So I can’t tell you why, but let me pose it as a hypothetical, because someone I know is going to try it in real life soon. What, if anything, do you believe Little People like us, can do to pressure Obama to remain true to progressives Democratic values, right now? When I say “Little People,” I mean all of us who ’only’ have several dozen to thousands of readers, or dollars, or connections- in contrast with those of the big Playahs, who have millions of those things.
I know a lot of you have chosen not to vote for Obama in the fall. That’s your right, for all that I don’t agree such a choice is constructive. But pretend with me: if you could march up to him right now and say, “Stand up and fight, publically and proudly, for [fundamental progressive value/issue X] right now, or else!” what would the “else” part be? Beyond, “or you won’t get my vote in the fall or contribution during the campaign.”
As you probably know, Obama gave an interview to “Relevant,” a Christian magazine in which he said that prohibitions on late-term abortions must contain an exception for the health of the mother, but that:
[He didn’t] think that ’mental distress’ qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term.
Given that the current law governing late term abortions includes mental distress mental health as one of the health exceptions, this would be a significant narrowing of abortion rights. Read more
I’m jumping on this announcement by candidate Obama, because I hope to subvert the impulses of some of my fellow Fellows and some of our readers to make of this moment a chance to accuse Barack Obama of being a liar, breaking a promise, not really being about reform, undermining efforts to reform our increasingly broken system of elections, and other ways not to like Obama that I’m not clever enough to even think of.
You don’t need to go there; the VRWC is way ahead of you. As Roy notes, there is high comedy to be had in the deep disappointment of the McCain campaign, the Republican Party, and their right-winger supporters, most of whom have bellowed long and hard against any sort of limitations on the financing of political campaigns. Of course that was when they were the ones rolling in money.
Yes, I know, McCain has been an advocate, of sorts, and a sponsor, of sorts, of campaign finance reform, but when Obama states, as he does in the video message in which he announced his decision, that the entire system, including the so-called reforms of it, by which we finance our elections is “broken,” he’s right.
Here is as much of what Obama says on the video that I could get off the story as it appears in the NYTimes and Reuters: Read more
You don’t have to click on the icky WaTimes link, here’s the funny part:
Tom DeLay will vote for John McCain but the former House Republican leader said his wife, Christine, is planning to vote for Libertarian presidential nominee Bob Barr.
Ha-ha!
Anyway, I hope Dems do more to convince Real Republicans that the only True Conservative Choice is Barr. After all, as we heard so much of in the primary, real conservatives know that “McCain is too liberal.” Remind a conservative friend today.
Today is an interesting and important day to remember, especially this season:
On June 12, 1967, the United States Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a married couple named Loving – he was white, she was black. They lived in Virginia and had violated the southern state’s law against inter-racial marriage. The high court’s decision made interracial marriage legal in all 50 states. Today, the Loving decision is celebrated as an important victory for multi-culturalism and democracy.
With temperatures topping 35 degrees centigrade, it wasn’t just the music that was hot at the 5th annual New York City Loving Day Celebration, one of several such events around the country.
Kathleen and David and their two cocoa-colored children were among the estimated 1000 people gathered under a big tent along New York’s East River. The group included many interracial couples like them.
Kathleen and Dave Graham, and their children Max and Miles are a healthy interracial family. Kathleen says she is grateful that the Lovings helped pave the way for their freedom
“There are a lot of people who had to fight really hard so we can be legally married,” says Kathleen. “We can own property, we can have the kids and we don’t get hassled about it. We’re normal now.” Read more
It’s late for me. I’m really tired, and sick. Still, I’m kicking myself. Bigtime. “Snow,” a crack den regular, ran for the Dem primary Senate seat tonight in SC, and is within 2K votes of victory, as of this moment. I’m too tired and lazy to give you links, but he’s the “Mike Cone” in the race. Look him up. Short Verision: one of Our Own can win, if only we would join in trying and help in a meaningful way. I suck, because in his case, I didn’t, not enough. I’m so sorry about that, Snow. Seriously. I’ve always loved your stuff and I am so hating on myself right now for wasting so much time on races that didn’t matter, and/or in which voices like mine made no difference. That could’ve been another story in your case/race, and I salute you for not expecting people like me to do more for you. You showed such Class. You were smart, and I’m a hypocrite. Good show, win or place, however it works out by the morn.
Seriously, peeps. We’re all closer than we think. Snow won’t win (or goddess bless us, he will) but he came damn close. Think about what that actually means.
How is the Democratic Convention like the Super Bowl, you can get those all access box seats if you’re willing to pay enough money. From the NYT:
Elected Democratic officials have been calling on corporations — meeting with Wall Street executives and flying to San Diego, Philadelphia and Las Vegas — to raise the $40 million the party has budgeted for the convention, in August. In return, these Democratic officials are promising corporate donors “sponsor benefits packages” that include private sessions with federal officeholders and other influential party leaders. Read more
[Hillary’s speech: Since bringiton has framed the issues so nicely, let’s use this post as an open thread for Hillary’s speech, which TalkLeft and RiverDaughter are liveblogging. CSPAN here.]
It would be a grave error for anyone to underestimate Hillary Clinton. Read more
Hillary Rosen, alleged Hillary Clinton supporter, has an amazing post up on the Huffington Post. It’s not amazing because of what it says about the primary. Instead, it’s an amazing look inside the Village mindset. Read more
As Paul and Bringiton have documented, exit polls and voting results since March have shown that Obama has lost support among a wide array of demographic blocs. Despite the talk of Unity, Obama has done little to reach out to women and working class whites, two core groups of Clinton’s supporters.* Read more
So we’ll never get the racists/sexists to vote for this year’s Dem. But dood, I missed this one. Cliff:
McCain’s most recent exams show a range of health issues common in aging: He frequently has precancerous skin lesions removed, and in February had an early stage squamous cell carcinoma, an easily cured skin cancer, removed. He had benign colon growths called polyps taken out during a routine colonoscopy in March.
The SCLM buried that one, I’m sure. You can still do your part, tho. Seriously, being “weak” is a great sin to the minds of the rethug Base. McStain is tired, sick, and weak. Again. Remind your neighbors and friends today: he’s not Fit to Lead, and it’s time for some new, fresh blood to be in charge.
Mike Carroll is the only Ohio challenger who has specifically endorsed HR 676.
Stephanie Tubbs Jones says that we must make health care affordable by offering a guaranteed benefit.
Marcy Kaptur says that by reforming health care so that it serves people instead of special interests, every American can have access to affordable, high-quality health care. Read more
I just got off the phone with an Israeli friend, and we had some fun joking with each other about the timing of the call. I was reading this post from a very strong Obama supporter, and I complimented the author on his honesty and willingness to say what needs to be said. Short version: it’s not “anti-semitic” to point out that in critical, large, expensive media states like NY and FL, the people raising a lot of money for Dem candidates in those states, as well as pulling state-level political strings (think backroom superdelagate type games) are also “Jewish,” whatever that is supposed to mean*. Nor it is anything less than fact to say many of these fundraising powerhouses really think Israel can do no wrong, and that because of their great influence on the political process here at critical moments, overall American ME and I/P policies are warped. I’m very proud of Boo for reminding us that it’s virtually no different with Cubans in FL; I’d add other single/special interests like the so-called ’farm lobby’ in the plains states, or even the so-called gay lobby in small Eastern states in which some gays have both money and overrepresentation/overempowerment in local political circles. That’s just how politics works right now here. If you’ve got money/friends with money, and you play your cards right in your state, when the Presidential candidates come to your ’hood, you make them say what you want to hear: in Spanish, Yiddish, or flatland drawl.
But then I thought more and more about Boo’s confidence that Obama wants to do more, and better things for the Palestinians even as he takes the standard, ironclad, pro-Likudnik hardline. (Way not to impress your own people, Obama. Tone deaf much? Or do you just think they don’t matter?) Still, I think Boo could be right. Read more
The Democratic Party’s charter requires that the Party:
Establish standards and rules of procedure to afford all members of the Democratic Party full, timely and equal opportunities to participate in decisions concerning the selection of candidates, … and further, to promote fair campaign practices and the fair adjudication of disputes. (Charter, Article I, Section 4)
Yet both the Democratic National Committee and the Michigan Democratic Party appear to be violating that requirement in their selection of which challenges to the MI Clusterfuck to hear at the May 31 Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting.
At least one group of ordinary Michigan citizens submitted a complaint that appears to fulfill all requirements. Yet the MDP has failed to follow its own rules on how to assist with and respond to that complaint—and it also did not comply with the requirement that it publish the names of those selected in the April 19 district conventions (which triggers a deadline for the submission of complaints). And the DNC will only hear the two state party-led complaints at the May 31 Rules and Bylaw Committee, thereby violating the requirement that “all members” of the party be able “to participate in decisions concerning the selection of candidates.” Read more
Like you probably do, I get a lot of emails from folks who don’t, um, really understand what I think about politics but know I have an interest and want to share what they find funny. I suppose these guys are “famous;” they seem to have a lot of YouTubes and it looks semi-professional and/or backed with Republican welfare money. Anyway, I thought this was actually very interesting.
Crude as it is, I have only one thing to add: I’ve spoken with ~15 people this month on their choice of Dem candidates: my plumber, a couple of my neighbors, some folks at the grocery store. I’m chatty and curious like that, and I’m also struck by the theme I have heard from 14 of that group (yes, I have been counting). Read more
If Obama becomes the party nominee, as seems likely, those of us who are not Obama supporters will get an earful on why we have to vote for him in November. Some of these reasons will be fairly good ones. One of them, IMO, is not. That one is that of course we all have to support Obama, think of the Supreme Court. This one is often aimed at those of us who are women with the implied threat that if we don’t fall in line and be good girls, we’ll lose our rights under Roe v. Wade.
I call bullshit on this argument. I will not have my body held hostage by the Democratic - or any - political party. Read more
Via Taylor Marsh, here’s the part of Clinton’s interview that aired tonight. I don’t know if I would say she takes Fox on, since she doesn’t attack the network, but she does a good job (for the most part) of defending herself and her policies from O’Reilly. I’m not sure, but I think she got O’Reilly to admit that he’d be willing to pay more in taxes and subsidize at least some uninsured people. She did have an obvious advantage, she’s smarter than he is (and it showed). Judge for yourselves:
Clinton is on Bill O’Reilly tonight and tomorrow. I can’t say I approve (although she’ll get some points from me if her spokesman defends it by pointing out she went on Olbermann, heh). Any predictions about what she’ll say? Will she:
a) Praise Republican ideas repeatedly,
b) Throw her most ardent supporters under the bus,
There has been quite a bit of movement among automatic delegates in the last two days. Yesterday, Hillary Clinton picked up Ike Skelton, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and Governor Easley of North Carolina. Obama picked up Richard Machacek of Iowa and Ben Chandler of Kentucky. Then this morning, Clinton announced the head of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, Obama announced Hill of Indiana and another Iowa representative (Braley). Then, Clinton announced a PR delegate (Chelsea picked up Cabanas on her visit to there). That was followed by Obama announcing Lois Capps of California endorsing him. (You can get the rundown from Marc Ambinder’s blog.) Read more
In short, Obama, taken here as an exemplar of the liberal elite, is simply wrong in his estimation of the core Democratic constituency. They did not want what he was offering because they did not see themselves as the ones who needed to be changed, and they have consistently given their votes to the person who has focused on their explicit economic needs and their desire to be safe in an unsettled world while being respectful of them as people. Read more
The question Democrats, both inside and outside the Obama campaign, should be asking themselves is this: now that the magic has dissipated, what is the campaign about? More generally, what are the Democrats for in this election?
That should be an easy question to answer. Democrats can justly portray themselves as the party of economic security, the party that created Social Security and Medicare and defended those programs against Republican attacks — and the party that can bring assured health coverage to all Americans.
They can also portray themselves as the party of prosperity: the contrast between the Clinton economy and the Bush economy is the best free advertisement that Democrats have had since Herbert Hoover. Read more
Via Talk Left, Barack Obama at his recent billionaire fundraiser in San Francisco talking about those struggling folks in Pennsylvania (emphasis mine): Read more
