Obama Biden USA

Be The One.

Data Doesn’t Go To The Polls. You Do

Every Number Starts With One. One Action Can Change Everything. Please Be One.

I am One. The margins of victory in Virginia and South Carolina were enormous because I called voters there. The margins in Pennsylvania and Nevada are narrower because I canvassed there. They are narrower now because One woman living in Virginia put aside One opportunity to visit her 6-week old granddaughter in Boston, to instead canvass for Barack Obama in Western PA. The campaign’s coffers are full because I donated small amounts regularly. The campaign is able to afford its extraordinary media offensive because I have volunteered more months, days and hours than I can count. I know that Barack won the nomination because I am One of every One of the millions of volunteers dedicated to the Obama Campaign. I am not a party activist nor will I ever be – my involvement now is solely for this candidate who could only slip in at this critical time. It is, most powerfully, the structure of a peculiarly American bargain that Obama spreads before us, and keeps his end of, a campaign and then a life of self-reliance and community, individual and country, that I am honored to work my ass off for. That is why I chose to be One.

Ye Olde Addage: Polling data is a quantified compilation of stated intentions. Supposedly the mythical ‘Road to Hell’ is paved with excellent intentions.

Please vote and vote early so you can spend your time urging everyone you know to vote. We need huge margins to keep the clamor down. They will fight every declared race that is within 2 points.

Carry on comrades (yes, comrades).

Dear Mrs. Dunham,

Sorry I missed you. I started this post October 22 right around the time Barack left the mainland to visit you.  I am listening to him on TV at this moment, for the first time commenting on your passing in the night. He is saying you have “gone home” and is briefly telling the story of your life, characterizing you as a ‘quiet hero’ whose satisfaction came from working to ensure that the next generation, children and grand-children, had a path to a better life. He likened you to all the good people who sacrifice to do the right thing.  It was very sweet. You have seen your dear grandson on an enormous path toward an extraordinary goal he might stated as a child, when his Toot asked him what he wanted to do when he grew up. He has made it look easy while we know it’s been a series of trials almost Biblical in sequence. Radical change meets enormous resistance. Barack had to have learned the value of infinite patience in part from you – the cornerstone of the family.   

Your belief in education made everything possible for Barack, and he is intent on impressing that belief into the American psyche, as he should. It must have been a kick for you to see intelligence and competence in leadership make a comeback in the person of your grandson, as all the other candidates ran the other way. It has been a long time since we had a candidate who was unabashedly indebted to and thankful for his education. You are a quiet hero.

You should be reveling in greatly deserved joy without distraction right now; and perhaps you are.  Is it crass for me to wonder whether or not you were able to vote for Barack?  Much sadness at this time but also the prospect of unbelievable pride and joy for the Dunham/Obama/Soetoro-Ng/Robinson family,  extending to their friends, neighbors, citizens and country. Tomorrow, I hope that what Barack hopes is true about the country, is true.  Thanks again Mrs. D.

With great admiration.

The Dunhams

Lots of vigilant police, union members, families, and CA volunteers rally 4 Obama. Voters? TBD

♦♣♥ Thelma Gutierrez, The Casino Worker, is aware that McCain-Palin are firmly against labor unions, isn’t she? ♥♣♦

Barack Obama’s Free-Market Fundraising Totals Cause Otherwise Flaming Laissez-Faire Capitalists To Call For The De-Regulation Of Everything Unless It’s The Obama Campaign.

———-

October 19, 2008 – Today the Obama Campaign announced fundraising totals of $150 million for the month of September.  ’It’s amazing what those damn kids can do when they pool their allowances,’ said someone.  Another said, ‘I’d give a sawbuck to hear Andrew Jackson and Alan Greenspan react to this outrageous breach of decorum.’

A Dynamic Duo of Hapless Disenfranchisement, each leaving one if not several 'Great Depressions(s)' in their wake, former gold standard supporters Andrew Jackson and Alan Greenspan stare smugly past we little people (2004).

“I have always been afraid of banks.” 

“I guess I should warn you, if I turn out to be particularly clear, you’ve probably misunderstood what I’ve said.”

“What Washington needs is adult supervision.”

• Barack Obama

As they reach for their nitro-glycerin tablets, the nation’s fiscal conservatives call for an investigation into Obama’s ‘Entrepreneurial Socialism’, which they consider to be a suspect entity without license or category that has nonetheless publicly disclosed unprecedented earnings from peddling pure rhetoric. The appeal was made to the USDOJ to investigate conspicuous contributions by millions of Americans resulting in net zero financial gain to any approved corporation or conglomerate in the private sector.  They further requested DOJ to identify profligate, non-tax deductible contributions to the ether as blasphemous and treasonous. God made no comment vis-a-vis blasphemy. More to follow.  [Sarcast-Insert™ by author]

* The original cronyist, Jackson legislated to benefit his wealthy friends in private banking and, ironically, adamantly renounced ‘paper’ currency in favor of gold and silver.  Jackson’s portrait famously appears on the twenty dollar bill. He has appeared on $5, $10, $50, and $10,000 bills in the past, and on  a Confederate $1,000 bill.  Jackson was a mega-slave master, holding up to 150 people as chattel, and as President authorized and implemented the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The Choctaw were the first to go; their journey is  known as the ‘Trail of Tears’. Thousands died from exposure, disease and starvation enroute from sunny Florida to Oklahoma. The forced exodus of the Seminole, the Creek, the Chickasaw, and the Cherokee followed. Shouldn’t  Jackson be on the $3 bill?

For a scary parallels between the GOP’s current platform and 1., Andrew Jackson’s ‘uncertain policy agenda beyond a vague craving for “reform” (or revenge)’ and 2., his deregulation of banking that caused the depression of 1837, go to the University of Virginia’s excellent elitist online resource: 

http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/jackson/essays/biography/4

Enjoying Himself Like a Child

WASHINGTON—At a press conference on Monday, members of the Vietnam Veterans Alliance blasted Democratic nominee Barack Obama for his failure to serve in the Southeast Asian war that ended 33 years ago, alleging that during the conflict the candidate frequently engaged in games of T-ball.

Obama AWOL, just before a playdate with Bill Ayers

“While our boys were dying in Vietnam, Barack Obama was running around a little league field, laughing and having fun without a care in the world,” VVA spokesman James Lowry said. “John McCain left his wife and three children behind and fought bravely, but I guess Sen. Obama decided that practicing cursive and learning how to ride a bike was just more important than defending his country in her hour of need. I bet he wasn’t even able to point out Vietnam on a map.” Lowry later speculated that if Obama had been sent over to fight in the conflict, he probably would have peed his pants and cried for his mommy as soon as he touched down in Saigon.

Love to Love You, Baby

The Obamas take a moment in Iowa on January 2, 2008, the day before Barack won the Democratic caucus. Exactly ten months later, I retrieved my 01/14/08 issue of Newsweek to look at this remarkable picture again. It depicts a couple in love, at peace, contented that they have a private moment of respite at the beginning of an important journey. Their most important possession they have and will keep where ever they end up. I’m sure of it.

When I look a bit longer, I fancy I hear Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” (the opening of Part I Acknowledgment, slower and lower than usual). When I walk away from the open magazine, just 4 feet or so on this anniversary, I can’t remember the details in the photo, but I cautiously hope I preceive the nation shifting a little bit too, minutely, each day coming around to Iowa. At the distance I let myself feel it possible, I hear Diana Ross and the Supremes singing “Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing, Baby”, swaying in unison like the Supremes did, but not dancing. Not yet.

Thank you Iowa for recognizing the thoughts of a visionary as simply the beauty of truth, a comprehensive common sense. Iowa. Iowa’s vote on January 3, 2008, an enormous glowing narrative on my iPhone screen sent by my secret sharer, shining in the pitch dark of our car as we crawled up the Coast Highway, through torrential rain, on a no moon night toward the Henry Miller Library to read more. More. We rained too into puddles. I love you supreme Iowa, for seeing the best and knowing it first.

Thank you Geeru, and have a wonderful birthday.

And thank you Brian, for trying it once and trusting it matters.

McPuppet Show: The Rapture We’ve Been Waiting For

S.S. McCain

9/11 never mattered so much as when I pondered Sarah Palin’s ABC interview with Charles Gibson. As David Brooks said, her political talent is real. But this is not ‘Idol’. I remind myself that Palin did not select herself, but ask, “Who did?” It is still our tradition, at least in the Democratic Party, to assume the potential POTUS selected her/his own VPOTUS.

The choice of Palin for next in line in 2008 is evidence that Rover smelled defeat. A blatant jettisoning of the GOP’s bedrock claim to be the party that “keeps us safe”, it’s more credible as a suicide pact, readying for a kind of Rapture, if only as political purge.

Alas, McProp is revealed. Gathering up the flocky evangelical vote, the GOP has set about showing the happily uncomfortable McCain the door, be it in 2 months or 4+ years.

I have a few suggestions for the Democrats:

Calling Senator Clinton – The next time Palin is used as an auto-indignification response™, Hillary, you should jump right in. Whether the cynics are right, that you want Obama to lose, or not, you may not have another near-term opportunity to showcase your strengths and effect a solution. Direct your famous ‘Fight’ full-throttle from the position you are being simultaneously lauded and used for by the GOP.

Calling Joe Biden – McCain’s National Security Card, and any pretense that National Security matters, apparently expired at almost exactly 7 years. But National Security does matter. It’s not everything, as they have been saying, pointing at the sky for 7 years, but lack of it is. Showtime, Joe. Your debate with Palin is the near-term defining event of your long career. Numb us with salient facts. No theatrics, hemming, hawing, “with all due respect, I’m gonna hit a girl” wincing, no fawning, no condescension, just show us your awareness and command of the protean complexities of world politics. Then, move on to the fallacy of drilling in ANWR, how OPEC really works, and the plan for job creation in green energy industries.

Finally, calling Barack Obama – You gotta keep getting up, rookie. 52 days left. Remind us of what you enumerated in that speech you made in Denver. Something about health care, education, sensible troop rotations and deployments…that our economic security, national security and stewardship of the environment are connected to each other, right? You had plans for us, we were asked to do our part, no one walks alone, and then BOOM! Upstaged by the audacity of nope by two dopes.  So, please repeat the promise. No one had time to consider it. The sequence was like savoring a delicate lobster mousse, whisked away in favor of an urgent, steaming bowl of Velveeta and corn-flake casserole; I don’t remember what the first course was.

I’ve got news for you Barack Obama. Lots of us out here are holding you to the hope we confess. So say it again.

Happy Birthday to you, man. What a year. Seems like 3 years since last August, and 2 years since Iowa doesn’t it?

You sure know how to do things right. I completely understand why this is your year. You’re not coming back for 2012 if 2008 doesn’t work out, are you? ‘The fierce urgency of now’ is more than a politically correct quote by a great leader. You’re our back-door man. You’ve got to slip in without being seen.

For your stance on the Iraq War, they let you be a stand-in at rehearsal. None imagined you’d make it to the big dance, and they handed you a dance card pre-filled with trouble and woe that no one would wish on their worst enemy. Still, they are convinced you are blindly ambitious. For what I wonder, could you possibly be ambitious, other than to go down as a great leader? I want nothing less than a great leader as well. What am I missing?

Your so-called ‘soaring rhetoric’ is practical and, yes, very soaring. What’s wrong with that? I have been living your ‘platitudes’ and I know they are words to live by. I am a better person for being careful to only speak positively about you, rather than in contrast to a negative in our opponent. Win or lose, you have taught me by example and clear articulation, allowing me to test the message for myself.

From many of us, you have asked exactly what we wanted to be asked. That is, simply to be asked. And how you work us! When you say it’s not about you, of course, the world scoffs. But, I know that you are about us.

E Pluribus Unum. You’ve had it right since you diagnosed it in 2004, doctor. Why are we so divided? It was/is a strategy to win 51% of the vote at the expense of the 49% who later gain many of the 51 when they realize they’ve been used to win, by any means. We’ve been had, all of us, and they’ll do it again.

You’ve got more cheeks than a porcupine has quills. I admire your way. Your mother would be swelling with pride. Happy Birthday Senator. I hope next year I’ll be typing a different title, but you’ll always be a gift to me.

Leos rule.

I wish I could see Obama’s FISA vote as just an election-mode calculation, rather than a warning about his true view of the US Constitution, but I have seen no sign that his vote is anything but irresponsible. Obama stated that we should trust that, when he is POTUS, he won’t abuse this illegal power he has handed to George W. Bush for the next 6 months. Firstly, I trust Obama to be many things, but a reliable soothsayer is not one of them. Secondly, what if the November election does not result as Obama foresees?  I suggest Obama reexamine the US presidential elections of 2000 and 2004.  And thirdly, what is it about the Bush administration that leads Obama to believe they won’t abuse this power over the next 6 months? 

The point is that we the people, including Barack Obama, are now legally spied upon by the federal government and its agents, no matter who is POTUS.  We the people pay the price for election-mode calculations gone awry, often in the form of legislation, authorizations and resolutions.
 
If Obama had admitted a real reason he voted this way, I could live with it in disagreement if it sounded like the truth, and not the usual pabulum I am embarrassed to hear coming from him. He did not bother to give a full and honest explanation to we ‘research-based voters’. I guess it looks good to have the so-called ‘left’ angry at you, but what about we pesky Libertarians and Constitutionalists? It’s a profound miscalculation to not only willingly sacrifice the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution, but also to glibly ‘dare’ a large part of his foundation of support, to no longer support him.  Obama stands to lose a lot more than my enthusiasm. College students for example, active in politics for the first time in generations, are easily bored by politics, and they know when they’ve been used.

FISA has no expiration date and the pressure to vote ‘yes’, in the interest of national security, is another example of the Bush administration’s fear-mongering in order to protect wealthy corporate lap-dogs, to amalgamate executive power, and to steal yet another ‘inalienable right’ from the people. In the Colonial era, illegal search and seizure was a significant offense committed by the British Government and was one cause of the American Revolution. Government exists primarily to defend our rights, as posited by the founders and as defined in the US Constitution; not to take them away.  Bush administration fear-mongering is a familiar shell game to expose, and a game most Americans have agreed they are tired of.  Obama’s ability to call upon the strength of the American people, against our fears, was a powerful subcurrent of his candidacy during the Democratic Primary.

Obama’s recent forays to the right of center have been enough. Shredding his “Constitutional Law Scholar” bonafides with the FISA vote wasn’t necessary, but shred he did. Antonin Scalia must be smiling. On this matter, we are not hearing from Obama “what we need to know” as he promised, but what Obama wants us to believe.