Thank You, Kenny Chesney, for Getting Me Through the Election

I've been trailing the candidates in multiple states since January: Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Missouri and Colorado.

I bought my first Kenny Chesney CD in Las Vegas and have been adding to it ever since.

So, thanks, Kenny, for helping me keep sane (and awake driving to all those campaign events).

And I'm totally ready to belt "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" at a karaoke near you...

The Sum of 35 Years of Experiece

Broke.

A friend last night asked over drinks about Obama's experience. I pointed out that he was able to organize and manage a national campaign, defeat two of the Senate's most experienced pols (Biden and Dodd) and stand up to withering attacks from the two Clintons and not only be solvent but bringing in impressive amounts of cash from donors.

What I Saw at the NV Caucus

Mostly confusion.

I spent the morning at a high school in Henderson where several precincts were caucusing. Voters couldn't tell which rooms they were supposed to go to be in the right precinct. I saw several leaving in frustration. Finally someone made the announcment that no one would be turned away, just go to "any" precinct and you could participate even if it wasn't your own.

Saw a woman interviewed by the local TV who was turned away at another location and told to come to this one, only to be told she was in the wrong place. She left before the "anyone can caucus here" announcement was made.

Outside a woman with a Clinton sign asked everyone coming in if they were a Hillary supporter and if they were not she asked to speak with them. That, coupled with Bill Clinton's appearances on the strip at the at-large Culinary workers caucuses gave the Clintons a better caucus-day strategy than Obama.

Ever gracious, the Clinton campaign declared victory and victimhood in the same statement.

I've Seen the Candidates, Some Observations

I've now been to campaign events for Hillary, Obama, Edwards and Romney.

Some observations:

Romney has the hottest looking guys.

Romney also comes across better in person than he does on TV. Meaning he actually is human. Who knew?

Judging by crowd size and enthusiasm I'd rate the campaigns Obama, Romney, Edwards and then Clinton

Clinton's campaign is the only one I've witnessed coaching its audience on how to cheer.

Clinton has attracted the smallest and least enthusiastic crowds.

Obama offers more specific proposals and plans than his media coverage...and his ads...would suggest.

Edwards comes across as genuine and his supporters are fired up.

Obama is the only candidate I've seen who did not give misleading statements about his opponents. He did talk about policy differences in the context of explaining his policies that were being attacked by Hillary and Edwards. He did not attack them. The same can not be said for Hillary and Edwards with regard to him.

Obama kept me waiting the longest. I think Hillary and Romney are tied.

Chelsea Clinton is a becoming young woman. But Josh Romney is smokin!

Obama's volunteers were the most aggressive in trying to sign me up; Hillary's the least. In fact, Hillary's event was the only one where I didn't sign in, because they never asked me to.

Most shameless use of a prop: Romney picking up his granddaughter for no apparent reason other than it was a good picture.

HRC Both in Yellow

At the Democratic Debate here in Las Vegas earlier this week the Clinton forces showed up in bright yellow. In the picture the HRC contingent in yellow tee shirts watches as yellow-shirted Hillary folks march into the rally area.

Strange how the color matched the color of the other HRC: the Human Rights Campaign. You couldn't tell their tee-shirts apart, until you read them.

Probably just a coincidence as we know the Human Rights Campaign is not an arm of the Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign

The Worst Interview Question Ever

What's your greatest weakness?

The top three Democratic candidates were just asked it and all three gave cheesey responses, from Obama's "I'm disorganized" to Hillary's "I'm so eager for change I get impatient!"

Obama's answer will hurt him.

But I'm heartened that three bright, talented and ambitious people at the top of their game are just as lousy at answering that question as I am.

The Dems and LGBT on the Web

Chris Crain has a good analysis of how the Dem candidates present LGBT issues on their Web sites.

Voiceless for 35 Years

I got an email from Senator Clinton that begins:

After my humbling victory in New Hampshire last Tuesday, I said that New
Hampshire had helped me find my voice.

What? With that vaunted 35 years of experience she's just now finding her voice?

Words and Deeds

Bill Clinton is stumping for his wife in the Silver State, and acknowledges that Obama has the words but does he have the experience to turn words into deeds?

Since the former prez has invited us to think about words and deeds, I'd like to point out that during his administration he said the right words about gay rights, but when it came to deeds gave us Don't Ask Don't Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act.

Words. And deeds. Indeed.

Andrew Sullivan expands on the theme.

Obama Last Night

Slickly provided by the campaign and emailed out today.

Here's a snippet of the rally I was at last night.

Two Campaign Events

I've now been to two campaign events here in Nevada. On Thursday I went to a Hillary Clinton "roundtable" discussion on the mortgage crisis. Last night I went to an Obama Town Hall meeting. While it's not completely fair to contrast the two events as they were completely dissimiliar affairs, here's what I saw:

Hillary's event was at a Mexican restaurant near the Strip. There was a crowd of maybe 100 or so, mostly older Hispanic women. The Hillary staff and volunteers were all very young. One of the staffers took a small group of attendees to a corner of the parking lot for "training." He proceeded to teach them how to wave their signs and chant.

If I had to guess, I'd say most of the people there were Party activists. From listening to them talk that's the way it sounded. And their talk was laced with two things: Hillary's talking points "ready on day one" and a visceral hatred of George W. Bush. One Hispanic lady standing behind me went on a 20 minute diatribe in Spanish cursing him. Uh, somebody might tell these people that he won't be on the ballot in November.

The Hillary people struck me as committed and they were all enthusiastic when a beaming Clinton and daughter Chelsea finally showed up (more than two hours late, no explanation given). Prior to the arrival, sporadic chants of "Hill-ar-ee" broke out from the crowd when a passing motorist would honk in support or frustration and the traffic backup we were causing. One older woman like to chant a flat mechanical "Hill-ar-ee" by herself as if in a zombie trance.

One other thing I'll mention about the event -- in Nevada, one of the most powerful unions is the Culinary Worker's Union, who has endorsed Obama. At Clinton's event, there were pre-printed signs saying "Culinary Workers for Clinton." They were passing these out and a Clinton staffer yelled to the crowd, "are there any REAL culinary workers to hold these signs?" I'm not sure he had any takers.

OK, Obama: Obama had a town hall at a large high school gymnasium near the airport. The parking lot was about the size of two football fields. I arrived around 4 pm for the event which was scheduled to start at 6:30. The line was already from the front door of the gym and circling three-fourths around the parking lot. Before it was done the line would circle around the parking lot and down the street. 2,000 people ended up getting in the gym; the campaign said they had to turn nearly that many away.

The crowd was very diverse. I couldn't categorize it as more black than white, more young than old. It was everything. Standing with me in line was a middle age black man who had never participated in a political event before.

People were very enthusiastic but the wait in the cold was long. By the time I got into the gym my back was killing me from standing on hard pavement in hard shoes. But the pre-speech planning was good (after the truly awful high school jazz band stopped playing). They had almost the entire crowd singing and dancing and waving Obama signs to the Temptation's "Shout" and other R&B and rock and roll hits. It felt like a street party. I had to keep reminding myself this was a primary event. It had the size and girth of presidential events I've attended.

We were delayed because Obama stopped outside and made some remarks to the people who couldn't get in. When he came in, the place went nuts.

He was as you've seen; captivating, smooth and even a little cocky. But never condescending and he came off genuine and passionate, and was good about weaving big themes back into specific responses to policy questions. At one point during his stump speech I heard a heavy muffled sound behind me, and I turned around to see large powerfully built black man holding back tears. My new friend who had never been to one of these events was beaming.

Health care and immigration were the most frequent topics of the questioning. Obama offered detailed responses to policy questions; almost surprising given the criticism that he's long on hope and short on details. My aching back begs to differ. He wasn't short on anything.

Wake Up!

Bill's talking!

An Email from Hillary's Campaign

This was part of an email in my inbox tonight, asking me to go to Hill HQ and help out with the phone bank:

Using a combination of new technology and targeting we have been able to quadruple the impact of every hour you spend in the office. It allows you to talk to four time more voters and win four times more votes.

I guess all that vaunted experience doesn't extend to proofreading.

Obama's Accomplishments

Some legislative triumphs from Illinois:

• A law requiring confessions made to the police to be videotaped. This was initially opposed by, well, everyone, but Obama prevailed and it passed the Senate by 35-0.
• He passed Illinois' first earned income tax credit
• He passed the state's first campaign finance reform law in 25 years, making Illinois one of the "best in the nation" on campaign reform, according to the Washington Post.

He earned these comments from a Republican Illinois legislator:

Taken together, these accomplishments demonstrate that Obama has what Dillard, the Republican state senator, calls a "unique" ability "to deal with extremely complex issues, to reach across the aisle and to deal with diverse people." In other words, Obama's campaign claim that he can persuade us to rise above what divides us is not just rhetoric.

This Washington Post story has more.

Hillary's Argument

I'll let Hillary have some space on the blog since I've been so heavily promoting Obama. Here is her case for her candidacy. It's a good argument. But I see two problems with it. But I'll let Hillary have her moment here and leave it to you all to spot the two issues I see.

Chris Crain Makes an Endorsement

It's Obama:

Except on gay marriage, Obama has hit all the right notes on the gay rights issues of the day, and he has refused to pander. He has chastised conservative black pastors and white evangelicals alike for opposing gay rights and aggressive HIV prevention. He even refused the demand from gay activists that he reject the support of Grammy-winning gospel singer Donnie McClurkin because he claims to be “ex-gay.”
Obama is the only candidate who talks regularly about gay rights, including civil unions, in front of national audiences, and he is the candidate best suited to reach out to independents and Republicans in the general election and in fulfilling the promises he has made as a candidate.
If you can vote in the Democratic primary where you live, there is no better candidate on gay rights than Barack Obama.

Des Moines Register: Obama Widens Lead Over Clinton

In tomorrow's Des Moines Register, the final poll before the Caucus:

Obama: 32%

Hillary: 25%

Edwards: 24%

Obama still has to get his people to Caucus, but this was not news I was expecting.

Here's more on the poll results, according the Obama campaign:

"The findings mark the largest lead of any of the Democratic candidates in the Register's poll all year, underscoring what has been a hard-fought battle among the three well-organized Iowa frontrunners."

"Obama's rise is the result in part of a dramatic influx of first-time caucusgoers, including a sizable bloc of political independents. Both groups prefer the Illinois senator...."

Like I said, he has to get these people to the Caucus, and it's going to be a raucous caucus.

I am encouraged.

Not Ready Yet

I admit (no surprise!) that I hope Obama wins the Iowa caucus. After a few days in the heartland, though, I am disheartened. One of my family members, upon hearing I was for Obama, said, "you'd vote for a Muslim?"

Oy.

I guess the heartland isn't ready yet to get past their prejudices, racial and religious.

The answer, by the way is yes, I would, if the candidate supported issues consistent enough with my opinions. But Obama, in point of fact, is not a Muslim).

Although Obama is a Christian, he does have perhaps more direct personal knowledge of Muslims than any other candidate running, due to his personal upbringing. That experience, I think, is uniquely to his advantage in dealing with the Muslim world, which is a critical task facing the next President. And although Obama didn't spend eight years not baking cookies in the White House, it is his personal history that gives him the leg up over "experience." Fareed Zararia agrees:

Obama's argument is about more than identity. He was intelligent and prescient about the costs of the Iraq War. But he says that his judgment was formed by his experience as a boy with a Kenyan father—and later an Indonesian stepfather—who spent four years growing up in Indonesia, and who lived in the multicultural swirl of Hawaii.

I never thought I'd agree with Obama. I've spent my life acquiring formal expertise on foreign policy. I've got fancy degrees, have run research projects, taught in colleges and graduate schools, edited a foreign-affairs journal, advised politicians and businessmen, written columns and cover stories, and traveled hundreds of thousands of miles all over the world. I've never thought of my identity as any kind of qualification. I've never written an article that contains the phrase "As an Indian-American ..." or "As a person of color ..."

But when I think about what is truly distinctive about the way I look at the world, about the advantage that I may have over others in understanding foreign affairs, it is that I know what it means not to be an American. I know intimately the attraction, the repulsion, the hopes, the disappointments that the other 95 percent of humanity feels when thinking about this country. I know it because for a good part of my life, I wasn't an American. I was the outsider, growing up 8,000 miles away from the centers of power, being shaped by forces over which my country had no control.

Informal Yard Sign Poll

We actually didn't see that many presidential campaign yard signs as the LTR and I traversed Southern Illinois and Indiana this past week. In fact the only signs we saw (truly) were for:

Ron Paul. Even saw a few Paul bumper stickers.

The early passion in this election is change. We'll see soon enough if enough people want change bad enough to actually vote for it. I want to feel hopefully, but I'm doubting it.

Obama v. Hillary on Gay Marriage (with an update on Edwards)

I'll never understand the fascination and respect that many gays give the Clintons. I recall when Bill was in office a friend of mine was swooning over the president and I asked him to explain to me why. "He says our name," he gushed. Meaning, that Clinton wasn't afraid of being seen with "professed homosexuals" to use Huckabee's term. Ironically, that same week my friend and I had that conversation, Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act. And that's the problem with Clinton(s) -- symbolically supportive yet not willing to take a true stand and enact real positive change for gay Americans. I acknowledge the symbolic support, it frustrates me that Clinton's adoring gay fans can't see the flip side.

Which brings us to Hillary. As with the husband, so with the wife.

A commenter remarked that Hillary was better than Obama on gay rights. In point of fact, that's simply not true, especially on the subject of marriage.

Obama was opposed to DOMA when it past and favors its full repeal now. Hillary was for DOMA and favors only a half repeal. Obama would support legislation giving gays in civil unions the nearly 1,200 rights and privileges under federal law now enjoyed by married couples. Hillary is more vague.

John Edwards has also recently come out for full repeal of DOMA.

Thus, Hillary is the candidate farthest to the right on gay marriage among the top three Democratic contenders.

So for true, positive change on gay rights, my money, literally and figuratively, is on Obama.