election – Page 2 – Don't Gel Too Soon

FOR THE RECORD: POWELL ENDORSES OBAMA, PALIN YUKS IT UP, THAT RED-BAITING CONGRESSLADY FROM MINNESOTA

Between cooking for holidays, playing hooky at a pumpkin farm with friends and their kids, and work, I’m late writing about this, but it’s such an event that it felt unseemly not to acknowledge it. Colin Powell is highly regarded, and if you wonder why just listen to the interview with him on the sidewalk outside Meet the Press. Thoughtful, civil and committed, he related a broad and sometimes moving inventory of the reasons behind his decision. In addition to this sidewalk news conference, here’s a bit of the statement on Meet the Press itself. (skip it if you saw it – 3 graphs down)

"In the case of Mr. McCain, I found that he was a little unsure as to deal with the economic problems that we were having and almost every day there was a different approach to the problem. And that concerned me, sensing that he didn’t have a complete grasp of the economic problems that we had. And I was also concerned at the selection of Governor Palin. She’s a very distinguished woman, and she’s to be admired; but at the same time, now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven weeks, I don’t believe she’s ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president. And so that raised some question in my mind as to the judgment that Senator McCain made.

On the Obama side, I watched Mr. Obama and I watched him during this seven-week period. And he displayed a steadiness, an intellectual curiosity, a depth of knowledge and an approach to looking at problems like this and picking a vice president that, I think, is ready to be president on day one. And also, in not just jumping in and changing every day, but showing intellectual vigor. I think that he has a, a definitive way of doing business that would serve us well. I also believe that on the Republican side over the last seven weeks, the approach of the Republican Party and Mr. McCain has become narrower and narrower. Mr. Obama, at the same time, has given us a more inclusive, broader reach into the needs and aspirations of our people. He’s crossing lines–ethnic lines, racial lines, generational lines. He’s thinking about all villages have values, all towns have values, not just small towns have values.

And I’ve also been disappointed, frankly, by some of the approaches that Senator McCain has taken recently, or his campaign ads, on issues that are not really central to the problems that the American people are worried about. This Bill Ayers situation that’s been going on for weeks became something of a central point of the campaign. But Mr. McCain says that he’s a washed-out terrorist. Well, then, why do we keep talking about him? And why do we have these robocalls going on around the country trying to suggest that, because of this very, very limited relationship that Senator Obama has had with Mr. Ayers, somehow, Mr. Obama is tainted. What they’re trying to connect him to is some kind of terrorist feelings. And I think that’s inappropriate."

It’s great that he’s saying it, but it’s also a bit pathetic that it takes a former general and secretary of state to open his mouth and say "cut it out." I saw that one blogger – and I’m so sorry that I don’t recall who, ran a bit of the Army McCarthy hearings along with this:

Hard to believe that people in America still sound like that, isn’t it? Back to the Fifties.
It’s this kind of talk that led Secretary Powell to speak as he did today; it’s this kind of talk that has been part of this campaign for some time.

And Sarah on SNL? She was funny and a good sport; it humanized and demystified her as a threat. Good for her, I guess, but she is a threat and she is scary and she says hateful, vicious and provocative things and none of that was apparent in this image-cleansing performance. It troubles me because the threat of her is in her firm position in the far-right, the scary, nutty, closed-ranks "base" that gets people to yell "Kill him" and "off with his head" and "terrorist" like a citizen in 1984. She lies, she uses half-truths to build anger and hatred and code words that give people embarrassed to vote against a black man an excuse to do so. To turn her into a "way hotter in person" cheerleader with a sense of humor is a dangerous, dangerous thing to do. Rehab by comedy.

My biggest fear right now though, as someone who fears deeply for a McCain-led nation, is what Obama calls "remember New Hampshire." People for whom voting is a tough logistical effort, or who are waiting in lines that are too long, or who are kind of committed but might decide things are ok without them — that these people won’t vote – will let things falter on overconfidence. I hope that we all remember that as cute as Sarah Palin might have been, the issues that drove Secretary Powell to do what he did are the issues that will determine the rest of our lives, and those of our children — and those of our country and the world that is watching so intensely to see what we will do.

KEEPING OUR EYES ON THE PRIZE: HEALTH CARE, EDUCATION AND ECONOMIC SECURITY: THIS IS A LIFE OR DEATH ELECTION

It’s fun to write about politics; this blog has always been about many things but has pretty much been all politics all the time for the past three months. Even so, once in a while all that handicapping and general outrage and idealism and hope crashes smack into the basic realities of what’s at stake here.

For example, just this month:

I had a medical test which costs money, (and which not all insurance companies cover,) that found and dealt with something that was not important today but, if not detected, could someday have been way more important than I even want to think about.
A friend I really admire was diagnosed with Lupus – costly and complicated to treat.
Another friend’s child was born a month premature, miles away from home during a vacation. After some very scary post-delivery bleeding, she and her baby are fine now. Their health insurance guaranteed easy access to capable, coordinated care.
A story appeared, in various forms in several papers, reporting "Many Cancer Patients Forgo Health Care Due to Soaring Cost of Medication" and including these other facts:

"25 percent of families with a cancer patient spent their lifetime savings for the treatment. The same survey said 10% of these families had to forego some basic needs like food, heat and housing" and

"20% of Americans have big problems paying their medical bills."

Another, in newspapers and Scientific American, reported that "the United States has slipped from 24th to 29th in infant mortality rates in developed countries," meaning that 28 "first world" countries are doing better than we are in keeping newborn infants alive.

This is the reality in our country today. And that’s just one issue in just one month. The same is true for education, climate change and our basic civil rights. And that doesn’t count Iraq, Guantanamo, candidates who want to ban books, threatened legal access to contraception and other women’s rights issues, the growing income gap and the current terrifying economic crises.

I know you know this. As my rabbi likes to say, "I’m talking to myself here" but as we monitor polls and the endless talk show and newscast chatter, we need to remember. As I was awakened by a very lovely nurse offering me cranberry juice, with a view of colorful fall leaves on the trees outside the window of a clean, well-lit recovery room, the first thing that came into my mind was how lucky I was to be there. This election is about winners and losers and parties in control, yes. But even more, this time, it’s life and death.

Oh, and if you want to get upset about the campaign itself anyway, try this.

TINA FEY, SARAH PALIN, HOME PERMANENTS, AND THE VICE-PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE

When I was a kid there was a thing called a "home permanent*." It was a hair treatment that made your hair curly (horrifying to girls like me who ironed their hair and wrapped it around orange juice can sized rollers [or real orange juice cans] to keep it straight.) One of the most visible products was called Toni Home Permanents and its ad campaign was at least as popular as a great Saturday Night Live catch phrase.

Yup. It asked "Which twin has the Toni?" That’s a photo of the print version on the left. The idea was that one twin had a fancy salon permanent and one curled hers at home with Toni, but you couldn’t tell the difference. Of course, any kid who ever had a sleepover at the home of a friend who’d just done a "home permanent" knows that the chemical smell was gross (and if I remember correctly you couldn’t wash you hair for a couple of days) and their hair was often substantially more dry and brittle than the "salon permanent" girls’. In fact, there was a difference.

Every time I see Tina Fey being Sarah Palin I’m reminded of that. The McCain-Palin campaign is asking us to believe that when you spend upscale salon money it’s mostly for snob appeal, because all you need is a Toni and your bathroom sink, and you’re just as gorgeous. In this context though, the comparison is different — and ironic. If you saw Chevy Chase being Gerald Ford or Phil Hartman as Ronald Reagan or Darrell Hammond as Bill Clinton, the impressions were great, but you always knew that the real guy was smarter, and more serious, than the comedian. No trouble knowing which "twin" was which. But with Tina and Sarah, it’s reversed. The brains, and the class, go to the comic, not the politician. The girlfriend of a young friend, asked if she was jealous about another woman in his circle, responded that she’d only worry "if he was hanging around with Tina Fey." Her intelligence, class and charm are that attractive. It’s pretty clear that she’s smarter and probably knows more about what’s going on in the world than The Candidate and, for many of us, appears better equipped to serve as Vice President. Many conservative pundits seem to agree. And many Alaskans. And liberals. Several posts, and tweets, from strong progressives, have described a "cringing" sense of discomfort when watching her stumble.

So what thoughts, and emotions, do we bring to this spectacle tonight? What do we, who support her opponents, consider as we watch alone, or with like-minded friends at debate-parties or with tweeters on #Debate08? From here, it’s complicated. Angry at her searing convention speech, but sad to see her stumble so pitifully in the Couric interview; fearful of what could happen if she and McCain win, furious that she’s trying to stall the Alaska report about her alleged abuses of power, and, in my case at least, completely detached from the fact that this woefully inadequate candidate happens to be female, we hope the battle is fought on competence and capacity, not gender and one-liners. Mostly, we’re aware that the copy is far superior to the original, and that the smart, attractive version of the candidate isn’t the one who’s going to be there tonight.

*I just looked it up on Wikipedia and apparently there still are things called home permanents but who uses them?? No clue.

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE WOMAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN: SARAH PALIN IS THIS ELECTION’S WIZARD OF OZ

This is an argument for a change of focus. As I began to write it all I could think about was the Wizard of Oz, the fake behind the curtain who had everyone believing he could save them all. When he finally presented gifts to all but Dorothy, it sounded horrifyingly like the tactics of the current "wizard," nominee Palin, and her boss. I am as angry and uneasy as anyone over the nomination of Sarah
Palin but I think it’s time to stop now.

This morning I heard Paul
Begala say on MSNBC that every day McCain isn’t talking about the
economy, he wins. That he can’t win ON the economy so if he keeps
distracting the voters and the press he will be better off – a premise
supported by the current poll numbers. Begala also kept comparing
Palin to the "shiny object in the water" on a fishing line that makes a
fish take the bait. I think he’s right.

The issues of this
election are, as we all know, so enormous and scary that it may be
easier to keep focusing on the governor, but that will not win the
election. We need to help remind people of the real issues – the
devastating effects of the sub-prime crisis and it’s sequel, investment bank failure so evident in the past few
days, the state of the economy generally, our sinking competitiveness
in education and the tragic decline of many of our schools, the
attempts by the Right to place (with hat tip to Auntie Mame)"braces on
our brains" and of course, Iraq, Afghanistan, healthcare, energy and
infrastructure.

We’re in a mess. It wasn’t caused by pigs or
lipstick or tanning beds or even community organizers — it was caused
by the people currently in office who want four more years and are
Orwell-ing us into giving it to them. This community has enormous
impact and knows how to raise a ruckus (If you don’t think so, mosey on
over to the League of Maternal Justice!) Let’s get some message
discipline here, leave Sarah to others and push the issues. We’re
going to kick ourselves if we don’t.

A version of this post appears on Blogher.com.

CANVASSING FOR OBAMA: ARE YOU STRONG OR LEANING? THE OBAMA-MCCAIN RACE FROM THE GROUND FLOOR

That’s my four year old friend, his dad and our friend Lea at the door of a home in Virginia. We spent Sunday afternoon canvassing for Obama and the down ticket races in this housing development whose residents had names from Gomez to Kim to Ilbibi to Hussein to Brady.* These were town homes with small back gardens, beautifully kept and facing out onto mini-wooded areas that made it feel peaceful and apart. Not fancy, just well-designed and executed. Plastic bikes and push toys sat out in the open; we even saw some skateboards left leaning against a tree. Not too much worry about theft, apparently.

As we walked, I realized that this – these homes occupied by families of so many backgrounds, were part of what we were campaigning for: the opportunity of all Americans
building their lives to find a place – a home — a life. And that the battle, underneath the craziness, is about the best way to guarantee those rights — and possiblities – to more of us.

The past week or two have been painful for Obama supporters. Polls are down, Sarah Palin seems to have hijacked much of the campaign, the McCainies are attacking and the attacks, however vicious or frivolous they may be, (and the are) seem to be sticking. That’s what drove me to Virginia Sunday. In all my years around politics I’ve never done field work; for most campaigns I’ve been a reporter and during those years I was scrupulously careful to remain neutral and apart. Now though, I’m out of the news business and I can campaign. And so Sunday I was walking around Virginia with three friends, a water bottle and a clipboard. Our assignment: talk to the folks on our list, find out if they’ve decided for whom they will vote and check the right boxes. We check Strong, Lean, Undecided. If they support our guy, we make sure they’re registered and ask if they want to volunteer.

We didn’t really meet anyone we could try to convert and in our 57 stops we hit lots of "not home" — it was Sunday afternoon after all, and the rest were either for Obama or "We’re for the other guy — you’ve come to the wrong house." The lack of conversion candidates didn’t matter though because we were mostly building a registration and GOTV (Get Out the Vote) list that will be accurate and useful on election day. The coolest moment: meeting an 18-year-old first-time voter– I suspect a first-generation American and clearly excited to be voting for Barack Obama.

*I’m using names of the same ethnicity but not the real ones; that feels too intrusive.

Continue reading CANVASSING FOR OBAMA: ARE YOU STRONG OR LEANING? THE OBAMA-MCCAIN RACE FROM THE GROUND FLOOR

JUST READ THIS – SARAH PALIN BY MOM-101 ON MOMOCRATS

I really want to quote this (not long at all) post by the wonderful Liz of MOM-101 but it would spoil the surprise. You have to read it yourself. You’ll know what I’m talking about when get to it. She’s always great, but this is… well…. does off the charts cover it?

HOPING FOR A DIFFERENT ENDING: “RECOUNT” ON HBO

I can remember reading Doris Kearns Goodwin‘s wonderful No Ordinary Time, about the World War II years in the White House: FDR, Churchill, Eleanor – it’s a wonderful, inspiring story and forever changed my understanding of leadership. I read the book on tape, mostly in my car. As I came to the book’s end, and the death of President Roosevelt, I drove around so that I could finish it. All the while, I kept hoping — "maybe this time he won’t die." Totally irrational but still – that was what I felt And I didn’t feel it again until tonight, as I watched Kevin Spacey, Tom Wilkinson, Laura Dern and Denis Leary in HBO‘s Recount, the story of the 2000 presidential election battle in Florida.

Reviews have reminded us that the story has been "altered" for dramatic reasons even though it’s presented as a docudrama. There may be more drama and less docu than historians would wish, — but the basic reality is there – and from the perspective of 8 years and the traumas of the Bush Administration, very painful to watch. In some ways it’s like watching a car accident about to happen – in slow motion — and not being able to do a thing to stop it. Here’s a little bit of it:

Continue reading HOPING FOR A DIFFERENT ENDING: “RECOUNT” ON HBO

WHO WANTS HILLARY? WHO WANTS BARACK? WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE? WHAT’S AT STAKE?

You really need to read this guest post at Political Voices of Women, Catherine Morgan‘s remarkable combination of editorial and aggregator. There are links there to more than 400 women who blog about politics – and guest posts. And (full disclosure) yes, sometimes that includes to my work. But I digress.

On Wednesday, April 23, just after the Pennsylvania primary, Slim, whose blog is called No Fish, No Nuts, was Catherine’s guest blogger. Slim’s post, which first appeared on her blog, wrote a loving but sad analysis of the Clinton supporters at her county convention where local Democrats elected their delegates. Listen to this:

Obama’s voters are looking toward Obama as a standard
bearer, as a point man for the change they want to see in the country.
Hillary’s supporters, at least the older women among them, are voting for their
surrogate: because they want to see a woman in the Oval Office before they die,
and because they themselves were denied so many opportunities for advancement
in their own lives.

I do not doubt that they also desperately believe in
Hillary Clinton, but their investment in her goes much deeper than politics.
Hillary Clinton is proof that they had it in them all along, the fire, talent
and creativity, and they could have been leaders but for the glass ceiling that
seemed to rise only inches a decade.

Slim also wrote that she was reluctant to offer these observations but that given polls showing many Clinton supporters saying they will vote for McCain if Obama gets the nomination, and some the other way around, she felt that times were so desperate that she had to weigh in. In her view, "We cannot afford another 4 years of war, debt and economic stagnation,
the prescription of a McCain presidency. So we Dems cannot allow
Clinton voters (or for that matter, I add, Obama supporters if it goes the other way – though they report this feeling somewhat less frequently) to take their ball and go home come November."

To that I say "amen!" I was a member of the "Children’s Crusade" that was the 1968 anti-war presidential campaign of Senator Eugene McCarthy. We worked like demons through New Hampshire, did so well there that it was considered a win even though, technically, we lost, then saw Bobby Kennedy enter the race against us. We persisted, as did his supporters, until his assassination in June of 1968. After that, many of his supporters joined us, working still to try to elect a president who would stop the war. And then.

The riots in Chicago. The nomination of Hubert Humphrey, Lyndon Johnson’s vice president and for way too long a staunch supporter of the war. And then. Many, many of my colleagues and friends indeed picked up their footballs and went home. To stay. Not only did they not work for Humphrey – that would have been very hard after what had happened in Chicago. They didn’t even vote for him. Or vote at all. And that, my friends, is how we got Richard Nixon. Which is how we got Watergate. Which is how we got Jimmy Carter– who made such a mess that we got Ronald Reagan. Who took apart so much social safety net, environmental and regulatory and other federal function that we thought more was impossible. Until we got George Bush. Who decimated much of what was left, including much of our hope. Until now, when we have two candidates who stand for so much.

Of course that’s simplistic, but what really really upsets me is that every time we educated activists, in our righteousness, take a walk because things aren’t perfect, we aren’t the ones who get hurt the most. People who are poor, whose kids go to bad schools, whose unemployment insurance runs out too soon, who no longer can afford even in-state tuition or, for many, community college tuition, to say nothing of HEALTH INSURANCE (an issue which reaches up into the middle class) — and of course the war, where low-income people do most of the enlisting…these people are the ones who are hurt the most.

We let our singular perception of what’s perfect become the enemy of the good – or at least better than bad – that we could help to bring into being. It’s infantile. It’s sad. It’s shameful. And unless all of us in the blog universe who feel this way make a lot of noise and take lots of friends to lunch no matter WHO gets the nomination, it’s going to happen again.

Thanks to Slim for her great post that inspired this rant.

OH GROW UP! (ARE YOU SURE?)

I remember when Jerry Rubin said “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” Of course as all of us aged, that went out of fashion fairly quickly. But maybe we should all reconsider. Look at what Rolling Stone quotes from Rock the Vote:

The Youth Vote: Kingmakers in the Senate

“Young voters increased their turnout over 2002 and favored Democrats by large margins,” said Hans Riemer, Rock the Vote’s political director. “They played a major role in the Democratic victory.”

A sample of exit polling from close Senate races around the country shows that the youth vote was key to the Democratic victory.
US Senate 18-29 yrs

Dem. Rep.

Virginia          52%    48%
Rhode Island 65% 35%
Pennsylvania 68% 32%
Ohio             57%    43%
Missouri       49%    48%
Montana       56%    44%

Let’s give them a call-out and stop acting like we’re the only ones who care!

VOTING — VICTORIES AND A MISTAKE – REMOVING JANE HARMAN

OK. These results are pretty exciting. But even as we are pleased to see change, ugliness emerges. I admit it. I went to college with Jane Harman. But I never see her; we don’t go to lunch – we don’t even go to the same fundraisers. In fact, I see her sometimes at college events and that’s it. But I’ve been very proud of her.

She has been honorable, smart and fierce in protecting the US through her work on the House Intelligence Committee as its Ranking Member and now, as the Democrats emerge as a majority, the FIRST WOMAN SPEAKER wants to dump her from her chance to Chair of the entire committee. This is a critical job – not a "woman" or "minority" opportunity but, if anywhere in the House, a place for the best possible PERSON to hold the job. And she’s going to be pushed aside because of a falling-out with Nancy Pelosi and because of her ability to work across the aisle on the issue where it’s most important to do so. Am I crazy? I don’t know the subtleties of this but in my bones it feels wrong. Speak up please. I need to know why this is OK if it happens. It just seems so wrong to me – not only for Jane but for — to be corny — the country.