k / o

Cesaria Evora, 1941-2011

2011-12-17T17:22:00.000-08:00

"Essa canção sempre estará nos nossos corações. Muito obrigado Cesária. Descanse em Paz..."

"Vamos a toda prisa a amar a la gente - que mueren tan rápido. A partir de hoy el mundo ya no es el mismo."

"ATÉ SEMPRE CESÁRIA, africa viva"

"Mindelo pleure la reine Evora,
Ti otu diâ… Ti otu diâ, Césaria !
Femme de l’Afrique, impératrice du Cap-Vert…
La diva aux pieds nus s’est tue, a mis le cap vers
Les cieux, en chantonnant et dansant sa Sodade,
Qui résonne désormais ici-bas de façon maussade…
Le monde pleure la reine Evora,
Au revoir… Au revoir, Césaria !"

"Sodade i'm crying.
From Italy
Im Capeverdien."

"Une étoile qui brillera dans le beau ciel cap verdien ! Césaria, la diva aux pieds nus à la voix si mélancolique va nous manquer !"

Oakland General Strike, November 2, 2011

2011-11-23T14:06:00.000-08:00

This is what it looked and felt like when the people shut down the powerful for one day in Oakland, California:

Video by the organizers and participants of War-Times.org.

"Kaiser, get with the program!"

2011-11-01T16:20:00.000-07:00

Kaiser CEO George Halvorson made $7.9 million in 2009. Kaiser Permanente has made $5.7 billion in profits in the last 30 months, and yet Halvorson has the audacity to ask healthcare workers to give up their defined benefit pension, retiree health benefits and to accept deep cutbacks that will fundamentally change how Kaiser healthcare workers receive healthcare from their employer.

Kaiser's healthcare takeaway will essentially convert healthcare workers into Kaiser customers who will then be forced into incentivized "cafeteria" plans based on hours worked instead of receiving, as they do now, full coverage as part of their overall compensation.

Chris Rauber and the San Francisco Business Times get it wrong...again

2011-10-05T11:40:00.000-07:00

Once again, writer Chris Rauber of the San Francisco Business Times, has simply reprinted a press release and gotten an entire story wrong.

You'd think that after completely mischaracterizing a significant story about how unfair Kaiser rate hikes were impacting California healthcare consumers and in the process making insinuations about the Chronicle's Victoria Colliver (who actually got the story right!), Rauber would think twice about reflexively diving in on the side of established business interests. Apparently not.

In the case of Rauber's nanny-journalism attack on Colliver, it turns out healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente did hike its rates unfairly and is now paying millions back to California consumers. If Rauber had his way, would Colliver's story have even been written, and would hundreds of thousands of Californians have a few extra bucks in their pockets today? It's doubtful.

It's pretty clear that Rauber has a bias against unions and consumers. He has been upfront about his deep suspicions about unions and union activism. In this piece attacking the California Nurses Association, Rauber even went so far as to call the largest nurses' strike in California history not that "big of a deal." Nurses and patients might disagree.

But with today's story attacking yet another healthcare union, the National Union of Healthcare Workers, in which Rauber got the facts so wrong he had to print a correction no sooner than he had posted his story, Rauber has indicated not only that he can't be trusted to write about workers' and consumers' interests in an unbiased manner, but that when it comes to working people, Rauber can't be trusted for reporting on basic facts.

As Kaiser workers choose NUHW over SEIU, national media covers union election

2010-09-19T04:01:00.000-07:00

A compendium of Los Angeles Times articles about corruption within SEIU

2010-09-12T22:35:00.000-07:00

A compendium of Los Angeles Times articles about corruption within SEIU.

Featuring articles on Alejandro Stephens, Annelle Grajeda, Tyrone Freeman, Rickman Jackson, Sharon Frances Moore and James Bryant.

Important information for Kaiser workers considering the choice between SEIU and NUHW.

Make an informed choice.

SEIU versus NUHW: which is better? Kaiser workers decide

2010-09-03T21:18:00.001-07:00

Here's a new website for Kaiser workers seeking to make an informed decision about their choice of union in the upcoming election between NUHW and the SEIU-UHW.

It's called Kaisercoworkers.org.

You'll find sections on the Facts, a discussion of what's important to Kaiser workers, and important information about how cast your ballot for NUHW.

SEIU Stewards moving to NUHW

2010-08-30T18:16:00.000-07:00

The Santa Rosa Stewards open letter.

NUHW v. SEIU: NUHW members describe why they are better off than with SEIU

2010-08-23T19:13:00.000-07:00

NUHW members describe what's changed at work and how joining NUHW and leaving SEIU was the right choice for them.

More information here.

Abbey Lincoln, 1930-2010

2010-08-14T12:34:00.000-07:00

Abbey Lincoln, goodbye and thank you.

Salute the Black Stars of Ghana

2010-07-02T21:35:00.001-07:00

Shame on Suarez and Uruguay for a hollow victory!

Outfield players grabbing the ball at the goal line like Suarez did goes against the spirit of the game.

My opinion is that the rules should give the referee the discretion to award a goal in that situation.

Players should know that it's futile to try to illegally block a goal with your hands.

There's enough cynicism in soccer/football already.

Here's hoping the rest of the World Cup is played with the same spirit and determination that Ghana showed playing against Uruguay.

Ned Landin - Flathead "Ordinary Man"

2010-06-25T23:17:00.000-07:00

I like Ned and his music. I knew him as Flathead from when he played outside Coffman Memorial Union at the University of Minnesota back in 1986-7.

Then, almost by coincidence, I saw him perform Astor Place in NYC a few years later and Harvard Square a few years after that, only to catch up with him one night in the 90's in Santa Monica, where the above clip, I think, is from.

Ned's music, in particular his guitar playing and thoughtful singing, owes a ton to Cat Stevens and Ritchie Havens, but for countless students, more of whom who should see this video and check out his website...it's that we owe Ned for his music and for being a voice of our student years.

I got a chance to hang out with Ned over lo mein in Chinatown NYC after he opened for Michelle Shocked one night. He was a nice, quiet guy.

I know I said it already in person, but Thank you, Flathead.

Link to Flatworld.net

Jabulani + Mourinho Tactics = Boring World Cup

2010-06-16T23:28:00.001-07:00

I wish I could conclude differently. I agree with Rob Smyth. The ball is off. And the tactics are over defensive in this World Cup so far.

Too many passes and shots are off target. Too many hard passes hit the recipients' foot and balloon up out of control. Too many great players have no touch and howlers outbalance successful executions of finesse.

On top of which, it seems every manager has studied Barcelona vs. Inter Milan and have put not just "men behind the ball" but disciplined formations organized to meet and thwart all attacks a la Mourinho.

And, given the Adidas Jabulani ball, there's no easy way to unlock the bus that's parked, more often than not, in front of the goal.

With this ball so far, there's no real threat from shots and free kicks from long distance and crosses often sail over the intended targets.

The teams I'm enjoying watching pass the ball on the ground and run incessantly in the attack. Ivory Coast, South Africa, for two, have been fun to watch but have scored one goal in three games between them.

Given the ball's unreliability in flight, I don't know why more teams don't try to take it to the byline and pass it back into the box. That's where a ball passed on the ground can be redirected into the goal...or if you're Maicon, you can skip that step and send the ball straight to the back of the net.

We all love the World Cup, but the often boring tactics and lack of finesse in this one so far are hard to miss. Wish it wasn't so, but it seems to be for now.

The plastic ball and negative tactics mean it will take something special to lift this cup.

Let's hope we get it.

USC workers defeat SEIU, the Weissman Group and their anti-union employer

2010-05-30T12:26:00.000-07:00

This is what workers leading the labor movement looks like:

The Weissmann Group is a union avoidance firm.

Dolores Huerta visits Kaiser workers joining NUHW

2010-05-29T10:46:00.000-07:00

On May 14, healthcare workers at Kaiser Modesto invited United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta to have lunch with them in their cafeteria. Kaiser tried to shut her out, and SEIU representatives tried to insult her, but she met with workers for two hours to support their effort to organize with the National Union of Healthcare Workers.

Here are two photographs from Huerta's visit:

Why you should say "no" to Facebook's new profile settings

2010-05-09T15:34:00.001-07:00

If you're not aware of how Facebook is gradually eroding your right to privacy, you should click on this link to the Electronic Frontier Foundation's timeline of changes in Facebook's privacy settings. You should also note a basic NYT webguide, 3 Settings every Facebook user should know, highlighting some simple steps you can take to protect your privacy on Facebook. (Here's more current links: PC Mag and PCWorld)

However, having viewed Facebook's most recent changes, changes that go beyond the issue of privacy settings, I have come to the conclusion that the anti-Facebook argument has more and more merit. Protecting your privacy using Facebook's settings is no longer enough. Facebook's latest changes effectively mean that even if you change your settings to protect your privacy following the steps above, that the personal information you share on Facebook, the sequence of groups, organizations, locales and affiliations that in part make you who you are, are being commercialized to become the property of Facebook even if you set them to "private."

Here's two key paragraphs about the recent Facebook changes from Ryan Singel's Wired editorial:

All the items you list as things you like must become public and linked to public profile pages. If you don’t want them linked and made public, then you don’t get them — though Facebook nicely hangs onto them in its database in order to let advertisers target you.

This includes your music preferences, employment information, reading preferences, schools, etc. All the things that make up your profile. They all must be public — and linked to public pages for each of those bits of info — or you don’t get them at all. That’s hardly a choice, and the whole system is maddeningly complex.

If you use Facebook, you can no longer share with your friends, for example, that you went to a certain college without having your profile linked to a centralized web page that Facebook controls about that college. Facebook says:

Our goal is to make this Community Page the best collection of shared knowledge on this topic. If you have a passion for "organization x," sign up and we'll let you know when we're ready for your help.

That now goes for your hometown, your high school, your employers, your job titles, books you read, or any of a wide array of information that many folks routinely share in their information page on Facebook. You should be very dubious of becoming a "worker bee" to help Facebook do this. Especially since Facebook is now asking your consent to make these links in one fell swoop!

The critical piece here is that the "community pages" are "a page that Facebook controls." Even if you've set the information to private and control who views it, Facebook wants to control the page that your profile links to. You don't own it, they do. This is a big change. You can't say you went to Central High School without Facebook creating and controlling a hyperlink in your profile and managing the community that you now "belong" to.

That's a huge power grab, and in a short period of time, these changes will fundamentally alter what Facebook even means.

The coolest thing about Facebook, and the most promising, was that it allowed people to create impromptu groups, even in some ways, de facto organizations, with people that they did not know.

What the latest changes are doing is changing who controls those organizations. You don't control them anymore. More and more, Facebook does. What's more, the way Facebook has set this up, you are inevitably helping Facebook control and commodify your personal information...and most people who do so won't even notice.

Your sharing of a simple piece of information about your degree from, say, the University of Minnesota, allows Facebook to link your profile to a centralized webpage about the University of Minnesota that has "you" in it.

Your right and ability to do something that is central to using Facebook...sharing information about yourself with your friends, family and peers...now means that your profile has to be linked to a webpage that Facebook can turn around and sell, promote and market to the world.

Facebook will be able to tell advertisers that Facebook is the single, centralized place where people who are into NASCAR, or White Water Rafting, or worked at 3M, or attended Harvard...congregate and can be marketed to.

And they are doing this with our help. In fact, much of the information they want to use to create these web pages is information we've already entered into Facebook.

Take a look at how Facebook promotes itself:

Facebook Ads makes it easy and cost-effective to quickly set up and manage your campaign. G5 found success setting up a series of Facebook Ad campaigns targeted to college students at 21 campuses prior to Summer break for StorQuest self service storage facilities. Real-time suggested bids for our auction-based system provided guidance that enabled G5 to hone ad effectiveness based on their various targeting filters (age, college level and location).
Original ad placed

The results from StorQuest's Facebook ad campaign were one of their highest performing online advertising efforts:

* Over 50% increase in same store total rentals versus prior year.
* 10% conversion rate from visits originating from Facebook Ads.
* On par with Google AdWords on a cost-per-lead and cost-per-customer basis.
* $1.25 CPC delivered $10.25 cost-per-lead.
* $100 average rentals; $600 average life time value per customer.

Instead of you using Facebook, the balance has tilted so that even to use the most basic features of Facebook you have to consent to let Facebook use you. All this is happening in a way that fundamentally impinges on your freedom to associate without a massive corporation spying on you and then leveraging your life, your resume, your family and your friendships into their commercial enterprise.

That's chilling. This is no longer about privacy, it's about Facebook winning the trust of millions of users and then leveraging that trust so that Facebook the corporation literally owns the links that make up our lives.

If Facebook succeeds in making these pages the central place for information about us...then anyone using Facebook is working for Facebook the corporation for free. And whoever owns Facebook, owns the keys.

What started on the premise that some fresh-faced college kids were helping people connect, has grown much more greedy and corporate.

At a minimum, Facebook users should change our settings to protect our privacy. However, it seems to me that Facebook users should also consider delinking ourselves from any of these automatic Facebook communities that don't make sense for us to keep and use.

Each of us will make that choice based on what makes sense for us. But ultimately that begs the question.

If we can't share private information with family and friends without the bulk of our time on Facebook essentially serving the commercial priorities of Facebook the corporation, then why are we on Facebook to begin with?

Christian Burns "Flying (travel series 2001)"

2010-04-18T22:25:00.000-07:00

Eloy Torrez, The Pope of Broadway, Los Angeles, Victor Clothing mural

2010-03-28T23:00:00.000-07:00

-taken August, 2009, Los Angeles, click for larger view of mural (Background on Eloy Torrez from PublicAartinLA.com.)

Democracy on Trial: profiles of John Vellardita, Paul Kumar, Ralph Cornejo, Phyllis Willett, Gabe Kristal, Peter Tappeiner

2010-03-28T22:13:00.001-07:00

Excellent set of profiles of the 28 union reformers sued by SEIU.

Democracy on Trial: Sal Rosselli and John Borsos

2010-03-28T22:07:00.000-07:00

Excellent post from Shirley Nelson, a 42 year caregiver at Kaiser Redwood City and former member of the SEIU-UHW Executive Baord, providing background on SEIU's trial against union reformers.

You can read Shirley's essay at the Huffington Post.

the circle of healthcare

2010-03-12T19:20:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid growing up in St. Paul, Minnesota in the 70s, my mom would take my sisters and me to the local playground sometimes for lunch.

There was a program at the playground where kids from my neighborhood would get a free lunch in the summer. The idea was that so many kids showed up for school during the schoolyear not having eaten breakfast, that providing a lunch at the park in the summertime made sense. It was a simple meal. A baloney or salami sandwich, some chips, some carrots or raisins and a drink. We would sit in the field house in a big circle and eat lunch together.

One day in particular, I remember two sisters and a brother showing up as we were eating only to be told that the lunches had run out. One of the little girls started to cry. She was hungry. And, while my mom made sure that we all shared our lunches with her and her siblings, that moment burned itself into my memory the way childhood memories sometimes do.

I will never forget the taste of the baloney sandwich I was eating that day or the sight of that girl crying in the doorway feeling hungry and left out...

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the Circle of Healthcare

That story has been on my mind lately. I would like to use to it as an expanded analogy to help us discuss and understand the healthcare debate and the choices faced by Congress and the President.

All of us who have good health insurance in this country are like children at a playground hall sitting in a big circle eating lunch. We can call that the Circle of Healthcare, ie. the circle of those who have good coverage and don't live in fear of falling ill.

However, in the United States that circle isn't as big at it may seem, and no one sitting in that circle is safe from being summarily left out.

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who's left out

Tens of millions of Americans are underinsured or lack access to basic medical care even though they have insurance.

There are 25 million Americans who are underinsured, many of them middle and upper income Americans, and there are a further 36 million Americans who, while they ostensibly have adequate coverage, have inadequate access to healthcare practitioners: "a new report by the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) found that approximately 12 percent of the nations population, or one person out of every eight, are medically unserved and simply do not have access to basic care."

Given the above it is not surprising that 60% of the 1.5 million Americans who declare bankruptcy every year do so because of medical bills, and over three quarters of the approximately one million healthcare related bankruptcies per year in the United States are filed by people who already have insurance. And again, those filing bankruptcy due to medical bills were largely middle-class Americans:

Bankruptcies due to medical bills increased by nearly 50 percent in a six-year period, from 46 percent in 2001 to 62 percent in 2007, and most of those who filed for bankruptcy were middle-class, well-educated homeowners, according to a report that will be published in the August issue of The American Journal of Medicine.

In addition to this, discrimination by health insurers against those with pre-existing conditions is rampant.

A recent national survey estimated that 12.6 million non-elderly adults – 36 percent of those who tried to purchase health insurance directly from an insurance company in the individual insurance market – were in fact discriminated against because of a pre-existing condition in the previous three years.

When the above totals are added to the number of uninsured Americans the crisis in the United States healthcare system is made clear. There were 46.3 million Americans without health insurance in 2008. With the current deep recession, that number is going to get worse:

All of these figures almost certainly will look considerably worse next year, since the economy has weakened further in 2009 and unemployment has risen sharply. The number of people in poverty will likely set a 50-year high, while the number of uninsured will likely climb toward the 50 million mark.

In sum, we have a clear picture of who is left out of the Circle of Healthcare in America, and the picture is grim.

There are over 60 million people who are "in the circle" but who are underinsured or without adequate access to basic healthcare. There are over 46 million without health insurance at all and left out of the circle completely, except as patients in emergency rooms. Further, the circle of health security specifically excludes the one million Americans who declare a health-care related bankruptcy every single year. Most of those folks are middle-class, homeowning families who have insurance. Finally, 36% of those who attempt to join the Circle of Healthcare by purchasing insurance from the individual market are discriminated against...that's over 12 million Americans in the last three years. In America, it is legal to discriminate against people when they get sick, to leave those who most need healthcare on their own, and millions have gone bankrupt and live in poverty for that fact alone.

The Circle of Healthcare in the United States is small, insecure and, for that reason, very profitable. We are all just one illness away from being that little girl at the door.

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but...that's not all...

There's are two more factors to add to this mix. Americans are getting less healthy every decade and the costs of healthcare are going up. To use just one metric, obesity rates are skyrocketing in the USA.

In 31 states, obesity rates exceed 25 percent, and in 49 states and Washington, D.C., the rates are above 20 percent. Overall, two-thirds of American adults are now obese or overweight, according to the report. [snip] The number of obese and overweight children has now climbed to 30 percent in 30 states, a troubling trend that could signal decades of weight-related health problems such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease as these children become adults.

On top of that, health care costs are only increasing and one of the best explanations for this increase in cost is simply a fundamental and widespread bias favoring profits over healthy outcomes pervasive to the US health care system.

In sum, Americans are less healthy than ever, and we can expect to pay more for health care expenses for years to come. The Circle of Healthcare, our society's ability to address a basic and central need of its citizens, is fundamentally broken and in desperate need of repair.

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political realities for progressives

As progressives, we get the moral and practical import of the story I used to introduce this essay. It's insane that children should go hungry in a society of plenty; it's immoral and it's impractical to boot. However, there's a reason that my story was rooted in the 1970s. The presidency of Ronald Reagan was founded on the idea that programs like the one that fed baloney sandwiches to hungry children at a city park should be abolished in the name of conservative governance, even if that made no sense. Ideology trumped sanity.

The Democrats now representing us in Congress, our Representatives and Senators, get this when it comes to health care. They know that we have failed to pass comprehensive healthcare reform for decades because of precisely this kind of ideological attack that has favored profits for insurance companies over healthy outcomes and peace of mind for the public. Decades of failed policy have brought us to this crisis. And after decades of ideological attacks on progressive political solutions, 2009 represents the first opportunity in a generation to pass laws that represent meaningful reform.

So, what's stopping us from taking bold progressive action to fix healthcare? What's the problem, why haven't we passed a bill?

Those are good questions and they lead to a set of political realities that we need to address.

reality one: there is powerful pressure for Democrats to take action this year

There is tremendous pressure on Democrats to vote to pass a plan this year that expands the circle of coverage to near universal levels, ends discrimination against the sick, regulates minimum acceptable coverage and out of pocket expenses for everyone, improves health outcomes through better access and preventive care, and begins to get runaway health care costs under control.

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reality two: public solutions work better than private ones

As progressives we know, however, that the best way to achieve the above goals when it comes to health care reform is to implement a public model of health care that takes the profit motive out of caring for our nation's health. Public solutions like Medicare, with meaningful regulations and programs that improve health outcomes are the best solutions. Given that, the vast majority of progressives would support a single-payer policy, or "Medicare for All." However, with that policy for better or for worse "off the table," millions of us have joined with some members of Congress and the President insisting that a robust public insurance option open to all Americans be part of the final bill that passes into law this year. (Important: the public option currently written into the bills before Congress is not, by and large, what many of us progressives currently think it is.)

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reality three: the biggest impediment to the public solutions progressives favor is the insurance industry

The political space to pass that bill is defined not so much by an ideological breakdown of the members of Congress, but by the power of the insurance industry.

We need to understand that last reality and incorporate it into our fight to pass comprehensive health care reform with a robust public option. Here's my take:

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who are the big insurers and why should we talk about them by name

Take a look at this finding from a report on California's big insurers prepared by the California Nurses Association:

For the first half of 2009, as the national debate over healthcare reform was escalating, the rejection rates are even more striking.

Claims denial rates by leading California insurers, first six months of 2009:

PacifiCare-- 39.6 percent
Cigna -- 32.7 percent
HealthNet -- 30 percent
Kaiser Permanente -- 28.3 percent
Blue Cross -- 27.9 percent
Aetna -- 6.4 percent

"Every claim that is denied represents a real patient enduring pain and suffering. Every denial has real, sometimes fatal consequences," said Burger.

PacifiCare, for example, denied a special procedure for treatment of bone cancer for Nick Colombo, a 17-year-old teen from Placentia, Calif. Again, after protests organized by Nick's family and friends, CNA/NNOC, and netroots activists, PacifiCare reversed its decision. But like Nataline Sarkisyan, the delay resulted in critical time lost, and Nick ultimately died. "This was his last effort and the procedure had worked before with people in Nick's situation," said his older brother Ricky.

Naming names is powerful. Trust me, the California Nurses, a labor union, knew exactly what they were doing with that study. They named names, presented compelling data and made it real with a personal story. Too often the Democratic party and we on the blogs do not do this. Our politicians tell the story, but don't call out corprations by name. We should not let them do that. And we should not do it ourselves. Read what Cigna CEO Edward Hanway had to say about public pressure in an interview he did with (big surprise) FOX News. (What Hanway doesn't tell you is that Cigna profits were up 13% to $263 million in the 4Q in 2008.)

When we challenge the insurance industry directly we expand the political space for meaningful healthcare reform including a robust public option. Don't take my word for it.

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the single most effective moments in Obama's speech were his critiques of insurers

A David Binder Research focus group (pdf) prepared for the DNC showed that the most effective moments of Barack Obama's speech all involved criticism of the insurance industry. Three three most powerful topics among a cross section of Arizona voters were:

-Insurance Industry Reforms
-Insurance Industry Accountability
-Increasing Choice and Competition

In fact,

The highest sustained positive ratings in the speech, nearly 90 on the 0-100 scale, occurred as the President said, “Under this plan, it will be against the law for insurance companies to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing condition. As soon as I sign this bill, it will be against the law for insurance companies to drop your coverage when you get sick or water it down when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime. We will place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because in the United States of America, no one should go broke because they get sick."

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people get it

Instead of taking as our start point in pushing for comprehensive health care reform a linear, partisan picture of our nation, we should instead take as our start point the Circle of Healthcare. In making our case for reform, we need to define a Circle of Healthcare that includes every American and takes on the insurers who've picked and chosen whom to include and whom to exclude from that circle for decades.

It doesn't matter who represents you in Congress, you probably know someone who has been denied insurance because of a pre-existing condition. Whatever the PVI of your district, you probably know someone personally who has had to declare bankruptcy due to medical bills passed on to collection agencies by a big insurer. Rural and urban citizens alike understand that insurance is meaningless if you don't have access to basic care whether the limitation is your rural address or your ability to find a translator. And all of us know that we have become less healthy as a nation, that we pay more for insurance and care, and that we have less security when it comes to our health insurance today all while big companies have made billions of dollars in profits.

People get it. Even some folks who marched on Washington DC yesterday get it and know where to place the blame. Our nation is less healthy, less secure and more vulnerable to being denied coverage or going broke today over a health problem than we were 15 years ago.

When it comes to health care we all can imagine what it might be like to be that little girl at the door.

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what to do?

I think we can do three things.

1. We can rally behind the President and Congress and help them put pressure on the big insurance companies. We do this not simply by, for example, participating in the President's letter-writing campaign to members of Congress, but by helping expand the playing field and the circle of debate by taking on big insurance companies and naming them by name.

2. Those of us committed to public solutions to the healthcare crisis need to process and understand the following realities in our efforts to work the progressive block strategy:

-all Democrats need a bill
-the bill has to work, and robust public solutions are the best way to make it work
-insurance companies are the obstacle to making comprehensive reform

3. Finally, we need to understand the tremendous force that is the pressure to pass this bill. There is tremendous pressure to pass a bill. Our ability to navigate the pressure cooker of the negotiations over this bill and pass meaningful public solutions into law depends on our ability to factor this reality into our equation and mature as a movement.

We have to learn to work both/and.

If we go too far in our efforts and kill this bill, we kill our coalition. If we don't hold the line using the tools at our disposal the insurance industry will win a package of giveaways. Big corporations are used to negotiations involving bargaining hard up till the last minute. Too often the last decades, we Democrats have not proven as adept. History has shown us that the only meaningful change worth making involves fighting hard with unity and determination.

The battle over healthcare reform will go to the final hour and all of us will need to keep a united front.

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conclusion

When I was a boy, I lived in an America where providing a sandwich to hungry children made moral and political sense. As I grew older, I came of age in an America where Ronald Reagan defined our national priorities by cutting funding for those very programs and implying that the circle of well being for our nation was drawn so that large corporations should be free to pick and choose those who thrive and those who fall behind.

Like all of you I reject that vision of America. Millions of our brothers and sisters agree.

In a prosperous and inclusive America, there is room in the Circle of Healthcare for everyone.

We are on the brink of making great change. No one said it was going to be easy. No one said that we would go in a straight line from A to B.

This fight for healthcare reform is worth fighting for right up to and through the very end. We need to do this standing side by side. We have spoken with one voice to our fellow Americans and what we've said has resonated loud and clear.

No one should die because they cannot afford health care, and no one should go broke because they get sick.

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Shame on Target

2010-01-01T00:48:00.001-08:00

Firing a grandmother at Christmas for buying presents for her grandchildren is wrong.

Shame on Target.

Stories like this make me happy to spend my $$ at local businesses in my community and not at Target.

Gracias a tí Mercedes

2009-10-04T08:29:00.000-07:00

Mercedes Sosa, 1935-2009.

Obama's Health Care Speech

2009-09-09T23:33:00.001-07:00

My take away from this historic speech.

We have our work cut out for us. But we are in a much better position tonight than yesterday.

I thought the speech showed courage. Obama's presidency is now staked on passing health care reform and that reform includes a public insurance option open to all Americans.

Further, Obama provided (and will continue to provide) the American public with a clear and emotional understanding that those who are most rooted in the status quo and opposed to reform are the insurance companies who have profited from that status quo.

It is a simple and powerful argument. Our nation has a moral obligation to end discrimination against the sick.

To that end, there are going to be new laws and regulations of the insurance industry passed with broad public support. Progressives should work together with all Democrats to make those laws the best laws possible. We should broaden our emphasis from a too tight emphasis on the public option. This makes political and ideological sense because the moral logic behind these new regulations (that no one should go broke if they get sick, that no one should die for lack of affordable care) make the best and most publicly understandable case against the big corporations and other interests most opposed to reform.

The question for progressive Democrats now is to choose how we are going to be stakeholders in this process.

It's much easier to take a position that really amounts to "heads we win and tails you lose" with the President than to effectively get his back. Politically, if we turn up our noses at the bill, we are turning our backs on a president who has a come a good way out on the limb with us. Truth is, if health care fails now that the president has extended himself, we all fail.

All Democrats need to realize that we are standing, as we always have been in this fight, together. My position has been that supporting Obama offered a good deal for progressives and the netroots if we chose to take him up on it. I think that belief was vindicated tonight.

The President devoted seven long paragraphs of his speech tonight to the public option. All of us who pushed Obama on standing for the public option have to understand the significance of that substantive commitment. Those seven paragraphs were not just a mention, but an argument for. Not just an explanation, but a defense of. And, at that, a defense rooted in a powerful critique of the insurance industry and its anti-competitive ways.

Will bloggers now turn our guns on the insurance industry and cease needless attacks on proven progressives?

It makes pragmatic sense.

Standing with the president and building public sentiment against the insurance industry is the most powerful way to create space for Blue Dogs to move from the GOP.

That is what we all want. Not just as policy but as an expression of our moral compass. Comprehensive healthcare reform is a crucial civil rights battle of our times.

Yes, progressives should whip Congress to stand strong for a robust public option, and, yes that will be a tough battle, but we should also fight so that the regulatory reforms and provisions in this bill are the strongest possible. That makes political and moral sense, too.

At the end of the day, we should be talking to our neighbors and readers about Wellpoint and Cigna, not building misplaced outrage against proven allies.

Obama defined the limits of the possible tonight. Our job is to bend those limits to towards lasting progress on health care reform by building sentiment against insurers and in favor of comprehensive reform. Yes, there will be differences among us about the exact specifics of that reform and the tactics used to get there. However, it is clear tonight that...aside from cynics shouting and jeering from the sandbars...we are in this boat together.

Whether and how we get to the opposite shore is up to us.

It's "non-negotiable:" the Demand for a Public Option

2009-08-20T17:15:00.000-07:00

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

"I got a telephone in my bosom"

2009-08-10T18:55:00.000-07:00

There's something powerful in this eminently rewatchable clip from Richie Havens' set at Woodstock...especially the moment that opens up after he sings the line "I got a telephone in my bosom":

I was curious about that line. "I got a telephone in my bosom." We know from various sources that Havens was improvising at this point in his three hour set. Havens was ad-libbing lyrics using folk and blues and gospel motifs. We also know that in the process Havens created what many think was one of the signature moments of Woodstock...when Havens called out..."Mother" "Father" Brother" "Sister"...and seemed to crack open the spiritual space for what became the Woodstock festival.

Being a language geek, I was curious about the line..."I got a telephone in my bosom"...so I googled it.

In the process, I found this amazing website, Midwest45s.org.

And that led me after a little research to this 45 from the Amazing Farmer Singers of Chicago and this powerful song:

"I got a telephone in my bosom."

Funny thing is though...per sources I could find that recording was made after Woodstock if the 1974 formation date for the Farmer Singers is right (though the song sounds to me like it could be earlier.)

"I got a telephone in my bosom" seems to be a bit of a mystery. So I kept looking.

Then I found this link. Which explained things, including the story of Haven's Woodstock set, a bit more:

"Freedom" is the name of Haven's best-known song, the one that famously evolved out of an improvisation at the end of his accidental three-hour opening set at Woodstock. He and his two-man group were meant to be fourth on the bill, but they were thrown on stage as the first because, unlike some of the other acts, Havens and company were present and accounted for, easy to set up, and all importantly, had not ingested the infamous brown acid.

"I went and did my 40 minutes, I walked off and they said, ‘Richie, can you do about four more songs?’ No one was there to go on. I went back and sang the four songs. I walked off. ‘Richie… four more?’ They did that six times until I realized, I don't have another song. I'm done. I've sung every song I know. It's two hours and forty-five minutes later… and that's when I start that long intro, that's me trying to figure out what I'm going to play, and I yell out the thing about the guitar microphone… please, let me stall a little bit more!"

After about a minute of freelancing a percussive riff in his distinctive open-D tuning, accompanied by an Afro-Cuban conga beat, he cried the word "freedom," and then repeated it eight more times. "I just went with that… all of a sudden, 'Motherless Child' came out. I hadn't sung that song in 14 or 15 years. I used to sing it early on in the Village." He also slipped in a couple of secularized verses from a song he calls "I Got a Telephone in My Bosom" (a variation on the song that became known as "Jesus is on the Mainline"), which he learned during a brief gospel education. And though he was in a state of improvisational ecstasy, Havens could still sense that by participating in Woodstock, he was taking part in history.

"They can't hide us anymore" was the thought that went through his head upon seeing the masses at Max Yasgur's Farm that day. At first observing the scene through the floorboards of the helicopter that was delivering him to the gig, and later from his vantage point on the stage, "I thought, ‘when the pictures come out in the newspaper, they'll see we are now above ground. We're no longer relegated to the underground.’"

Following that lead, I looked for the origins of "Jesus is on the Mainline" and found a reference to Mississippi Fred McDowell and the Hunter's Chapel Singers which turned up this sample clip. As much as I looked I could not find a version of "Jesus on the Mainline" that includes Haven's "bosom" lyric.

However, in the midst of all that searching, I stumbled on this Fred McDowell version of "Goin down to the River", which, while NOT the song in question was just too powerful not to share. It is a fitting place to close this post:

Wow.

PS 22 Sings

2009-08-06T16:48:00.000-07:00

For more go here!

not the Last Time...or the first time

2009-07-27T23:34:00.001-07:00

Listen to this:

And then listen to this:

Next check this out:

And now...listen to some of this:

Bittersweet may be right...

but this is the stuff that will get you through the night.

Try this...

2009-07-25T00:17:00.000-07:00

Classic Joy Division...

and a version that, somehow, both works and makes me value the original more:

California agrees to a budget...

2009-07-20T21:35:00.000-07:00

Per Calitics:

Democracy on Trial: John Borsos

2009-06-28T22:15:00.000-07:00

For a women's century: repost

2009-05-07T19:41:00.001-07:00

From k/o, November, 5th, 2005:

In the worst ways, mass media offered, and continue to offer, a vision of feminism to the public that suggested it was a movement for equal rights that would make women be like men. The fact that the feminist movement was equally critical of male identity formation within patriarchy was rarely given attention in the media. Clearly, the aspect of reformist feminism most people could understand was the insistence on equal pay for equal work. Coupled with that was the stereotype of women become pseudo-men. In the final analysis, mass media and the mass public have shown a willingness to embrace women acting like patriarchal men while they eschew feminist attempts to transform male and female roles.

-bell hooks, rebel's dilemma 1998

I'm a man and I'm a feminist. There's nothing remarkable about that, it's how I was raised.

I was raised by a strong, brilliant and caring woman, who is still very much "my mom." And I was raised by a strong, brilliant and gentle man who is still very much "my dad." I have two sisters with whom I shared the experience of growing up and being raised by our parents in St. Paul, Minnesota in the 1970's and 80's.

Who I am was forged in that context. That context is the essential part of me. My family's shared experience, growing up side by side with my sisters, being raised by my folks, is what, essentially, made me.

I think most women "get" that kind of thinking...thinking of one's self in this relational and rooted way. I think most women's politics are deeply informed by this mode of thinking. Frankly, however, most of the men who run our country don't get it. Where women understand the core feminist values of context, consensus and community, most men in our society do not. Men, in particular our leaders, tend to take those three "c's" for granted, and it shows.

Feminism is a strong word. As a concept it is currently more reviled than that other current bete noire, socialism, though they both represent, on some level, deeply shared, positive and hopeful human ideals: community, empowerment, the common good. Now, I don't think this on the outs status is an accident. Nor do I think that feminism's "ill repute" represents some nefarious, wholly intentional plot.

Simply put, the "isms" of the status quo...corporate capitalism, militarism, religious fundamentalism, and nationalism...form a bundle of interests and structures that collude organically to favor what used to get called patriarchy but what can also be summarized in present day terms as: national governments dominated by men on behalf of the military industrial complex and vested corporate interests. Like a lot of folks, male and female, I think these isms are killing our planet.

Of the "isms" we might replace or modify these with: a people's globalism, feminism, environmentalism (or "green economics"), humanism and a democratic market-based socialism...feminism is, politically, in my view, the crucial one. And here I am not talking about feminism as an intellectual project so much as a pragmatic and political program to empower women and change the playing field of political and economic power. In my view, the central question of our times is what women around the globe will decide to do with the political and economic challenges of the 21st century...what they will make of their lives in this context. I am convinced our collective history rests on the decisions women make and the actions women take going forward. In so many ways, our future depends on women's empowerment.

Now, I am not an academic expert on feminism, but I've read Audre Lorde, Betty Friedan and June Jordan, This Bridge They Call our Backs and Dorothy Day. I'm familiar with the intellectual history of women's struggle and understand that its roots extend deep into the intellectual and political history of the west. I've also lived long enough to know that abstractions (like those of my own here) do not do justice to common-sense lived experience, as the women above knew well. I'd like to acknowledge that speaking from one's experience and limitations is feminism too. And I would like to speak frankly, then, as one man living and working in this time and this place, and understanding my own limitations.

In my experience, motherhood (a loaded and powerful term wherever and whenever it is used) is the crux of the matter. Having and raising children...in terms of the time and risks it takes, the commitment involved, and the "social norms" of how women are universally expected to take charge of child rearing and do the bulk of its work...forms the nexus through which most men view women, and, oftentimes, through which women view themselves and their political lives, whether they choose to have children or not.

Children are factual, real, necessary...and hard work. Women know this. Many men don't. In my personal and professional life, and as a man in my 30's, I can attest that motherhood changes the political and economic playing field for women. While men I've known have been exemplary parents and dads, there is really no comparison between what is essentially voluntary virtue on the part of most men...and the fact that for women...pregnancy, breastfeeding, child care, being the de facto primary caregiver, the whole package, comes with the choice to have a child. In 2005 we still don't have adequate health care, child care, or a minimum wage that would make of motherhood anything other than the herculean effort without much of a safety net that it is for most women in our society to this day. Employers, unless one is quite lucky, still don't "get" pregnancy. Most young mothers I know are run ragged by the demands of our society.

As a man, it has been clear to me, however, as it is to most men I know, that there is no difference in political insight, intellectual analysis or leadership capabilities between women and men. That is crucial, because so much in our society, so much of our structures, implicitly assumes the opposite. Aside from that "little thing" called having and raising children, we are, estrogen and testosterone fluxes aside, in reality very much equals, though society does not treat us that way. Despite that inequity in treatment, it is clear that our world needs the input, the intellectual firepower and the lived experience and wisdom of women here at the birth of the 21st Century. In that sense we desperately need a rebirth of feminism.

I am convinced we will not achieve a sustainable and peaceful human presence on this planet without women's full and equal participation in our political and economic lives. Given that at various times in human history and prehistory, women's empowerment and input may have been greater, effectively, than it is now, it is time for a women's century.

In essence, this essay proposes we examine the intersection of women and politics for the next century...that we take apart how men, who have heretofore dominated our political and economic lives in the industrial era, have created, intentionally or not, a political environment antithetical to the intersection of women and politics, if not the intersection of motherhood and full participation in our economic lives. Greed, selfishness and "one-up-manship" rule the day. By its nature, whatever our democratic ideals, our current system produces and rewards wars like the one in Iraq, produces and rewards torture like that of Abu Ghraib, produces and rewards Enron-like corporate scandals and profiteering as a part of its inherent nature. Our system produces and rewards judges like John Roberts and Samuel Alito, as well; and a society where an 8-1 male Supreme Court is acceptable, indeeed, where it can be countenanced philosophically, is one in which an unquestioned patriarchy rules the day.

If we are to change this status quo, we need to change this male-oriented and dominated state of affairs. And that means reviving and revaluing the project of feminism as the essential start point to making fundamental change. We need to make explicit, and quite often, literal room for women, and hence, for mothers, and the values of consensus and community, in the structure of our political and economic life. Women must take their proper place, even as they change the very meaning of that place, from the High Court and the Senate to the board room and even the military high command. If the 21st Century is to represent a turning point in human history, it will be because women will take their rightful, and fully equal place at the table, and then change the nature of that table.

This must not be done, as so often has been the case, by forcing women to conform to the current very male requirements of political and economic participation. We, men and women together, must change the broken and biased rules of public life. In this sense, as bell hooks points out cogently in the lead-in quote of this piece, feminism is as much about men as it is about women; true feminism includes a revolution in men's roles too.

In saying this, I don't pretend to be saying something new or unique...in fact, I am simply reiterating a core value that has, in my view, got lost by the wayside somewhat. Feminism is important to all of us. The Alito nomination has brought that home for me.

Now, in my view, the important places this change will happen, in contrast to our Western obsession with our own domestic feminisms and politics...is around the globe. The most significant decisions and developments in this regard may well be made in places like Karachi and Bangkok, in Seoul and Johannesberg and their surrounding countrysides. It is critical, for a women's century, that women come to the fore around the globe, and that they do so in their own way, relating to their specific circumstances and histories. The crucial interactions here may involve micro loans and small-scale entrepeneurism...or a large-scale movement for fair trade, education, reproductive rights and sustainable agriculture. Regardless, women are on the front lines of the horizontal reorganization of global political activism that is challenging the vertical, top-down, hierarchy of the World Bank and the U.N. Truth be told, women have always have been on the front lines in this regard.

It is critical to understand that as women redefine and stake out new roles in political life, they redefine men's roles as well. In my view, that is the reason we have seen a full scale push back from the right on feminism. And it is why the gender imbalance in the United States federal governement...our Congress, our Executive Branch and on our Supreme Court...must end. Reform of the United States government cannot happen with the "good old boy" networks still in place. It is not enough to vote out the "good old boys" or to redefine their clubs to include a few women. We must redefine what public service means for men and women alike. We need to drain the swamp which breeds the "good old boys" in the first place.

In this sense, I think the feminist values of context, consensus and community will form the crux of how feminism will help move our society from one based, essentially, on war and greed...those twin obsessions of the the militarized state...to one based on sustainability and mutuality, on democratic community and interdependence on all levels. As we can see from around the globe, the current wave of feminism is very much about "fact-based" and "reality-based" pragmatism; the world powers must see that and understand it. This is a project as bold and necessary as any yet undertaken in our short history on this planet, even if, at the end of the day, it won't look like 'revolutions' past.

Men throughout our history have priveleged a kind of rhetoric for change that is essentially full of machismo. Without dismissing the validity and heroism of previous sturggles for change, it is essential that we envision the possibility of a different kind of struggle, a different, and perhaps, more pragmatic way of making progressive change. Motherhood, femininity, and womanhood represent a direct connection to a kind of continuity, a sense of connectedness that for women is simply not abstract. It is those values we see in the worldwide movement for women's empowerment. Continuity and connectedness are not 'known traits' of most previous movements for change, which privilege seismic shifts and dramatic breaks. Taking a cue from Rosa Parks, and lesser known heroes like Maudelle Shirek, we should renew our commitment to already established models of women's activism and the values they incorporate. We should seek to understand how these models and values apply to every last one of us. It is high time that feminism and women's empowerment help us look at the bigger picture and move our politics into one of making long term change based on a long term vision.

The 21st century, it is my deepest hope, will be a century that will come to be known by history as a "women's century" not because it priveleged or advantaged women over men, but because, finally, we made a decisive move towards a society that incorporated all of us, and made equal use of the full extent of our manifold insights, talents and abilities.

We must define a politics that puts the emphasis on context, consensus and community...that revalues feminism as a movement for pragmatic global women's empowerment. That pragmatism and revaluing is, in part, a lesson I learned from my mother and my father. I am convinced, thinking on their example, that it will be when the world incorporates positive and culturally specific reinventions of both men's and women's roles that we will achieve what is at the core of the feminism's long held dream: that, as brothers and sisters, as equals, we will be able to work together around the globe, honoring our mothers and fathers, to build a better, safer and more peaceful world for all of our children.

{Permalink}

Try this song...it'll get 'ya

2009-03-24T23:44:00.000-07:00

It's Jim White w/ Aimee Mann.

NUHW: "Let us vote!"

2009-03-12T21:53:00.000-07:00

{This blog post was originally posted on the blog Calitics}

In the five weeks since SEIU International trusteed California's SEIU-UHW West something enormous has transpired in our state: California's healthcare workers have spoken.

What those workers have said is crystal clear: We choose NUHW.

::

A majority of the workers from 350 healthcare facilities...representing over 91,000 California healthcare workers...have petitioned to be represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) in just five weeks time. That includes an absolute majority of the 50,000 healthcare workers in the Kaiser network of hospitals and clinics. It also includes homecare workers in Fresno County who collected almost twice the number of the petition signatures necessary to trigger an election that will allow 10,000 homecare workers in Fresno county to secure representation by NUHW. That total also includes numerous workers at smaller facilities like those working at Orange County's Western Medical Center in Anaheim and Coastal Communities Hospital in Santa Ana who gathered petitions from an absolute majority of the 500 healthcare workers at their two facilities.

A remarkable development: 91,000 Healthcare Workers, 350 Facilities, 5 weeks

All told, this dramatic development tells a powerful underlying story that goes beyond describing the initial organizing success of the newly-born National Union of Healthcare Workers, NUHW. This outcome would simply not have been possible outside of the context of thousands of California union members rising up to forge their own democratic response to SEIU's trusteeship. Winning majority petitions from 91,000 workers at 350 facilties in five weeks is the kind of organizing victory that is possible only when members have built a powerful culture of member leadership and activism. Make no mistake, these thousands of petitions were signed one person at a time in workplaces all over our state. This success was won by member leaders reaching out to their fellow healthcare workers in an often hostile environment of intimidation and misinformation created by SEIU.

No one inside or outside the labor movement can doubt that workers who can organize and execute such a petition drive on short notice under such adverse conditions are not also fully empowered to negotiate effectively for their own contracts and for the best interests of their patients.

And that's the point.

A Fundamental Difference of Opinion

California progressives need to understand that at the core of the disagreement between the healthcare workers choosing to join NUHW and Andy Stern's SEIU International is a fundamental difference of opinion about exactly the kind of member-driven organizing that California's healthcare workers have just powerfully demonstrated to the world. Andy Stern has a top-down approach to labor organizing. In fact, Andy's top-down philosophy is part of why he felt he could trustee California's UHW, one of the most progressive and successful locals in the nation, without consequence. Undoubtedly, when Stern trusteed UHW and stripped its staff and elected leaders, he did not anticipate this dramatic grassroots response. Stern's choice to trustee SEIU-UHW West was premised on the idea that California's healthcare workers would not choose to rise up, en masse, reject the removal of their elected leaders and advocate for an election to choose a new union.

Clearly, Stern miscalculated. Stern was not only in error in his appalling strategic choice to trustee SEIU-UHW, he was even more gravely mistaken in underestimating the organizing power and determination of California's healthcare workers to choose to build their own democratic, member-led union.

The tens of thousands of California healthcare workers who have petitioned for elections to join NUHW in 350 facilities not only fundamentally disagree with Stern about what worker empowerment looks like and how that empowerment impacts bargaining outcomes and patient care. Those workers have clearly demonstrated in these last five weeks why top-down, undemocratic leaders are never a match for the power of grassroots democratic organizing.

Supporting California's Healthcare Workers is Common Sense

California's progressives, whether grassroots activists or elected officials and leaders, should pay heed. In the ongoing political battles we face in our state, the empowered organizing exhibited by the member leaders of NUHW is exactly the kind of activism we need. Whether it was opposing Prop 8 or rallying to fight Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's healthcare workers are no strangers to movement politics and California progressives: they have been on the front lines of California progressive activism for years. In fact, for progressives advocating for a host of issues in our state, supporting California's healthcare workers as they petition for elections to form their own, new, vibrant member-led union is common sense.

It may be that for some, the disagreement between California's healthcare workers and Andy Stern presents an inconvenient conflict. That need not be the case. If Andy Stern truly supports the guiding principle of the Employee Free Choice Act...that workers should be free to choose...then he should let California's healthcare workers...who've already chosen NUHW...vote to join NUHW and set aside his lawsuits, intimidation and threats. It may be inconvenient to some, but the truth is that whenever you read about Andy Stern and "free choice," you should remember that the only thing standing in the way of elections for the representation of 91,000 healthcare workers in 350 facilities in our state is Andy Stern himself.

Time and again, healthcare workers in California have put themselves on the line for progressive causes; in the last five weeks a proud and growing majority of them have chosen NUHW. Today those workers have one simple request to make of their fellow Californians and Andy Stern:

Let us vote!

::

Here's how you can help:

JOIN our mailing list (by going to the sidebar and signing up for updates). TELL your elected California representatives that you support California healthcare workers' freedom of choice to form NUHW through fast, free and fair elections, without harassment and intimidation from their employers or from SEIU. (Enter your zip in box and hit enter.) VISIT our website and DONATE to support our movement. And, most importantly, if you have friends or family who are healthcare workers and would like to join our movement to build a vibrant, member-led National Union of Healthcare Workers, please SPREAD THE WORD.

{Paul Delehanty is a volunteer with the National Union of Healthcare Workers.}

Courage Campaign: "Fidelity"

2009-02-05T17:19:00.000-08:00

Watch the video:

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

Sign the petition:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/divorce

Amy Thigpen: United Healthcare Workers Holding Our Ground

2009-01-28T01:39:00.000-08:00

{Amy Thigpen and members of UHW are sleeping in their union halls across California tonight due the threat of imminent seizure of those buildings by SEIU International, which instituted a takeover of UHW West today. I welcome her guest post on this blog.}

Last night I slept on the kind of carpet you don't really want to examine too closely. It's splotched with decades of coffee stains and salsa and too many conversations still seem to hang in the stale air, but there I was, curled up on my air mattresses in the union hall in downtown Oakland, the home of United Healthcare Workers West, my union. On my right my sister the Medical Assistant slept peacefully, on my left my sister the Call Center Representative, across my sister the Ultrasound Technician, and my sister the Optical Technician. All of them healthcare workers, member leaders and officers in our union. I realized that I loved this stale, stained room, with carpets held together by duct tape, I love the room because it holds the waking dreams of my sister and brothers in UHW-W. The place may be held together by duct tape but we as a union are held together by something stronger.
Whenever my union brothers or sisters ask me to do something, anything -- lead a chant, bargain over working conditions, join them on the picket line -- I say yes. Why? Because everything I've been part of as a steward and Medical Social Worker with UHW for the last two years has been about furthering a cause that is just and right and about empowering workers. And not just any workers, workers who provide in-home care for elders: bathing them, cleaning their homes, feeding them, people who do the work that matters most, even though it's often valued least.

Convalescent workers and homecare workers get paid far less than their colleagues in the hospitals. But as members of UHW, Hospital workers and Long Term Care workers are joined together in one statewide healthcare union. We've raised standards for all, including some of the best wages and benefit packages under the Mariner contracts settled late last year. And when I say we've raised the standards, I mean we. We bargain our own contracts, we elect our leaders from stewards to our executive board of rank and file members. So why are we sleeping in the union hall?

Despite all of the member-led success of UHW, our International Union -- SEIU -- placed us in trusteeship today. It's a long story, and a very well publicized one, but it's really not a new story. It's an old one, about leaders, in this case, Andy Stern, president of the International Union, forgetting who they represent. It's a story about a few people, our International Executive Board, who care more about concentrating power than the reality of the workers they are supposed to represent.

So we're sleeping in the UHW hall and we're unified in our worksites, only unfortunately instead of concentrating our efforts on fighting for better wages or working conditions or patient care, we have to fight our own International Union. At a time when our country has pulled together in an historic way, putting the needs of the collective above the few and the privileged, it's a terrible irony that Andy Stern would choose to attack and destroy, instead of building on this momentum. Luckily, though Stern and his trustees may have forgotten about workers, people like my sisters and brothers have not, and we will not.

Tonight I'm going to sleep on the stained carpet again surrounded by my sisters and brothers. If Stern and his trustees disturb us, try to bust into the Hall, cut off the power, the water, we'll resist. We'll hold this duct taped hall as long as we can, and if we have to yield our hall, we'll take our fight to the facilities, to the courts. We will hold our union and build our union. How am I so sure? Because I believe in the power of each of us bound to the next by common values and a common goal: to improve the lives of healthcare workers and patients, a goal we're all ready to lose sleep over, to fight for and to win.

-Amy Thigpen

(For more on this struggle read: www.seiuvoice.org.)

SEIU "Caught"

2009-01-21T23:33:00.000-08:00

url link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk06bbiDygw

Visit this link to sign a petition on behalf of UHW: http://www.seiuvoicestopthecuts.org

China 2008: Leslie Chang's Factory Girls

2008-12-24T20:47:00.000-08:00

Read this.

Hope, Oakland Convention Center, November 2008

2008-12-12T12:35:00.001-08:00

For the full story behind this video read this excellent essay:

let's dance

2008-12-09T21:10:00.000-08:00

It's good to be back...

Something to Do

2008-05-28T05:23:00.000-07:00

Summer is almost here. Summer of 2008.

While we do not yet have a nominee for certain, I think we can say with a high degree of confidence that Senator Obama achieving a majority of the overall pledged delegates in Kentucky last Tuesday will prove to be, ultimately, what secured him the nomination of the Democratic Party in 2008. This was, and always has been, as both candidates and their surrogates agreed at the outset, a contest for pledged delegates.

The thousands of you who played a role in that achievement, that majority, deserve a massive round of appreciation and praise.

Now's when the hard part begins...

::

Some of us were here on the internets blogging in 2003 and 2004. (Many more were readers and have since joined the discussion.) Those were different times.

To be a Democrat in 2003 was to have watched in successive election years (2000 and 2002) our party lose ground despite the hard work of so many good people with solid values and amazing ideas. 2004, we felt, was going to be different.

Some of us supported a guy named Howard Dean. Some of us supported a guy named Wesley Clark. Many fewer of us supported candidates like John Kerry, or John Edwards or Dennis Kucinich (whom I voted for in the CA primary in 2004). A very, very few of us supported Dick Gephardt.

Yep. That was me.

2004, ultimately, proved to be a massive disappointment for us. It ended up being a year on par with 2000 and 2002. And, yes, that sucked.

But something happened in the aftermath of that loss, something different from what had gone on in 2000 and 2002. As a party and as a blogosphere, we matured and we rallied, and, yes, we came together and renewed our engagement instead of having a pity party and disengaging or giving up.

We changed. And as we changed, the times changed with us. Our hard work paid off, and we redoubled our effort.

Howard Dean became the Chairman of the DNC.

George Bush failed in his attempt to privatize Social Security. Conservatism failed in its response to the natural and, then, man-made disaster that was Hurricane Katrina. And we here in the netroots rallied.

We formed local blogs. We supported long-shot insurgent candidates. We got organized locally. We believed. And in 2006 we worked our asses off for change.

And we won.

::

2008 is the natural consequence of all that hard work.

We have a candidate, Barack Obama, who...while different from Chairman Dean in some respects...is similar to Howard Dean in key areas. Both opposed the war from the beginning and both are firm believers in the greatness of what we can achieve when we organize ourselves at the grassroots level; both men are rooted in the 50 State Strategy as the most powerful way to grow the Democratic Party and enact the reforms we seek.

You have the power is the natural corollary to change comes from the bottom up.

This has been a grassroots campaign for the nomination, and, if things go as they seem to be headed, 2008 will mark the first grassroots campaign for President.

We in the netroots have a role to play in that.

::

I want to make a simple invitation tonight.

In the coming weeks I'll be letting you know all the various ways you can maximize your effectiveness this summer and fall whether on behalf of the nominee of our party or working for a candidate downticket in a local race.

For right now, I'd like to highlight two tools that you can sign up for and learn to use in ten minutes. Both of these tools relate to Barack Obama and his campaign, but the basic principle behind them applies to any campaign in any locale.

First, if you haven't already, I'd encourage you to sign up at MyBarackObama.com, or MyBO as they call it in the campaign.
MyBarackObama.com is the social networking wing of the campaign. It's where you can blog, where you can find friends, and where, most importantly, you can get linked up with other folks who support Barack Obama who live near you so that you can take action together.

For now, I'd like to invite you to join me and a bunch of other readers of DailyKos.com at MyBarackObama.com. You can do this in three easy steps:

1. You'll have to sign up.

2. You'll have to search for and join a group called Kossacks for Obama. (You should also enter your zip code and join a group near you.)

3. If you're willing, you can also be my friend! (Hint, my name is Paul Delehanty..User 276 on Page 12 of Kossacks for Obama...search for me, I should be easy to find.)

Once you've done all that, you will have begun to use a tool we didn't have in 2004. Social Networking, or what some people call Web 2.0, is a way for you to have your personal space within the campaign to make Barack Obama our next President.

You can blog, you can fundraise, and, most importantly, you can link up with likeminded people near you and all over the USA and abroad. Currently, I only have 1 friend. You can help me change that, too!

::

Social networking is a big deal. It's actually, and I'm not bullshitting here, our best hope of building the kind of network we need to build in one summer and fall to make victory in 2008 not just a possibility, but a overwhelming likelihood.

We need to be registering voters and getting folks plugged in...now. You can help with that...and I intend to write diaries that show you how.

Now, for the second thing to do.

This is really easy. It's more simple than anything you'll do all week.

I'd like to invite you to join an open Google Group, a listserv, called Netroots for Barack Obama. There's 122 of us there. I think we should try to double that.

A listserv is a powerful tool. Yes, it takes learning how to set your email browser to forward the messages into one folder...or subscribing to a daily digest instead of receiving every email as it's sent. But, once you've got the hang of it, a listserv like the Netroots for Barack Obama google group is an extremely powerful way to stay connected to what folks who support Barack are thinking and doing day to day.

::

That's it.

That's all I'm asking you to do this weekend. It will take ten minutes.

However, in those ten minutes you will have signed on to use two tools that we did not have in 2004...the Google Group and the Social Networking Site.

With those two tools...in addition to reading your favorite blogs...you will have plugged yourself in to something powerful.

And that's the point. That's how we will make change in 2008...by coming together and getting organized. We could have given in and folded up the towel in November of 2004...we did not. In 2008, it won't be easy. We have a long summer and fall ahead of us. But, this time we've made a commitment to each other that it will be different.

We've learned, we've grown and we're ready. We know what's possible. We don't know yet what we will attain. There's more I'm going to tell you about down the road.

Yes.We.Can....VOTE FOR CHANGE.

Bush / McCain, McCain / Bush, Bush McSame

2008-05-19T15:32:00.001-07:00

Brilliant stuff from Josh Marshall and TPM:

Don't miss NC coverage tonight from Pam

2008-05-06T07:25:00.000-07:00

of Pam's House Blend.

Is it just me...

2008-05-06T06:06:00.000-07:00

Is it just me, or has the Washington Post online had something, or, uh, two or three or four things, up on their front page about Reverend Wright non-stop for ten days?

Today's WaPo Wright headline courtesy of Dan Balz.

(And Richard Cohen has to get a parting shot in today, as well.)

::

I read the WaPo Front Page twice a day and their obsession with Wright has been over the top.

the Judgment of Howard

2008-05-05T13:48:00.000-07:00

I wrote months ago comparing the current demographic situation in the Democratic Party to the Judgment of Solomon where two women go before the King each claiming to be the true mother of a child and the King suggests cutting the child in half and each mother taking part.

The true mother relents and cedes out of love and maternal passion for her infant, and the King, satisfied he has found the true mother, orders the infant given to her whole.

Of course,we are in just such a situation now, if you'll forgive the literary metaphor. These polls spell that out on some level. The true mother has been apparent since Iowa.

One wise commenter in that thread on dailykos, however, made an interesting point about the actual historical moral of that tale. As well as being about maternal love, the Judgment of Solomon is a story about how Solomon unified Israel by bringing a sword at a crucial moment, forcing a decision about Israel's future and his own leadership.

Who loves the party more? Who is reaching out to bring us together? Which campaign has sacrificed and worked to bring us together, has worked to lay the foundation of the future of our party? Which campaign best represents the future of the Democratic Party?

It took the metaphorical sword of Solomon to move the competing factions within Israel to unify: and, yes, for that to happen, one side had to win and the other had to lose. Israel had to unify under Solomon's leadership to move forward.

That was Solomon's judgment, too.

Moyers: "Beware the Terrible Simplifiers"

2008-05-03T15:15:00.000-07:00

May 2, 2008
BILL MOYERS:Welcome to the Journal.

I once asked a reporter back from Vietnam, "Who's telling the truth over there?" Everyone he said. Everyone sees what's happening through the lens of their own experience." That's how people see Jeremiah Wright. In my conversation with him on this broadcast a week ago and in his dramatic public appearances since, he revealed himself to be far more complex than the sound bites that propelled him onto the public stage. Over 2000 of you have written me about him, and your opinions vary widely. Some sting: "Jeremiah Wright is nothing more than a race-hustling, American hating radical," one viewer wrote. A "nut case," said another. Others were far more were sympathetic to him.

Many of you have asked for some rational explanation for Wright's transition from reasonable conversation to shocking anger at the National Press Club. A psychologist might pull back some of the layers and see this complicated man more clearly, but I'm not a psychologist. Many black preachers I've known - scholarly, smart, and gentle in person -- uncorked fire and brimstone in the pulpit. Of course I've known many white preachers like that, too.

But where I grew up in the south, before the civil rights movement, the pulpit was a safe place for black men to express anger for which they would have been punished anywhere else; a safe place for the fierce thunder of dignity denied, justice delayed. I think I would have been angry if my ancestors had been transported thousands of miles in the hellish hole of a slave ship, then sold at auction, humiliated, whipped, and lynched. Or if my great-great grandfather had been but three -fifths of a person in a constitution that proclaimed, "We the people." Or if my own parents had been subjected to the racial vitriol of Jim Crow, Strom Thurmond, Bull Connor, and Jesse Helms. Even so, the anger of black preachers I've known and heard about and reported on was, for them, very personal and cathartic.

That's not how Jeremiah Wright came across in those sound bites or in his defiant performances this week. What white America is hearing in his most inflammatory words is an attack on the America they cherish and that many of their sons have died for in battle — forgetting that black Americans have fought and bled beside them, and that Wright himself has a record of honored service in the Navy. Hardly anyone took the "chickens come home to roost" remark to convey the message that intervention in the political battles of other nations is sure to bring retaliation in some form, which is not to justify the particular savagery of 9/11 but to understand that actions have consequences. My friend Bernard Weisberger, the historian, says, yes, people are understandably seething with indignation over Wright's absurd charge that the united states deliberately brought an HIV epidemic into being. But it is a fact, he says, that within living memory the U.S. Public Health Service conducted a study that deliberately deceived black men with syphilis into believing that they were being treated, while actually letting them die for the sake of a scientific test. Does this excuse Wright's anger? His exaggerations or distortions? You'll have to decide or yourself. At least it helps me to understand the why of them.

But in this multimedia age the pulpit isn't only available on Sunday mornings. There's round the clock media — the beast whose hunger is never satisfied, especially for the fast food with emotional content. So the preacher starts with rational discussion and after much prodding throws more and more gasoline on the fire that will eventually consume everything it touches. He had help — people who for their own reasons set out to conflate the man in the pulpit who wasn't running for president with the man in the pew who was.

Behold the double standard: John McCain sought out the endorsement of John Hagee, the war-mongering Catholic-bashing Texas preacher, who said the people of New Orleans got what they deserved for their sins. But no one suggests McCain shares Hagee's delusions, or thinks AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality. Pat Robertson called for the assassination of a foreign head of state and asked God to remove Supreme Court justices, yet he remains a force in the Republican religious right. After 9/11 Jerry Falwell said the attack was God's judgment on America for having been driven out of our schools and the public square, but when McCain goes after the endorsement of a preacher he once condemned as an agent of intolerance, the press gives him a pass.

Jon Stewart recently played a tape from the Nixon white house in which Billy Graham talks in the oval office about how he has friends who are Jewish, but he knows in his heart that they are undermining America. This is crazy and wrong -- white preachers are given leeway in politics that others aren't.

Which means it is all about race, isn't it? Wright's offensive opinions and inflammatory appearances are judged differently. He doesn't fire a shot in anger, put a noose around anyone's neck, call for insurrection, or plant a bomb in a church with children in Sunday school. What he does is to speak his mind in a language and style that unsettles some people, and says some things so outlandish and ill-advised that he finally leaves Obama no choice but to end their friendship. Politics often exposes us to the corroding acid of the politics of personal destruction, but I've never seen anything like this — this wrenching break between pastor and parishioner. Both men no doubt will carry the grief to their graves. All the rest of us should hang our heads in shame for letting it come to this in America, where the gluttony of the non-stop media grinder consumes us all and prevents an honest conversation on race. It is the price we are paying for failing to heed the great historian Jacob Burckhardt, who said "beware the terrible simplifiers".

h/t westcott dailykos

The Gas Tax Gimmick is not a "Real Solution"

2008-05-01T15:12:00.000-07:00

This is a great comment from a North Carolinian on Jake Tapper's blog (which now let's me post again):

So all of the folks saying they want a short term solution...

What do you do at the end of the summer when the 18 cents a gallon comes back PLUS the regular increased price of gas? You lose more money when the gov't and the oil companies try to make up the difference.

Does anyone remember the "short term" increase in the price of gas following Katrina? Gas jumped 50 cents to a dollar nationwide and hasn't headed south since. Why do we want to give the folks that control gasoline an excuse to crush us come Labor Day?

Besides, why does anyone think the same gov't that has put us in this situation would get this tax break passed by Labor Day, anyway?

I for one am not looking for a Band-aid, I want a real solution. I thought Hillary was the candidate with real solutions.

That's exactly right. Clinton claims she's for real solutions yet she endorses the McCain Gas Tax Gimmick. Here's part of what I wrote:

I don't see anyone responding to this reality: the gas tax pays for 300,000 American jobs that repair things like the bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis.

300,000 jobs is a lot of American jobs.

We can only bury our heads in the sand about energy independence for so long.

Why are we at war in Iraq, costing 4,000 lives?

It's a war John McCain and Hillary Clinton voted for. Now they both propose a gas tax gimmick (that won't pass) instead of dealing with fuel efficiency and CAFE standards that will make America less dependent on foreign oil.

That makes us safer and more secure.

We can do great things as Americans if we put our minds to it.

I'm for the guy willing to go to Detroit and demand more fuel efficient cars. That's Barack Obama and that's honesty. It's not easy, but it's needed right now.

Katrina, Minneapolis...that's what gas tax gimmicks and a lack of investment in our infrastructure gets us.

And, yes, that tax goes directly to 300,000 American jobs. 300,000 families able to make their mortgage payments.

I'll gladly pay my $15.75 this summer. It's a good deal all told.

Jake Tapper and ABC News: "bloggers"

2008-04-26T21:46:00.000-07:00

Jake Tapper has a blog at ABC News, Political Punch, and the comment policy there is bizarre.

They delete almost any comment I've ever made but leave up the most bone-headed, right-wing trollish posts ever.

Now, I'm not known for making comments worthy of deleting (I'm not offensive, insulting, or rude...and try to make substantive, thought-provoking points), but Mr. Tapper's staff seem to have a fondness of deleting almost everything I post! It's reached a point where readers respond to my comments, but the comment itself has been removed.

How many other comments is Political Punch deleting, and, if the policy is to delete comments of some users why do they leave up so much offensive dreck?

The comment deleting policy at Political Punch is something to keep in mind next time you read the cesspool that is the comment section there. ABC isn't just okay with that state of the comments on Political Punch, but has worked to make it that way.

Hillary Clinton: politics as usual

2008-04-23T09:27:00.000-07:00

From MSNBC today Clinton claims victories in Michigan and Florida, states where Obama did not campaign (he wasn't even on the ballot in MI), in violation of her own Pledge and previous commitments.

Further, Clinton plays politics with her negative campaigning. 68% of Pennsylvanians said she ran a negative campaign. The New York Times editorial board roundly denounced her negative campaigning and assigned responsibility for the negative tone of the 2008 race to her.

It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.

If nothing else, self interest should push her in that direction. Mrs. Clinton did not get the big win in Pennsylvania that she needed to challenge the calculus of the Democratic race.

This is the kind of politician her campaign is claiming should be our next president?

Clinton = politics as usual. 68% of Pennsylvanians agree.

Bill Clinton: "They played the race card on me"

2008-04-21T21:31:00.000-07:00

This WHYY interview is revealing of Bill Clinton's bitterness about the reaction to his Jackson comment after the South Carolina primary:

“I think that they played the race card on me. We now know, from memos from the campaign that they planned to do it along.” - President Bill Clinton.

And that’s how President Clinton begins his answer to WHYY’s Susan Phillips who, during a phone interview earlier this evening, asked the President how he feels about one Philadelphia official who says she switched her support after interpreting Clinton’s remarks in South Carolina as an attempt to marginalize Obama as “the black candidate.”

Clinton goes on to say that “you have to really go some to play the race card on me.” He lists a number of his accomplishments on behalf of people of color, inexplicably putting the fact that he has “an office in Harlem” at the top of the list.

Am I feeding resentment by playing this radio clip? I don't think so. I think it should be heard and discussed. Bill Clinton's accusations about playing the race card are a serious matter.

Listen to President Clinton in this clip and especially listen to the undertone of what he's saying.

I'll spell it out from my point of view. Bill Clinton is clearly saying that African-American voters "owe him" on some level whether that's on the level of respect or voting for his wife. He also feels angry enough to hurl some pretty divisive accusations inside the Democratic party. Personally, however, I find it shocking that Bill and Hillary Clinton, a couple who are essentially asking all of us Americans to return them to the White House, would talk like this.

It's destructive. It's bitter. It's assuming the worst of others. And it's not fitting for an ex-President in my opinion.

Should people respect Bill Clinton? Of course. But not when he talks like this. Not when he makes accusations like this. That is a kind of politics of destruction.

That is not "chilling out" and it makes talk of a "Dream Ticket" sound pretty naive at this point.

Ed Rendell failing to win the youth vote

2008-04-21T18:43:00.000-07:00

In general, insulting the people you are trying to persuade is a bad idea.

Rendell: But what I find amazing, particularly because our students are brighter than ever and it doesn't matter whether it's Penn or Lasalle or whatever, the students go and drink the Kool-Aid of a wonderful speech...

For what it's worth, "drinking the Kool Aid" is either a reference to the mass suicide of Jonestown or the drug-taking of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters.

Either way, it has nothing to do with where millenial voters (voters born after 1975) are at today. As someone who has met, literally, thousands of Obama supporters, I can also say that "drinking the Kool Aid" is an epithet so far off the mark that it's not even an insult.

Anyone who would use the phrase has already proven that they have no idea what they are talking about. Obama's supporters are dedicated, sincere, informed and for the most part, pretty damn pragmatic. Major misstep for Clinton and Rendell with the youth vote.

Btw, this HuffPost commenter highlights the deception in Rendell's reference to Clinton's "action" for young people. Obama co-sponsered the very same bill:

Have to question Rendell's comment at the end of this video that HRC introduced and passed a student loan bill. I just did a search on thomas.gov and could find no such bill. The only thing I could find is a bill (S.1642) introduced by Senator Kennedy. Hillary was a co-sponsor, along with more than a dozen other senators...including Obama. Can anyone find something I missed?

Like I said, dedicated, sincere and informed...

McWhorter and Loury

2008-04-20T22:00:00.000-07:00

John McWhorter and Glenn Loury have been, far and away, the most worthwhile duo to watch on Bloggingheads.tv, period. Their most recent episode, "Michelle Obama Ain't a bargainer" is golden.

I'd go further and make a point that dovetails with a key unspoken aspect of the McWhorter and Loury discussion: if the 2008 campaign were, at this point, as many people expected, simply a contest between Hillary Clinton and John McCain, we wouldn't be watching John McWhorter and Glenn Loury have this kind of excellent, insight-filled discussion on Bloggingheads.tv.

I said previously that Barack Obama was the driving force of the 2008 campaign, that without him this campaign would not have the substance and drive it does. In response to Loury's ongoing support of Clinton, I'd like to expand on that.

There's a point in the discussion when Loury responds to what had been a series of celebrations of Barack Obama by McWhorter with a summary of how he views the core rationales for supporting her:

Loury: Several reasons, one is...I think she's more competent. I genuinely do. I understand that that question is arguable. But every time I hear them discuss affairs of state, including in that debate last night, I come away from it with the sense that her grasp is deeper and that her vision is more mature. And, you know, there's gonna be experience. Experience has been made into a bad word. [snip]

How did experience become a bad word? How did a lifetime or decades of experience at the top of American government get equated to having had the foresight or the judgment to stand against the war which I was against from the very start just like Barack Obama. So, I think she's better qualified and I just think again that that showed last night.

They were asked some questions about foreign affairs and so forth and they were also asked some questions about domestic issues and her answers were just more elaborate, richer and more thoughtful in my opinion.

McWhorter:...well, they are.

Loury: The idea that some talking head on MSNBC is going to dismiss all that as wonkery. I'm just too serious a person to be persuaded by that. Wonkery is exactly what I want in the person whose finger is on the button. That's what I want. I want wonkery in the person who's gonna be making the decisions that are going to be affecting life around me. So I think she's better prepared to be president of the United States.

Secondly, I'm gonna just confess here. Some people vote because, well, the guys black, I'm black, let me vote for the guy. That's not me. I vote because the woman's 60, I'm 60, let me vote for the woman.

In other words, what I'm saying is there's a generational connect that I have with Hillary Rodham Clinton. And not only with her. Yes, we are baby boomers. Yes, the 60's were the formative decade for us. Sorry, that's true. Yes, we were quite numerous in that we've had an outsized impact on the culture for decades and I'm sure that Generations X, Y and Z are sick and tired of it. I understand all of that. Nevertheless, we 55 to 65 year olders have journeyed through life to reach the prime and the peak of our capacity. All of it has come to now. And now's our time, you know, is kind of my feeling.[snip]

I really admire her grit. I admire her toughness. You know, the kitchen sink? From my vantage point in this campaign she's endured a great deal. She's kept her chin up. She's soldiered on. She's fought the good fight.

I disagree with Loury here. If Hillary Clinton serves as a kind of stand in for the baby boomer generation, forged in the crucible of the 60's, and whose life experience has now yielded a wisdom that leaves her newly competent to govern with a wise wonkery like Plato's guardians, why did Clinton vote for Bush's misadventure in Iraq? That's not some idle question; it goes right to the heart of the matter.

One of the reasons Clinton appeared appealing the other night was that she gave the most unequivocal answer she has ever given about her position about withdrawal from Iraq. Her answer in the Pennsylvania debate, however, was nowhere near what her position was at the outset of this campaign. (Initially she would not commit to a withdrawal timeline with any teeth at all. It was not clear that Clinton would withdraw from Iraq in her first term in office.) It's also nowhere close to what she said, four long years ago in 2004, when Bill and Hillary's equivocations about the war in Iraq helped reelect George Bush to a second term.

The Clinton position on Iraq belies every argument Loury makes for her. What did Viet Nam teach her generation that Clinton somehow forgot when she cast her vote for the AUMF and against the Levin amendment? Why, in the cauldron of the 2004 election, did Bill Clinton come out in support of the President's policy in Iraq and Hillary adamantly refuse to reconsider her vote for the AUMF? More to the point, how does that now prove that Clinton is "better qualified" to lead in 2009?

It doesn't. Clinton's position on Iraq proves exactly the opposite.

When Loury extols wonkery, he has the wrong candidate. Obama is clearly the candidate poised to bring a refreshing and open-minded approach to policy solutions to our government. What's more, he will do this in full view of the public and not locked away in private; Obama is committed to transparency and sunlight in the decision making of our government. Clinton is not.

Why has Clinton, for all the "elaborate richness" of her answers, simply mischaracterized her history with NAFTA and health care reform outright? When Clinton was elected to the United States Senate she enunciated very clearly what her stance was on root and branch reform in Washington. Incrementalism was the key. Is that wonkery, or is that more Mark Penn fueled, poll-driven policy based on micro trends?

I think we all know the answer.

Without Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain would be locked in a traditional "Red State/Blue State battle." Loury's dream of a kind of rehash of the lessons of the 1960's played out in a battle between a 71 year old and a 60 year old whose lives were utterly shaped by that decade 40 years ago would be at hand.

I don't think that battle or that rehashing would do our nation any good or serve to move us forward.

Without adding fuel to the fire of an inter-generational battle that Loury alludes to, let me say this, if the Clinton campaign wanted to prove that it could do more than run on a Loury-esque "It's our time, we've earned this." platform, Clinton had to reach out to the generations who came after the baby boom and win us over.

There were some very clear ways to do this. One would have been to speak frankly about the error of her vote on the war. The second would have been to engage with voters under 40 in an absolutely new way. (Look at what the Obama campaign has done on and off line.) And, most importantly, Clinton needed to address the reality that for voters under 40, the legacy of the Clinton/Bush years directly impacts our future. The failure to ratify Kyoto, the lack of progress on energy independence, the triumph of big corporations against efforts at sane regulation, the stagnation of wages and the utter failure to make progress on health care reform has meant that 20 and 30somethings now face an adult lifetime without any margin of error dealing with these major issues. Our children face a lifetime of a planet in peril.

The bill for all this was passed to our generation while those older than us profited immensely from an era of cheap oil, SUVs and REITs.

That era is over.

Does that spell competence and wisdom? Does that spell a breadth and depth of experience? I don't think so.

The vote to enter the war in Iraq took place in 2002. We are now electing a president to serve a term that would run between 2009 and 2013. That very same war in Iraq looms large in dollars and lives lost. Nothing has changed in our environmental policy. We have made absolutely zero progress on containing global carbon emissions. We have not even begun to forge the international consensus needed to make the changes needed to address global warming and to address the very real threats to the community of nations posed by nuclear proliferation and international terrorism.

Has Hillary Clinton in the leadership she has shown as Senator given us any reason to think she is ready to undertake that challenge?

Quite frankly, she hasn't. She has not even bothered to take that leadership role. That's the myth of Clinton's competence. Where has she been in the Senate?

Where Loury sees competence and sagacity, I see a candidate who has learned the core lesson of the Bill Clinton years: don't say anything remotely impolitic while fighting a continual rear guard battle with the right wing. That's the old way.

There's a better way. We can make a change. But to achieve that change Barack Obama will need every generation of Democrats united behind him. We cannot afford to be divided. Not with the challenges we face.

One candidate has driven the 2008 campaign. He has raised the money, brought in the new voters, done the mass registration drives, enunciated the policy positions, elaborated the core message of 2008 and campaigned across the entire United States.

If Hillary Clinton wanted to decisively prove her claim to the presidency for the years between 2009 and 2013, she needed to enunciate something more than what she has so far. She played it "safe" when "safe" was actually anything but.

While I respect Glenn Loury and am grateful to have a chance to watch him and John McWhorter discuss the state of the 2008 race, I have to respectfully disagree with the ease with which he yields the entire ground of experience and competence to Clinton.

I do not begin to accept that premise. There's a better way than the Clinton way.

970 agents of change

2008-04-20T07:18:00.000-07:00

I was sitting taking a break from phonebanking for Barack Obama today and had a great conversation with Fred Feller, a recently elected national delegate for Obama from CA-09.

Fred won election to go to Denver here in CA-09 last Sunday at a caucus held at Beebe Memorial Church on Telegraph Avenue about a mile from my house in Oakland.

970 of us showed up to vote in that caucus last Sunday. I was a volunteer working the line...giving out information and making sure things ran smoothly...and so I had the chance to speak with almost every last one of those voters.

Fred won enough votes to be an Obama delegate to Denver. Like the other delegates chosen, he will do Obama proud, and I was really pleased to see him taking his Saturday afternoon to call Pennsylvania with about thirty other volunteers at the campaign offices of Congresswoman Barbara Lee...

::

The line down Telegraph Avenue was long last Sunday.

The activists assembled to participate in the caucus included so many people I know.

Activists who worked to elect Jerry McNerney in 2006, activists who helped elect the millenial candidate Abel Guillen to Peralta School Board, long time supporters of Barbara Lee, and a host of candidates, progressive activists and elected officials well-known here in the East Bay. Professor George Lakoff was there, standing in line with friends like everyone else. Vicki Cosgrove who worked with me on the Chicago Voices program was there, too.

But the overwhelming impression you got last Sunday at Beebe Memorial Church was that here were 970 progressive activists of all ages, backgrounds and ethnicities drawn together by our support for Barack Obama.

That's a powerful thing.

It's not powerful just because it set a record for turnout to a delegate caucus in CA-09, it's powerful because of this fact:

Anytime you bring together like-minded people organized for change within a political map in the United States, you create the opportunity to change the balance of power inside of that map.

There are roughly 650,000 residents of CA-09. This is the same as every other Congressional district in the USA (except the few that represent the very smallest states).

What power do 1,000 Obama supporters have to make change in CA-09?

Huge power, if we choose to use it.

That's how politics works.

The most powerful thing you can do as an American citizen and grassroots activist is to locate, identify and collaborate with like-minded fellow citizens who live within the political maps that define your identity.

For me, that's the City of Oakland, Alameda County, California Congressional District 9, the Oakland Unified School District, the East Bay Municipal Utility District, California Assembly District 16, California State Senate District 9, Oakland City Council District 1, and the Peralta Community College and Bay Area Rapid Transit regional boards.

That sounds complicated. It is, at first, but the more you learn, the more empowered you become.

But what I'm getting at is this. We are most powerful when we connect with like-minded citizens who live within the same political boundaries as us.

In a nutshell, talking to 15 neighbors on a consistent basis about making change in your community, and then taking action to make that change, is the most powerful political thing most people can do.

When 970 people in one Congressional District get together and agree on anything, that is a very big deal.

::

what this means

Folks like Sean Hannity and George Stephanopoulos are agents of the status quo. Their job involves reinforcing the world view of the Corporate Media that defines the political life of our nation.

If we want to make change in this country we have to do two things at once.

First, we have to get together exactly like we do here in the blogosphere on DailyKos or at Netroots Nation. We have to organize with like-minded people nationally in opposition to folks in the media like Sean Hannity and George Stephanopoulos and Ben Smith and Jake Tapper and Chris Cillizza and Ana-Marie Cox, folks who sell and shape the status quo.

That national microphone of the blogosphere is a way we can coordinate and empower fellow netroots activists all over the USA. No matter how often folks belittle and attack the netroots, we should all remember that things were a lot different in American politics before we came on the scene. We are about substance and reform and transparency and change. We are about making progressive policies a reality.

The national corporate media are about reinforcing the status quo. Every time George Stephanopoulos talks about Rev. Wright or Flag Lapel Pins it means we aren't talking about the war in Iraq or how lobbyists killed Health Care Reform or the fact that California now has the third-highest unemployment rate in the nation. (Did you know that? Now you do.)

::

But the other, essential thing we have to do is to get organized locally.

For as important as coordinated national action is, that's not where the real change happens in the United States.

The real power is in folks like the 970 people who took time out on a Sunday afternoon in April to support Barack Obama here in Oakland.

Together we have enormous power. When we organize within our districts and within our maps, that is when we truly begin to overturn the power that folks like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh have on our political lives.

The place to change the status quo in the United States is at the local level. If you get 50 like-minded progressive activists together on an email listserv in your community, I absolutely guarantee you that your local elected officials will take notice.

If you choose to run a reform candidate with the support of those 50 local activists, I guarantee you that, win or lose, you will change politics in your area permanently for the better.

That's how American politics works.

If you want to make progressive change in the United States you've got to get organized and you've got to get local.

::

Fallon vs. Boswell

Take a look at this animated graphic making a progressive challenge against conservative Iowa Democrat, Leonard Boswell.

This is the kind of progressive challenge that gave us Congresswoman Donna Edwards.

We are powerful when we work locally for progressive change.

Will progressive Ed Fallon win his Iowa primary? We'll see. But his campaign has already made a huge difference.

That's what progressives can do when we work together. That is how we build a Progressive Majority.

::

don't believe the hype: get organized

Last Sunday I saw 970 activists who rallied because we support a candidate for President who moves us to get off our asses and work for change.

I also saw something else. I saw a powerful group of people ready to make a difference in California Congressional District 9.

What we need to do is to stick together.

Not two blocks from where we met on Telegraph Avenue to elect national delegates for Obama is one of the most tragically violent blocks in North Oakland. A five-year old child recently died as a result of an illegal handgun kept in a home. A postal worker died in an attempted car jacking on that same block three years ago and three young men were sentenced to life in prison without parole for that heinous and senseless crime.

We have so much work to do together. It is so easy to see Sean Hannity and George Stephanopolous on TV cynically talking about "gun issues" or red-baiting our candidates and think that there is no hope for progressive change in this country.

That is exactly what they want you to think. Don't believe the hype.

Get active. Get local. Get organized and stay organized. We've got work to do in the USA. Barack Obama is providing us with some inspiration and energy. It's up to us what we do with that.

The answer isn't out there. It's the person you see in the mirror every morning.

You aren't alone. I learned that last Sunday. Here in Oakland, there's 970 of me. And we're not going to let Sean Hannity run this country. Not by a long shot.

::

EVENTS
MAKE CALLS
TAKE ACTION

David Brooks on the ABC/Disney debate debacle

2008-04-17T06:36:00.000-07:00

David Brooks, "No Whining About the Media," thinks that criticizing ABC's conduct in last night's debate debacle on ABC is "whining."

I disagree and cast my lot with this comment maker:

Anyone who was paying attention when Stephanopoulos asked Obama “Does Rev. Wright love America as much as you?” would not be praising ABC for its journalistic integrity. The country has gone through almost 8 years of that sort of jingoist rhetoric and it is the very jingoism that many in the press have fought against.

Asking questions crafted so as to make it impossible for a candidate to give an satisfactory response (”Oh you don’t love America more than Rev. Wright?!” vs. “So you’re saying that Rev. Wright doesn’t love America?…”) is not good journalism. It is repugnant to the idea of having a reasoned debate over the vital issues facing our country and it is thoroughly republican (and I use “republican” pejoratively).

— Posted by Alex

Ultimately, that debate was a disgrace to America. Questions about flag lapel pins? Charlie Gibson echoing GOP talking points with every policy question?

To the millions of Americans who've participated in this historic Democratic nomination campaign, giving money and time and going to the polls in record numbers, this debate was the ultimate disservice.

To Americans facing foreclosure, to our troops in Iraq, to those wounded veterans who've returned to inadequate treatment at Walter Reed, to the citizens of New Orleans, and to those who care about how our Constitution was circumvented to allow for the torture of prisoners last night's ABC was an abject failure.

After watching Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos snidely attack Barack Obama...and Hillary Clinton relentlessly and cynically pile on...it's hard not to think this biggest loser in the extended primary is the culture of our democracy itself.

As a side note, it's pretty clear the folks at Disney have no interest in Democrats going to their theme parks. If ABC News, a division of Disney, is not a paid wing of the Republican Party, it certainly acts like one.

Disney, clearly, could give two hoots about Democrats. Maybe they will care a bit more when folks stop giving them their business.

little lost pundits

2008-04-02T21:29:00.000-07:00

Reading this utterly idiotic non-story from Chris Cillizza which echoes this tripe from Ben Smith which is somewhat reflected in this bank shot post from the Plank...a pattern forms.

You realize that the pundit class doesn't have a grasp of the dynamics of this campaign. Not in the least.

The challenge that Barack Obama poses to Clinton and the GOP is precisely that he has run his campaign as its lone focus and spokesperson.

Clinton is not the lone focus of her campaign.
McCain is not the lone focus of his campaign.

Their campaigns are the weaker for it.

If 2008 were to devolve into a battle between Clinton and McCain....well, as a nation, we would lose the thread what with Bill and Penn and Wolfson and Rove and W and Ickes getting their digs in.

Barack Obama is out there day in and day out answering all the questions and setting the tone of his campaign and this election cycle, for better and for worse. It is a deliberate campaign strategy. He is the driving force of this campaign cycle. Barack Obama is 2008. The news stories, even the critical, sniping ones, are about him. He is getting better as a candidate before our eyes. He is mapping where we, as a nation, will go if we elect him president.

You can't say the same for Chris Cillizza. He does not get it.

And it shows.

Sunday Morning at the California Democratic Party Convention

2008-03-30T08:32:00.000-07:00

It's 8:30 and the temperature outside the convention hall is starting to heat up (metaphor alert, it's actually chilly) in anticipation of the final morning of the convention. San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris will speak for Senator Barack Obama. President Bill Clinton will speak on behalf of his wife, Senator Hillary Clinton. There's also the final chapter in the Leno/Migden endorsement saga which, I am assuming, was pushed to the convention at large with the gathering of some 600 petition signatures by Leno supporters last night.

The graphics in the main hall are branded with the theme of Democrats "Making History" and featuring somewhat blurred photographs of Democratic icons like Cesar Chavez, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Harvey Milk, Robert F. Kennedy, Shirley Chisholm and Thomas Jefferson interspersed with photographs of Senators Clinton and Obama. This can create some interesting juxtapositions of speakers and background graphics.

Yesterday featured speeches by notables Jerry Brown, John Garamendi, Gavin Newsom and Willie Brown. Willie Brown's speech was notable for its call to party unity and following the rules. It was well received by many in the hall.

Today's final session will pack some drama...and (some likely idle) speculation of last minute special guest...????

California Democratic Party Convention: San Jose

2008-03-29T12:00:00.000-07:00

Calitics is doing an admirable job of 'on the fly' coverage of the California Democratic Party Convention in San Jose. I'm trying to add comments there as I can.

I will add some reflections here and at Calitics as the convention progresses.

Bushville

2008-03-21T10:26:00.001-07:00

-via dday at Calitics, "a shock to the conscience":

Governor Bill Richardson Endorses Obama

2008-03-21T00:34:00.000-07:00

Link here.

Barack Obama: on RFK and Unity in Indiana

2008-03-15T14:45:00.000-07:00

Link to Robert F Kennedy speech.

the key word is seems

2008-03-14T22:34:00.001-07:00

It strikes me that people don't know Jeremiah Wright. And a person you don't know, we all know, is so much easier to mistrust. Someone you haven't heard speak for longer than 10 second clips run back to back is so much easier to vililfy and hate. Here's Jeremiah Wright from before he was so much in the news:

Barack Obama speaks out about Reverend Wright

2008-03-14T21:37:00.000-07:00

Meet Obama's Pastor: Reverend Otis Moss

2008-03-14T10:25:00.000-07:00

YouTube Video: Women for Obama

2008-03-10T20:44:00.001-07:00

3AM Irony

2008-03-08T05:02:00.000-08:00

From a Seattle TV station comes this news:

Thursday night, the Knowles family of Bonney Lake, Wash., watched the John Stewart Show and saw the ad for the first time.

"I looked and saw a girl that looked like my sister and we rewound it and sure enough it was my sister," said Brady Knowles.

The first girl in the ad is young Casey Knowles. It's stock footage from 8 years ago when she worked as a TV extra - footage owned now by Getty Images and used by the Clinton campaign.

But they couldn't have picked a more unwilling star.

"It's really sort of ironic that my image would be used to advocate for Hillary when I myself do not," said Casey.

She may only be 17, but Casey has some very strong political opinions. She turns 18 - legal voting age - in April, in plenty of time before the general election.

"It's perfect timing because I have a candidate that I really identify with," she said.

"I've been campaigning for Barack Obama for a few months now," she said. "I was actually a precinct captain at the caucuses a few months ago. I attended his rally a few months ago and I'm a very, very avid supporter."

The Knowles family admit they have no control over how the footage is used. And while they see the humor of it all, they are mildly annoyed.

Maher to McAuliffe: "Okay"

2008-03-08T04:06:00.000-08:00

Terry McAuliffe is Senator Clinton's campaign chair and former head of the DNC. I'm not a fan of Maher. I'm also not a fan of returning McAuliffe anywhere near control of the Democratic Party.

Marc Ambinder crosses the line

2008-03-07T12:34:00.000-08:00

I understand that it's important for journalist/bloggers to convey that the information they are privy to is truly "inside," hence we'll sometimes get instances where a blogger will characterize, generally, what "people they are talking to" are saying.

However, I think Marc Ambinder stepped over the line today, and inserted himself into the Democratic nomination race in a way that crossed a basic line of journalistic ethics...moving himself from honest reportage and into the territory of innuendo.

Let's start with taking a look at what Marc Ambinder said:

I speak daily with aides, senior and junior, from both Clinton and Obama campaigns, and I can say, without revealing confidences, that the level of personal antipathy they express, the level of complete distrust, is extreme and in many ways alarming. One public example: when Obama's chief counsel, Bob Bauer, crashed a conference call held by Clinton advisers on Tuesday night.

The stress created by the interpersonal tension, and by the long hours, is taking a heavy toll. Many of the public faces you associate with your favorite campaign have worked 16 hours a day since January 3 with, maybe, three days off.

If Clinton wins the nomination, there will be many Obama staffers, particularly mid-to-high-ranking aides, who will refuse offers to help with the general election. The walk-away rate will be unprecedented.

That statement moves from the informative (both sides express distrust), to the explanatory (long hours take a toll), to a one-sided and unethical assertion as fact couched in a barbed hypothetical (Obama staffers will refuse to help with the general election.)

I have no problem with Marc's first two paragraphs there. I don't know how he can, however, given those two paragraphs, support making the assertion he makes in his final paragraph. His stage-setting in the first two paragraphs, in fact, would indicate that private, off-the-record conversations with aides on either side of this nomination struggle are frankly not good indicators of what they will do down the road, at all. In fact, everything that Marc is telling us in the lead up to his hypothetical assertion points against that.

Now, if Marc wants to write a story with that "refuse to help" assertion as the lede, he is welcome to do so. But, and here's my point, he's going to have to have some on-the-record basis for doing so, because what he's given us now is strictly off-the-record hearsay. And, yeah, that's unethical. In particular, it's unethical to leap from the insidery "the campaigns are tired and mistrustful" to the blanket assertion that one side's aides won't work with the other side's as a point of fact. Finally, if what Marc is saying in the first two paragraphs is true, I find it hard to believe that either side would be eager to go on the record as willing to work the other right now.

Now, Marc Ambinder's reporting has had a distinctly pro-Clinton angle at times (promoting a right-wing distortion of an Obama video clip on the front page of his blog w/o comment and having later to correct the record), so a pro-Clinton slant is no surprise. But that doesn't excuse what is a clear lapse in journalistic ethics. Scene-setting from off the record impressions is fine and welcome; stepping beyond that is unethical.

Marc Ambinder owes the Obama campaign a retraction and a clarification. And the Obama campaign should make Marc off limits at this point until he does just that. He crossed the line.

Bill Bradley: quote of the day

2008-03-06T22:31:00.000-08:00

I think Barack Obama has a much stronger chance of beating John McCain in the general election. I think Hillary is flawed in many ways, and particularly if you look at her husband's unwillingness to release the names of the people who contributed to his presidential library. And the reason that is important -- you know, are there favors attached to $500,000 or $1 million contributions? And what do I mean by favors? I mean, pardons that are granted; investigations that are squelched; contracts that are awarded; regulations that are delayed.

-Bill Bradley, March 6th, 2008

Gail Collins: Next up...Pennsylvania!...except it's not.

2008-03-06T15:41:00.000-08:00

Gail Collins waxes enthusiastic about the state of the Democratic primary race in today's New York Times:

It’s all up to Pennsylvania!

Yes folks, over the next seven weeks — the amount of time it takes a normal country to conduct an entire national election — we will be obsessing about the critical upcoming Pennsylvania primary. Harrisburg! Altoona! The Poconos! Did you know that in the Poconos, some hotels have bathtubs shaped like hearts or Champagne glasses? We actually plan on bringing that up a lot.

Fast forward to Pennsylvania! Or...check that. Not so fast.

Wishing it so does not make it so. Like her candidate, Senator Hillary Clinton, Gail Collins has left Wyoming's March 8th caucus awarding 18 delegates and Mississippi's March 11th primary awarding 33 delegates off the lede. Neglecting some states has been the Achilles heel of the Clinton campaign. For Collins to perpetuate this wishful thinking version of the Democratic nomination process is typical.

Collins doesn't seem to care that she's left Mississipi entirely out of her op/ed. And she shows that it's easier to degrade caucuses (which were the tool, btw, Mondale used to fend off Gary Hart in 1984) than for Clinton to compete in them:

Cheers to Obama, who is caucus king thanks to the way he has mobilized his ultra-enthusiastic supporters. But if I were a superdelegate forced to choose between two attractive candidates, I’d look for the one who won the big primaries where people were actually encouraged to vote.

However, Super Delegates, as Jonathan Alter reports, aren't going to have the luxury of writing off states that Gail Collins does (and at this late date, after that strategy has failed Clinton, that's unforgiveable rhetoric from Collins or any Clinton supporter). Alter writes:

I've asked several prominent uncommitted superdelegates if there's any chance they would reverse the will of Democratic voters. They all say no. It would shatter young people and destroy the party.

The Democratic nomination is a contest for pledged delegates by pre-agreed rules. Super Delegates, as Alter notes, will respect those rules and respect the delegate counts. By dint of a fawning beltway and New York press corps that ignores the clear math, Senator Clinton lives to campaign another day after her popular vote wins in Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island left her further, not closer, to closing the delegate margin with Senator Obama. (What Collins does not note in her Op/Ed is that those wins netted Clinton as few as a four delegate advantage...a net that Obama could well make up in Wyoming and Mississippi.)

Collins is writing off Wyoming and Mississippi, following the lead of the Clinton campaign, and that doesn't make much of a case to the Super Delegates. Everyone knows that the General Election isn't going to feature any gimmes. Only one candidate has run hard in every state contest by the rules agreed to ahead of time. Only one candidate has marshaled their resources to compete everywhere there was to compete.

Added to Obama's commanding delegate lead, that nationwide campaign makes a pretty powerful Super Delegate argument, too.

Clinton's new Fear Ad

2008-02-29T08:47:00.000-08:00

"If one candidate’s trying to scare you and the other one’s trying to get you to think, if one candidate’s appealing to your fears and the other one’s appealing to your hopes, you better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope."

-Bill Clinton, 2004

More from Bill

2008-02-28T22:45:00.000-08:00

From ABC's Political Radar, Bill Clinton discusses the Texas Primaries on the trail:

Clinton has become extremely detailed in his plea for voter turnout.

"If you vote early or you vote on March the 4th in the popular election, 65 percent of the delegates will be selected to the national convention. But 35 percent of the delegates for the national convention will be selected Tuesday night, March 4, at 8000 Percent Convention all across this state," Clinton told the crowd in Killeen this morning, adding, "The doors open at 7 and they close at 7:15. It would be tragic if Hillary were to win this election in the daytime and somebody were to come in at night and take it away."

Meanwhile, in what must be an unrelated development...

This One's for Ann

2008-02-28T06:59:00.000-08:00

New Clinton campaign ad runs over objections from the Richards family:

And, this, from The Dallas Observer blog (h/t Burnt Orange Report):

Before that, I'd been talking to the woman you see at right. Earlier, she'd been holding a Hillary sign. Been waving it around, very proud and happy to support Bill's missus. Then another Clinton campaign worker walked up to and said, "Excuse me, would you mind holding this sign instead?" She then handed the woman the handmade sign that reads, "This one's for Ann!"

"Ann?" said the woman.

"Ann Richards," said the dark-haired Clintonista, shielded by dark, large sunglasses.

"Oh, sure," said the woman, smiling but not totally into it.

"This way," said the campaign worker, "the cameras are behind you, and they'll be able to see the sign when the president speaks." She then walked off, only to reappear later in the role of cheerleader while the crowd waited and waited and waited for Bill to show.

"I should have told her I get paid by the hour," said the woman to her friends. She asked others around her, "Anyone else got any signs they want me to hold? 'Eat at Joe's'? I only charge five dollars."

Clinton at the Debate

2008-02-27T08:57:00.000-08:00

I've read the commentary out there I can't fathom how people are missing what I see as the major point: Clinton was not Presidential.

She was inconsistent in her persona.

She was clearly flustered at seeing those clips played of her three different personas, and she should be. I don't think that works in Ohio.

One thing about folks in the central part of the country, in my view as a midwesterner, is that midwesterners value civility and are circumspect, if not dubious, about attacks. However, that doesn't mean attacks aren't fair game, you just need to be consistent in substance and tone. That is, if Clinton is going to be upset about something, or make fun of something, then she sure better have a good reason for doing so, because you don't want to make a big deal about something in public one day and then not make a big deal about it the next day. If you are a politician and make an attack in the midwest, your supporters are expected to sign on to that attack....now, I think that's true all over...but especially in the midwest where you kind of personally endorse your candidate and hence your candidate must be able to fit into your public persona.

"I'm for Hillary." "I'm for Barack Obama."

Consistency, then, in political personas is highly valued in Ohio.

What one personal quality, among other factors, allowed Bush to win in 2004? What personal strength did he have? Exactly that. If he got angry about something, and he did, he stayed angry about it and had reasons to explain why he was angry about it. If he said something one day, he kept saying it the next day. George W. Bush is actually quite good at that. (Horrible president.) If he made an attack, he stuck with it. If he made a joke, he didn't back down. Bush the candidate always gave his supporters someplace to hang their hat.

Clinton's complaining about the debate rules is a big deal in that context. It means, implicitly, that if you vote for her in Ohio you are voting to endorse complaining about the rules. That has real implications in people's every day political lives.

You go to your hair dresser or your drugstore now and say you support Hillary, it means you have to stand by her complaining about the debates, complaining about the media, complaining about the mailers.

I think that's just a very big deal.

Voters prefer Barack Obama

2008-02-26T13:25:00.000-08:00

I think comments making the point about Clinton having a path to the nomination through a combination of Super Delegates and a MI/FL play make a fundamentally erroneous assumption.

They discount what's already happened. A 64% Obama win in Virginia sweeping almost all demographics. A 58% Obama win in Wisconsin sweeping almost every last demographic. Decisive Obama wins in crucial "Clinton friendly states" like Maine and Washington.

Clinton won't win the Super Delegates without winning the Pledged Delegates for the same reason Clinton won't add MI/FL without winning the pledged delegates (which determine who controls the credentials committee): enormous political pressure is coming to bear and will come to bear inside the party that the Pledged Delegate count and the process so far be respected.

It may fit "prognosticator fantasies" to leap from some version of a TX/OH "outcome" to Clinton securing Super Delegates and MI/FL to take the nomination in August.

But that's not how it works.

We don't leap to an endgame.

The results in the states matter. The day to day process matters.

For Clinton to win the nomination would involve winning pledged delegates and winning states overwhelmingly and using that leverage to win over Super Delegates over a sustained period of time and a map of remaining states that simply do not favor her.

Frankly, her performance post Super-Tuesday, especially the results in WI and VA have set the bar extraordinarily high for Senator Clinton in TX and OH. She must win big.

The pressure on her campaign right now, as we speak, is enormous. Ignoring that is a fantasy.

Certainly it is her right to stay in the race , but at some point after eleven decisive losses with no prospect of a decisive win on the horizon this extended primary is draining resources and energy from the larger task of the Democratic Party in 2008 which is wrestling the mantle of governance from the GOP decisively in all levels of government.

Yes, in theory, Clinton has a path to the nomination. In practice, barring some debate debacle, the real story is that it is only a matter of time and judgment before Senator Clinton acknowledges the current reality: Senator Clinton has no path to the nomination that does not run counter to the spirit of fair mindedness, the principles of our party and, most importantly, the clearly expressed will of the voters in 2008 in State after State.

Voters prefer Barack Obama.

{Originally a comment at Marc Ambinder's blog.}

Barack Obama in Kenya

2008-02-25T14:26:00.001-08:00

This is a BBC article about United States Senator Barack Obama serving our country and representing our nation in Africa.

As part of that trip, Senator Obama and his wife, Michelle, took a public HIV test to raise awareness of HIV testing in Africa. It was an effort to save lives.

Mr Obama walked through rubbish and sewage as he toured Kibera, the slum home to at least 600,000 people, many without jobs or legal title to the land they inhabit.

He told thousands of cheering admirers that he would tell Americans about their troubles and lobby for more help.

"Everybody in Kenya needs the same opportunities to go to school, to start businesses, to have enough to eat, to have decent clothes," he said over a loudspeaker.

Mr Obama visited micro-finance institutions - which pool members' resources to provide small business loans - a women's self-help group, and Carolina for Kibera, a project run by the University of North Carolina to raise awareness about HIV and Aids.

On Saturday Mr Obama and his wife Michelle took HIV/Aids tests at Kisumu, which has one of Kenya's highest rates of HIV prevalence, to encourage local people to do the same.

Kibera lacks almost all government services, including water.

Here is a picture of Senator Obama from that trip representing the United States in the nation of Kenya:

Image Copyright BBC/AFP.

YouTube appears to be down

2008-02-24T12:00:00.000-08:00

The videos below won't play.

There's some talk of a DNS problem or hack, which may have happened to Google before.

At any rate, it's not you, it's YouTube. And, here's something to tide you over courtesy of Anna at DailyKos:

Obama Dallas Mashup

shame on you mashup

2008-02-23T21:54:00.000-08:00

-courtesy of JedReport

shame on you mashup / digg link

2008-02-23T21:50:00.000-08:00

check out what bloggers and diggers are saying about the shame on you mashup....

read more | digg story

Hillary Clinton: "Shame on You"

2008-02-23T14:25:00.000-08:00

"Enough with the speeches and the big rallies and then using tactics that are right out of Karl Rove's playbook. This is wrong and every Democrat should be outraged...Shame on you, Barack Obama."

Hillary Clinton, Feb. 23rd, 2008
(Referring to mailers that have been out for weeks and have been vetted by FactCheck.org.)

36 hours earlier...

Viva Obama!

2008-02-22T10:31:00.001-08:00

And, if you like reggaeton, this is must listen too. (h/t Matt Yglesias)

And don't miss this slower piece from director Eric Byler:

Senator Clinton

2008-02-22T01:14:00.000-08:00

I've encountered so many barbed comments on the blogs that I want to address a couple ways in which I like and respect Senator Clinton.

First, a month ago I wrote two long pieces on Senator Clinton that describe my take on her career and my critical but respectful view of her campaign.

Senator Clinton, clearly, has been a powerful advocate for women, children and families for her entire life. She is and has been an agent of change as a woman and a political advocate. This is a consistent theme; it's real. Her work, after being appointed by President Carter to the board of the Legal Services Corporation, defending that organization from Reagan's budget cuts and mission change, was exemplary. Few knew who she was at that point; no one was looking. She took that stand because of her core values, period. It wasn't about glory because...well, because, even now Senator Clinton has never received proper credit for her role in preserving the organization in its true mission.

Further, Senator Clinton's work over long years with the Arkansas Education Association was, from what I've read, fruitful and had a profound impact. People who say that Senator Clinton left a mark on Arkansas...as she is now leaving a mark on New York State...are credible, in my view. Her speech at the Women's Conference in Beijing was powerful and bold; it deserves more attention than it has received this campaign season. Senator Clinton's advocacy for Senator Kennedy's S-CHIP bill and her recent amendment of the act to extend its benefits to wounded veterans were remarkable and signficant.

Senator Clinton is, in this regard, exactly what she says she is: a tireless advocate for women and children and basic issues that confront citizens who are not powerful and do not have a voice in our politics. It is no coincidence that her most solid bloc of voters are senior citizens and that her advertising can be seen to subtly skew towards them. Her campaign has done a good job conveying its concern for voters on a fixed income. That is relevant to her sucess.

I guess what I'm saying is that Senator Clinton's campaign, on one level, does not get credit from something that is apparent to someone who delves into her supporting material. Senator Clinton has a consistent track record of caring and advocating for those without much political power. Her line about the wounded veterans at the last debate was powerful because it was real. She, in my estimate, truly is that person, she was being sincere.

The overarching theme of caring is why Senator Clinton is involved in politics and it is consistent theme over her 35 year career in public service, law, as First Lady and as a United States Senator.

Clinton dismisses Voters / States: "They don't represent the electorate."

2008-02-11T11:25:00.000-08:00

Per CNN we have a headline: Clinton Dismisses Weekend Losses:

Hillary Clinton on Monday explained away Barack Obama's clean sweep of the weekend's caucuses and primaries as a product of a caucus system that favors "activists" and, in the case of the Louisiana primary, an energized African-American community. She told reporters who had gathered to watch her tour a General Motors plant here that "everybody knew, you all knew, what the likely outcome of these recent contests were."

"These are caucus states by and large, or in the case of Louisiana, you know, a very strong and very proud African-American electorate, which I totally respect and understand."

Clinton has publicly dismissed the caucus voting system since before Super Tuesday, seeking to lower expectations heading into a series of contests that played to Obama's advantage. His campaign features what many consider to be a stronger and more dedicated grassroots organization than Clinton's. Noting that "my husband never did well in caucus states either," Clinton argued that caucuses are "primarily dominated by activists" and that "they don't represent the electorate, we know that."

That's just an unfathomable comment in my opinion. Washington, Nebraska, Louisiana and Maine form a miniature version of the early primary states.

Washington = Nevada + a major Industry and High tech Hub
Nebraska = Iowa
Louisiana = South Carolina
Maine = New Hampshire

Clinton did not merely lose those four states. She lost them by huge margins. Now she is apparently dismissing the votes of African Americans in Louisiana as well? A primary state that suffered the brunt of Katrina? That is a hugely problematic move for Senator Clinton.

Hillary Clinton talks about her husband. He would never have dismissed Black voters in that way when he was running in 1992.

Bill Clinton won a plurality of the vote in 1992. African-American voters made up roughly 1-in-5 voters for Bill Clinton in the general election, or 20% of his total votes. Most significantly, African-American voters in Georgia (13EV), Ohio (21EV), New Jersey (15EV), Kentucky (8EV), Wisconsin (11EV), Louisiana (9EV), and Tennessee (11EV) provided the crucial margin of victory in states Clinton won by less that 5%...states worth 88 Electoral College votes. If you include or Maryland (10EV) and the District of Columbia (3EV) or, arguably, Michigan (18EV) you could argue that African American voters provided Clinton with his entire margin in the election. For Senator Clinton to dismiss those voters, or any voters really, as a bloc today is utterly problematic.

Regarding "activists" it is equally dire rhetoric from Senator Clinton. The Democratic Party needs activists, not simply in the general election but for all the closely contested House and Senate and state legislative races we are facing in the fall. That's precisely how we won in 2006. If Senator Clinton cannot see that the "new activists" Barack Obama has brought into the process in places as widespread as Maine, Minnesota, Colorado, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Washington, Iowa, Nevada, South Carolina, Georgia and Missouri then, quite simply, the Senator from New York does not deserve the nomination to lead our party.

The Presidential nominee is the top of our ticket, the putative leader of our party. You cannot, cannot dismiss African-Americans and activists the way Senator Clinton just did and expect us to run strongly in the fall in ALL of our races and states.

Senator Clinton did not just create a strong argument against the voters granting her the nomination of our party for president, she has made a devastating argument against her claim to lead the party into the general election next fall.

Maine early results at Turn Maine Blue

2008-02-10T13:31:00.000-08:00

Nothing for certain, but these are the anecdotal reports that people are looking at.

HorsesAss on the WA Caucus

2008-02-10T03:14:00.000-08:00

HorsesAss has a wide sample of comments from caucus goers in Washington.

Notice something? (More Bill Clinton)

2008-02-09T04:32:00.000-08:00

From the Page:

# Saturday, February 9
#

* 9:00 am
* Mike Huckabee delivers remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C. It's followed by a media availability

#

* 9:30 am
* Hillary Clinton attends a town hall discussion with voters in Orono, Maine
* Bill Clinton attends an event with voters in Chesapeake, Virginia

#

* 12:00 pm
* Mike Huckabee attends an event with voters in College Park, Maryland

#

* 12:45 pm
* Bill Clinton attends an event with voters at the Richmond Convention Center in Richmond, Virginia

#

* 1:30 pm
* Hillary Clinton attends a town hall discussion with voters in Lewiston, Maine

#

* 2:15 pm
* Barack Obama attends a roundtable discussion at Nicky's Crusin Diner in Bangor, ME

#

* 3:30 pm
* Barack Obama hosts a "Rally for Change" in Bangor, ME

#

* 4:00 pm
* Mike Huckabee visits patients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

#

* 4:30 pm
* Bill Clinton attends an event with voters in Abingdon, Virginia

#

* 8:00 pm
* Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama attend the Democratic Party of Virginia Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Richmond, Virginia
* Bill Clinton attends an event with voters in Blacksburg, Virginia

Yep, you've read that right, Bill Clinton has more events today...all told four...than Huckabee, Obama or even his spouse. Bill Clinton is and has been the real story of this campaign season and his aggressive campaigning for a 3rd term in the White House is still a solid reason to look elsewhere for a Presidential nominee. He won't go away, he's right back on the trail, and that has real repercussions on a host of levels, including the non-transparent finances that are self-funding Senator Clinton's bid for the White House.

New Obama ad in Louisiana

2008-02-08T14:09:00.000-08:00

This is more like it. Good ad:

Post Super Tuesday thoughts

2008-02-06T23:52:00.001-08:00

I spent the final five days in a sprint working out of Obama Headquarters in Oakland and blogging on Dailykos.

The last two days, Monday and Tuesday, I worked as a precinct walker for Barack in West Oakland. I was responsible for door knocking, calling, lit drops and making sure that as many people as I could contact from my list of 77 got out and voted for Senator Obama.

Final tally: 45 votes for Barack Obama voted at the polls 2 for Clinton 3 Would not say on principle and 27 I never managed to contact. Not too shabby, eh?

At any rate, I was also featured doing GOTV at West Oakland BART station on MTV Street: scroll using the button on the right till you see the preview with the guy with red vest...me.

Now walking the streets at 5:30AM leaving door hangers is not anyone's idea of fun but the experience was unforgettable. I would like to salute here, every last one of the people I contacted however they voted and the community of West Oakland for showing such strong spirit and unity on primary day.

The neighborhood surrounding West Oakland BART station is one that most Bay Area riders have seen from the window of the train, but few have visited. I spent two days walking those streets and meeting so many residents of this community. I caught a glimpse of lives marked by hard work, a dangerous locale and quite frankly, a powerful pride. I can only offer my respect for the spirit of that precinct and the voters young and old, who got out the vote for Barack Obama.

Now, regarding our loss in California. That is real. We lost. I can only offer respect for the Clinton campaign, especially for their results in Santa Clara, San Mateo and San Joaquin counties. I am energized by the surge in youthful Latino voter participation even if it didn't go our way.

However, all the votes have not been counted, including, I know, many from people I contacted in West Oakland who walked their absentee ballots to the polls. I will write more about what's next for Senator Obama and my analysis of the vote on Super Tuesday.

Maria Shriver, first lady of California endorses...Barack Obama

2008-02-03T15:02:00.000-08:00

Markos has the story here...

and don't miss the Obama Super Bowl ad running in selected local markets:

Yes We Can: Barack Obama video at DipDive

2008-02-02T06:21:00.001-08:00

What a great video to inspire for this weekend.

Clinton "Lifetime" / Susan Faludi Piece

2008-02-01T06:08:00.000-08:00

Here's Clinton's new ad "Lifetime" which is running in nine states, including NY:

"You know, you can't always pass the laws you want to pass right away. You can't snap your fingers and get people to cooperate. You have to work on that every minute of every day. But you can try to help somebody every single day."

I cannot fathom that quote. It runs against everything I thought was inherent to Clinton's previous message, "I'll get things done." I've never heard a candidate talk so much about what you "can't" do. Not passing laws? This puzzles me to no end. But it does makes me think of this passage from this Susan Faludi essay which is seeming to me more and more like the core essay of this political campaign on the Clinton side:

On the afternoon of the New Hampshire primary, I had a political epiphany of sorts while standing in line at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in San Francisco waiting for a prescription to be filled. In front of me, a middle-aged woman in a sensible pantsuit was soothing her rattled, elderly mother. "It's OK, Mom, they made us go to the end of the line because I didn't wait until your name was on the board, but you don't need to stand. Sit down and relax, and I'll handle it."

In the row of chairs to my left, another woman in business wear -- she'd clearly just run in from the office -- was applying similar verbal balm to her fretting parent. "That's not a problem. I'll call the doctor and make sure he understands that, and then I'll move that other appointment to tomorrow morning. Don't worry." A pitched cellphone battle with the doctor's recalcitrant gatekeeper followed. Evidently, the daughter won. "It's fixed," she told her mother. "I've taken care of everything."

Listening to these women manage their mothers with effectiveness and as much patience as they could muster, admitting to errors, standing in interminable lines, speed-dialing medical professionals, I wanted to ask, "Could you run my country?"

Help, in that sense, the help that Clinton provides, is managerial competence that appeals to women AND to seniors. Faludi was clearly onto something. And that ad is clearly designed to appeal to those core groups. That is Clinton's enormous strength in this primary since seniors and women are the two demographic groups that participate strongest in the Democratic primary season.

However, that being said, I don't see how this ad helps Clinton break out of that demographic box, how it expands her appeal in any way. "Ready to Lead" has become "Trying to Help." In that sense, "Lifetime" defines in some ways the strengths and limits of the Clinton appeal.

Will that appeal be enough for Clinton to withstand Obama's ground game and expansion of the Democratic primary playing field across demographic and regional lines on Tusnami Tuesday? We'll see.

Tracy Flick Victory Party in Florida Tonight!

2008-01-29T13:27:00.000-08:00

Because elections aren't just popularity contests...

...and holding a victory party in Florida is just so Tracy Flick.

Toni Morrison endorses Barack Obama

2008-01-28T08:04:00.000-08:00

-via MSNBC

Dear Senator Obama,

This letter represents a first for me--a public endorsement of a Presidential candidate. I feel driven to let you know why I am writing it. One reason is it may help gather other supporters; another is that this is one of those singular moments that nations ignore at their peril. I will not rehearse the multiple crises facing us, but of one thing I am certain: this opportunity for a national evolution (even revolution) will not come again soon, and I am convinced you are the person to capture it.

May I describe to you my thoughts?

I have admired Senator Clinton for years. Her knowledge always seemed to me exhaustive; her negotiation of politics expert. However I am more compelled by the quality of mind (as far as I can measure it) of a candidate. I cared little for her gender as a source of my admiration, and the little I did care was based on the fact that no liberal woman has ever ruled in America. Only conservative or "new-centrist" ones are allowed into that realm. Nor do I care very much for your race[s]. I would not support you if that was all you had to offer or because it might make me "proud."

In thinking carefully about the strengths of the candidates, I stunned myself when I came to the following conclusion: that in addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don't see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom. It is too bad if we associate it only with gray hair and old age. Or if we call searing vision naivete. Or if we believe cunning is insight. Or if we settle for finessing cures tailored for each ravaged tree in the forest while ignoring the poisonous landscape that feeds and surrounds it. Wisdom is a gift; you can't train for it, inherit it, learn it in a class, or earn it in the workplace--that access can foster the acquisition of knowledge, but not wisdom.

When, I wondered, was the last time this country was guided by such a leader? Someone whose moral center was un-embargoed? Someone with courage instead of mere ambition? Someone who truly thinks of his country's citizens as "we," not "they"? Someone who understands what it will take to help America realize the virtues it fancies about itself, what it desperately needs to become in the world?

Our future is ripe, outrageously rich in its possibilities. Yet unleashing the glory of that future will require a difficult labor, and some may be so frightened of its birth they will refuse to abandon their nostalgia for the womb.

There have been a few prescient leaders in our past, but you are the man for this time.

Good luck to you and to us.

Toni Morrison

the Kennedy endorsements

2008-01-27T10:26:00.000-08:00

It's clear that there is one campaign that is driving turnout, building a winning coalition and enunciating the positive Democratic message this year and that is the campaign of Senator Barack Obama.

The Kennedy endorsements are significant not because they will change a single vote, though they will move a few, but more because they highlight that the Clinton campaign can't simply get away with everything.

The Clinton campaign's "pre-emptive delegate grab" for Michigan and Florida delegates is over, as is the notion that Senator Clinton will be able to drive super delegates off the fence behind the scenes. That won't happen in secret, not anymore. Finally, Caroline Kennedy's endorsement has not simply a "symbolic" value to Obama, but will also, on a pragmatic level, unleash a flurry of donations to Obama's campaign.

The perception of power is itself powerful. The Clinton's squandered that perception in South Carolina. President Bill Clinton's gross misjudgment in comparing Senator Obama's win in South Carolina to that of Reverend Jesse Jackson could not hide the fact the he and Senator Clinton fought hard and would have loved to have received the African American and youth vote in South Carolina. Even 15% more of the Black vote would have been signficant for Senator Clinton. She did not get it despite Bill's best efforts.

There is one campaign that passed the early primary test laid out by the DNC. Barack Obama won Iowa and South Carolina powerfully. Senator Obama came in a close second in New Hampshire and Nevada, where his delegate yield was in parity with Senator Clinton and where he, despite the convenient put downs of some on the blogs, actually competed effectively for a diverse array of voters.

Senator Clinton was held to less than the 30% threshhold in Iowa and South Carolina. Her core support is seniors and white women over 40, demographics that, while significant to every Democrat, are not sufficient, in and of themselves, to forge a winning coalition and advance the Democratic agenda.

More than that, Senator Clinton has lost the thread of her message. No one thinks, if they ever did, that the Clintons are driving the positive message of the Democratic party in 2008. They don't even pretend to do so. As I wrote two weeks ago, the Clinton campaign's message is deeply flawed. It's all about them. That had real perils if the voters decided they preferred someone else.

And the voters, even before the two Kennedy's spoke, expressed their continued and passionate support for the campaign of Senator Barack Obama.

the big We

2008-01-24T16:44:00.000-08:00

From TPM comes the text of this new radio ad from Bill Clinton. It makes you wonder if there wasn't a 22nd Amendment and Bill could run for a third term if this is what he'd sound like:

This is Bill Clinton. These are tough economic times. There aren’t enough jobs, health care costs and gas prices are soaring, and now millions of people are worried about losing their homes.

The question is what to do about it. You’ve got a great decision to make, but I believe it’s Hillary who can help solve these problems.

I also know that African Americans have been hit the hardest these last seven years. Who can fix health care, who can fix our economy, who can create new jobs, who can reduce the price of gas at the pump?

Hillary can. I’ve known her for 36 years. When it comes to seeing a problem and figuring out how to solve it, she’s the best I’ve ever seen.

She’s always heard your voice and you’ll be heard in the White House.

I want to thank you for twice giving me the chance to serve as president. The 1990s were a time of prosperity. We created more than 22 million new jobs, moved eight million people out of poverty, and turned our economy around.

It’s time for another comeback, time to make America great again. I know Hillary’s the one that can do it.

"We." Like Senator Clinton said in her New Hampshire acceptance speech:

We are in it for the American People

Well, we get the point. It's 2 for 1 redux in 2008!! With Bill on board "pushing the domestic policy" Clinton White House #3 will certainly revive the roaring 90s.

Right?

Update: apparently the NYT thinks so.

President Bill Clinton suggests that some in his audience are "Obama plants"

2008-01-23T06:23:00.000-08:00

What to make of this exchange highlighted at the end of an article in today's NYT?:

“I liked seeing Barack and Hillary fight,” [Bill Clinton] said. “They’re real people. I’ve been waiting all my life to see this sort of thing.”

From the crowd, one young man rose to question him. “A lot of us,” the man said, “believe Senator Obama eventually will be the first black president. Are you going to be O.K. with having stood in his way? Do you think that will affect your legacy among blacks in South Carolina?”

“No,” Mr. Clinton replied. “Yes and no. Yes, I’m O.K., but I’m not standing in his way; I think Hillary would be a better president.”

A bit later, Mr. Clinton suggested to the same crowd that his young questioner might have been planted by the Obama campaign.

Misleading Clinton Attacks leave divided local parties

2008-01-23T06:09:00.000-08:00

Stories of the bitter consequences of misleading campaigning like this one from the Washington Post are getting passed around in emails between grassroots Democrats:

Of the two dozen prominent women who signed the critical letter, e-mailed by the Clinton campaign to a list of supporters and undecided voters, three have now signed their names to another missive asking abortion rights supporters in the state to come together and take comfort in the fact that all of the Democratic presidential candidates are firmly pro-choice. One of the three Clinton supporters went even further, saying in an interview Thursday that signing the letter attacking Obama was a "mistake."

Katie Wheeler, a former state senator, said the Clinton campaign had not given her background information about Obama's record on abortion rights when it asked her to sign the letter calling him weak on the issue, and said that, as a result, she did not understand the context of the votes that the letter was attacking him over.

"It should never have gotten to the point where anyone thought Obama was not pro-choice," said Wheeler, a founder of the New Hampshire chapter of NARAL Pro-Choice America. "I don't think the Clinton campaign should have done that. It was divisive and unnecessary...I think it was a mistake and I've spoken to the national [Clinton campaign] and told them it caused problems in New Hampshire, and am hoping they won't do it again."

A gentle reminder to Senator Clinton regarding slums

2008-01-22T10:44:00.000-08:00

Senator Clinton might want to take a second and realize that all of us live in towns and neighborhoods and communities.

Nobody likes it when someone calls their neighborhood a slum. There were ample other ways to make that misguided point. If Senator Clinton wants to summarize the career of Senator Obama using the "slum lord" angle that's her right. It's not, however, particularly accurate or fair:

Obama worked in the organizing tradition of Saul Alinsky, who made Chicago the birthplace of modern community organizing, as translated through the Gamaliel Foundation, one of several networks of faith-based organizing. Often by confronting officials with insistent citizens--rather than exploiting personal connections, as traditional black Democrats proposed--Obama and DCP protected community interests regarding landfills and helped win employment training services, playgrounds, after-school programs, school reforms and other public amenities.

One day a resident at Altgeld Gardens, a geographically isolated public housing project surrounded by waste sites, brought a notice about planned removal of asbestos from the project manager's office. Obama organized the community to find out if there was asbestos in their apartments. They persisted as officials lied and delayed, then took a bus--with far fewer people than Obama had anticipated--to challenge authorities downtown. Ultimately, the city was forced to test all the apartments and eventually begin cleaning them up.

Is Senator Clinton's portrait of Obama and his relationship to the South Side of Chicago accurate? In a word, no. Will referring to "slums" help her with the charge that she is tone deaf at times on matters of poverty and race and can't hear how she sounds? Probably not.

Bill, Bill, Bill...and more Bill

2008-01-21T08:06:00.000-08:00

Josh Marshall has made a great video compilation of the punditry waxing on Bill Clinton's overdrive efforts to insert himself into his third campaign for President (you've gotta love Howard Wolfson saying with a straight face "Bill Clinton is like any other spouse in this campaign"...right.):

My point is not just that It's all about Bill, but that the strategy is deliberate. The Clintons have clearly decided that the only way to counter Barack Obama's star power and message is for Bill Clinton to suck the media oxygen out of Obama's sails. In their view, so long as the story is NOT about Barack Obama's charisma and message, they win....you see, the only way Clinton's core voters move to Obama is if they can hear and see Obama, if they can get his message.

That's not happening when Bill makes himself the center of attention.

Now, Barack Obama can't just fight back against Clinton's "distortions"...that plays into the effect. Barack Obama needs someone with heft and star power of their own to fight back against Bill directly, to say things that Barack Obama can't, won't and shouldn't say. Al Gore, Ted Kennedy, Oprah Winfry, Jimmy Carter. One of these few Americans with media pull needs to call out Bill.

And then Barack Obama needs to get out there and do what he was doing...inspiring voters to come together around his message of change and hope. That's what the Clinton's have been attacking...because that was what was working.

Barack Obama needs to get back on message and fast.

And, yes, Democratic partisans have to ask themselves a very basic question: if this is the level of "bull from Bill" the Clinton campaign is embracing in the primaries, what are we in for with Senator Clinton as the nominee or, perhaps, President?

And, given what we saw in Nevada, what does that mean for the Democratic party?

k/o

It's all about Bill

2008-01-20T14:01:00.000-08:00

With a bunch of reporters at a bar on Sunday, Bill made the problem hers. "We can't be a new story, I'm sorry. I can't make her younger, taller, male.'' -Bloomberg.com

In an alternative universe President Bill Clinton might have used his retirement to survey the landscape of his journey through public life and made some fundamental changes in how he operates. After a political career that, whatever else you might say, was always more tacky than tactful, Clinton could have, knowing his wife and life partner aspired to the presidency, calibrated his public persona to fits those goals. Elder statesman, eminence grise, party arbiter and nurturer of new talent, supportive spouse..alas, it was never meant to be.

In an alternative universe, of course, Senator Clinton would have won Iowa.

She did not and what has followed now seems like it was inevitable. Bill Clinton is in the news. Bill Clinton has been in the news. And, for as long as Senator Clinton's run for the presidency continues, perhaps even back to the White House, we all know that Bill Clinton will be the news. He and the cameras and microphones seem to have a mutually insatiable appetite. And when the cameras are rolling Bill is proving to be, at the very least, a frequent liability.

Truth is, Bill Clinton is also the Clinton campaign's major asset on the campaign trail. He worked the Las Vegas strip over the last week like someone who has won the presidency twice before. He is someone who knows how and where to land a knock out blow; even if that blow is a sucker punch. While Bill Clinton is most famous for his rhetoric and communication skills, this go round those skills aren't always serving him so well. However, when it comes to the state-to-state politics of primary season, ex-president Clinton knows who to talk to and how to play the game. Bill Clinton knows how to win elections in the USA. No one can deny him that.

And, yes, he can't deny himself, even when he's "on" he can't hold back. And isn't that the point?

President Bill Clinton is aware of the 22nd Amendment. Of that you can be sure. President Clinton is familiar with the long tradition in American history, initiated by George Washington and followed by Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, of respecting the limited and finite nature of that American invention, the citizen executive. He is aware that the how and style of previous presidential retirements have implied a respect for the fundamental values of our Constitution.

But, yes, once again in American political life, suddenly, inevitably, it's all about Bill. One would think that if you were involved in the coincidence of the campaign to elect the first woman president with the campaign to elect the first First Lady president, that as a potential First Gentleman and former President oneself you would calibrate your rhetoric and your style and have some deference for your spouse. Not just for her sake, but for ours. To make it absolutely clear to everyone that we were electing Senator Clinton on her own terms and strengths, and they are many, and not sidestepping the 22nd Amendment.

That just wasn't meant to be.

Lost in the fake brouhaha about Senator Obama's comments about Ronald Reagan (as if an African-American former community-organizer from Chicago's South Side in the 1980s is unclear about the legacy of Ronald Reagan) was the utterly mystifying quote with which I led this piece:

We can't be a new story, I'm sorry. I can't make her younger, taller, male.

That's a phrase that's 'a tell' for those who have ears to hear it. Sure, it's unfortunate, and patronizing...to her and us...and sexist. We can elect Senator Clinton to be President, or not, on her own terms, thank you very much. But that's not the point. What Bill Clinton really meant, on some level, is that he can't make her Bill.

At the end of the day, the message Bill and Hillary Clinton are sending to the American public is that the only way to pull the plug on the intersection of the Bill Clinton saga and the office of the president is for primary voters to decide to vote for someone else. He's not going to change.

Never has, never will.

There's no alternative universe when it comes to Bill.

Irony in Las Vegas

2008-01-19T14:19:00.000-08:00

It looks like Bill Clinton supported a failed lawsuit to close down the very At Large Caucus sites that put Senator Hillary Clinton over the top. Barack Obama won "the rest of Nevada," and had the lawsuit to close those caucus sites succeeded, Nevada may well have been an Obama victory.

But that's just the silver lining not the prize, Hillary Clinton wins the popular vote in Nevada (though, in a remarkable double irony, not its delegates) with a strong showing among women, Latinos and seniors. And if that turns out to be a tide-forming moment in this primary campaign then the Story of the Strip could end up being the second part of a one-two punch.

There are a couple quick observations I'd offer.

First, this is a gut check moment for anyone in the Democratic Party who has reservations about whether a Clinton Restoration would be good for the Democratic Party or the nation as a whole. Will Barack Obama continue to receive endorsements from Democratic leaders showing their hands in opposition to the Clinton machine post-Nevada?

Senator Clinton's strength with seniors does not bode well for the Obama campaign, but a flurry of further endorsements might help Senator Obama with older voters, who are much more likely to view endorsements from politicians and newspapers as a factor in their decision making. Once again, an endorsement from Al Gore before Tsunami Tuesday could be an x factor in this regard.

Second, the campaign is currently 2 against 1.

Barack Obama vs. Bill and Hillary Clinton. President Clinton has been all over the news, every cycle, in every state. He is basically running for President again by proxy...except this time his only role is to play the attack dog. Red meat Democrats may well love this. But, once again, there are many in the Democratic Party who, behind the scenes, are not so sanguine about the "Return of Bill."

Barack Obama faces a conundrum. He can't attack Hilllary the way Bill attacks him. And, further, he can't attack Bill. On top of that, logistically he simply can't appear in the news cycle like the Clintons do: one making a speech, the other offering a harangue at a restaurant. Barack Obama's strength is his star power and the Clintons, in my view, have been attacking that star power by sucking up media oxygen with many smaller attacks (Reagan, LBJ, fairy tale) that no primary voter really cares about. Obama's star power is dying a death of a thousand Clinton cuts. They win by dominating the news and distracting.

If Obama's going to fight and win at this point, he needs something big and he needs something that can compete with the Big Dog. At the same time, Obama needs this "x factor" to parry the Clinton attacks (if not make some in return) to allow Obama to return to doing what he does best which is energize voters on the campaign trail. Obama needs to turn up the star power of his fresh campaign while the "x factor" works for him fighting the Clinton tactic of distract and distract. What is this "x factor?" I don't yet know. I'll tell you when I see it.

Third, Barack Obama needs to reach out to Latino voters in a big way.

I think the UNITE-here Spanish language ad in Nevada was a disgrace. It may well have backfired. What Obama needs to do is to follow the "let me introduce a friend of mine" approach. I don't think Obama has time to change perceptions with a specific proposal alone or some piece of rhetoric. And Obama certainly won't be able to create doubts about Senator Clinton with Latinos; she is well-liked. But Obama does have time to work with influentials to create an opportunity to get an introduction, to show his sincerity and interest. His best hope is to create a situation where voters are in a position where they think, "I like Hillary, but I really like Obama, too."

Finally, the implosion of the Edwards campaign in Nevada opens up a powerful potential source of grassroots energy and effort for Barack Obama.

A large chunk, but not all, of John Edwards support is made of reform-minded grassroots Democrats. Senator Obama's campaign needs to take these powerful, persuasive and energized activists seriously and attempt to bring them in. Reform-minded, anti-status quo Edwards supporters could well be Barack Obama's best available persuaders in winning over a percentage of female voters that Obama currently cedes to Clinton post-New Hampshire. This could be in the form of a grass roots, peer-to-peer effort reaching out to fellow voters one to one. What way do the MoveOn voters want to go? What would voters say if they had to debate the choice of Clinton or Obama in the privacy of someone's home?

But on a macro level there is very little that the Obama campaign can do publicly to create a "moment of doubt" to counter the "appeal to emotion" that is working so well for the Clintons. That doubt can't come from attack ads. They will backfire because they confirm the narrative that the Clintons are victims, that they have been unfairly attacked. However, people do have doubts about returning Bill and Hillary Clinton to the White House and what that would do to our country, they do have doubts about whether running Senator Clinton at the top of the ticket will get us the change we want to see.

On some level, if Obama can't attack Hillary Clinton directly, he has to attack, as he has been doing subtly, the political polarization and scorched earth politics that the Clintons and 90s represent. People don't want to go back there...and with John Edwards perhaps out of the running...looking at the choice between the future and the past may prove a persuasive moment.

The results of Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada prove that "star power" alone can't counter the powerful advantages Bill and Hillary bring to the table.

However, perhaps the Clinton's greatest strength may yet prove to be the key to their greatest weakness?