratic strategist. “What he has spent it on, apparently, is just hiring a bunch of staff people to wander around Utah and Mississippi and pick their nose.”

When the Democrats made major congressional gains in 2006, questions persisted as to whether the electoral success had simply been the product of a fortunate circumstance.

Dean himself admitted to Time Magazine, “I didn’t expect much to come of this strategy for four or even six years.”

Now, four years have passed. And the Democrats have nominated a candidate that seems perfectly equipped to test-drive the party’s 50-state vehicle. Obama has built his candidacy off of the pledge to expand the electoral playing field. Moreover, his campaign has leaned on an ability to drum up both grassroots support and the recruitment of Republicans and independents — two stated objectives of the Dean vision.

On Thursday, Obama symbolically endorsed the DNC’s efforts, declaring that Dean would remain party chairman heading into the general election.

As Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, told The Huffington Post: “I think that we are going to have a larger battlefield in 2008… I think we are going to stretch the Republicans. I don’t think they can take for granted nearly as many states as they have in the past. And I think we are going to add several to the Democratic column this year and so our coalition is going to be broader.”
* * *

But what tangible benefits will the 50-state strategy actually provide?

Obama will likely start the general election with 180 or so “reliably Democratic” electoral votes. With the goal of getting to 270, the DNC believes it could play a role in carrying the rest of the burden. The party already has more than 200 field staffers on the ground, and grassroots training programs in all fifty states. In addition, new Internet and communications operations have been started with the goal of facilitating participation in, and donations to, Democratic causes.

These might seem like ad-hoc measures. But if Sen. John Kerry had received ten additional votes per precinct in 2004, he would have won Iowa, Ohio, New Mexico, and, subsequently, the White House.

Perhaps the most significant, and controversial, move made under the 50-state strategy has been the modernization of the party’s voter file, in which Dean has invested more than $8 million dollars.

“We have gone light years from four years ago,” said Moses Mercado, a Democratic operative and a former adviser to Dick Gephardt’s presidential campaign. “Then it was a rag tag of what the party had accumulated and it wasn’t what other local officials were using.

The DNC got every state on a national voter file. The new file has better tracking to include voter history — they now know the political habits of those who have moved… I don’t feel the urgency now that we are behind because we have the infrastructure to capture the excitement of the primary.”

But not everyone has been on board. Before he joined Hillary Clinton’s campaign, Harold Ickes constructed a voter database of his own, in part because he wanted to target left-leaning interest groups, in part because he didn’t particularly trust Dean. A debate currently rages as to which database is more useful. But in the end, having options will prove better than having none. And Obama seems poised to benefit from this type of ground work.

“The 50-state strategy has been implemented to varying degrees in a lot of states and Obama is going to make a lot of these states competitive,” said Ruy Teixeira, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and Center for American Progress. “And in a lot of these states, by virtue of the primary competition, they have generated a lot of registration and work on top of what the Dean folks have done. The whole controversy as to whether the 50 state strategy was a good idea — with the establishment Democrats poo-pooing it — I’m getting the impression that is less of a controversial idea then it once was, and it does fit into what Obama is trying to do.”
* * *

The evidence of at least some progress is already visible on the ground. In late May, the Boston Globe identified six traditionally Republican states that Obama would have the greatest shot of turning.

Next to Virginia, Colorado appeared most ripe. Even though the state, with the exception of 1992, hasn’t voted Democratic in more than four decades, it has witnessed an influx of younger, more liberal voters, as well as suburbanites emigrating from California. Spurred by the DNC, the state’s Democratic Party has taken productive steps to improve its fortunes.

Starting in 2005, field directors were sent out to rural areas, a new voter file was purchased, and ballot initiatives were run in non-traditional counties. In time, electoral results materialized. Currently, Colorado’s governor, both houses of the state legislature and one of its Senators are Democratic; all of which, official claim, will transfer well to the presidential level.

“The thing about the Obama campaign that was interesting is that when they came into Colorado they set up about ten offices in the state,” said Pat Waak, chair of the Colorado Democratic Party. “It was great. It reinforced the same effort that we had been working on for the past three years or so. It means that with all the training that we’ve done over the past three years and with our own efforts we are enabled for success in the fall campaign.”

Added Democratic pollster Celinda Lake: “I think the 50 state strategy put in play a lot of western states that are extremely good for Obama, because they are change oriented and increasingly Democratic. Though no one noticed it, the west is purple.”

Obama’s task, however, is not just to flip states into his column, but rather to make enough areas competitive so that McCain and the Republican Party are forced to drain their resources. In this regard, Dean’s vision may prove more successful.

Take Idaho. In 2006, the Democratic Party was able to field an aggressive challenger in what had been, since 1994, a safe GOP district. With help from on-the-ground staffers and the influx of small but strategic resources, Larry Grant forced his Republican opponent, Bill Sali, to turn to Washington for money and two separate appearances by Vice President Dick Cheney.

Grant ultimately lost, but ripple effects were felt on other races. Among the Obama folks, the lessons from that 2006 race apparently still resonate. According to the state’s Democratic Party chair, the Illinois Democrat has pledged to open an office in Idaho for the fall — an unheard of development in recent presidential elections.

“Bear in mind that I received assurance when I was back in Chicago that they would have paid people on the ground in Idaho,” said Idaho Democratic Party Chairman Keith Roark.

“Now clearly they won’t have the same presence in Idaho as they do in Colorado and New Mexico where Obama has a chance of winning. But they will have people on the ground here and we haven’t had that since 1964. If you mix that kind of operation with what our state party already has, who knows what is going to happen.”
* * *

Not every Democratic operative or political observer is convinced that the 50-state-strategy will prove consequentially beneficial for Obama. For starters, the DNC is currently strapped for money compared to its Republican counterpart, with $4.4 million in the bank going into the general election (the RNC has $40 million). As such, the party may be indirectly forcing Obama’s hand — persuading the Illinois Senator to forgo public funding despite the hits he may take from good government reform groups.

“I think there is some infrastructure, even if it is minimal, that will be a benefit for anyone who pursues the [50-state-strategy],” said Tad Devine, a long-time Democratic operative and adviser to Kerry. “And the way to do it, and I wish we did it in the Kerry campaign, is to stay outside of public funding, amass a resource advantage bigger than your opponent and put new states in play. The way to win is to target the states that not only you can win but forcing your opponent to defend… Obama can do this by arguing that he has a whole new system of public funding.”

But other steps are needed. Indeed, with unsure financial commitments from the DNC — their coffers should bulge now that the primary is over — and with the 50-state strategy still in its early stages, the Obama campaign faces the uphill task of organizing its own efforts in non-Democratic states in a matter of months.

In early May, the Senator took the first step down that road by launching a country-wide voter registration drive, with the hopes of playing off of his primary successes. The campaign would not discuss how and where Obama would look to open offices, spend advertising dollars, or coordinate resources. Since securing the nomination, however, the Senator is tightening his control over the party. News circulated this week that Obama will persuade the DNC to refuse any lobbyist funding, a stance in line with his own campaign. And a high-ranking Obama official, Paul Tewes, is slated to help oversee fundraising efforts at the committee.

The potential beneficiaries of the Obama-Dean alliance could be numerous. Down-ticket Democrats are not only banking on an influx of resources into their races, but are hoping that a synthesized effort between the presidential candidate and campaign committees provides a political boost even in traditionally hostile locales. The environment is certainly ripe. Already Democrats have ripped three congressional seats away from the GOP in special elections. The Cook Political Report list 27 seats GOP House seats that will be in play, in addition to seven in the Senate.

“It is not that Obama needs what the DNC under what Dean has done,” said Thomas Mann, a scholar at the Brookings Institute. “It is that the Obama nominating campaign has reinforced what the DNC was doing. And all of this will be primarily helpful down ticket. It gives Democrats some opportunities to win Senate, House and other legislative contests and over time puts them in the position of turning around some truly red states.” ++

The Populist Uprising
David Sirota, InTheseTimes

American history is the history of populist uprisings. From the Revolutionary War to the coalfield wars, from labor organizers to anti-tax crusaders, from the New Deal to the current conservative era, backlashes to the status quo have defined every major political era.

These uprisings have given us candidates from Goldwater to Dean, and presidents from Roosevelt to Reagan — and the populist uprising that delivered Barack Obama the Democratic presidential nomination means history could be forged once again.

What are populist uprisings? Loosely defined, they are a welling up of anger toward the established order — revolts that are often the precursor to a full-fledged social movement. The uprising against inequality during the Great Depression fueled the labor movement and the New Deal, which raised wages and created the middle class. The uprising against Jim Crow laws in the 1960s became the civil rights movement, which made America more equal. The uprising against liberalism during the late 1970s became the conservative movement of the 1980s, which deregulated the economy and fed the military-industrial complex.

It is that rebellion three decades ago that tells us we are indeed experiencing another uprising.

Just like the late 1970s, America currently faces the telltale signs of all insurrections: an economic emergency, a financial meltdown, an energy crisis and a national security quagmire.

Political analysts say this is bad news for the Right because George W. Bush sits atop today’s mess, and conservatives have responded by running away from the president and by attempting to channel the outrage into their old anti-tax, anti-immigrant, anti-government agenda. But that misunderstands what has changed.

According to Gallup’s survey data, the public has not only lost confidence in the political system as it did in the late 1970s, but also in corporations.. In 1979, one in three Americans told Gallup’s pollsters they had confidence in big business. By 2007, a little less than one in five expressed the same confidence. In 1979, almost two out of three citizens said they had faith in banks. Today, only two out of five say the same thing.

This is the real problem for a conservative movement that has become a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America. Unlike 1980, when Ronald Reagan rode the conservative uprising to a landslide victory, the country is not looking for a movement that gets the government to back off big business, nor are we looking for politicians who pretend the Enrons and Bear Stearnses are victims. This uprising is searching for a movement that gets big business back under control and leaders who are serious about aiming “law and order” rhetoric not at dark-skinned people, but at the royalists whose greed is driving the economy into the ground.

As I found in reporting my new book, The Uprising, some already recognize this new political topography. For instance, New York’s Working Families Party has become a powerful grassroots force for economic justice in Wall Street’s backyard. Unions have boosted their membership by the largest margin in a quarter-century. Shareholder activists are finding more support for initiatives that challenge corporate misbehavior. Even some Republicans like Mike Huckabee have bashed CEOs and berated lobbyist-written trade policies.

Whether this ferment becomes a transpartisan social movement will depend on a number of questions. Will the Democratic Party stop demoralizing its grassroots base and break free of its moneyed faction that gave us travesties like NAFTA? Will mavericks like Huckabee reshape the GOP? And most importantly, is the presidential election hype going to trick Americans into believing candidates are social movements, rather than one of many vehicles for them?

The answers will determine whether this is a fleeting uprising of ineffective protest or a movement about wielding power — yet another forgotten moment or, finally, an historic one. ++

Reading The Pictures: The Clinch
Michael Shaw, HuffPo
June 4, 2008

I looked at a mountain of pics from Tuesday’s decisive night, and kept coming back to this one.

First, I appreciate the color of Michelle’s dress, reprising — at least to me — the ‘04 conclusion that America (in contrast to the hyper-polarized red state/blue state dichotomy perpetuated by the media) is actually a lot more purple.

I also appreciate Michelle’s proud, private, knowing, understated, intimate and unselfconscious expression, as well as the lack of tension in each partner’s body. Observing them these many months, it is evident to me that the Obamas’ ability to remain so relaxed is a natural expression of confidence.

Mostly though, I tried (fruitlessly) to imagine John and Cindy or Bill and Hillary celebrating the impending nomination with a fist bump, illuminating the fact that, as much as anything, the gesture — just like this outcome — is truly a generational thing. ++

Obama says his ears too big for Mount Rushmore
Reuters
Sat May 31, 2008

MOUNT RUSHMORE NATIONAL MONUMENT, South Dakota - Even in the middle of a fierce presidential campaign, Barack Obama couldn’t resist the opportunity to go on a field trip.

When the Democratic White House hopeful heard the press corps and some staff members were planning a late-night trip to see Mount Rushmore National Monument, he decided he didn’t want to be left out.

So, shortly after arriving in South Dakota after an evening campaign rally in Montana, Obama made the 30-minute car trip to see the monument, of four presidents chiseled into the side of a massive granite outcropping.

After a park ranger gave him a private explanation of the national monument, Obama noted that his daughter Malia had told him she had gone on a field trip on Friday. “I had one too,” he said, as he walked away from the flood-lit monument.

He laughed when asked if he could imagine his face chiseled into the granite some day.

“I don’t think my ears would fit,” he said. “There’s only so much rock up there.” ++

Obama Adopted by Native Americans
Jeff Zeleny, The Caucus, NYT
May 19, 2008

[Open link for video]

CROW AGENCY, Mont. – As the Democratic presidential campaign has moved from season to season over the last 16 months, the political rallies and the town meetings often have taken on a similar feeling and a familiar flavor.

Not so today, here on the Crow Indian Reservation.

As Senator Barack Obama campaigned for the presidential primary in Montana – one of two states that closes out the Democratic nominating process on June 3 – he was welcomed here by a few thousand people. In a private ceremony, he was adopted into the Crow Nation and bestowed the name, “One Who Helps People Throughout the Land.”

“Senator Obama, welcome to Crow Country,” said Carl Venne, the tribal chairman.

The crowd thundered with applause as Mr. Obama was escorted onto stage by Hartford and Mary Black Eagle. They were his sponsors – or new parents, according to local custom – who were selected because they have five living generations on the reservation.

(It is said to be a sign of great fortune to have so many living generations, given the low life expectancy on the reservation. Mr. Obama joins the ranks of other politicians and dignitaries, including Senator Jon Tester and Gov. Brian Schweitzer, who recently have become honorary members of the Crow tribe.)

“I like my new name: Barack Black Eagle. That is a good name,” Mr. Obama told the outdoor audience. As he recognized local officials, he stumbled over a few names, saying with a smile: “I was just adopted into the tribe. I’m still working on my pronunciations.”

In Veterans Park, situated in a valley near the Little Big Horn River, dozens of tribal members wore feather headdresses. Under a warm springtime sun, admirers waited for hours, waving signs that declared: “Natives 4 Obama” and “Crows for Obama.”

In Montana politics, the more than 60,000 American Indians who live in the state are a key swing demographic. So Mr. Obama was reaching out not only with next month’s primary in mind, but also the prospect of trying to capitalize from recent Democratic gains here in the general election.

“Few have been ignored by Washington for as long as native Americans – the first Americans,” said Mr. Obama, telling this crowd that he intended to appoint a Native American adviser to his highest ranks of his administration if he wins. He also vowed to improve the health care and education opportunities on reservations across the nation.

“I understand the tragic history,” Mr. Obama said, addressing tribal leaders and members. “Our government has not always been honest or truthful in our deals.”

The adoption ceremony for Mr. Obama was held in a tent, out of view of the crowd. It was closed to reporters and photographers.

After delivering a brief speech, Mr. Obama made his way to an evening rally in Bozeman, passing by several residents who lined the streets – and even the rooftop of the grocery, Crow Mercantile – to catch a glimpse of the first presidential candidate ever to pass through the town of Crow Agency. ++

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

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Entry Filed under: Political Waves