busyObama Highlights Support for Veterans, Working Women
Globe staff, The Boston Globe: "Senator Barack Obama reached out yesterday to two key groups of voters - veterans and women - who could prove crucial
in the November election."
This is Obama being smart and responsive. The easiest voters to pick up are usually the ones who are getting shafted by the current administration, if your opponent's platform matches the status quo. The challenge, of course, is that women aren't crazy about him because he beat Hillary, and veterans would probably prefer the fellow veteran, McCain. So if Obama can win over a sizable portion of these voting blocks, that will be some valuable evidence for his ability to make alliances and address people's needed.
Health Care on the Mississippi
Trudy Lieberman, The Columbia Journalism Review: "Plenty of coverage has depicted the McCain and Obama plans in broad brush strokes: McCain wants to rip up the employer-based health care system, replace it with tax credits for families and individuals, and require workers to pay income taxes on the value of their health insurance benefits from employers. He also wants families to make medical decisions. Obama would let people keep insurance from their bosses but make it easier for those who are uninsured to buy coverage through a public plan like Medicare. Neither would require people to carry health insurance (except Obama requires it for kids)."㔵
Continue to keep a sharp eye on platform differences, especially health care. Presence or absence of health insurance can determine whether people live or die. Think carefully about how each candidate's proposed plan would affect you and your family.
Voter Registration Key to Democratic Plan for Virginia
Tim Craig, The Washington Post: "Virginia has added nearly a quarter-million registered voters since the 2004 elections, and about half of that growth came from increasingly Democratic Northern Virginia."
This year is seeing the biggest boom in voter interest and registration in quite a long time. We need to protect that by making sure that these newly-registered voters actually get to vote, that their votes are accurately recorded and fairly counted. A majority of new voters seem to lean Democratic, but the Republicans are getting a boost as their folks react to the Democratic surge. Even the Greens and other small parties are picking up a bit. If we hook those people with a good fair election, they may stick around and help straighten out the mess. If they feel cheated in November, kiss most of them goodbye.
Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III | Is Obama the End of Black Politics? A Ridiculous Question
Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III, Truthout: "On August 10, 2008, The New York Times published an article by Matt Bai entitled 'Is Obama the End of Black Politics?' The premise of the article is that in 2008, 60 years after Strom Thurmond left the Democratic Party over the issue of integrating the armed forces and 45 years after Dr. King's 'I Have a Dream' speech, the Democratic Party is poised to deliver its nomination for the nation's highest office to an African-American, and this somehow signals the end of black politics. To equate Senator Obama's historic campaign for the highest office in the land and presumed nomination by the Democratic Party with the end of black politics demonstrates that the author does not understand either issue."
We won't see the end of black politics until the question becomes pointless, not ridiculous. It depends wholly on America's ability to transcend its fundamentally racist roots. That's hard, and the progress we're making is very slow. However, Obama's very credible run for President is a great leap forward.
Top CEOs Give Ten Times More to McCain Than to Obama
Michael O'Brien, The Hill: "The top executives of America's biggest companies are more willing to open their wallets for John McCain than his Democratic rival, donating 10 times as much to the Arizona senator's campaign as to Barack Obama's."
In other words, they can tell which side of the bread their financial butter is on. It wouldn't be in their best interests moneywise to vote for Obama, who's likely to favor average people over those with abundant wealth. On the other hoof, Obama is also more likely to respond effectively to global warming and other environmental threats: a vital point for personal and descendant survival.
Frank Rich | The Candidate We Still Don't Know
Frank Rich, The New York Times: "What is widely known is the skin-deep, out-of-date McCain image. As this fairy tale has it, the hero who survived the Hanoi Hilton has stood up as rebelliously in Washington as he did to his Vietnamese captors. He strenuously opposed the execution of the Iraq war; he slammed the president's response to Katrina; he fought the 'agents of intolerance' of the religious right; he crusaded against the GOP House leader Tom DeLay, the criminal lobbyist Jack Abramoff and their coterie of influence-peddlers. With the exception of McCain's imprisonment in Vietnam, every aspect of this profile in courage is inaccurate or defunct."
Candidates change during an election. Obama has drifted a bit midwards; McCain is tending rightwards. The savvy voter should 1) track the candidates' current positions in relation to previous positions, and 2) track the candidates' positions in relation to each other. Even if he's not as good as he seemed at first, you probably still want to back the guy who is closest to your ideals. But that may not be the first guy you picked out.
Obama Backers Mobilize in Bid to Wrest North Carolina From Republican Grip
Katharine Q. Seelye, The New York Times: "Despite the relentless heat, and midsummer lull, the Obama campaign is mobilizing in North Carolina. The state is one of half a dozen once-solid Republican bastions, including Georgia, Indiana and Virginia, where Democrats now sniff opportunity to expand the electoral map. They hope that North Carolina's growth, especially among high-tech workers in Research Triangle Park, will help change voting patterns that are decades old. But the Obama strategy relies on a surge among black voters and young people, two groups that have not turned out in great numbers in recent elections."
This is another point on the voting map, this time highlighting a traditionally Republican state and two more voting blocks that Obama is courting. Getting more people involved in the election is good, because it gives a better representation of the country's diversity. And remember -- they won't just be voting for a President. Those new-minted voters will cast a whole ballot. That can leave a big footprint if they don't like the way things have been.
August 21 2008, 20:28:06 UTC 12 years ago
August 21 2008, 21:57:42 UTC 12 years ago