I found this humorous.
http://www.suntimes.com/images/cds/special/family_tree.html
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Obama's Victory Speech
Barack Obama: 44th President Of The United States Of America
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jrF18Gh44E)
Chicago Tribune
Originally posted: November 5, 2008
Election tested nation's character
A headline over an election story in Tuesday's Guardian, a British newspaper, read simply, "America's moment of truth."
And that it was—a test of our nation's character.
Were we really ready, as all the polls said we were, to elect a mixed-race man with an African-Arabic name as our 44th president?
Were we going to take a chance on an inspiring, charismatic candidate who spoke of hope and promised a new direction in troubled times?
Or was the American electorate going to shrink back on the day of decision? Would they listen, in the end, to the voices of doubt, fear, deceit and hatred that were begging them to change their minds?
Don't get me wrong. Many fine people found many fine reasons to support John McCain—his proposals, his philosophy, his record and his experience in Washington. There just weren't enough of them. Polls showed over and over again that neither McCain's positions nor his party were popular enough for him to beat Barack Obama.
So to pry away defectors and energize his base, McCain launched an infamous and ugly effort to tar Obama as a dangerous, unpatriotic radical, socialist and terrorist sympathizer who wants to kill babies and tell kindergartners all about sex.
Sorry not to be as gracious in victory as Obama was Tuesday night in his Grant Park speech, but it was as contemptible an effort to smear a fundamentally honorable man as I've ever seen. By stoking anger, resentment and paranoia in great swaths of the population, McCain has left us facing yet another moment of truth—the next test of our nation's character.
Obama's victory tells me we'll pass that test too.
Election tested nation's character
A headline over an election story in Tuesday's Guardian, a British newspaper, read simply, "America's moment of truth."
And that it was—a test of our nation's character.
Were we really ready, as all the polls said we were, to elect a mixed-race man with an African-Arabic name as our 44th president?
Were we going to take a chance on an inspiring, charismatic candidate who spoke of hope and promised a new direction in troubled times?
Or was the American electorate going to shrink back on the day of decision? Would they listen, in the end, to the voices of doubt, fear, deceit and hatred that were begging them to change their minds?
Don't get me wrong. Many fine people found many fine reasons to support John McCain—his proposals, his philosophy, his record and his experience in Washington. There just weren't enough of them. Polls showed over and over again that neither McCain's positions nor his party were popular enough for him to beat Barack Obama.
So to pry away defectors and energize his base, McCain launched an infamous and ugly effort to tar Obama as a dangerous, unpatriotic radical, socialist and terrorist sympathizer who wants to kill babies and tell kindergartners all about sex.
Sorry not to be as gracious in victory as Obama was Tuesday night in his Grant Park speech, but it was as contemptible an effort to smear a fundamentally honorable man as I've ever seen. By stoking anger, resentment and paranoia in great swaths of the population, McCain has left us facing yet another moment of truth—the next test of our nation's character.
Obama's victory tells me we'll pass that test too.
Channel News Asia
Some McCain supporters harbour bitter feelings over election results
By Channel NewsAsia's US Correspondent Malcolm Brown Posted: 05 November 2008 2154 hrs
Phoenix, ARIZONA: Republican Senator John McCain conceded the presidential race to Democrat Barack Obama on Wednesday, saying his rival had achieved a "great thing" for himself and the country with his historic victory. It was the moment that even die-hard John McCain supporters have to accept - that the polls were basically right and that their candidate's race for the White House was conclusively over. "Dear friends, we have come to the end of our journey, the American people have spoken and they have spoken clearly," McCain said. The defeated Republican gave a gracious concession speech, urging his supporters to work with the president-elect on the nation's problems. As they headed home, not all the Republican faithful seem receptive to that message. After such a long hard race, there were obvious hard feelings among McCain supporters. "Barack Obama has done nothing ever in his life. He doesn't deserve this. It is a sad day in American democracy and that's exactly how I feel," one of them said. The verdict of the electorate leaves the Republicans contemplating a future, in which they control neither the Congress nor the White House. "We're going to have to be a firewall against this radical leftist agenda," a Republican said. As the Democrats celebrate the extraordinary night, disappointed Republicans face a painful post mortem and a potentially bitter struggle over the future party direction.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Obama is Elected
Barack Obama Elected 44th President of the United States
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPw7SCDtuFM)
Monday, November 3, 2008
Sunday, November 2, 2008
The Simpsons parodies the Election
Homer Simpson Tries to Vote for Obama
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaj5uk1bWMA)
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Counter Punch
October 9, 2008
The Polarization and Perversion of American Politics
Obama the Subhuman
By ANTHONY DiMAGGIO
John McCain's condescending reference to Barack Obama in the second debate as "that one" represents more than just a minor gaffe, or an insensitivity on the part of the Republican candidate. The comment, originally made in reference to Obama's voting record in the Senate, is actually representative of a larger, disturbing trend in Republican politics today. The party has grown increasingly more conservative in recent decades, to the point today where its authoritarian undertones are barely concealed. McCain's dehumanization of Obama in the debates is the most poignant, although far from the only example of this trend. Apparently, John McCain sees the Democratic presidential candidate as not worth addressing by name. While McCain downgraded Obama's status to the subhuman "other" in the second debate, he refused to even acknowledge Obama's presence in their first meeting. This should strike viewers as quite disturbing, considering that the whole point of a debate is for each candidate to directly engage the other's issues and stances.
Increasingly, right-wing conservatives and Republican political leaders are issuing dire warnings to the American public that they – and only they – are the legitimate rulers of the United States and the world. This basic contempt for anything but one-party rule is manifested in a number of dire threats repeated by the party, with its members promising the end of Western civilization as we know it if they lose their dominant status in government. A review of Conservative and Republican contempt for bi-partisan politics is in order:
- On the culture war front, Republicans and conservatives have been unrelenting in their religious fanaticism and racism. Residents of West Virginia and Arkansas have received mailings directly from the Republican National Committee warning that liberals will ban the bible if they have the opportunity. On the national level, Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Pallin warns of Barack Obama's alleged support for domestic terrorism (citing his ties with former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers, whom Obama repeatedly condemned for his violent activities). Fox News has run claims that Obama was educated in a radical Islamist school in Indonesia, despite the fact that the story was extensively debunked by CNN. The Republican Party and conservatives even go on the offensive against Barack Obama's allegedly fundamentalist name. They repeat the full name over and over, shamelessly and with a sort of racist pride. Presumably, simply being named Barack Hussein Obama is enough to prove you’re a terrorist, Muslim, fanatic, or all of the above (little distinction is made between these, sadly).
- Right-wing pundits, echoed by major conservative political leaders, have warned that a victory for Barack Obama will be a victory for Islam, radical terrorism, and anti-Americanism. Right-wing radio pundits such as Michael Medved warn that a vote for the Democratic Party is essentially a vote for Osama bin Laden. McCain and others repeat the claim that withdrawal from Iraq is tantamount to surrender to Al Qaeda. As the logic (or illogic) of this argument goes, since Democrats favor de-escalation in Iraq, and since Republicans are fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq, Democrats must be anti-American and in favor of terrorism since they oppose this necessary war. Obviously, such claims suffer from a basic lack of evidence, considering that Al Qaeda-affiliated groups were not operating in Iraq until after Bush invaded Iraq, and since reports have actually shown that the U.S. torture and illegal detainment of Muslims at Guantanamo has actually contributed to their radicalization and their support for Islamist terrorism, rather than preventing such a threat. Studies throughout the Middle East also find that the occupation is radicalizing the region's people against the United States. The American occupation is seen as the primary source of destruction in Iraq, rather than the "insurgency" or Al Qaeda (which is only a miniscule part of the resistance to the U.S.).
- Conservative legal officials have essentially declared war on the Democratic Party, not for violating the law, but due to their own ideological prejudices. Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was recently exposed for allowing politically motivated prosecutions against prominent Democratic political officials. One statistical study from the University of Missouri showed that the Justice Department had systematically engaged in "political profiling" against Democrats, including figures such as Alabaman Governor Don Siegelman. Federal prosecutors had essentially dropped the case against Siegelman in 2004 (due to a lack of evidence against him), when they were instructed by the Justice Department to proceed with bribery and fraud charges regardless. As one Justice Department attorney said to one of the lawyers representing a Democrat who had been charged: "I know your client thinks he's innocent. He's offered to take a lie detector test. I'm not interested in that. In fact, I'm sure he'd pass the test. And in fact I don't have the evidence to make out my case. No matter. I just plan to throw shit at the wall and sit back and watch as some of it drops on him. We'll get him."
None of these right-wing hit jobs or smear tactics should strike voters as merely "more of the same" negative politicking in an election season. On major issues, Barack Obama has bent over backwards in his emphasis on the importance of bi-partisanship, cooperation between Democrats and Republicans, and the need for an end to negative campaigning. Obama and Biden, while making many critical statements of John McCain and Sarah Palin, have generally remained respectful and even tried to draw some comparisons between themselves and their Republican competitors. They've spoken of their deep respect and affinity for John McCain as a military man, and even voiced their support for the Republican's "surge" as succeeding in decreasing violence in Iraq.
The Democrats' attempt to appeal across party lines has clearly not been the preferred tactic of the Republican Party. Angry over their likely loss of power in the upcoming election, they have become increasingly desperate in their attacks on the Democrats and the legitimacy of the two party state. This is particularly disturbing at a time when it is becoming harder and harder to discern concrete or substantive differences in the economic policies of the two parties. In reality, Obama and Biden's vague references to "regulation" don't amount to a whole lot when they fail to follow them up with actual policy proposals. That these Democrats are demonized by Republicans as sub-human, dangerous, or terrorist is more a sign of the growing extremism of conservatives than of the moral weakness or treachery of the Democrats. The Democratic Party today may be morally bankrupt, spineless, and bland, but none of those are anywhere near as dangerous as the Republican Party's fundamentalist contempt for multi-party elections and bi-partisan politics.
The Polarization and Perversion of American Politics
Obama the Subhuman
By ANTHONY DiMAGGIO
John McCain's condescending reference to Barack Obama in the second debate as "that one" represents more than just a minor gaffe, or an insensitivity on the part of the Republican candidate. The comment, originally made in reference to Obama's voting record in the Senate, is actually representative of a larger, disturbing trend in Republican politics today. The party has grown increasingly more conservative in recent decades, to the point today where its authoritarian undertones are barely concealed. McCain's dehumanization of Obama in the debates is the most poignant, although far from the only example of this trend. Apparently, John McCain sees the Democratic presidential candidate as not worth addressing by name. While McCain downgraded Obama's status to the subhuman "other" in the second debate, he refused to even acknowledge Obama's presence in their first meeting. This should strike viewers as quite disturbing, considering that the whole point of a debate is for each candidate to directly engage the other's issues and stances.
Increasingly, right-wing conservatives and Republican political leaders are issuing dire warnings to the American public that they – and only they – are the legitimate rulers of the United States and the world. This basic contempt for anything but one-party rule is manifested in a number of dire threats repeated by the party, with its members promising the end of Western civilization as we know it if they lose their dominant status in government. A review of Conservative and Republican contempt for bi-partisan politics is in order:
- On the culture war front, Republicans and conservatives have been unrelenting in their religious fanaticism and racism. Residents of West Virginia and Arkansas have received mailings directly from the Republican National Committee warning that liberals will ban the bible if they have the opportunity. On the national level, Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Pallin warns of Barack Obama's alleged support for domestic terrorism (citing his ties with former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers, whom Obama repeatedly condemned for his violent activities). Fox News has run claims that Obama was educated in a radical Islamist school in Indonesia, despite the fact that the story was extensively debunked by CNN. The Republican Party and conservatives even go on the offensive against Barack Obama's allegedly fundamentalist name. They repeat the full name over and over, shamelessly and with a sort of racist pride. Presumably, simply being named Barack Hussein Obama is enough to prove you’re a terrorist, Muslim, fanatic, or all of the above (little distinction is made between these, sadly).
- Right-wing pundits, echoed by major conservative political leaders, have warned that a victory for Barack Obama will be a victory for Islam, radical terrorism, and anti-Americanism. Right-wing radio pundits such as Michael Medved warn that a vote for the Democratic Party is essentially a vote for Osama bin Laden. McCain and others repeat the claim that withdrawal from Iraq is tantamount to surrender to Al Qaeda. As the logic (or illogic) of this argument goes, since Democrats favor de-escalation in Iraq, and since Republicans are fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq, Democrats must be anti-American and in favor of terrorism since they oppose this necessary war. Obviously, such claims suffer from a basic lack of evidence, considering that Al Qaeda-affiliated groups were not operating in Iraq until after Bush invaded Iraq, and since reports have actually shown that the U.S. torture and illegal detainment of Muslims at Guantanamo has actually contributed to their radicalization and their support for Islamist terrorism, rather than preventing such a threat. Studies throughout the Middle East also find that the occupation is radicalizing the region's people against the United States. The American occupation is seen as the primary source of destruction in Iraq, rather than the "insurgency" or Al Qaeda (which is only a miniscule part of the resistance to the U.S.).
- Conservative legal officials have essentially declared war on the Democratic Party, not for violating the law, but due to their own ideological prejudices. Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was recently exposed for allowing politically motivated prosecutions against prominent Democratic political officials. One statistical study from the University of Missouri showed that the Justice Department had systematically engaged in "political profiling" against Democrats, including figures such as Alabaman Governor Don Siegelman. Federal prosecutors had essentially dropped the case against Siegelman in 2004 (due to a lack of evidence against him), when they were instructed by the Justice Department to proceed with bribery and fraud charges regardless. As one Justice Department attorney said to one of the lawyers representing a Democrat who had been charged: "I know your client thinks he's innocent. He's offered to take a lie detector test. I'm not interested in that. In fact, I'm sure he'd pass the test. And in fact I don't have the evidence to make out my case. No matter. I just plan to throw shit at the wall and sit back and watch as some of it drops on him. We'll get him."
None of these right-wing hit jobs or smear tactics should strike voters as merely "more of the same" negative politicking in an election season. On major issues, Barack Obama has bent over backwards in his emphasis on the importance of bi-partisanship, cooperation between Democrats and Republicans, and the need for an end to negative campaigning. Obama and Biden, while making many critical statements of John McCain and Sarah Palin, have generally remained respectful and even tried to draw some comparisons between themselves and their Republican competitors. They've spoken of their deep respect and affinity for John McCain as a military man, and even voiced their support for the Republican's "surge" as succeeding in decreasing violence in Iraq.
The Democrats' attempt to appeal across party lines has clearly not been the preferred tactic of the Republican Party. Angry over their likely loss of power in the upcoming election, they have become increasingly desperate in their attacks on the Democrats and the legitimacy of the two party state. This is particularly disturbing at a time when it is becoming harder and harder to discern concrete or substantive differences in the economic policies of the two parties. In reality, Obama and Biden's vague references to "regulation" don't amount to a whole lot when they fail to follow them up with actual policy proposals. That these Democrats are demonized by Republicans as sub-human, dangerous, or terrorist is more a sign of the growing extremism of conservatives than of the moral weakness or treachery of the Democrats. The Democratic Party today may be morally bankrupt, spineless, and bland, but none of those are anywhere near as dangerous as the Republican Party's fundamentalist contempt for multi-party elections and bi-partisan politics.
CNN
updated 4:07 p.m. EDT, Thu October 9, 2008
Obama: McCain's mortgage plan shows 'erratic' leadership
(CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama on Thursday slammed Sen. John McCain's new mortgage plan as "the latest in a series of shifting positions" and evidence of "erratic and uncertain leadership."
"He's ended up with a plan that punishes taxpayers, rewards banks, and won't solve our housing crisis," Obama said at an event in Dayton, Ohio.
At the second presidential debate Tuesday, McCain suggested that the government buy up bad home loan mortgages and renegotiate at the new diminished value of those homes.
Under McCain's proposed $300 billion mortgage rescue plan, much of the burden of paying to keep troubled borrowers in their homes would shift to taxpayers.
McCain's original plan called for lenders to write down the value of these mortgages and take those losses.
Doug Holtz-Eakin, McCain's economic adviser, said Wednesday that the McCain plan could be put into place quickly because the groundwork and the authority for it already have been provided by last week's $700 billion bailout bill; the Hope for Homeowners program authorized by the housing rescue bill passed in July; and the government takeover of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Read the details of McCain's proposal
In an e-mail to supporters, McCain said his plan would address "the very root of the failing housing market."
Obama charged that McCain's latest plan is "risky."
"I don't think we can afford that kind of erratic and uncertain leadership in these uncertain times. We need steady leadership in the White House. We need a president we can trust in times of crisis," Obama said.
In response to Obama's remarks in Dayton, the McCain campaign said Obama was "putting politics above the national interest."
"John McCain's home ownership resurgence plan represents absolutely no new expense to the taxpayer, but simply refocuses priorities to more directly assist the homeowners who are hurting instead of greed on Wall Street," spokesman Tucker Bounds said in a statement.
Earlier Wednesday, Obama's campaign launched a television ad that takes aim at McCain's proposal, saying "the same lenders that caused the crisis in the first place" would benefit from the plan.
As the candidates enter the final weeks of campaigning, they have been attacking each other more aggressively.
McCain's campaign has launched a string of new ads that question Obama's judgment and character.
The McCain campaign calls Obama "too risky for America" in a new Web ad that focuses on his political relationship with Bill Ayers, a founding member of the radical Weather Underground.
"Barack Obama and domestic terrorist Bill Ayers. Friends. They've worked together for years. But Obama tries to hide it," the announcer says in the 90-second ad.
"But Obama's friendship with terrorist Ayers isn't the issue. The issue is Barack Obama's judgment and candor," the announcer says. Watch analysts weigh in on the McCain attacks »
At a town hall meeting in Waukesha, Wisconsin, angry voters pleaded with McCain to get tougher on Obama.
One voter suggested that McCain bring up the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy.
"I am begging you, sir, take it to him," the voter said.
McCain did not specifically address the comment about Wright, Obama's former pastor who came under scrutiny during the primaries after clips of his sermons circulated on the Internet.
On Ayers, the Arizona senator said he doesn't care about a "washed-up former terrorist," but vowed to press Obama on his candor and judgment.
"We need to know the full extent of the relationship because of whether Sen. Obama is telling the truth to the American people or not. That's the question," McCain said.
Weather Underground was involved in bombings in the early 1970s, including attacks on the Pentagon and the Capitol. Obama was a young child at the time of the bombings.
Obama and Ayers, now a university professor, met in 1995, when both worked with a nonprofit group trying to raise funds for a school improvement project and a charitable foundation. CNN's review of project records found nothing to suggest anything inappropriate in the volunteer projects in which the two men were involved. Fact check: How close are Obama and Ayers?
Quoted in The New York Times, Obama called Ayers "somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8."
Michelle Obama brushed off the latest round of attacks in an interview with CNN's Larry King on Wednesday.
"I don't know anyone in Chicago who's heavily involved in education policy who doesn't know Bill Ayers. But, again, I go back to the point that the American people aren't asking these questions," she said.
Obama said her husband has been "thoroughly vetted" and said the Ayers allegations are a "part of politics."
The McCain campaign started pushing hard on the Ayers connection this past weekend when Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."
The Obama campaign retaliated Monday with a 13-minute documentary Web video detailing the Arizona senator's involvement in the Keating Five scandal in the 1980s.
Cindy McCain, McCain's wife, lashed out at Obama earlier this week, telling a Tennessee newspaper that the Illinois senator has waged the "dirtiest campaign in American history."
Obama's running mate, Sen. Joe Biden put the blame on the McCain campaign Wednesday, saying the attacks on Obama are "beyond disappointing."
Obama: McCain's mortgage plan shows 'erratic' leadership
(CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama on Thursday slammed Sen. John McCain's new mortgage plan as "the latest in a series of shifting positions" and evidence of "erratic and uncertain leadership."
"He's ended up with a plan that punishes taxpayers, rewards banks, and won't solve our housing crisis," Obama said at an event in Dayton, Ohio.
At the second presidential debate Tuesday, McCain suggested that the government buy up bad home loan mortgages and renegotiate at the new diminished value of those homes.
Under McCain's proposed $300 billion mortgage rescue plan, much of the burden of paying to keep troubled borrowers in their homes would shift to taxpayers.
McCain's original plan called for lenders to write down the value of these mortgages and take those losses.
Doug Holtz-Eakin, McCain's economic adviser, said Wednesday that the McCain plan could be put into place quickly because the groundwork and the authority for it already have been provided by last week's $700 billion bailout bill; the Hope for Homeowners program authorized by the housing rescue bill passed in July; and the government takeover of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Read the details of McCain's proposal
In an e-mail to supporters, McCain said his plan would address "the very root of the failing housing market."
Obama charged that McCain's latest plan is "risky."
"I don't think we can afford that kind of erratic and uncertain leadership in these uncertain times. We need steady leadership in the White House. We need a president we can trust in times of crisis," Obama said.
In response to Obama's remarks in Dayton, the McCain campaign said Obama was "putting politics above the national interest."
"John McCain's home ownership resurgence plan represents absolutely no new expense to the taxpayer, but simply refocuses priorities to more directly assist the homeowners who are hurting instead of greed on Wall Street," spokesman Tucker Bounds said in a statement.
Earlier Wednesday, Obama's campaign launched a television ad that takes aim at McCain's proposal, saying "the same lenders that caused the crisis in the first place" would benefit from the plan.
As the candidates enter the final weeks of campaigning, they have been attacking each other more aggressively.
McCain's campaign has launched a string of new ads that question Obama's judgment and character.
The McCain campaign calls Obama "too risky for America" in a new Web ad that focuses on his political relationship with Bill Ayers, a founding member of the radical Weather Underground.
"Barack Obama and domestic terrorist Bill Ayers. Friends. They've worked together for years. But Obama tries to hide it," the announcer says in the 90-second ad.
"But Obama's friendship with terrorist Ayers isn't the issue. The issue is Barack Obama's judgment and candor," the announcer says. Watch analysts weigh in on the McCain attacks »
At a town hall meeting in Waukesha, Wisconsin, angry voters pleaded with McCain to get tougher on Obama.
One voter suggested that McCain bring up the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy.
"I am begging you, sir, take it to him," the voter said.
McCain did not specifically address the comment about Wright, Obama's former pastor who came under scrutiny during the primaries after clips of his sermons circulated on the Internet.
On Ayers, the Arizona senator said he doesn't care about a "washed-up former terrorist," but vowed to press Obama on his candor and judgment.
"We need to know the full extent of the relationship because of whether Sen. Obama is telling the truth to the American people or not. That's the question," McCain said.
Weather Underground was involved in bombings in the early 1970s, including attacks on the Pentagon and the Capitol. Obama was a young child at the time of the bombings.
Obama and Ayers, now a university professor, met in 1995, when both worked with a nonprofit group trying to raise funds for a school improvement project and a charitable foundation. CNN's review of project records found nothing to suggest anything inappropriate in the volunteer projects in which the two men were involved. Fact check: How close are Obama and Ayers?
Quoted in The New York Times, Obama called Ayers "somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8."
Michelle Obama brushed off the latest round of attacks in an interview with CNN's Larry King on Wednesday.
"I don't know anyone in Chicago who's heavily involved in education policy who doesn't know Bill Ayers. But, again, I go back to the point that the American people aren't asking these questions," she said.
Obama said her husband has been "thoroughly vetted" and said the Ayers allegations are a "part of politics."
The McCain campaign started pushing hard on the Ayers connection this past weekend when Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."
The Obama campaign retaliated Monday with a 13-minute documentary Web video detailing the Arizona senator's involvement in the Keating Five scandal in the 1980s.
Cindy McCain, McCain's wife, lashed out at Obama earlier this week, telling a Tennessee newspaper that the Illinois senator has waged the "dirtiest campaign in American history."
Obama's running mate, Sen. Joe Biden put the blame on the McCain campaign Wednesday, saying the attacks on Obama are "beyond disappointing."
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
CORD Weekly
Canadian politics more relevant than US
Devon Butler
Oct 08, 2008
Though every citizen should be well-rounded and informed on international affairs, their main focus should be on their own country.
On Thursday, October 2, the Canadian Party Leaders’ Debate was held. This heated night on television also included the American Vice-Presidential debate. Unfortunately, they both aired at the same time; so which one did you watch?
To Canadian politicians, the feedback seems discouraging. Many Canadians remain ignorant to their potential leaders’ promises and policies. These eligible and even non-eligible voters were more preoccupied with the personality of Sarah Palin than the “boring” debate between five potential leaders of our own country. Though every citizen should be well-rounded and informed on international affairs, their main focus should be on their own country. Is it Canadian to prefer watching a debate for the Vice-President of America, who will be second-in-command, as opposed to the debate for the next prime minister of Canada?
Regardless, the American election has surpassed the Canadian election in both ratings and interest among Canadian viewers. This would not be the first time that American media and culture have dominated Canada. It is no wonder we seem to be lacking a unified interest in our country’s politics when we are now in a world where over 90% of television shows in Canada are American-produced.
How did this happen? We all recognize America’s power to dominate on the world stage, but Canada, resting on its doorstep, is affected the most.
Indeed, to some Canadians, US media and culture deliver that “je ne sais quoi” entertainment value.
However, in a world where Canadians choose to watch Stephen Colbert over Rick Mercer, we have to start placing boundaries on how much we will let America influence us. The American influence is applicable to the hype surrounding the US election. The hype America has created revolves primarily around the charm of the candidates, but not what they stand for.
Almost anyone can tell you that the candidates are historic due to McCain’s age and Obama’s skin colour, yet neither of these factors center on either candidate’s ability to perform as president.
The recent introduction of Sarah Palin, John McCain’s running-mate, has created a media frenzy, exemplifying America’s tendency to aggrandize all things, including their politicians.
The United States has now set a trend in what an election should be, where the common citizen is more interested in the candidates’ personal lives as opposed to their platforms or policies.
This trend has begun to leak into the Canadian election. Those who follow the election in our backyard can see it is slowly becoming more about charisma than policies. Canada appears to be trying American tactics in an attempt to gain more attention.
Stephen Harper’s entire campaign seems to be an example of this, with his main focus being on Stéphane Dion’s leadership abilities rather than any concrete issues.
It is possible that this lack of interest in Canadian politics is due to Canadians taking their government for granted. We are blindly assuming that job loss, the war in Afghanistan and our failing education system will work themselves out.
The main explanation for this ignorance is that, for the past few years, we as a nation have been reasonably lucky in having such a stable government.
Up until recently, we’ve had a period of good economic growth and overall improvement in quality of life. As a result, we have become complacent about our politics. Is this the real issue then; that Canadians have become overconfident in our leaders and ourselves as a nation? Or is it simply just another case of the rapid decrease of interest in Canada and preference to America?
Informing ourselves of international activities, especially those of our neighbours to the south, is crucial.
Their election outcome will no doubt affect us, but it should not be overshadowing what will be directly affecting you in your own backyard.
The United States election is not until November, whereas our election is only a week away. Though it may be easier to follow two politicians instead of five, I think it is fair to suggest that Canadians stay informed with Canadian politics.
Devon Butler
Oct 08, 2008
Though every citizen should be well-rounded and informed on international affairs, their main focus should be on their own country.
On Thursday, October 2, the Canadian Party Leaders’ Debate was held. This heated night on television also included the American Vice-Presidential debate. Unfortunately, they both aired at the same time; so which one did you watch?
To Canadian politicians, the feedback seems discouraging. Many Canadians remain ignorant to their potential leaders’ promises and policies. These eligible and even non-eligible voters were more preoccupied with the personality of Sarah Palin than the “boring” debate between five potential leaders of our own country. Though every citizen should be well-rounded and informed on international affairs, their main focus should be on their own country. Is it Canadian to prefer watching a debate for the Vice-President of America, who will be second-in-command, as opposed to the debate for the next prime minister of Canada?
Regardless, the American election has surpassed the Canadian election in both ratings and interest among Canadian viewers. This would not be the first time that American media and culture have dominated Canada. It is no wonder we seem to be lacking a unified interest in our country’s politics when we are now in a world where over 90% of television shows in Canada are American-produced.
How did this happen? We all recognize America’s power to dominate on the world stage, but Canada, resting on its doorstep, is affected the most.
Indeed, to some Canadians, US media and culture deliver that “je ne sais quoi” entertainment value.
However, in a world where Canadians choose to watch Stephen Colbert over Rick Mercer, we have to start placing boundaries on how much we will let America influence us. The American influence is applicable to the hype surrounding the US election. The hype America has created revolves primarily around the charm of the candidates, but not what they stand for.
Almost anyone can tell you that the candidates are historic due to McCain’s age and Obama’s skin colour, yet neither of these factors center on either candidate’s ability to perform as president.
The recent introduction of Sarah Palin, John McCain’s running-mate, has created a media frenzy, exemplifying America’s tendency to aggrandize all things, including their politicians.
The United States has now set a trend in what an election should be, where the common citizen is more interested in the candidates’ personal lives as opposed to their platforms or policies.
This trend has begun to leak into the Canadian election. Those who follow the election in our backyard can see it is slowly becoming more about charisma than policies. Canada appears to be trying American tactics in an attempt to gain more attention.
Stephen Harper’s entire campaign seems to be an example of this, with his main focus being on Stéphane Dion’s leadership abilities rather than any concrete issues.
It is possible that this lack of interest in Canadian politics is due to Canadians taking their government for granted. We are blindly assuming that job loss, the war in Afghanistan and our failing education system will work themselves out.
The main explanation for this ignorance is that, for the past few years, we as a nation have been reasonably lucky in having such a stable government.
Up until recently, we’ve had a period of good economic growth and overall improvement in quality of life. As a result, we have become complacent about our politics. Is this the real issue then; that Canadians have become overconfident in our leaders and ourselves as a nation? Or is it simply just another case of the rapid decrease of interest in Canada and preference to America?
Informing ourselves of international activities, especially those of our neighbours to the south, is crucial.
Their election outcome will no doubt affect us, but it should not be overshadowing what will be directly affecting you in your own backyard.
The United States election is not until November, whereas our election is only a week away. Though it may be easier to follow two politicians instead of five, I think it is fair to suggest that Canadians stay informed with Canadian politics.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
Friday, September 5, 2008
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
The Jerusalem Post
The X factor in the American election
Throughout much of George W. Bush's reign, the newspapers and blogosphere have been filled with dire warnings about the state of America. Much of it was so hysterical, it was easy to dismiss it as "Bushophobia," a reflection of the irrational, intense hatred this president provokes, especially among elites.
In fact, for much of the Bush years, America's economy did well. Quarter after quarter, experts would warn about sobering outcomes, and yet the numbers kept on illustrating a much rosier picture. As long as the economy was strong, Bush's popularity ratings could plummet, New Orleans could sink, Iraq could become a quagmire, but the overall tone in the United States remained surprisingly upbeat.
All that has changed. The talk in the United States has turned, people frequently admit their economic distress, focusing on limited finances now or worries about limitations to come. The most visible symbol of this new economic reality is that gasoline is now consistently over $4 a gallon.
People are cutting back, redirecting resources they once piddled away on luxuries toward keeping up with their necessities. As a mark of this shift, Starbucks, one of the great symbols of early 21st century indulgence with its $4 cups of coffee, just closed 600 stores. It seems that the Bush daydream has become the Bush nightmare.
This energy and economic trauma on top of all the other traumas should make it a simple election for the Democrats. No matter who wins the White House, everyone is expecting a Democratic sweep of Congress. On Capitol Hill, Republicans are bracing for a bloodbath, Democrats are already squabbling over the spoils. With Barack Obama leading in the polls, with John McCain retooling his campaign team, this election should be a slam dunk win for the Democrats.
But the dynamics of the presidential campaign are not that easy. Remember President Michael Dukakis? He was crowned the presumptive successor to Ronald Reagan in 1988 as he enjoyed a double digit lead in the polls over George H.W. Bush throughout the summer. But Bush was able to come back and defeat him.
The office of the president is so personal, the campaign is so long and grueling, that anything could happen. It really is too early to say Kaddish for McCain or pick out the new colors for Obama's Oval Office re-design. And on top of all these personality and political factors in the mix, the economy is going to weigh ever more heavily - if current indicators continue to play out as they have been.
In 1992, Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush, who once enjoyed approval ratings close to 90 percent. Clinton's slogan was "It's The Economy, Stupid."
This year, barring a major terrorist attack or international blow up - it seems clear that the election will hinge yet again on that stupid economy.
If McCain cannot figure out how to respond to Americans' distress on this issue, he is finished. But if Americans lose confidence in Obama's ability to be a steady steward of the economy, he, too, is doomed.
Monday, June 16, 2008
The Globe and Mail
John McCain should stay out of here
LAWRENCE MARTIN
From Monday's Globe and Mail
June 16, 2008 at 7:30 AM EST
It's rare, perhaps unprecedented, for a U.S. presidential candidate to come to Canada and deliver a political speech in the course of an American election campaign. But here comes John McCain, right on the heels of the NAFTA imbroglio that embarrassed Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government.
The controversy over the Canadian leak of a diplomatic note damaging to Democrat Barack Obama has been receding with time. This can only be pleasing to the Harper team. But the appearance in Ottawa of Mr. McCain, set for Friday, is a good bet to reignite the whole business, putting Ottawa's ignoble deed again in the mix in the race for the White House.
That's bad for the Harper government, bad for bilateral relations. As interesting as it is to have the Republican candidate for the presidency here, better that he stay away.
The Prime Minister didn't invite the Arizona senator. It was the idea of the McCain team, encouraged by U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins with no apparent dissent from the Prime Minister's Office.
No doubt, Mr. McCain feels it will be politically profitable for him to use Canada as a base to remind everyone that he is an ardent free trader while his opponent - if the leaked Canadian memo is to be believed - has been speaking out of both sides of his mouth on the issue. No doubt the McCain team wouldn't mind seeing the NAFTA controversy splattered all over the front pages again.
While the Harperites didn't organize the McCain visit, they have close ties to the Republicans. They will be suspected by Democrats, already angered by the memo episode, of lending a hand to the Republican campaign effort again.
By tradition, Ottawa steers clear of American political campaigns and vice versa. No favouritism is shown because the mere hint of it causes problems. One such example was in the 2000 campaign when Raymond Chrétien, our ambassador in Washington, gave a speech that some interpreted as favouring Democrat Al Gore over George W. Bush. Another was the Canadian election of 1963 in which the Kennedy administration's leanings to Lester Pearson over John Diefenbaker provoked a storm.
Neither of those campaigns featured something as hot as the NAFTA/Obama episode. The diplomatic note suggested Mr. Obama wasn't serious about his campaign trail talk of renegotiating NAFTA. Most observers feel it cost Mr. Obama important votes in the Ohio primary and perhaps elsewhere.
Besides throwing gasoline on that fire, and making bilateral harmony more difficult, the McCain visit comes with another downside for the Harper Conservatives. John McCain is hardly as toxic as George Bush, a president from whom Stephen Harper has wisely kept a distance. But polls have shown Canadians favour the Democrat Obama by nearly a four-to-one margin over Mr. McCain. Common sense says the Tories shouldn't be seen as doing the guy any favours.
His speech will be welcome in one respect. Canadians by and large favour free trade and Mr. McCain will give it a hearty endorsement. It is needed because not only are the Democrats getting ornery on the subject, but the Republicans' record has been unimpressive. On the softwood lumber dispute, they pulled every trick in the book to circumvent the spirit and letter of the agreement.
But this one positive from the McCain visit is far outweighed by the likely negatives. The NAFTA affair is still rife with potentially damaging consequences. Prime Minister Harper himself has termed the matter very serious and unfair to Senator Obama. He called for an internal probe that failed to turn up the source of the leak. Reports have since emerged, however, alleging the PMO leaked the report to a close Republican contact, Frank Sensenbrenner. He is the son of James Sensenbrenner, a Republican congressman from Wisconsin. The diplomatic note then wound up in the hands of the Associated Press.
If these reports are true, it demonstrates unseemly cross-border collusion between Conservatives and Republicans and orchestrated interference in a U.S. election campaign by the Canadian government. Serious stuff.
John McCain is a fellow conservative but he's the last thing the Conservatives need in Ottawa this week. They should tell him to give his speech in North Dakota.
LAWRENCE MARTIN
From Monday's Globe and Mail
June 16, 2008 at 7:30 AM EST
It's rare, perhaps unprecedented, for a U.S. presidential candidate to come to Canada and deliver a political speech in the course of an American election campaign. But here comes John McCain, right on the heels of the NAFTA imbroglio that embarrassed Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government.
The controversy over the Canadian leak of a diplomatic note damaging to Democrat Barack Obama has been receding with time. This can only be pleasing to the Harper team. But the appearance in Ottawa of Mr. McCain, set for Friday, is a good bet to reignite the whole business, putting Ottawa's ignoble deed again in the mix in the race for the White House.
That's bad for the Harper government, bad for bilateral relations. As interesting as it is to have the Republican candidate for the presidency here, better that he stay away.
The Prime Minister didn't invite the Arizona senator. It was the idea of the McCain team, encouraged by U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins with no apparent dissent from the Prime Minister's Office.
No doubt, Mr. McCain feels it will be politically profitable for him to use Canada as a base to remind everyone that he is an ardent free trader while his opponent - if the leaked Canadian memo is to be believed - has been speaking out of both sides of his mouth on the issue. No doubt the McCain team wouldn't mind seeing the NAFTA controversy splattered all over the front pages again.
While the Harperites didn't organize the McCain visit, they have close ties to the Republicans. They will be suspected by Democrats, already angered by the memo episode, of lending a hand to the Republican campaign effort again.
By tradition, Ottawa steers clear of American political campaigns and vice versa. No favouritism is shown because the mere hint of it causes problems. One such example was in the 2000 campaign when Raymond Chrétien, our ambassador in Washington, gave a speech that some interpreted as favouring Democrat Al Gore over George W. Bush. Another was the Canadian election of 1963 in which the Kennedy administration's leanings to Lester Pearson over John Diefenbaker provoked a storm.
Neither of those campaigns featured something as hot as the NAFTA/Obama episode. The diplomatic note suggested Mr. Obama wasn't serious about his campaign trail talk of renegotiating NAFTA. Most observers feel it cost Mr. Obama important votes in the Ohio primary and perhaps elsewhere.
Besides throwing gasoline on that fire, and making bilateral harmony more difficult, the McCain visit comes with another downside for the Harper Conservatives. John McCain is hardly as toxic as George Bush, a president from whom Stephen Harper has wisely kept a distance. But polls have shown Canadians favour the Democrat Obama by nearly a four-to-one margin over Mr. McCain. Common sense says the Tories shouldn't be seen as doing the guy any favours.
His speech will be welcome in one respect. Canadians by and large favour free trade and Mr. McCain will give it a hearty endorsement. It is needed because not only are the Democrats getting ornery on the subject, but the Republicans' record has been unimpressive. On the softwood lumber dispute, they pulled every trick in the book to circumvent the spirit and letter of the agreement.
But this one positive from the McCain visit is far outweighed by the likely negatives. The NAFTA affair is still rife with potentially damaging consequences. Prime Minister Harper himself has termed the matter very serious and unfair to Senator Obama. He called for an internal probe that failed to turn up the source of the leak. Reports have since emerged, however, alleging the PMO leaked the report to a close Republican contact, Frank Sensenbrenner. He is the son of James Sensenbrenner, a Republican congressman from Wisconsin. The diplomatic note then wound up in the hands of the Associated Press.
If these reports are true, it demonstrates unseemly cross-border collusion between Conservatives and Republicans and orchestrated interference in a U.S. election campaign by the Canadian government. Serious stuff.
John McCain is a fellow conservative but he's the last thing the Conservatives need in Ottawa this week. They should tell him to give his speech in North Dakota.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
The Economist
The war for the White House
Calculating the impact on America's presidential campaign
Jun 12th 2008
From The Economist print edition
From The Economist print edition
Calculating the impact on America's presidential campaign
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Lest anyone forget |
HOW much of a millstone is Iraq to John McCain, as he strives to become America's next president? Although the Republican candidate strenuously tries to avoid the charge that his presidency will amount to nothing more than a third term for George Bush, his support for the war is the single clearest policy difference between him and Barack Obama. Mr Obama's supporters are never likely to cease trumpeting that, back in 2002, from his perch in the Illinois Senate, he denounced the prospect as a “dumb” adventure which would lead to “a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.”
That proved remarkably prescient. And the polls suggest most Americans agree with Mr Obama. A recent poll for CBS shows 62% of Americans believing that the war is going badly, and 61% thinking that Iraq will “never” become a stable democracy.
Mr McCain, however, does have a few trumps to play. He correctly foresaw that the “surge” of troops into Baghdad and its region last summer would produce results. In fact, Mr McCain had been calling for the surge for three years before it happened. Last spring Mr Obama, by contrast, joined other Senate Democrats in trying not just to block the surge but to force Mr Bush into a timetable for ceasing all combat in Iraq within a year. Mr McCain is probably right to say that the consequences would have been chaotic and bloody.
In common with most Democrats, Mr Obama is also guilty of having shown little public recognition that the facts on the ground have changed materially in the past months. Mr McCain will try to paint his opponent as both blind to reality and a “Defeaticrat”—the charge of defeatism to which Democrats are perennially vulnerable. Mr Obama has pledged to withdraw one or two combat brigades each month and to have all troops out within 16 months (save for those needed to protect the American embassy and, perhaps, to attack any al-Qaeda hideouts in Iraq). Mr McCain can argue that such a strict timetable is risky.
For his part, Mr McCain is haunted by a remark he made in answer to a question at a campaign event. He said he would not object if American troops remained in Iraq for 100 years. The context makes clear that he was speaking of the possibility that some American forces may remain indefinitely after the fighting was over, as they have in Germany, Japan and South Korea. But Mr Obama gleefully pretends that he promises 100 years of war. This charge is hard to rebut, because Mr McCain has imposed no limit on the length of time that he would keep up the fighting. The furthest he has gone is to state that the majority of troops may be home by the end of his first full term (in January 2013).
Two factors may cheer the Republican. The first is that the anti-war vote is highly partisan. Some 83% of Democrats, according to CBS, think the war is going badly, while only 29% of Republicans think so. Independents, who are the voters that will determine the election, are much more evenly divided, though a majority do take the Democrats' view. Americans tend to prefer Mr McCain to Mr Obama as a commander-in-chief.
The other point is that, come the election, it is likely that no one will be paying that much attention to the war. The Project for Excellence in Journalism compared network news coverage in early 2007 and 2008, and found that the share of airtime devoted to Iraq fell from 22% of the total to 4%. If the economy continues to worsen, that share could fall even further. Although that sounds like good news for Mr McCain, the bad news is that his economic policies are viewed by many voters as being just as close to Mr Bush's as his policy on Iraq.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
CBBC BBC
Clinton backs Obama for president
Saturday June 07 2008 17:55 GMT
Hillary Clinton has withdrawn from the race to become the Democratic candidate in this year's American Election, and says she's now backing Barack Obama.
In a speech, Mrs Clinton thanked her supporters, but told them to start helping her former rival.
It was a close battle between the two, but last Tuesday Mr Obama announced he had won by getting more support from party members.
Now he'll face the Republican candidate John McCain, for the job of president.
Mrs Clinton made her speech to a hall packed full of cheering supporters in Washington.
Mr Obama is the Democrat candidateShe told them to start helping Mr Obama win the presidential election in November.
If Mrs Clinton had become Democrat candidate and won the election, she would have been the first woman ever to be president of America.
If Mr Obama is successful, he'll be the country's first black president.
Saturday June 07 2008 17:55 GMT
Hillary Clinton has withdrawn from the race to become the Democratic candidate in this year's American Election, and says she's now backing Barack Obama.
In a speech, Mrs Clinton thanked her supporters, but told them to start helping her former rival.
It was a close battle between the two, but last Tuesday Mr Obama announced he had won by getting more support from party members.
Now he'll face the Republican candidate John McCain, for the job of president.
Mrs Clinton made her speech to a hall packed full of cheering supporters in Washington.
Mr Obama is the Democrat candidateShe told them to start helping Mr Obama win the presidential election in November.
If Mrs Clinton had become Democrat candidate and won the election, she would have been the first woman ever to be president of America.
If Mr Obama is successful, he'll be the country's first black president.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
The Economist
Almost there
Barack Obama deserves the nomination. It is not yet clear whether he deserves the presidency
May 8th 2008
From The Economist print edition
From The Economist print edition
Barack Obama deserves the nomination. It is not yet clear whether he deserves the presidency
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IN CARTOONS there is often a moment when a hapless character, having galloped over a cliff, is still unaware of the fact and hangs suspended in the air, legs pumping wildly, until realisation dawns, gravity intervenes and downfall ensues. Hillary Clinton's campaign looks a bit like that this week. After her heavy loss in North Carolina and her barely perceptible victory in Indiana, a state she needed to carry triumphantly, Mrs Clinton's campaign is surely close to its end.
As The Economist went to press, Mrs Clinton was publicly still promising to keep on fighting right the way to the Denver convention. That remains her right. But it is hard to see what she, her party or her country can gain from the struggle.
This is largely to do with mathematics. After this week's two primaries, Barack Obama now leads by 166 elected delegates, and counting in the declared “superdelegate” party bigwigs only reduces his lead to 152. A mere six states are still in play. Mrs Clinton would stand a good chance in the first two, West Virginia and Kentucky. But thanks to the Democrats' proportional system, all the states will divide their delegates fairly closely. Mrs Clinton thus needs to win around 70% of the remaining superdelegates—a tall order when she will be behind in the popular vote. Even if she manages to get the hitherto disqualified primaries in Florida and Michigan counted (which, as it stands, would be unfair because nobody campaigned in one and Mr Obama was not on the ballot in the other), then she will come up short in terms of delegates and almost certainly in the popular vote count as well.
If Mrs Clinton bows out in the next week or so, her reputation as a tough fighter—one who has definitively forged a personality separate from her husband's—will have been enhanced. The only justification for her struggling on (assuming the money is there for her to do so) and probably plunging her party into legal warfare, would be the idea that her opponent is somehow unworthy of the nomination—in particular that Mr Obama is bound to lose in November, or that he is bound to be a poor president.
Neither charge stands up. This newspaper has hardly embraced Obamamania: we would still like to know more about what the young senator stands for; we have been appalled by some of the anti-capitalist rhetoric he (like Mrs Clinton) has spouted on the campaign trail; we worry about his strategy for leaving Iraq. But Mr Obama has plainly jumped over most of the hurdles the primary season has laid in front of him.
True, Mrs Clinton seems more popular among white working- and middle-class Americans. That puts Mr Obama at something of a disadvantage against John McCain, the Republican nominee. But arguments about Mr Obama's allure to white voters boil down rather too often to a coded argument about race: would America elect a black man? The United States still has big problems with race (see article), but its effect in the general election may be exaggerated.
Mr Obama's main problem with white voters may have more to do with class than race. To the white working man and woman, he has been seen too often as an aloof elitist, who can't drink whisky, displays a suspicious familiarity with the price of an arugula salad and memorably bowled a deplorable 37 in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Toffishness doomed John Kerry; but with Mr Obama, a child of a single mother who sometimes used food stamps, that picture is surely reversible.
Meanwhile, Mr Obama attracts other voters in a way Mrs Clinton never has. For every white bigot who switches sides because of Mr Obama's skin colour, there is likely to be a white independent—especially a young one—running to support him. The data show that young people, both black and white, prefer Mr Obama. Against Mrs Clinton, Mr McCain might have swept up all the independents; with Mr Obama he will have to split them. Mr Obama has raised money from close to 1.5m individuals, far more than anybody else ever has. That will stand him and his party in good stead come November. Each of those donors will be working hard to make sure that their investment is not wasted: an army of footsoldiers to fight the Republicans.
The other point of the primary system is to see what somebody is like under pressure, and to measure their presidential character. Mrs Clinton, for instance, has stood out, thus far at least, by her refusal to quit; Mr McCain by his refusal to compromise on either Iraq or free trade. Mr Obama is a less feisty sort, but he has exhibited enormous grace under pressure. In the past few weeks he has had to cope not just with a fresh set of outpourings from his turbulent former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, now mercifully disowned, but also with Mrs Clinton throwing the kitchen sink—and a lot of sharp cutlery—at him. Mr Obama's refusal to follow her (and Mr McCain) in supporting an idiotic summer suspension of the petrol tax, crude economic populism at its worst, was especially notable.
There is one final reason why Mr Obama is almost there. More than any other candidate this year, he has articulated an idea of a nobler America. That is partly because of who he is. When Mr Obama's parents married, in 1960, a union such as theirs, between a white woman and a black man, was illegal in over half of America's states. Now their son stands at the threshold of the White House. But it also has a lot to do with what he says and how he comports himself. Despite considerable provocation, he has never wavered from his commitment to bipartisanship—nor from the idea of America once again engaging with the world. There are severe problems with the details, on which Mr McCain will hopefully push him even further than Mrs Clinton has, but the upside of an Obama presidency remains greater than that of any other candidate.
For all these reasons, Mr Obama in our view now deserves the Democratic nomination. It is surely not worth Mrs Clinton dragging this to the convention. It is time for her, at a moment of her choosing, to concede gracefully and throw the considerable weight of the Clintons behind their party's best hope.
Friday, April 18, 2008
The Brampton Guardian
Elections are not new things to North Americans and while Canadians might think that sometimes elections can get pretty rough here, our elections are nothing compared to the current American presidential electioneering. The American election is sometimes uplifting and sometimes down right vicious with candidates kept running facing down old rumours and comments made by pastors, supporters and family members.
In Canada, we are used to a minimum 36 day election period with election posturing going on all the time. In America, including the primaries, caucuses and election posturing, electioneering has been going on since October 2007. By the time the American election is finally over on Nov. 4, 2008, it will have lasted 14 months.
If Americans seem to be weary of the hurly burly of this extended campaign and if they seem to be leery of the claims and counterclaims, rumours and downright nasty attack adds and commentaries going on within the Democratic Party and in the media, notably the electronic media, then you really can't blame them for feeling that their vote doesn't mean a lot.
Although the campaigning is going full tilt, the American election really doesn't start until both parties select their presidential candidates-- the Democrats in August and the Republicans in September. From that date on, the American election will really become mean and vicious as competing ideologies vie for the hearts and minds of Americans. On election day Nov. 4, Americans will elect their president, 35 senators and all the 435 members of the House of Representatives. It's a big deal.
It's a really big deal for Canadians as well, since the future of NAFTA may be at stake depending on who wins. The North American Free Trade Agreement is the backbone of our trade deal with the U.S. All of Canada has benefited by NAFTA, especially Ontario and Quebec where the auto pact has established a North American production zone. But things are hard for working people in the U.S. with unemployment and mortgage foreclosures, illegal immigration and cheap labour, dependence on foreign oil from the Mid-East and cheap goods from China and the lack of dependable health plans to protect people if they get sick or even if they need to see a doctor. The Democratic front runners have pressed the magic button in the industrial states by calling for a re-negotiation of NAFTA. What that means is anyone's guess but whenever America sneezes, we catch cold.
But this election is not only about economic solutions, it is about where America is headed in the early part of the 21st century. It doesn't appear that there is much patience for the status quo. Opinion polls show that Americans have grown disillusioned with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and have no patience for the current administration in Washington. Such is the political weariness of a nation facing many difficult challenges. As interested observers, we can sympathize with the 'ennui', the world-weariness, Americans feel, but we know that this election will not only affect them but people all over the world.
If Americans elect a Republican majority to Congress and elect a Republican as president, they will continue their policies and minor changes will happen as they continue to tweak government. For Canadians, that means that NAFTA remains the main economic driver in North America and American foreign policy remains constant.
The 2008 American Election-- a Canadian dilemma?
Friday April 18 2008
If the Democrats win, depending on the candidate, then a major shift will occur in foreign policy and the American economy. Depending on the Democratic candidate, the new president will embark on changing the profile of the United States around world. How that will play out for Canadians is anybodies guess.
Canadians are not active participants in the American election but we are not passive bystanders either. We have much to lose or much to maintain. There is still a long way to go before the Republican and Democratic conventions in September and August. The Republicans, having virtually selected their presidential candidate, can wait to see if the Democrats rend themselves apart at the Democratic convention. The Democrats may find a ticket that unites them and if they do, they may capture the American government and a different American reality may emerge.Whichever party wins, Canadians will need to meet the political challenges that come with a new administration.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
International Herald Tribune
U.S. election is all the rage in London
Published: April 13, 2008
LONDON: For some time, Londoners have been using the word "we" when referring to the U.S. elections.
With the British news media reporting every detail from the campaign trail, many here feel that they are sitting, if not in the front row, then in the one directly behind.
"Of course it's our election," said John Gordon, a founder of Intelligence Squared, organizer of a series of public debates attended by London's well-heeled set.
Gordon has left dinner parties to watch coverage of the U.S. primaries. "American policy is inextricably linked to our own," he said. "We are the 53rd state. We know every intimate detail of Michelle's hair."
The presidential campaign, and especially the Democratic contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, is being avidly followed in many countries where U.S. power and influence shape everyday lives. Few can remember a United States election that has generated such interest abroad, just as it has at home.
But the obsession of the British is unusual, thanks to the large American expatriate population. Londoners have been falling upon American friends and acquaintances to discuss politics. They angle for invitations to cocktail parties that include Americans, and they are gate-crashing fund-raising events given by U.S. residents in support of the candidates.
"The Brits keep calling and asking if they can come to our events," said a representative for Americans Abroad for Obama, who asked not to be named so as to better dodge the requests.
Among themselves, Londoners deploy expressions like "Who are you backing?" when discussing the elections. There are discussions almost anyplace, from Soho cafés to doctors' waiting rooms.
"I have never known an American election that has gripped the British public quite like this one," Piers Morgan, a British journalist and television producer, said by e-mail. "All my friends are talking about it and asking how they can crash the party."
Especially among British members of the trans-Atlantic business and social class, people express the desire to hop a 747 and drop in on one of the primary states.
"Most of London's smart set already consider themselves Americans," said Adrian Monck, head of journalism and publishing at City University in London and an author of the forthcoming book "Can You Trust the Media?" ( "They all holiday in Nantucket and Cape Cod. Everyone here has watched the whole series of 'The West Wing.' If I had the funds, I would certainly throw money in theObama pot."
U.S. electoral laws prevent foreign citizens from donating directly to a political candidate, which would preclude buying a ticket to a fund-raising cocktail party or dinner.
But the laws cannot stop Londoners from attending as a nonpaying plus-one.
Ian Rosen, an American private-equity executive in London, hosted an Obama evening in February.
Later, he learned that British interlopers had mingled with the crowd, most likely spouses and guests of Americans.
"I was really surprised by how passionately the British feel about the U.S. elections," Rosen said. "Many have stronger feelings on the subject than we do."
Of the estimated 225,000 Americans residing in Britain, many work in fields like entertainment and finance.
When an American-born restaurateur, Ruthie Rogers, gave a glittering cocktail fund-raiser for Clinton last fall at her Chelsea home (designed by her husband, Richard Rogers, an architect), a few Brits attended.
One was Ian Osborne, a marketing executive. He sampled canapes with an audience of American investment bankers and some socialites, including Jerry Hall.
"I just stayed a few minutes," Osborne said. (This is British for not wanting to show off.)
An invitation to a $1,000-a-head cocktail party - or better yet, a dinner by candlelight in the home of a high-profile fund-raiser like Lynn Forrester de Rothschild, an American who is married to the banker Evelyn de Rothschild - is this season's hottest ticket.
The most talked-about London fund-raising event for Obama is scheduled for April 28 at the Notting Hill home of Elisabeth Murdoch, a daughter of Rupert Murdoch of News Corp.
Elisabeth Murdoch is a U.S. citizen married to a British national (Matthew Freud, a public relations executive), as are other members of the host committee, like Gwyneth Paltrow and Rogers.
The e-mail invitation to the evening, where donors contributing $2,300 will be admitted to a "VIP pre-reception," states that it is limited to U.S. citizens or holders of U.S. green cards. But the invitation continues, "We do expect to be able to make an exception to allow attendance for accompanied non-U.S.-citizen spouses of U.S. citizens at the main reception."
Osborne pointed out that attending such a party can be part of a strategy for elevating one's social standing. "If Obama or Clinton is elected and comes to London, a host committee will be formed," he said. "Everyone wants to be on that list."
"The private dinner afterwards," he said, "will be the hottest ticket of all."
One possible candidate for such a host committee, the filmmaker Matthew Vaughn, an Obama supporter who is married to the former supermodel Claudia Schiffer, said: "What's fascinating to me is that for years people had lost faith in politics. Now everyone wants to watch the events unfold."
It is not always clear who is after an invitation to a future Downing Street reception and who is just addicted to the latest political drama.
To some observers, the desire to be in the mix, if and when a president who is African-American or female comes to London from Washington, is reminiscent of the years when Vaclav Havel, the former dissident writer, held sway in Prague as president of Czechoslovakia.
"I remember all these trendy Notting Hillers flying off to Czechoslovakia to meet him, just so they could say they had," said Francis Wheen, deputy editor of Private Eye, the satirical British magazine.
Monday, March 3, 2008
The Toronto Star
Mar 03, 2008 07:27 PM
WASHINGTON–Canada was pulled smack into the middle of the U.S. election campaign today at a do-or-die juncture for Hillary Clinton, who jumped on a memo suggesting a top Barack Obama adviser told Canadians not to take his anti-NAFTA rhetoric too seriously.
After days of denials from the Canadian Embassy and the Obama campaign that any such conversation took place, a memo surfaced saying it did – on Feb. 8 at the Canadian consulate in Chicago.
But Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee insisted his comments about NAFTA at the meeting were misconstrued in the summarizing brief written by a Canadian official.
"Nobody reached out to the Canadians to try to assure them of anything," Obama told reporters in Carrollton, Texas.
Asked why he had appeared to deny a report last week that a meeting had taken place at all, Obama said: "That was the information I had at the time."
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Foreign Affairs officials, meanwhile, expressed regret over the memo.
There was no intent to suggest Obama didn't mean what he said publicly about reopening the North American Free Trade Agreement, they said, and Canada doesn't want to interfere in the Democratic race.
But the memo provided new fodder for Clinton, whose bid for the Democratic nomination rests partly on winning Tuesday's Ohio primary. One way to do so is to break Obama's hold on blue-collar workers who blame NAFTA for job losses.
The latest polls suggest Clinton is holding an edge over Obama in the state, but they differ on the margin of support she holds.
In Ottawa, Opposition parties have accused the Conservative government of leaking word of the meeting last week to CTV News in order to hurt Democrats and help Republican JohnMcCain in the U.S. presidential election this fall.
Bob Shrum, a top Democratic strategist, also accused Canada's Conservatives of "actively interfering" in the U.S. election campaign.
On Monday, NDP Leader Jack Layton demanded Harper fire the source of the leak, identified by an unnamed ABC source as his chief of staff Ian Brodie.
"I certainly deny any allegation that this government has attempted to interfere in the American election," Harper said during question period.
The Conservatives don't condone any suggestion that Obama is engaging in doubletalk on NAFTA, said Harper, adding the government ``certainly regrets it."
"I am confident that whoever (wins), man or woman, Democrat or Republican, that person will continue the strong alliance, friendship and partnership that we enjoy with the United States."
Both Obama and Clinton said in a debate in Ohio last week that they would threaten to pull out of NAFTA if it isn't reopened to include protections for workers and the environment. Neither one has offered details.
Harper called any attempt to renegotiate NAFTA a "mistake."
Trade Minister David Emerson has raised the possibility that the deal's favourable status for Americans on Canadian oil exports could be on the line.
"There isn't a Canadian alive that doesn't depend directly or indirectly on the benefit that have occurred from trade and particularly from NAFTA," he said Monday. "So it's fundamental to Canada's interest."
In Toledo, Clinton accused Obama of misleading people in Ohio while giving Canadians the "wink-wink" over his tough talk on trade.
"NAFTA – I don't just criticize it," she told cheering supporters. "I don't have my campaign go tell a foreign government behind closed doors: `That's just politics. Don't pay attention to it'."
"I think that's the kind of difference between talk and action that I've been talking about."
Obama spokesman Bill Burton hit back, saying Clinton "knows full well that she's not telling the truth on this story."
"Her blatant distortion is just part of her campaign's stated strategy to throw the kitchen sink at Senator Obama in the closing days of this campaign," he said.
The memo of the meeting with Goolsbee includes a long, three-page, single-spaced portion on NAFTA written by consulate employee Joseph DeMora.
It says Goolsbee privately told Canadian Consul General Georges Rioux that Obama's attack on free trade is "more reflective of political manoeuvring than policy."
"Goolsbee candidly acknowledged the protectionist sentiment that has emerged, particularly in the Midwest, during the primary campaign," it said.
"He cautioned that this messaging should not be taken out of context and should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans."
Goolsbee disputed the characterization, saying those weren't his words.
"That's this guy's language," Goolsbee said. "He's not quoting me. I certainly did not use that phrase in any way."
The memo went on to say Goolsbee noted that going forward, "the Obama camp was going to be careful to send the appropriate message without coming off too protectionist."
The 40-minute meeting was described as an introductory get-together with parties involved in the U.S. election.
The memo said Goolsbee suggested Obama didn't want to fundamentally alter NAFTA.
Obama supports "strengthening and clarifying language on labour mobility and the environment and trying to establish these as core principles of the agreement," the memo said.
That mirrors Obama's position on the campaign trail and Goolsbee said it's accurate.
The memo also said Goolsbee emphasized that Canada is an important energy partner and talk in the U.S. about the negative impact of trade wasn't aimed at Canada but rather countries like Peru and Korea.
"One of Goolsbee's predominant messages was that the campaign was not `stressed out' by Canada," it said.
DeMora concluded by saying that "we are likely to see a continuation of some of the messaging that hasn't played in Canada's favour" asObama continues to court the economic populist vote.
"But this should continue to be viewed in the context in which it is delivered."
Goolsbee acknowledged that Rioux expressed concerns about Obama being a protectionist.
He said he told officials the Illinois senator tries to strike a balance between the economic struggles of working Americans and recognizing that free trade is good for the economy.
The Obama aide expressed surprise at the controversy created by the meeting, saying only a couple minutes were spent on NAFTA.
The embarrassing flap left Foreign Affairs scrambling to make amends in a statement, saying "there was no intention to convey, in any way, that SenatorObama and his campaign team were taking a different position in public from views expressed in private, including about NAFTA."
"We deeply regret any inference that may have been drawn to that effect," it said. "Canada will not interfere in this electoral process."
The original CTV News report also said that aides for Clinton told Canadian officials not to worry about her strong anti-NAFTA rhetoric on the campaign trail – something her camp flatly denied.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
The Hindu
The mother of all American elections
Photos: Agencies
Who will it be? The Democratic nomination is a close call. For anyone who is a true fan of politics as a spectator sport — the sheer pleasure of watching the democratic process, with all its dramas and unpredictabilities, unfold — the American presidential elections of 2008 have already emerged a s a classic. The spectacle of the world’s oldest democracy engaged in the quadrennial act of electing its chief executive offers virtually unlimited fodder for political junkies, but this time it has been truly special.
| For true fans of politics as a spectator sport, the American presidential elections of 2008 have already emerged as a classic. |
Who will it be? The Democratic nomination is a close call.
The great elections of history are always watersheds — in India’s case, the 1952 elections, because they were the first; the 1977 elections, because they ended the era of Congress Party dominance; and arguably the 1989 elections, since they established the pattern of governmental alternance and coalition rule that have come to define our national politics ever since. In the last century, the U.S. can point to its 1932 election, which ushered in the FDR [Franklin Delano Roosevelt] Revolution and the “New Deal”; the 1960 election, which brought, with JFK [John Fitzgerald Kennedy], the handing over of the torch to a new generation of Americans; and perhaps the 2000 elections, the first to be settled by the Supreme Court, which launched the U.S. on a radically different path at home and abroad. But the 2008 elections promise to be a watershed irrespective of the governmental policies that will follow its outcome, for the contest itself marks the first time that one of the two major parties looks likely to nominate a candidate from a group that has never had a nominee before. The Democratic candidate will almost certainly be either a woman, HillaryClinton, or a black American, Barack Obama — in a country where in 220 years of elections, the world’s oldest democracy has never elected a President or a Vice-President who isn’t white, male and Christian.
Prolonged Test series And what a contest it has already been! This was the first election since 1952 in which there wasn’t a candidate in the fray who was either an incumbent or former President or Vice-President. I once observed that if other countries’ elections are like a Test match, the U.S. elections are like an entire Test series, with an ODI tournament thrown in. The multiple exercises in balloting — primary elections, caucuses, conventions, the actual elections, then the Electoral College — mean that the electoral process takes longer than any other democracy, produces far more candidates and gives you almost unlimited opportunities to enjoy the roller-coaster ride. This electoral cycle, to extend the cricketing metaphor, has been more like a World Cup, with 10 Republicans and eight Democrats actively contesting the State-by-State caucuses and primaries that lead to their parties’ nominations. At the beginning no one would have predicted the semi-finalists who have emerged. Six months ago, the Democratic race seemed to be between Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, with HillaryClinton holding a commanding lead in all the polls. Today, she is locked in a neck-and-neck contest with a youthful, first-term black Senator whose chances had been written off by every pundit. On the Republican side, six months ago JohnMcCain ’s campaign was in such disarray that there were reports that he would pull out altogether. The contest seemed to be between the former New York Mayor and anti-terrorism hawk, Rudy Giuliani, who for months led in nationwide polling and who seemingly had a lock on the national security-minded gun-toters who are so influential in the Republican Party, and the former Massachusetts Governor, Mitt Romney, who looked the most “Presidential” of the pack and had the most money. Today both are gone,McCain is virtually certain to claim the nomination — and his only remaining challenger is a folksy former Arkansas Governor from a town called Hope (the same town as Bill Clinton), Mike Huckabee, who has the strong backing of Christian evangelicals, social conservatives and blue-collar Republicans.
Head to headHuckabee, though, is running out of steam (and money), though he continues to win primaries in southern States, it is a reasonably safe assumption thatMcCain will be the Republican nominee, though he is detested by the party’s far-Right wing for his maverick independence and his willingness to work with Democrats. On the Democrat side, there are no safe assumptions. A candidate must win 2,205 delegates to capture the Democratic nomination. According to the Associated Press’ tally as of Sunday night,Clinton has 1,125 delegates pledged to her and Obama has 1,087. By the time this article appears in print, these numbers will have changed, with Tuesday’s primaries expected to putObama ahead. Hillary has already replaced her campaign manager with a black woman, but this does not necessarily signal last-ditch desperation: if she does well in the big States that have yet to vote (Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania), she could still win the nomination. In Texas, with a large number of Hispanic voters (who have historically tended to see themselves in competition with blacks), Hillary is far ahead;Obama will have to fight hard in the other two big States, though the momentum in February is clearly with him. Even that doesn’t tell the whole story: their semi-final could still end in a tie, since there is a risk that neither of them might emerge from the remaining primaries with a majority of delegates. In that case the nominee will have to be chosen by the party convention in Denver in August. This has not happened within living memory: for half a century now the conventions have merely ratified the pre-ordained results of the primaries. No wonder the political junkies are licking their chops. 2008 is already proving to be a landmark contest — as Saddam might have said, the mother of all American elections.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
The Daily Telegraph
Clinton, Obama close; McCain ahead
Article from: Reuters
By John Whitesides in Washington
February 06, 2008 06:20pm
DEMOCRAT Barack Obama and rival Hillary Clinton split key Super Tuesday victories and Republican John McCain won nine states but failed to knock out his rivals in presidential nominating contests in 24 US states.
In their hard-fought duel for the Democratic nomination, Obama won 12 states and Clinton took eight but that included the two biggest prizes of the night - California and New York - on the biggest day of US presidential voting ahead of November's election.
“There is one thing on this February night that we do not need the final results to know: Our time has come,” Obama told cheering supporters in Chicago. “Our movement is real, and change is coming to America.”
McCain had hoped to nail down the nomination with a big night and his nine wins included California and several big Northeastern states.
But rival Mitt Romney took six states and Mike Huckabee won five, in what commentators are saying is a remarkable comeback that has left Romney's camp nervous.
“Tonight, I think we must get used to the idea that we are the Republican Party frontrunner for the nomination,” McCain said in Scottsdale, Arizona. “And I don't really mind it one bit.”
The biggest prize of the night was California, which offers the country's biggest haul of delegates to party conventions that choose the parties' presidential candidates for the November 4 election to succeed President George W.Bush.
US media had predicted Clinton and McCain would win.
The mixed outcome in the coast-to-coast voting, with all contenders in both parties scoring at least five wins, appeared certain to prolong the hard-fought nominating races in both parties. More contests in a half-dozen states are slated in the coming week.
The Clinton and Obama camps said they expected the count of delegates for the night to be relatively even
.
“This is not going to be decided tonight,” Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean said.
National exit polls showed more than half of Democratic voters ranked the ability to bring change as the top attribute for a candidate. Nearly one-quarter of Democrats voting in the party's 22 contests ranked experience, Clinton's selling card, as the most important attribute.
About 44 per cent of Republican voters preferred a candidate who shared their values, while one-quarter wanted a candidate with experience.
More than half the total delegates to the Democratic convention in August and about 40 per cent of the delegates to the Republican convention in September will be apportioned in the Super Tuesday voting.
Economic worries - plunging housing values, rising energy and food prices, jittery financial markets and new data showing a big contraction in the service sector - eclipsed the Iraq war as voters' top concern in both parties, exit polls showed.
Article from: Reuters
By John Whitesides in Washington
February 06, 2008 06:20pm
DEMOCRAT Barack Obama and rival Hillary Clinton split key Super Tuesday victories and Republican John McCain won nine states but failed to knock out his rivals in presidential nominating contests in 24 US states.
In their hard-fought duel for the Democratic nomination, Obama won 12 states and Clinton took eight but that included the two biggest prizes of the night - California and New York - on the biggest day of US presidential voting ahead of November's election.
“There is one thing on this February night that we do not need the final results to know: Our time has come,” Obama told cheering supporters in Chicago. “Our movement is real, and change is coming to America.”
McCain had hoped to nail down the nomination with a big night and his nine wins included California and several big Northeastern states.
But rival Mitt Romney took six states and Mike Huckabee won five, in what commentators are saying is a remarkable comeback that has left Romney's camp nervous.
“Tonight, I think we must get used to the idea that we are the Republican Party frontrunner for the nomination,” McCain said in Scottsdale, Arizona. “And I don't really mind it one bit.”
The biggest prize of the night was California, which offers the country's biggest haul of delegates to party conventions that choose the parties' presidential candidates for the November 4 election to succeed President George W.Bush.
US media had predicted Clinton and McCain would win.
The mixed outcome in the coast-to-coast voting, with all contenders in both parties scoring at least five wins, appeared certain to prolong the hard-fought nominating races in both parties. More contests in a half-dozen states are slated in the coming week.
The Clinton and Obama camps said they expected the count of delegates for the night to be relatively even
.
“This is not going to be decided tonight,” Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean said.
National exit polls showed more than half of Democratic voters ranked the ability to bring change as the top attribute for a candidate. Nearly one-quarter of Democrats voting in the party's 22 contests ranked experience, Clinton's selling card, as the most important attribute.
About 44 per cent of Republican voters preferred a candidate who shared their values, while one-quarter wanted a candidate with experience.
More than half the total delegates to the Democratic convention in August and about 40 per cent of the delegates to the Republican convention in September will be apportioned in the Super Tuesday voting.
Economic worries - plunging housing values, rising energy and food prices, jittery financial markets and new data showing a big contraction in the service sector - eclipsed the Iraq war as voters' top concern in both parties, exit polls showed.
Friday, February 1, 2008
The Hindu
A week is a long time in politics Ramesh Thakur
| Barack Obama has reframed the contest in terms of the past versus the future and the choice between status quo and change. |
The American election is the gift that keeps on giving. Normal may be just a cycle in the washing machine; there is nothing normal about this election cycle. Received wisdom is being upended as routinely as public opinion polls are. For Indians, the politics of vote banks is starting to find a disturbing echo in the primary campaign. It all makes for a riveting spectator sport.
Having listened to the folks of New Hampshire in the week before the primary, Hillary Clinton famously found her own voice. In South Carolina that voice was drowned by her husband’s. The voters recoiled but it does not as yet make her history. The election of a woman or an African-American as the Democratic candidate is history-in-the-making. That sense of destiny, reinforced by the iconic Kennedy clan’s endorsement of BarackObama, has captured the international imagination as well. In an article in Sunday’s New York Times evocatively titled “A president like my father,” Caroline Kennedy wrote that in Mr. Obama she saw an echo of the force of inspiration that people told her they had felt with her father but she herself had never experienced. She was supporting Mr.Obama for a mix of “patriotic, political and personal” reasons that are intertwined. Touchingly, it was her children who first made her realise that Mr.Obama “is the president we need”.
The “dog whistle” style of politics refers to the use of coded language addressed to a voting constituency. Like dogs who can hear a whistle too high-pitched for the human ear, they grasp the message that cannot be pinpointed in the actual text by critics. The Clintons’ strategy has been to appear to be seeking the black vote in South Carolina where Africa-Americans make up half the Democratic constituency, lose it, and then benefit from the white and Latino backlash in the rest of the country. The more that BillClinton appealed to black voters to back his wife and the more they spurned her, the more he hoped to succeed in turning the election into one on race, to Mr.Obama’s ultimate loss. For example, Sergio Bendixen from the Clinton campaign was quoted as saying “The Hispanic voter has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates.” In the debate on January 15, Tim Russert of the NBC read out the quote toClinton who, rather than repudiate it, responded that Mr. Bendixen “was making a historical statement.”
But the decisive 55:27 per cent margin of victory in South Carolina undercut this strategy of marginalising Mr. Obama as merely a candidate of black America. Unlike Jesse Jackson in the 1980s, Mr. Obama has successfully transcended racial identity to appeal to all Americans. He lost to Hillary among white women; he held his own with her among white men; and he outpolled her among white youth. She lost the black male and female vote decisively. Hence Mr.Obama’s tribute to the diversity of his coalition.
The tawdry final week of South Carolina brought too many painful reminders of how the Clintons soil almost everything they touch. For the first time, with vintageClinton tactics turned against one of their own, many Democrats began to “get” why the Clintons provoke so much hatred from the Republicans. Thus said William Greider in The Nation — the bastion of left-liberal journalism in America: “The Clintons play dirty when they feel threatened ... High-minded and self-important on the surface, smarmily duplicitous underneath, meanwhile jabbing hard to the groin area” (January 23). Many others have picked up on the theme of the Clintons as self-pitying narcissists who will try every trick to destroy anyone impertinent enough to stand between them and the White House.
The good that Bill Clinton did was real — as his admirers ask, which part of his double legacy do you not understand, “peace” or prosperity” — but belongs to the 1990s. The damage that he might cause from this point on is considerable. He has belittled and denigrated Mr.Obama , brushing aside the early, principled and consistent opposition to the Iraq war as a fairytale. He warned the people of Iowa against rolling the dice by choosing Mr.Obama . If that was a gamble on the unknown, columnist Maureen Dowd commented caustically, voting for Hillary would guarantee an endless rerun of theClinton soap opera in the White House. Bill Clinton has snarled and wagged his fingers angrily at reporters, thereby ensuring a hostile press.
Most tellingly, he delivered his wife’s concession speech in South Carolina to underline the reality of a co-candidacy. This too has had several deleterious consequences for the Hillary campaign, starting with seeking to garner the women’s vote by relying on her husband. Why would an avowed feminist be accompanied by her husband during the selection process? Is he taking directions from her or out of control — an attack dog that has jumped the leash? Uncomfortable pundits are debating the constitutional nuances of a co-presidency. Bill’s active and very visible intrusion into the campaign reopens, legitimately, all the old unanswered questions about past scandals and raises fresh ones about his activities and financial links since he left office. A double-headedClinton candidacy would energise the Republican base while demotivating the Democrats.
When Mr. Clinton came on the giant TV screens to make the concession speech, the Obama crowd started booing. This would have been unthinkable a month ago against an icon of the Democratic Party. At worst they would have applauded politely. His roll of the dice risks diminishing his reputation in the party and nation, damaging his wife’s primary campaign, destroying his party’s electoral prospects, and fracturing the country along racial lines. Some legacy.
Mr. Obama’s victory speech was another rousing oration that dipped deep into the wellsprings of hope, optimism and unity. There were also flashes of hard-edged anger, condemning those who will say and do anything to win, denouncing those who are so partisan that they will demonise any crediting of ideas to a Republican, and rejecting all attempts to file candidates and voters into ethnic and gender boxes. He has emerged a stronger and tougher candidate after the ructions of South Carolina.
Parts of the Democratic establishment have begun to challenge Mr. Clinton for playing fast and loose with the truth and engaging in wedge politics based on ethnicity. Senator John Kerry, the original victim of “swiftboating” in the last election, has sharply criticised the Clintons for their fear and smear tactics, saying “being an ex-President does not give you licence to abuse the truth.” Others have bemoaned conduct unbecoming a former President. Senator Edward Kennedy was so incensed that he had an angry exchange with Mr.Clinton on the phone. Abandoning his customary neutrality among Democratic primary contestants, on Monday, in a poignant passing of the torch, he endorsed Mr.Obama and promised to campaign aggressively for him.
Delivered among several thousand screaming supporters at the American University in the nation’s capital, the endorsement packed a powerful rhetorical and emotional one-two punch of its own. Introduced by his niece Caroline and joined by his son Representative Patrick, who too endorsed Mr.Obama, the patriarch affirmed the centrepiece of the Obama campaign: it was time to embrace the vision of an America united in hope and bonded in a common dream by a person who refuses to be trapped in the patterns of the past, will unify the nation and heal its wounds.
The Kennedy endorsementThis wraps Mr. Obama in the aura and mystique of the Kennedy legend, opens doors and brings connections. The weight of the Kennedy endorsement will resonate in the Democratic base, among liberals, unionised workers, blacks and Hispanics. It is a powerful repudiation of the coreClinton theme of Mr. Obama ’s unreliability based on inexperience. The Kennedys are the ultimate metaphors for change, vitality, youthful excitement and Democratic legitimacy. The national press will run the story for days leading to Super Tuesday. The Kennedy entourage will ensure fevered local press coverage wherever he campaigns for Mr.Obama. It may also tip other would-be supporters into endorsing Mr. Obama openly without worrying about retaliation from the feared Clinton machine.
Sustaining the momentum, also on Monday Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, who in 1998 memorably described Bill Clinton as “our first black president,” endorsed Mr. Obama as “the man for this time”.
Mr. Obama has reframed the contest in terms of the past versus the future and the choice between status quo and change. He has caught the momentum and the surge makes it prudent to discount her significant national lead in the polls. We may get a decisive outcome on February 5 when 22 States, including the biggest, hold their primary. Or we may have to wait until the convention in Denver in late August as it becomes a delegate-by-delegate dogfight.
In the meantime, the incumbent struggles to make his final State of the Union address heard above the din of the primaries. To all intents and purposes, the American people have already turned the page on his presidency and are eager to begin a new chapter.
Amen.
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