Skip the HRC's Out for Equality Ball

Some people are mad that the HRC is planning an inaugural ball ("We should be marching instead of dancing") but I say let's take it further and urge everyone not to go. Why?

Well, setting aside for a second that HRC is an ineffective civil rights organization (it is) that doesn't deserve your donations (it doesn't), attending won't do us any good. Oh, the pictures will look fabulous in the Washington Blade and Metro Weekly (we clean up well). But if we stick to business as usual (love those Dems, let's all get together and give them our money and votes!!) we get what we've gotten, which is the shaft. What good will it do to ghetto-ize our participation at the Obama inaugural?

Instead, yes -- go celebrate Obama. But go to other inaugural balls and events. Wear your "No on H8" button. Take your partner or boy or girlfriend. Hold hands. Kiss and dance. Talk to people. Let them know you expect Obama to deliver on his promises to our community. Getting a Democrat into the White House wasn't the goal...repealing DOMA and DADT is. Let people know we are watching.

And to be fair, there are other organizations participating in the HRC Ball, ones that are worthy of your contributions. So contribute to them directly and skip the wasteful masturbatory HRC extravaganza.

Here's a list of inaugural events you can chose from. Why isolate ourselves when we don't have to?

A Young Obama and His Grandad

Andrew Sullivan has been posting pics of Barack's grandpa and noting the resemblance between the two (it is striking).

What a great family snapshot. But is that a young Todd Palin in the background? (just kidding, just kidding).

Obama and Competence

If Barack Obama has exhibited one attribute during the last grueling 18 months, it’s competence.

Everyone keeps focusing on experience. Well, Obama has already done what the “experienced” George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole could not do: beat the Clintons.

He did it by running a highly competent and tightly managed campaign. Obama and his team figured out that to win the Democratic primary they needed to keep a steely gaze focused on the prize: the delegate count. Meanwhile his “more experienced” opponent wrongly focused on a swift win on Super Tuesday and couldn’t change course even when the mistake was obvious to all.

Obama has the same management team today that he had when he announced in Springfield, Illinois. Hillary had to replace her management team. McCain has replaced or reorganized his twice.

Obama keeps his cool. His opponents keep creating drama. You can disagree with Joe Biden, but no one doubts the competency of Obama’s selection process.

The Obama campaign is modern, integrating new communication technology like social networking and turning it into real world results. His campaign has mastered the tools of the trade, traditional and new. The McCain campaign has at the top a leader who doesn’t know basic skills like email or Google. His campaign doesn’t seem to know the difference between Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Walter Reed Middle School.

Obama has displayed prized superior management skills: visionary leadership, clear direction, strategic focus, expert implementation, the ability to communicate clearly in a way that mobilizes the masses. All skills we would expect in a capable chief executive.

Experience as defined by McCain and status quo Washington has given us Katrina, the intelligence disaster of pre-Iraq war and the planning disaster of post Saddam Hussein Iraq. All the experience of Washington hasn’t been able to capture Osama Bin Laden.

I don’t agree with Barack Obama on all of his policy positions, particularly on domestic policy. But in these dangerous times, I want a chief executive who is competent and who can lead others to implement his vision.. Obama has demonstrated that type of competence through this campaign and throughout his adult life. He is a rags-to-riches story personified – born in a broken home and rising in racially divided America by pulling himself up by his own bootstraps to national prominence. It’s a story that should be celebrated as solidly American – to be successful through hard work, courage, determination, and concern for others.




Consider the GOP’s founding president, Abraham Lincoln. Born in poverty to an illiterate and unsuccessful farmer, he rose by willpower and wits in 1860 to be the toast of what would now be called the liberal media, earning the praise of the east coast press after an eloquent and inspired speech at Cooper’s Union in Manhattan. Today’s Republican Party would call him an elitist. After all, he represented the powerful corporate railroads in Illinois and lived in a fancy Springfield home.

Like most people, and unlike the current leadership of the GOP who sneer at Obama’s Horatio Algers success, I was taught that if I worked hard, used my brains and applied true grit, I could be successful in life. The Republicans can sneer all they want to, but Obama’s life’s story is just a good old fashioned American success story about competence.

And let’s add that Obama’s competency isn’t the soulless nuts and bolts efficiency of a mere technocrat. Added to Obama’s skills is a vision he has articulated in a way to inspire millions to his cause: one united America that looks past the differences that divide us. Here too he emulates Lincoln, who, on the brink of the civil war, didn’t appeal to northern anger by demonizing southern aggression. Rather, Lincoln called on us to listen to “the better angels of our nature.”

Obama doesn’t have the type of experience the McCain campaign thinks he should have.

He has something better, which he has demonstrated over and over.

He has competence. The competence we need in an American president in the 21st century.

Obama the Realist on Foreign Policy

UPDATE: I cannot determine why the line breaks are screwed up in this post. I've scrubbed the blockquote through notepad, edited it in HTML mode to remove any hidden tags, and nothing works. I like a tidy if cluttered blog, this is driving me nuts. Any suggestions?



In a recent issue of Newsweek, Fareed Zakaria contrasted teh foreign policies of McCain and Obama, finding the latter the realist and the former the starry eyed idealist.

Comparing the two candidate's approaches to Russia and China, Zakaria writes:


Obama's response to McCain's proposals on Russia and China could have been
drafted by Henry Kissinger or Brent Scowcroft. We need to cooperate with both
countries in order to solve significant global problems, he told me last week,
citing nuclear-proliferation issues with Russia and economic ones with China.
The distinction between Obama and McCain on this point is important. The single
largest strategic challenge facing the United States in the decades ahead is to
draw in the world's new rising powers and make them stakeholders in the global
economic and political order.Russia and China will be the hardest because they
are large and have different political systems and ideological approaches to the
world. Yet the benefits of having them inside the tent are obvious. Without some
degree of great-power cooperation, global peace and stability becomes a far more
fragile prospect.

My emphasis. And my take: McCain is the reckless one. Obama is the conservative here.

American Corn Growers Endorse Obama

I mean, how middle America can you get?

Yes We Can

I'm too tired to post a complete recap of the events at Mile High Stadium this afternoon and tonight. But here's a quick thumbnail:

They had me at the Pledge. Really. I choked up halfway through, because the pledge of allegiance is Obama's message: One nation...liberty and justice...for all. Those words really mean something. I felt a part of them tonight.

I was surprised that Obama went after McCain as he did. But I thought it was one of the highlights of the speech.

I was not surprised by the more nuts and bolts issue speech he gave. He needed to do that.

Has a Presidential candidate ever said the words "same sex marriage" in their acceptance speech before?

The crowd was amazing. 80,000 I'm told. Have 80,000 people ever wanted to come hear what John McCain had to say?

Don't know if this came across on TV, but the campaign's use of texting is incredible. They captured the text address of 30,000 people tonight. And texting is how they are going to reach out to younger voters, a key component of their strategy to win. Brilliant.

They could have done without the Greek set. I know why they did it, but still.

I am so thrilled to have been at this historic gathering.

Obama's Problem

Is one he can't do anything about.

I had a call yesterday from a family member I had not yet spoken to about the election. And although my family now resides deep in the heart of the Midwest, our roots are deep in Appalachia.

She said she didn't like either candidate. I understood 50 percent of that, and asked, "why don't you like Obama?"

She hemmed and hawed and finally said, "He'll help the wrong people."

Oh.

The LTR has been warning me not to discuss this election with family, for it will take me places I don't want to go. Perhaps he is right.

This episode has brought back a distant memory. My very first best friend was a fellow named Curtis. We became friends in first grade, and even now after all these decades I can still remember the affinity I felt for him. He was black. His family moved away after I'd known him for only a short time. Had they stayed, I have no doubt we would have stayed buds. I wonder how my family would have coped with that?

Sigh.

The LTR is probably right.

The Polls and McCain and Obama

Someone asked me today my thoughts on the tightening of the polls. Here's my take:

I think the polls are wildly inaccurate in this election. Two reasons:

As George Will has pointed out, the polling models don't take into account the new voters Obama will bring. Remember, most polls are predicated on "likely voters" which is based on past elections. 2008 will not be like past elections.

Countering that is the number of people who won't vote for Sen. Obama because of his race. I know people, back where I come from, who are life-long Democrats who have never voted for a Republican but who have said they are voting for John McCain. That factor is also unlikely to be picked up by the polls.

Do these trends balance each other out? Dunno.

Obama's Nomination Night -- and I'm In!

I finally was able to get - through a friend and colleague -- credentials for Thursday night of the Dem National Convention when Barack Obama makes his acceptance speech.

I know some of you are skeptical of him but think about it from a historical perspective -- this will be a night to remember.

And I'll be there. I'm excited.

FISA Compromise

I don't get the outrage.

Admittedly, I haven't followed this that closely, but reading some analysis, it would appear that the compromise adds protections to existing law that weren't there before. Owen Kerr concurs:

As I see it, the new law takes the basic approach of the Protect America Act of 2007 and adds privacy protections and bolsters the scope of judicial review. On the whole, the new law strikes me as pretty good legislation: It nicely responds to the widely expressed fears last year about how the Protect America Act could be implemented. and it ensures that the FISA Court will play a major role in reviewing surveillance of individuals located outside the U.S. Indeed, it seems to me that the new rules create pretty much the regime that critics of the Protect America Act wanted back in 2007.

So is the hue and cry on the bloggy left simply over the fact that this is seen as a victory for Bush and Obama aided and abetted? Because on substance this seems like a tempest in a teapot. If you think the government shouldn't be wiretapping individuals at all, you won't be happy with this compromise, but it would seem it moved current law a little back towards the privacy end of the spectrum, which is better than nothing. Given a repeal of the Protect America Act is not going to pass it would seem supporting this compromise is a pragmatic position.

I've been arguing with my friends on the right that Obama comes at things from the left but that he is in the end a pragmatic politician. I don't think you can read Audacity of Hope and come to any other conclusion. His support of the compromise confirms this analysis.

Again, I don't understand the outrage. What am I missing?

Obama Knows I'm Gay

Okay, so I signed up on Obama's Web site early in the game...also filled out supporter cards in Nevada and Pennsylvania and Ohio at Obama events.

No where, whether on line or standing in line at an Obama rally did I check off "I'm an Obama supporter and I like other guys."

Yet today I get an email from the campaign entitled "Photos: LGBT Pride Events" that begins:

Thanks to supporters like you, we made a big impact during Pride month.

Okay, you all know how I feel about Pride and I was in the mountains playing Brokeback with the LTR during DC's Pride event. And yet the email exhorts me to host my own "Obama Pride" event.

So how does Obama know I'm gay?

As far as I know from my site meter, no one from the campaign has ever been here (nor would I expect them too, wee blogger that I am).

The only thing I can figure is that somewhere along the way I clicked on something gay related on his Web site or in an email his campaign sent. And so I've been segmented. Or Micro-Targeted, to use Mr. Penn's phrase.

Pretty slick.

So, yes, Mr. Obama, I'm gay, as you suspected. I'll think about hosting an Obama Pride event...but you need to think a bit more about this marriage between a man and a woman thing. You're moving in the right direction, and I think you're more sincere than your former opponent on this issue, but recent events have made me a bit wary.

You understand, right? Since others in the recent past have wanted to turn our gay pride into campaign donations and votes? Only to drop us at the first sign of political trouble?

We can overcome this obsolete view of marriage only between a man and a woman, can't we? We can win over enough votes in California and elsewhere to protect marriage equality if we just work together?

Yes, we can.

Obama Worked Out at My Gym

On Friday.

Hell, he's a member.

But the staff didn't recognize him: "What's your first name, Mr. Obama?"

He's only been on the cover of every weekly magazine in the US three times. Reminds me of an Obama rally I was at in Henderson, Nevada. A woman driving by asks pulls over and asks me, "who's here?"

"Barack Obama," I reply.

"Who's that?" she says. She didn't look like she'd been living under a rock for the past four years. "Just some schmuck running for president," I said.

And he works out at my gym. I think I just got the incentive to work out more often that I needed.

He IS a Jedi Knight

At least he knows how to do the Jedi Mind Trick

The DNC Goes to Chicago

Obama is moving the political operation of the DNC to Chicago. That's a slick move. I happened to be working at the RNC in the transition from Reagan to George H.W. Bush. There was always tension between the Committee and the Campaign and it seemed difficult to always be on the same page. Indeed it appears that problem is plaguing the RNC and McCain Campaign.

This will help solve that problem for Obama -- and it reinforces the "change" theme.

Brilliant.

Or as a commenter on the TPM story notes, "good to see that the campaign and the DNC will be in the loop."

The Fall Campaign Shapes Up

And in some ways it seems like the primary campaign all over again, with McCain standing in for Hillary.

McCain, "maverick"image notwithstanding, is the "experience" candidate who is now trying to twist Obama's "change" message into his own slogan (change you can believe in). Remember Clinton's "fairy tale" meme? Her attempts to portray herself as having 35 years of experience making change? It didn't work for her, and I doubt it will work for McCain.

Like in the primary, where Obama was the underdog in delegate-rich states, Obama is the underdog in states with a lot of Electoral College votes. He will seek to make it up in other states to replicate what he did in the primary -- offset losses in big states with multiple victories in smaller ones. In fact, he has announced a "50-state" strategy. It will be interesting to see if he can push McCain to pour money into states that should be a "wash" for him, as he did to Hillary in Pennsylvania.

Finally, we'll let George Will have the last word. He says current polls are meaningless because Obama has shattered their turnout models.

Race in the Race in Kentucky

Sully shows the uglier side of things.

It's Appalachia

It's my native neck of the woods that's giving Obama his problems. Josh Marshall explains how Appalachia is the common denominator in Obama's losses to She-Who-Will-Not-Be-Denied. Quote of note:

There's been a lot of talk in this campaign about Barack Obama's problem with working class white voters or rural voters. But these claims are both inaccurate because they are incomplete. You can look at states like Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other states and see the different numbers and they are all explained by one basic fact. Obama's problem isn't with white working class voters or rural voters. It's Appalachia. That explains why Obama had a difficult time in Ohio and Pennsylvania and why he's getting crushed in West Virginia and Kentucky.

If it were just a matter of rural voters or the white working class, the pattern would show up in other regions. But by and large it does not.

Read the whole insightful post here.

The Preacher and the Senator

A lot has been said about the Preacher and Obama, but when it comes right down to it the best explanation is still Obama's. If such sentiments as Wright's are "endemic" to the black community, Obama couldn't walk away -- not and represent that part of Chicago in the Illinois Legislature.

Now, that alone makes him an expedient politician. But he doesn't stop there. He thinks it's time to move past the anger of victimization and the words of divisiveness and hate. And he can't lead that effort from outside.

Obama won't end racism in America. But he is a leader uniquely qualified to move us to try and make progress the way no other in this election can.

The Speech

1) It was a great speech
2) It won't help him with white middle America
3) But it will with the Super Delegates. I think they were the audience for this address

A Mighty Wind

Courtesy of Curtis, author Marianne Williamson compares the two democratic presidential candidates:

The ability to inspire new thinking is a more important ability in a leader today, than simply being a "problem-solver." We're always trying to solve something.... solve health care...solve the economy... solve social security, and so forth. Yet according to Carl Jung, our most important problems cannot be solved; they must be outgrown. Just figuring out who has a better plan with which to treat the symptoms of a problem is not the one who ultimately solves it. What we need is someone with a better state of mind, who will lead us to a better state of ours.

Being swept up in Obama's inspirational ability is not naive; thinking inspirational ability doesn't count for much, is in fact naive. For in the ability to inspire lies the ability to command the most powerful forces of all. No plan, no piece of legislation, no Washington strategy or political maneuvering would alone be enough to change the probability vector of America's future. For that, we would need a mighty wind. And a mighty wind now blows.

Read the whole statement.