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Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Obama Victory/Acceptance Speech - Nov 4 - Video
Here is the video of Obama's acceptance/victory speech last night in Grant Park in Chicago:
'I Love My Country and I'm Taking it Back!'
A reader at the Daily Dish sums up some of the myriad emotions swirling around in me right now:
Nothing in my life has actually changed in the 30 minutes since it was announced Obama will be our next president. I have the same bills, the same amount of money in the bank, my dishwasher is still broken, and my 5 month old beagle won't stop peeing on my carpet. Everything in my life is exactly the same as it was 30 minutes ago; and yet I feel as though everything is different.
I feel so much hope. I feel so much pride. I feel like my one vote was a single drop of water in a great Tsunami of change. I feel like I was one of a million voices screaming in the night, " I love my country and I'm taking it back!" I'm so proud of the country that I love and have so much hope in my heart that we can together heal the wounds that have been such a source of pain and anger to us all.
I know Obama isn't going to fix the economy overnight, I know he won't be able to provide healthcare to all Americans by February '09. I know Obama isn't a Messiah who four years from now will have turned this country into a fabled utopia. But I also know Obama will make moral decisions. I know Obama will try to unite where others try to divide. I know Obama will help to make America the beacon of hope it once was to others. I know that at 27 years of age, I witnessed one of the most important and hopefully glorious chapters in American history.
I know hope.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Imagine the Races Were Reversed
Ponder how different this race would be if the races of the candidates were reversed:
Monday, November 3, 2008
Obama's Grandmother Passes Away on Election Eve
I am very sad to hear the news that Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, passed away today -- on the eve of Election Day:
The day before the presidential election, Sen. Barack Obama's grandmother, a woman he called "Toot" and someone who helped raised him, has died...
Obama's grandmother, who had been gravely ill, was a rock of stability, giving him the American roots that would ground his teenage years as well as his career in politics...
The candidate and his campaign had hoped that she would live long enough to see the outcome of the election, a race she had closely followed by television.
The Illinois senator's campaign issued a statement under his name and that of his sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng:
"It is with great sadness that we announce that our grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died peacefully after a battle with cancer. She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility. She was the person who encouraged and allowed us to take chances. She was proud of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and left this world with the knowledge that her impact on all of us was meaningful and enduring. Our debt to her is beyond measure.
"Our family wants to thank all of those who sent flowers, cards, well-wishes, and prayers during this difficult time. It brought our grandmother and us great comfort. Our grandmother was a private woman, and we will respect her wish for a small private ceremony to be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, we ask that you make a donation to any worthy organization in search of a cure for cancer."
Karl Rove: Obama to Win With 338 Electoral Votes
For some perspective, look at what Karl Rove's own polling data predicts for the election tomorrow:
Barack Obama for President
My favorite blogger, Andrew Sullivan, just wrote a new, epic must-read article explaining why we need Obama at this time in our country's history:
As someone once said, in the unlikely story of America, there is never anything false about hope. Obama, moreover, seems to bring out the best in people, and the calmest, and the sanest. He seems to me to have a blend of Midwestern good sense, an intuitive understanding of the developing world that is as much our future now as theirs', an analyst's mind and a poet's tongue. He is human. He is flawed. He will make mistakes. His passivity and ambiguity are sometimes weaknesses as well as strengths.Read The Whole ThingBut there is something about his rise that is also supremely American, a reminder of why so many of us love this country so passionately and are filled with such grief at what has been done to it and in its name. I endorse Barack Obama because I will not give up on America, because I believe in America, and in her constitution and decency and character and strength.
And the world needs that America now as much as it ever has. Can we start that healing, that rebirth, tomorrow?
Yes. We. Can.
Quote of the Day: Explaining Obamacons
A reader at the Daily Dish has a perfect encapsulation of why I consider myself an Obamacon (well, maybe an Obamatarian):
I was with a woman this week who is in her sixties. She told me that she has voted Republican her entire life and this year she is voting for Obama. Her reason; John McCain is too erratic and too much of a hot head and Sarah Palin is completely unqualified. I think many "Obamacons" simply love this country more than they do their ideology.
McCain/Palin 24x7 Smear Machine Didn't Work
Numbers like this bolster my sometimes-flagging faith in the American people's resistance to lies and distortions:
Obama's favorable rating is 62% -- the highest that any presidential candidate has registered in Gallup's final pre-election polls going back to 1992.
Yep, after two solid months of nothing but lies, slime, derision and smears being volleyed from McCain's Fortress of Doom, Obama's favorables have climbed to the highest of any Presidential candidate in 15 years. Stay classy America -- you impress me with your ability to tune out the B.S.
Reality Check Before Election Day - Poll Wrap-Up
Here's a wrap-up of where things stand -- with the proviso that you should not grow complacent by how good things look right now:
FiveThirtyEight.com's projections:
Pollster.com's Poll of Polls/Trendlines:
Final CBS News Poll:
With just three days left until Election Day, a new CBS News poll finds that the Democratic presidential ticket of Barack Obama and Joe Biden leads its Republican counterpart by 13 points among likely voters, 54 percent to 41 percent. That margin reflects an increase of two points in the Obama-Biden ticket's lead from a CBS News/New York Times poll released Thursday.
About one in five voters say they have already cast their vote, either in person or through the mail, and these early voters prefer the Democratic ticket by an even greater margin. Obama leads among early voters 57 percent to 38 percent, a nineteen point advantage.
Final Gallup Poll/Estimate:
The final Gallup 2008 pre-election poll -- based on Oct. 31-Nov. 2 Gallup Poll Daily tracking -- shows Barack Obama with a 53% to 42% advantage over John McCain among likely voters. When undecided voters are allocated proportionately to the two candidates to better approximate the actual vote, the estimate becomes 55% for Obama to 44% for McCain.
Polling Quote of the Day
The newest Reuters/Zogby/C-SPAN poll shows Obama with a solid, unflapped lead:
Obama 49.5%, McCain 43.8%. Democrat Barack Obama experienced a strong single day of polling on Saturday, retaining a 5.7 point advantage that is right at the edge of the margin of error of the Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby daily tracking poll. The race has remained remarkably stable down the stretch, this three-day rolling average poll shows.
Here's a gem of a note added by esteemed pollster Zogby:
Obama has consolidated his lead over McCain. His single day lead today was back to 52%-42%. He leads by 10 among independents and has solidified his base. He leads among Hispanics by 38 points, African Americans by 88, 18-24 year olds by 36, 18-29 year olds by 25, 25-34 year olds by 16, women by 8, and men by 3. He has a 17 point lead among those who have already voted, 22 by those who have registered to vote in the past 6 months, Moderates by 34, Catholics by 10. He even receives 21% support among Conservatives...
Remember, as I said yesterday, one day does not make a trend. This is a three-day rolling average and no changes have been tectonic. A special note to blogger friends: calm it down. Lay off the cable television noise and look at your baseball cards in your spare time. It is better for your (and everyone else's) health.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Esquire Endorsed Obama; First in 75 Years
Esquire magazine endorsed Barack Obama today -- the first such endorsement in 75 years.
On Obama:
Senator Obama is the only one of the two candidates who seems to believe in the idea of a political commonwealth, that there are those things -- be they the guarantees in the Bill of Rights or mountains in Alaska -- that we own together. Barack Obama stands, however inchoately and however diffidently, for the notion that a common purpose is necessary for common problems, that "government," as it is designed in our founding documents, is our collective responsibility. It is this collective responsibility that built America into a great power without peer in the history of the world. And it is this collective responsibility that has succumbed to nearly thirty years of phony rightist populism, corporate brigandage, and the wildly cheered abandonment of a common American civic purpose. It is shocking that in America an argument for salvaging the common good is regarded as a radical notion by anyone, but that is where we are. And that is what Barack Obama seems to stand for. After all, as a young man with his potential, he could have headed straight to midtown Manhattan and made a fortune. Instead, he took a church job working for poor people in Chicago, and for his troubles, he and those poor people have been viciously jeered by the likes of Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin. Such is their regard for the common good. And such is Obama's promise. And in that, however inchoately and however diffidently, Obama stands not only against Bushism, but against Reaganism, which gave it birth. And that is more than enough.
On McCain:
[Obama's] Republican counterpart is one of the first presidential candidates in history to run as a parody of himself. John McCain has decided on a cheap and dishonorable campaign. He has embraced the tactics with which he was slandered in 2000, and he has hired the people responsible for them. In so doing, he has become something of a mockery of everything he once purported to be. He has stated that he wouldn't now vote for his own immigration bill. He has operated in violation of the very campaign-finance law that bears his name. And even though his own body bears the scars of torture, he has silenced himself on the issue of the torture sanctioned and designed by the government he seeks to lead, so as not to alienate "the base." The most underutilized trope of the campaign is the notion that John McCain is running against John McCain.
Read the Whole Thing
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Brilliant Quote of the Day
This is one of the best quotes I've read in a really long time. Read the whole article.
"Let me offer what is evidently a radical argument — identifying the candidate that best approximates your ideological beliefs is not sufficient reason to cast a presidential vote on his behalf. Yes, a conservative is naturally going to weigh a candidate’s adherence to conservatism very heavily, but not as an end in itself. The ultimate goal is to choose the candidate whose election most benefits the country, not the candidate whose beliefs most closely reflect your own." -- Conor Friedsdorf
Obama's 30-Minute Closing Argument Ad - Video
Here's the video from Obama's 30-minute closing argument ad that ran last night in primetime on seven networks:
Barack Obama 30 Minute Commercial Video Part 1
Barack Obama 30 Minute Infomercial Video Part 2
Barack Obama 30 Minute Ad Video Part 3
Barack Obama 30 Minute Speech Video Part 4
Monday, October 27, 2008
NASCAR Patriarch Endorses Obama
One of the founding fathers of NASCAR, Junior Johnson, endorsed Barack Obama in a fundraising email to Obama supporters:
My family and I have given this election a lot of thought.
Our country is in a rough spot, and we're going to need some serious change. There's only one candidate ready to deliver it -- and that's Barack Obama...
Every day I talk to someone else who's never voted for a Democrat, but now they're voting for Barack Obama. They realize that Barack understands what we're going through here in North Carolina. And they're ready for change.
So I've made up my mind, and I'm ready to get involved. I know that I could never have won a race without my pit crew, and I know Barack can't win this one without us.
Top 10 Reasons for Conservatives to Vote Obama
A top-notch Top-10 list from the Daily Dish on why conservatives should vote for Obama:
10. A body blow to racial identity politics. An end to the era of Jesse Jackson in black America.
9. Less debt. Yes, Obama will raise taxes on those earning over a quarter of a million. And he will spend on healthcare, Iraq, Afghanistan and the environment. But so will McCain. He plans more spending on health, the environment and won't touch defense of entitlements. And his refusal to touch taxes means an extra $4 trillion in debt over the massive increase presided over by Bush. And the CBO estimates that McCain's plans will add more to the debt over four years than Obama's. Fiscal conservatives have a clear choice.
8. A return to realism and prudence in foreign policy. Obama has consistently cited the foreign policy of George H. W. Bush as his inspiration. McCain's knee-jerk reaction to the Georgian conflict, his commitment to stay in Iraq indefinitely, and his brinksmanship over Iran's nuclear ambitions make him a far riskier choice for conservatives. The choice between Obama and McCain is like the choice between George H.W. Bush's first term and George W.'s.
7. An ability to understand the difference between listening to generals and delegating foreign policy to them.
6. Temperament. Obama has the coolest, calmest demeanor of any president since Eisenhower. Conservatism values that kind of constancy, especially cmopared with the hot-headed, irrational impulsiveness of McCain.
5. Faith. Obama's fusion of Christianity and reason, his non-fundamentalist faith, is a critical bridge between the new atheism and the new Christianism.
4. A truce in the culture war. Obama takes us past the debilitating boomer warfare that has raged since the 1960s. Nothing has distorted our politics so gravely; nothing has made a rational politics more elusive.
3. Two words: President Palin.
2. Conservative reform. Until conservatism can get a distance from the big-spending, privacy-busting, debt-ridden, crony-laden, fundamentalist, intolerant, incompetent and arrogant faux conservatism of the Bush-Cheney years, it will never regain a coherent message to actually govern this country again. The survival of conservatism requires a temporary eclipse of today's Republicanism. Losing would be the best thing to happen to conservatism since 1964. Back then, conservatives lost in a landslide for the right reasons. Now, Republicans are losing in a landslide for the wrong reasons.
1. The War Against Islamist terror. The strategy deployed by Bush and Cheney has failed. It has failed to destroy al Qaeda, except in a country, Iraq, where their presence was minimal before the US invasion. It has failed to bring any of the terrorists to justice, instead creating the excresence of Gitmo, torture, secret sites, and the collapse of America's reputation abroad. It has empowered Iran, allowed al Qaeda to regroup in Pakistan, made the next vast generation of Muslims loathe America, and imperiled our alliances. We need smarter leadership of the war: balancing force with diplomacy, hard power with better p.r., deploying strategy rather than mere tactics, and self-confidence rather than a bunker mentality.
Those conservatives who remain convinced, as I do, that Islamist terror remains the greatest threat to the West cannot risk a perpetuation of the failed Manichean worldview of the past eight years, and cannot risk the possibility of McCain making rash decisions in the middle of a potentially catastrophic global conflict. If you are serious about the war on terror and believe it is a war we have to win, the only serious candidate is Barack Obama.
Palin: 'Share the Wealth' by Taxing Oil Companies
I'll wade into the McCain/Palin "Socialism! (Be Afraid!)" silliness for a moment by pointing out an interesting bit of irony hypocrisy uttered by $150,000 Caribou Barbie (TM) the Very Serious Republican Vice President Nominee Sarah Palin back in Alaska:
Just last month, in an interview with Philip Gourevitch of the New Yorker, Palin explained the windfall profits tax that she imposed on the oil industry in Alaska as a mechanism for ensuring that Alaskans "share in the wealth" generated by oil companies. [...]
In fact, Alaska's Clear and Equitable Share (ACES) program, which manages the redistribution of oil wealth in Alaska, brings in so much money that the state needs no income or sales tax. In addition, this year ACES will provide every Alaskan with a check for an estimated $3,200.
As Hendrick Hertzberg notes, "Perhaps there is some meaningful distinction between spreading the wealth and sharing it ... but finding it would require the analytic skills of Karl the Marxist."
Obama's 'Closing Argument' Speech in Ohio - Video
Here is the video of most of Obama's "Closing Argument" speech, which was delivered today in Canton, Ohio. It brought my dear mums to tears:
Here's my mom's assessment:
Just finished watching Obama's speech this morning,
absolutely moving, on point, and fantastic.
Holy Cow, Batman! Hope brimmith over!
Did you watch it? If not, see it soon.
Who needs prozac when we'll have him?
Update: Here's a gem of a quote from the speech (full transcript here). I'm sure you'll agree that it's chock-full of fiery, radical, tax-and-spend, liberal rhetoric:
Now, I don't believe that government can or should try to solve all our problems. I know you don't either. But I do believe that government should do that which we cannot do for ourselves -- protect us from harm and provide a decent education for our children; invest in new roads and new science and technology. It should reward drive and innovation and growth in the free market, but it should also make sure businesses live up to their responsibility to create American jobs, and look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road. It should ensure a shot at success not only for those with money and power and influence, but for every single American who's willing to work.
That's how we create not just more millionaires, but more middle-class families. That's how we make sure businesses have customers that can afford their products and services. That's how we've always grown the American economy -- from the bottom-up. John McCain calls this socialism. I call it opportunity, and there is nothing more American than that.
Quote of the Day: Ungodly Hubris; The Sin of Pride
Great quote from Minister Oliver Thomas:
My father, who was a Baptist deacon as well as a World War II veteran, was such a patriot. Pop taught me that true patriotism is not a contest to see who can fly the biggest flag. True patriotism exists where citizens love their country enough to hold it accountable. That means working to make certain that the president we have elected and the government we have created live up to the words of our creeds and the dreams of our poets and prophets.
GOP Actively Intimidating Voters in New Mexico
Shameful... Just fundamentally shameful:
A major voting-rights group has sent a letter to New Mexico U.S. Attorney Gregory Fouratt, calling on him to investigate claims of voter intimidation and suppression.
The letter, from the group Project Vote, comes in the wake of reporting by TPMmuckraker and others about a private investigator -- who said he was working for Pat Rogers, a lawyer connected to the state GOP -- appearing at the homes of Hispanic voters in Albuquerque, and questioning them about their right to vote. In a press release announcing the letter, Project Vote refers directly to these reports.
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