Tag: Obama

ONE MORE VIRGINIA CANVAS, ONE TIRED CANVASSER (AGE FOUR) AND ONE SENTIMENTAL LOOK AT WHAT OBAMA, AND THE CAMPAIGN, ARE REALLY ALL ABOUT

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It was a long long Sunday canvassing for Obama, this time in Ashburn, Virginia, and it was also a very exciting one.  It began far from our destination, in a parking lot in Maryland, where we were "briefed" and handed maps of our Virginia destinations.   

Next stop: Virginia field offices.  Once we arrived at ours, in a manufactured "village" of mostly low-rise, not-so-expensive apartment buildings, we were briefed again, presented with the usual impressive packets with maps and voter rolls, and sent on our way.

As on our other sojourns, my friend and I brought along his four-year-old son, who is a rabid Obama fan.  We had 36 apartments on our list – in at least eight different buildings.  The complex, nice but clearly not fancy, had no elevators.  Instead, like an apartment you might rent at the beach, each building offered concrete stairs in an open stairwell, ascending four flights to the top.  No doorbells, just brass knockers or — as we did — you knocked the old fashioned way.   

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It was a lot of steps; I clocked at least two miles on my pedometer.  Leading our way was our four-year-old ambassador, who never flinched at the up-down-up-down-nobody home – maybe an answer – up – down of the day.  It clearly wore him out but boy was it worth it.

I’ve always been sentimental about our country; since I grew up just outside a mill town south of Pittsburgh I’m very aware of multicultural living.  In my class there were Kalcevics and Janczewskis and Brneloviches and Courys and McCurdys and Mortons and Stepanoviches — and more.  But days like today – well – they’re different, mostly because many of the committed voters we met today just got here.  One charming African man, with a wife in African dress, himself in shorts and a tee shirt, just became a citizen and received his voter card on October 12th.  Another, Middle Eastern, immediately declared his preference for Senator Obama and asked where he could get a button (of course we gave him ours.)  A third, whose son was also four, spoke to us as smells of curry and some unfamiliar seasonings drifted out the door; the scent of strange spices was all around. Some residents spoke Spanish, some perfect British English, some less perfect – and less British.  But here they were, in these simple apartments in a massive series of cul-de-sacs, so ready to vote.

When I was a kid, my grandfather talked endlessly to us about how he felt coming here – what it meant to him and why he never wanted to go back to the Old Country – even to visit.  He was a tough old guy – kind of scary actually – but fiercely grateful for what he had found here.  That gratitude, and our own comprehension of our lives as the daughters of a Harvard-trained lawyer, educated on scholarships while his entire family worked to keep him in school; lives that were possible only because our grandparents had had the guts to pick up and leave and our country had offered them, and our father, the privilege of a chance – built an awareness that has never faded.   Today though, it jumped from its quiet residence in the back of my mind to full-on awe.  We are part of something wonderful here.  As Jonathan Curley wrote in a Christian Science Monitor piece with similar sentiments

"I’ve learned that this election is about the heart of America. It’s about the young people who are losing hope and the old people who have been forgotten. It’s about those who have worked all their lives and never fully realized the promise of America, but see that promise for their grandchildren in Barack Obama. The poor see a chance, when they often have few. I saw hope in the eyes and faces in those doorways.

That’s what it is – hope.  And the remarkable privilege of acting on that hope – using the power of American democracy to turn hope into action.  Obama’s slogan "Yes we can!" isn’t just political.  It’s a battle cry, a pledge passed on through generations – this time from my grandfather to the "new folks" living in Ashburn Village.  The day we decide we are no longer obligated to help pass the legacy on will be a very sad day indeed.  That’s why what happens on Tuesday is so important.  Morals, ethics, values, opportunity, education, work, freedom, the pursuit of happiness…  this has always been us.  May it be again this week.

FREE-FLOATING ANXIETY 96 HOURS BEFORE THE VOTE

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I am so nervous I can barely breathe.  We’re going canvassing again Sunday and I will try to do more phone calls before then and after but seeing these polls closing – listening to Chuck Todd on MSNBC talk about states that are "tightening" – it’s really scary.  I’ve felt all along that everyone is putting this election away way too soon.  As I sat with friends and listened to Joe Trippi this week, all three of us were troubled by the seeming assumption that the race is "in the bag."  It’s so easy to get complacent and stay home, make fewer calls, do a bit less, if you think things are going your way anyway.

In addition, we don’t know what the "young people" and first-time voters will do.   Will they show up? Can they translate quotes like this one from college student Lauren Masterson, on the NewsHour:

"We see ourselves in him, I think. Even though he is of another generation, people are excited about him because he
seems to understand young people.

into turning out and waiting in line and casting that vote?  Here’s a nice consideration of younger voters and their commitment.

I suppose if I just watched TNT and the endless, comforting Law and Order broadcasts instead of MSNBC, Your Place for Politics,  I’d feel better but after all the years I spent covering campaigns, I can’t imagine avoiding information when it’s available.  And it’s really the first presidential election where I’ve had no editorial responsibility (except my blog) so I have all these habits and nowhere to put them.  I have to sit and listen and worry and watch and bounce from website to website, and to the links provided by friends on Twitter.  Can’t stop.  It’s not that I think I’ll miss the Important Moment, it’s that I keep hoping to hear some good news.  We all know that races tighten at the end but many states are moving into the margin of error and that’s really scary. 

At least I have to go offline for Shabbat, which is going to make me nuts but may be healthy.  Keep an eye on things for me, will you?

 

OBAMA VIDEO, AN AMAZING GOOD DEED, MICHELLE OBAMA, THE INTERNET, JOE TRIPPI AND ORSON SCOTT CARD

VIDEO REMOVED FOR TECHNICAL REASONS.  VIEW IT HERE. 

My younger son sent this ad to me this afternoon.  It really is something, isn’t it?  As I write this I’m listening, on MSNBC, to the mean-spirited, spiteful stump speech that now identifies John McCain.  What a difference.   

Then, the much-admired Liza Sabater at Culture Kitchen posted this and tweeted to be sure we’d all see it.  Since we don’t always travel in the same corners of the blogosphere I’m sharing it with you here.

I keep thinking there must be a catch someplace but I hope she’s right – that it’s part of the impact of what we hope will be the political climate of the next four years.  Respect breeds respect. 
Michelle Obama wrote about it on BlogHer. 

Joe_trippi_big_2 She also reminded that there’s only a week left.  With that in mind, today I went to hear Joe Trippi speak with Simon Rosenberg, founder and president of NDN – mostly talking as if the election were over but so interesting about what would/could happen.  My favorite fact:  You know those Obama-produced videos on YouTube (like the one I’ve posted here)?  TechPresident found that people have watched 14.5 million hours worth!  Think what that would cost if you had to buy the time: somewhere around 46 to 47 million dollars, according to Trippi.  And that doesn’t even count citizen/voter-created videos that voters have watched.  Obama got free, on YouTube, views worth the equivalent of half of McCain’s entire federal campaign budget.  And he got it because he, and his team, have figured out how to use the web.

To Trippi, Obama is a real 21st Century candidate and has built relationships with supporters unlike any ever before.  It’s their campaign too.  I’ve always been enamored of the concept of "taking ownership."  Back when I worked at iVillage in its early days the message boards helped to create communities of women who saw the site as theirs, and helped iVillage become the dominant destination for women online.  They were contributing to the content, and its home became their home.  That’s what is happening, says Trippi, with Obama.  All those volunteers, all those canvassers and phone bankers and sign painters and outreach workers – and all the open conference calls and two-way communication created a new kind of electorate.  Think about this – from Orson Scott Card, author of the beloved Ender’s Game.

Those deep hungers for human connection, for the ability to remake ourselves, for a sense of control over our lives and reputations – those are the senses that the web will speak to does a remarkable job of feeding these senses, despite the relatively primitive technology and laughably low quality of most Web offerings, that people sign on and keep signing on.  They aren’t there for the content.  They’re there for each other.  Trapped in an apartment building or suburban neighborhood of strangers, they come to the Web to find their tribe.

Orson Scott Card in Yahoo Internet Life – December 2000 

What says it better than that?   

LIVE-BLOGGING OBAMA’S CANTON SPEECH – ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND OUR BETTER ANGELS.

I just spent an hour+ live blogging the Obama "closing argument" speech hosted by the very smart Writes Like She Talks blogger Jill Miller Zimon.  The speech was great – I’ve placed some of  it here for you in case you missed it – and very inspiring.  It’s also interesting what one chooses to write as the speech moves on.  I surprised myself – both at the idealism I can still summon after having lived through John Kennedy and the 60s — and at the ideas that still make my heart stand up.  It is so exciting to hear them couched in terms of one America, coming together to find solutions, listening to "our better angels" as Abraham Lincoln called them in his first inaugural address.  Here’s how Lincoln closed that address – does it sound familiar?

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not
be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our
bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every
battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all
over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when
again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our
nature.

It is this sense of bringing together that transcends even the policies and changes pledged by Senator Obama.  I fear that if America doesn’t find a way to come together now, we will spin apart for good.  If we don’t find a way to show a unified, committed and moral face to the rest of the world, all that we have stood for will dissolve – as it has already begun to do.
For years I have been haunted by this poem — by Percy Bysshe Shelley , that I feared prophesied our fate.  It is what I was afraid I saw happening and it is what I honestly believe we have but one more chance to face down.  Listen:

Ozymandius  by: Percy Bysshe Shelley

(1817)

I met a traveler from an antique land

Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert… Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal these words appear:

My name is Ozymandius, King of Kings,

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Do you ever worry that all we have become could be lost?  That our arrogance, or laziness, or the cravenness of some of our leaders (and some of us) will devour all the idealism that helped to build what we are?  These fears have stayed with me.   I know that this country is like none other.  Joe Klein once said "Judge a country with the open door standard.  When you open the door, do people try to get in or try to get out?"  By those standards, our greatness remains.   

But we need to return to that American sense of possibility – of duty and commitment, that brought us this far, that got the Greatest Generation through the Depression and World War II, that informed the marchers in Selma and Montgomery, the Peace Corps and Vista volunteers, the Teach for America teachers, the anti-war movement; that motivated the philanthropy of many of great wealth – including many of the tech billionaires emerging from our most recent explosion of American ingenuity  — and that motivated those  who joined the military to help protect us all.  That is the American that Obama speaks to and the America the world so admires.  I hope we receive the opportunity to recapture and enhance that part of ourselves.  I fear this election may be our last chance.

EMERGENCY! REPUBLICAN VOTER TAMPERING: COULD BARACK OBAMA SEE MCCAIN and PALIN STEAL THE ELECTION ? OH – AND A CHANCE FOR LAWYERS TO DO SOMETHING REALLY GOOD

Rolling_stone_cover_2Could a vast network of voter challenges (here’s help), especially toward young, newly registered and African-American voters (purges of voter rolls, craven voter challenges and other tough-to-prove but disruptive tactics) reduce votes for Barack Obama and endanger a fair election?  Despite their efforts to tar Obama-related registration efforts, it appears that the truly dangerous activities — and those most likely to tip this election away from what appears to be the public will — are emerging from Republican operations.  For example, on Super Tuesday in Las Vegas, "nearly 20% of the county’s voters were absent from the rolls."  As one voting rights expert declared:

I don’t think the Democrats get it," says John Boyd, a voting-rights
attorney in Albuquerque who has taken on the Republican Party for
impeding access to the ballot. "All these new rules and games are
turning voting into an obstacle course that could flip the vote to
the GOP in half a dozen states.

There are several "games" and they’re tough to control because they come from so many different points of origin.  Robert Kennedy Jr. and Greg Palast, in the most recent issue of Rolling Stone,  describe in horrifying detail (and no this is not hyperbole… it really is horrifying), how these vulnerabilities could play out.   You can check on violations in your state here.   Their account of the basics from across the U.S.:

  1. Obstructing voter registration drives:  stringent and unreasonable state laws have intimidated many registration efforts, including those of the non-partisan League of Women Voters.  Oh – and in Florida they’ve ignored the law that food stamp recipients be offered registration opportunities when they apply for benefits.  Those registrations, 120,000 during Clinton, are just 10,000 today.
  2. "Perfect matches"  Suppose I signed my voter registration form "Cynthia K. Samuels" and my driver’s license "Cynthia Samuels."  That’s not a perfect match and in some states I could be disqualified.
  3. Purging legitimate voters from the rolls: "All told, states reported scrubbing at least 10 million voters
    from their rolls on questionable grounds between 2004 and 2006.
    Colorado holds the record: Donetta Davidson, the Republican
    secretary of state, and her GOP successor oversaw the elimination
    of nearly one of every six of their state’s voters.    "  The toughest thing about this one is that you don’t find out you’ve been purged until you get to the polling place, and then it’s tough to get help.  It is wise for voters to check their status with their local election officials in advance of election day,
  4. Requiring "unnecessary" voter IDs:  Young and minority voters (more often Obama voters), according to Kennedy and Palast, often do not have either driver’s licenses or state-issued IDs.  Without them, their legitimacy is often questioned.
  5. "Spoiled" ballots:  Blank spaces, tears that make the ballot tough for voting machines to count, or weird little extra marks can disqualify a voter.  Since minority and less-affluent neighborhoods get the crumbiest, oldest voting machines, they are disproportionately affected by this factor.
  6. Problems with provisional ballots:  If our voter gets to the polls, and is challenged, federal law requires that, rather than being turned away, the challenged voter be given a "provisional" ballot – one that is supposed to be counted once the voter has been determined to be legitimate.  HOWEVER there’s no way to track them – or to be sure they ever entered the vote count. In 2004, according to Rolling Stone, a third of all provisional ballots – maybe as many as a million – were thrown out.

In addition to the Rolling Stone piece, take a look at Salon’s review of hot spots.  For example:

Voter suppression can be difficult to prove. Suppression tactics —
anything from purging voter rolls under suspicious circumstances to
using various justifications to question the eligibility of potential
voters — are often the product of legal gray areas being exploited at
the hands of local partisan officials. To date, no one has presented
evidence of any nationally organized effort by the Republican Party to
suppress Democratic votes. But there is little doubt that at local and
regional levels — in some potentially critical states on the electoral
map — there has been dubious activity that could result in the
disenfranchisement of voters who would likely punch the ballot for
Barack Obama.

This has happened before – and in many ways the Federal law passed in response to the 2000 election debacle makes it easier.  Despite the new commitment in both the young and minority communities, local officials can challenge and prevent election day votes that may never be recovered.  The young, the black and the poor are most likely to be affected – and that, of course, means, largely, potential Democratic voters, usually challenged in ways very difficult to recover.  There is, however, a group called Election Protection providing resources all over the country.  Not much we civilians can do – but if you are an attorney or law student or paralegal, please sign up to help .  Your help on election day could count at least as much as — and in battleground states maybe more than — your vote.
 

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

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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.

                  

BARACK OBAMA, JOHN MCCAIN AND “THE HEALTH OF THE MOTHER”

I’m so used to horrible attitudes toward abortion that I didn’t adequately react to John McCain’s debate response last night.  Did you see it?  Mocking the idea of "health of the mother" in hand gestures and a voice of dismissal.  I don’t think I need to say anything except to thank, for probably the only time in my life, Fox News, for the best edit on YouTube.  It speaks for itself.

WOULD YOU HIRE JOHN MCCAIN OR SARAH PALIN? SERIOUSLY

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This image was just removed from the Sacramento County Republican Party website, according to its Google source. And it’s very disturbing, but  I’m tired.  I admit it.  All these days of Jewish holiday cooking and praying * (not necessarily in that order) have left me frazzled.  So maybe I’m just cranky.  But when I saw this on a search for something else all the anxiety and sadness overcame me. There is hate out there – and the Republicans seem to be finding it useful.

No, the McCain supporters aren’t all like this; capable of dreaming up and posting such a terrible thing.  But they’ve been ginning their crowds into a frenzy and so this "free speech" issue is becoming a life-threatening undertaking.  Generating that kind of distaste so familiar to so many young people will make a big difference.  How that difference plays out will depend on the stars.

I want to write so much more but it has to be tomorrow.  This is a very nervous election; I and many friends get more nervous the larger the margin is.  There’s lots to talk about, although where the debate ranks, not much more than has been said after  But if I don’t go to sleep you won’t want to read what I write; neither of us will understand what the hell I’m trying to say.  More tomorrow.  For now you may want to take a look at the live blog transcript on Writes Like She Talks or the one on BlogHer.

*a post on the same subject from last year.