We agree with Hillary Clinton & Barack Obama, we support the progressive values they support, and we share their dedication to making this nation better... That's why we're Democrats! :-)
Showing posts with label 2008 presidential election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2008 presidential election. Show all posts
On Saturday, when the daily tracking polls first saw a decline in Barack Obama's post-convention lead (which at one point was high as nine points), Nate at 538.com warned readers that this would happen. And it did.
Yesterday, Gallup had McCain up by 3 and Rasmussen had them tied. And those numbers included data collected on Thursday, before his speech. Thursday's numbers should be better for Obama than the data collected on Sunday. In today's tracking polls, Thursday will cycle out and be replaced by Sunday. So we should expect McCain's lead to grow. In that context, a USA Today/Gallup poll that puts McCain ahead 50-46 (registered voters; 54-44 if looking at likely voters) should not be much of a surprise.
How long will this convention bounce last? Because the conventions were so close together, the McCain's bounce should last a bit longer than Obama's bounce. From 538.com:
That is, the Republicans would still be getting some residual benefit from having had the last convention for perhaps as many as two or three weeks from today.
Intuitively, that feels somewhat wrong to me. Most conventions are held over the summer, when the news cycle is much slower, and the convention gets to linger for longer as the last thing on voters' minds. This does, however, raise an important point: political time is relative rather than absolute. If it feels like the Democratic Convention was a month ago -- well, in political time, it might as well have been a month ago, since Sarah Palin and the Republican Convention displaced it as the first thing that voters will recall when they think about the election.
What I am saying, then, is that we should evaluate the robustness of the Republican bounce by how well it holds up to the currents of political time, rather than any specific date on the calendar. Specifically, I would want to see how the bounce holds up to the next major development of the campaign, particularly if it is a pro-Obama development. For example, let's say that Colin Powell endorses Obama tomorrow morning. I might expect a fairly strong reaction to this in the polls, not because the endorsement is all that important unto itself (most endorsements aren't), but because it displaces the GOP Convention as the most recent event of the campaign -- it pushes political time forward. And if the polls didn't move in reaction to such an endorsement, I'd think Democrats would have reason to worry.
So panic not. In 1996, after the Republican National Convention, Bob Dole got big bounce. In one poll he went from trailing by 20 points to trailing by only two, a difference within the margin of error. And this was the result on election day, a 379-159 electoral vote landslide for President Bill Clinton.
During this election cycle, in part because of the excitement over the historic Democratic primary and in part because of President Bush's unpopularity, more voters are identifying themselves as Democrats than Republicans, giving Democrats a 7 point advantage nationwide.
If independents are asked toward which party they lean, the lead expands to nine points.
Why isn't the lead in party identification translating into a larger lead in the polls? Because the Democratic party is divided. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released last week gave Senator Obama a statistically non-significant 3 point lead, down from six points a month earlier. The reason, according to the pollster, is the Clinton Democrats.
Yet perhaps the biggest factor keeping the presidential race close has been Obama’s inability to close the deal with some of Hillary Clinton’s supporters. According to the poll, 52 percent of them say they will vote for Obama, but 21 percent are backing McCain, with an additional 27 percent who are undecided or want to vote for someone else.
What’s more, those who backed Clinton in the primaries — but aren’t supporting Obama right now — tend to view McCain in a better light than Obama and have more confidence in McCain’s ability to be commander-in-chief.
Senator McCain, who cannot run a campaign based on his ideas of continuing the policies of George Bush, is trying to exploit the lingering wounds of a tough primary battle by running ads like this, release yesterday:
In this election, the Democrats have the power to decide who wins. The only way that McCain wins this race is if we allow his strategy of divide and conquer to succeed.
What can we do? The most important factor is that we stop fighting the primary wars. The primaries ended more than a month ago. Barack is over it. Hillary is over it. And we need to get over it, too. When a troll comes around trying to ignite a fight over snipergate or bittergate or Hillary said this or Barack said this, ignore it. Don't get sucked in. You may have very good reasons for hating Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama but expressing them now only advances what has become John McCain's only strategy for winning the White House: Divide the Democratic Party.
I know we went poll-crazy here yesterday, but there was one more tidbit that got overlooked in the frenzy last night. With the ugly numbers that we woke up to, many rejoiced at the numbers from the NBC/WSJ and CBS/NYT polls putting giving Obama a 3 point lead, 45-42.
Yet perhaps the biggest factor keeping the presidential race close has been Obama’s inability to close the deal with some of Hillary Clinton’s supporters. According to the poll, 52 percent of them say they will vote for Obama, but 21 percent are backing McCain, with an additional 27 percent who are undecided or want to vote for someone else.
What’s more, those who backed Clinton in the primaries — but aren’t supporting Obama right now — tend to view McCain in a better light than Obama and have more confidence in McCain’s ability to be commander-in-chief.
For these reasons, Hart believes that Clinton’s speech on the Tuesday night of the Democratic convention will be a significant event. “The Democratic convention is more than a coronation,” he says. “It is an event where the words of Hillary Clinton are probably going to be exceptionally important.”
Hart adds, “The Hillary Clinton campaign may be over, but the Clinton factor remains an important part of the election.”
It’s also worth noting that while Obama leads McCain by three points in the poll, Clinton edges the Republican by six points in a hypothetical match up, 49 to 43 percent. But she remains a polarizing figure: 49 percent say they don’t want to see her as president someday, and 42 percent view her favorably versus 41 percent who see her in a negative light.
No doubt there are people who rejoiced at yesterday's numbers and maybe even saw an opening for Hillary on the ticket or even as a surprise nominee next week. I am already on the record as opposing a unity ticket and I have dismissed any possibility of Hillary being resurrected in 2008. I write about polling because (a) I am a statistics dork and I find the number-crunch fascinating and (b) I want reinforce the message that this election won't be a cakewalk.
If that doesn't square with your image of Psychodrew as a bitter Clintonista with "unresolved issues," so be it. I'll continue speaking my mind. And you continue speaking yours.
Senator Barack Obama has started a sustained and hard-hitting advertising campaign against Senator John McCain in states that will be vital this fall, painting Mr. McCain in a series of commercials as disconnected from the economic struggles of the middle class.
Mr. Obama has begun the drive with little fanfare, often eschewing the modern campaign technique of unveiling new spots for the news media before they run in an effort to win added (free) attention. Mr. Obama, whose candidacy has been built in part on a promise to transcend traditional politics, is running the negative commercials on local stations even as he runs generally positive spots nationally, during prime-time coverage of the Olympics.
The negative spots reflect the sharper tone Mr. Obama has struck in recent days on the stump as he heads into his party’s nominating convention in Denver next week, and seem to address the anxiety among some Democrats that Mr. Obama has not answered a volley of attacks by Mr. McCain with enough force.
I've been criticized a great deal for reporting bad polling data. There's an assumption that I revel in it and blog the data because I a bitter Clintonistas who hasn't gotten over Hillary's loss. My assurances that I was supporting Obama were ignored as certain people here insisted I was cherry-picking bad news to report. I've been told:
"Get over it, dead-ender!"
"The primaries are over!"
"Bitter much?"
"You want him to lose!"
"Go back to NoQuarter!"
To those who doubt my sincerity, I ask, "How do you explain this data?"
Either:
(a) RCP is a bitter pro-Clinton organization, OR
(b) some of you need to take off the rose-colored glasses, stop attacking the bearers of bad news, and realize that this election is not going to be a cakewalk.
I want Obama to win, and when I see people high-fiving one another for a landslide that hasn't happened yet, I'm going to call them out on it. I'm going to point out potential weaknesses. It's not because I don't want him to win. It's because I'm a gay American without equal rights, a graduate student with crappy health insurance, and the son of union parents who watched as Republicans used the government to weaken unions and worker's rights.
I NEED him to win. I can't afford for him to lose, no matter how upset I may be about the primaries. So please stop attacking the bearers of bad news and start focusing your energy toward what is important: Victory in November!
Updated at 9:45pm EST by Psychodrew
Since so many people were insisting that 538.com knows everything, I paid a visit. And guess what I saw:
Our popular vote projection shows a literal tie, with each of Barack Obama and John McCain projected to earn 48.5 percent of the vote, and third-party candidates receiving a collective 3 percent.
Things get confusing, however, when looking at the electoral college. We project Obama to earn slightly more electoral votes on average. However, we also project John McCain to win the election slightly more often. What accounts for the discrepancy? Obama's wins tend to be larger, and McCain's tend to be smaller. If Obama wins this election by between 7 or 10 points, there are very few high-EV states that he won't be able to put into play; even something like Texas is probably winnable. If McCain were to win by that margin, on the other hand, he would still almost certainly lose New York, he would almost certainly lose Illinois, and he would almost certainly lose California. Those states represent 107 electoral votes that are essentially off-limits to McCain, even on his very best days.
But when the election is close -- and this is the case that we really care about -- McCain has appeared to develop a slight advantage in the electoral math. There are several states on our map that are colored light pink, meaning that they tip very slightly to the Republicans; these include Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, Florida, Montana and Nevada, in each of which Obama has better than a 25 percent chance of winning, but less than a 50 percent chance. There are a fairly large number of scenarios, then, where Obama comes tantalizingly close to a victory, but loses several different battleground states by mere points or fractions thereof. This dynamic is fairly fluid, however, and if Obama were able to get a toehold somewhere like Colorado or Virginia, it could quickly reverse itself.
Who's going to break the news to Poblano that he is a bitter, dead-ender McPuma troll?
Updated at 1:35pm EST by Psychodrew
Since I'm the bearer of bad news today. I just read this in the LA Times:
John McCain has begun rallying dispirited Republicans behind him, while Democratic rival Barack Obama has made scant progress building new support, leaving the presidential race statistically tied, according to a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll.
The survey highlights Obama's vulnerability on the question of his readiness to lead the nation. Less than half of the registered voters polled think the first-term Illinois senator has the "right" experience to be president, while 80% believe McCain, a four-term senator, does.
SNIP
In a head-to-head matchup, Obama holds a narrow edge over McCain, 45% to 43%, which falls within the margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. (In June, Obama was ahead by 12 points in the Times/Bloomberg poll, but other surveys at the time showed him with a narrower lead.)
More striking, however, is the drop in Obama's favorable rating. It has slid from 59% to 48% since the June poll. At the same time, his negative rating has risen from 27% to 35%. The bulk of that shift stems from Republicans souring on Obama amid ferocious attacks on the Democrat by McCain and his allies.
Just a quick note because atdleft reminded me, and I know a lot of us don't want to miss this. Tomorrow (Thursday, August 8) at 12 PM EST at hillaryclinton.com, Hillary will be holding a web chat (watch her video invitation) to talk about upcoming events and activities. She's constantly reminding us of the importance of electing Obama our next president:
In just the past few weeks I've been incredibly moved by your continued commitment. You've helped me so much make progress on raising the funds to retire the campaign debt, to pay the small vendors who helped us take our message across the country. Your continued support has made such a difference as we continue to champion universal healthcare and an economy that sustains the American Dream, and especially as we work together to elect Barack Obama President of the United States so we'll be able to fulfill the goals we care about so deeply.
And that's what we're trying to accomplish -- we need a Democrat in the White House if we're going to have any chance of getting this country back on track. Hillary is supporting Obama not only because she's a good Democrat, but also because he will fight for the causes she (and all of us) believe in. She'll have a much easier time fighting for us in the Senate if Barack is president, so let's help get him elected and push Hillary's legislation through.
So don't miss out on her web chat tomorrow (especially if you're going through Hillary withdrawal like I am), and keep checking in at her website for updates on the convention and upcoming events.
And of course, don't forget to donate to Hillary and Barack, either via their websites or through the new Clintonistas for Obama Act Blue page. I recommend the latter, naturally. It will also give you an opportunity to donate to other great down ticket candidates. Exciting though the presidential race may be, gaining seats always a top priority.
This is just a personal anecdote about a pleasant experience I had this evening. Back in '07, before I'd chosen a candidate, a friend asked me who I'd be voting for. I really had no idea, but I told her I was leaning toward Obama - I didn't want to support a Clinton, and I hadn't yet fully connected with Edwards. I liked Obama because he was new. My friend said, "Hell no, you better vote for Hillary. First female president, baby! Don't help put a nigger in the White House."
I cringed slightly, and she apologized halfheartedly. She really isn't a bad person, deep down. She has many wonderful qualities, and she tries to respectfully keep her bigotry to herself when she's around me. She just grew up in a bad environment, and she's almost certainly bipolar (undiagnosed). She's never been mean to an African American, as far as I'm aware. She treats them just as she treats everyone else, but at the same time, I know she thinks they're beneath her. About a year ago, she called me one afternoon sobbing her eyes out and begging me to come over. She poured us both several shots of the most disgusting vodka imaginable (Aristocrat, which is all she can afford), and mournfully told me about the horrible mistake she'd made the night before - she'd gotten drunk and slept with a black man. Her embarrassment was incomprehensible to me, but having spent at least as many nights with African Americans as with whites, perhaps I was in a poor position to judge. I just couldn't see her point of view or why she was upset.
But she was - she was humiliated and disgusted. She felt like she couldn't wash away her shame. I tried all my usual talking points, attempting to help her understand why sleeping with an African American is no different from sleeping with a white person. No amount of logic or reason seemed to reach her. At a loss, I finally shared an exceptionally embarrassing sexual experience of my own, and she laughed hard enough to momentarily forget her disgust.
She never got over the experience, though - she had "fucked a nigger," and it was inexcusable in her mind. She just doesn't want to have much to do with black people, and no one can help her overcome her racism but herself.
When I saw her tonight, I remembered to ask her how she felt about Hillary's loss. I knew my friend wanted a female president so badly, and I knew Obama's race would probably impact her vote. But instead of attacking Obama or the DNC, she said, "It just wasn't Hillary's time - it's too soon after Bill. Everyone would have just said she was riding his coattails." When I asked whether she was leaning toward McCain or Obama, she looked at me like I was crazy. She asked me why in hell anyone would vote for Bush 3.0. She said anyone who voted for McCain had a death wish. She has no health insurance, nor does her husband, and she can't afford to fill her gas tank anymore. The US wasn't ready for a woman president, she insisted, but she also assured me that Hillary would still be president one day, just not this year. It was Obama's time now, and he'd be making a different kind of history.
I told her I'd be casting my vote for Barack and mentioned that I'd gotten an Obama sticker for my car. Her first question was, "Excellent, do you have an extra one??"
I don't have an extra, but her birthday is August 7, and she will most definitely be receiving one
This is yet another reason I'm not worried. A woman who doesn't particularly like "niggers" is going to vote for Barack in November and ride around in her car with an Obama sticker for months. Jesus Christ, what are we really so afraid of? Will racism really kill Obama's campaign? Apparently the GOP has messed up so badly that even a few racists are willing to do the right thing.
Yes, that's right. Bush has screwed this country so royally that a bigot will be running to the polls to vote for a black man. Behold your legacy, Shrub. By November, that moran will do more to unify this country than Barack ever thought about doing.
I think some of the PUMA people in particular are making the mistake of giving John McCain the benefit of the doubt. By now, everyone has borne witness to his frantic appeals to the fundies of the far Right; I've rarely seen such outrageous and blatant pandering. I get the impression that McCain doesn't necessarily agree with everything he's saying, and that's the problem. McCain makes it easy for some of us to think, "He's just pandering during the election - he doesn't believe that stuff." Maybe some assume he won't hold to all the hard-line GOP positions once he's in office. Fortunately, there's one thing which can dispel this notion, and no one can it excuse as harmless pandering: his voting record.
If children's issues are any voter's top priority, McCain is the worst choice possible. I'm not talking about the choice between Obama and McCain - I'm talking about a hypothetical choice between McCain and any other US Senator. In 2007, the Children's Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst Senator for children's issues. Obama and Clinton both have a history of child advocacy and scored well. This is a pattern which has held for three years. In 2005, the CDF rated Clinton 100%, Obama 100%, and McCain 22% based on their votes on bills addressing children's issues; in 2006, McCain's score deteriorated further, falling to 10%, while Clinton and Obama scored 90% and 100% respectively. Assessed by his votes on ten bills pertaining to children's issues, the CDF found that McCain's score held steady at 10% in 2007. Last year, voting on bills affecting children was not something he considered sufficiently important to show up to work for; he missed eight out of ten bills pertaining to children's issues, including but not limited to, ignoring or voting against a bill to increase funding for education for children with disabilities (absent), a bill designed to protect children from unsafe medications (absent), a bill which would extend health coverage to 3.2 million more uninsured children (nay), and a bill which supported education for children of immigrants (absent). McCain has also gone out of his way to agree with Bush's decision to veto children's health insurance expansion.
The bill, which would cost $35 billion over five years, is meant to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program to provide coverage to an additional 10 million children. . . .Bush said he vetoed the bill because he considered it a step towards "federalizing" medicine and an inappropriately expanding the program's goal beyond its original focus on helping poor children.
During an interview onboard the CNN Election Express in South Carolina, McCain said he agreed with the president's decision.
. . . Texas' public school accountability system, the model for the national No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), directly contributes to lower graduation rates. Each year Texas public high schools lose at least 135,000 youth prior to graduation -- a disproportionate number of whom are African-American, Latino and English-as-a-second-language (ESL) students.
[. . .]
"High-stakes, test-based accountability doesn't lead to school improvement or equitable educational possibilities," said Linda McSpadden McNeil, director of the Center for Education at Rice University. "It leads to avoidable losses of students. Inherently the system creates a dilemma for principals: comply or educate. Unfortunately we found that compliance means losing students."
While McCain insists on continuing the failed policies of the past, Obama has made education reform a key part of his platform. He has called education "the currency of the Information Age," and promised to support initiatives to provide critical support to young children and their parents ("Zero to Five" plan); expand Early Head Start and Head Start; provide affordable and high-quality child care to ease the burden on working families; reform NCLB; make math and science education a national priority; address the dropout crisis; expand high-quality afterschool opportunities; expand summer learning opportunities; support college outreach programs; support english language learners; recruit, prepare, retain, and reward America's teachers; make college affordable for all Americans by creating a new American Opportunity Tax Credit; and simplify the application process for financial aid. Senator Obama's has a strong and consistent record on improving education opportunities for America's youth:
Record of Advocacy: Obama has been a leader on educational issues throughout his career. In the Illinois State Senate, Obama was a leader on early childhood education, helping create the state's Early Learning Council. In the U.S. Senate, Obama has been a leader in working to make college more affordable. His very first bill sought to increase the maximum Pell Grant award to $5,100. As a member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee, Obama helped pass legislation to achieve that goal in the recent improvements to the Higher Education Act. Obama has also introduced legislation to create Teacher Residency Programs and to increase federal support for summer learning opportunities.
And there's one more education issue upon which McCain is out to lunch: Sex education. Asked by a reporter whether he supported grants for sex education in the United States, McCain stumbled over the issue:
Q: "What about grants for sex education in the United States? Should they include instructions about using contraceptives? Or should it be Bush's policy, which is just abstinence?"
McCain: (Long pause) "Ahhh. I think I support the president's policy."
Q: "So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?"
McCain: (Long pause) "You've stumped me."
Q: "I mean, I think you'd probably agree it probably does help stop it?"
McCain: (Laughs) "Are we on the Straight Talk express? I'm not informed enough on it. Let me find out. You know, I'm sure I've taken a position on it on the past. I have to find out what my position was. Brian, would you find out what my position is on contraception - I'm sure I'm opposed to government spending on it, I'm sure I support the president's policies on it."
Something about this exchange doesn't inspire much confidence in a potential President McCain. He either has no idea what his position is, or he can't remember what the GOP wants him to say. Planned Parenthood has harshly criticized his opposition to spending $100 million to prevent unintended and teen pregnancies, legislation requiring that abstinence-only programs be medically accurate and scientifically based, and comprehensive sex education. I've always found it ironic that Republicans generally oppose any form of government funded sex education in public schools, which might prevent unwanted pregnancies and the transfer of sexual diseases, yet they condemn abortion. The inconsistency involved in this sort of thinking is alarmingly short-sighted.
Obama has taken a far more progressive stance on sex education, advocating age-appropriate sex ed. Controversy flared when Obama proposed sex education for kindergarteners, provided the children were prepared. The GOP slammed him on this position, despite the potential benefits it could provide. Even David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network has supported Obama's stance:
"Barack Obama supports sensible, community-driven education for children because, among other things, he believes it could help protect them from pedophiles. A child's knowledge of the difference between appropriate and inappropriate touching is crucial to keeping them safe from predators. . . . Obama doesn't want to hand out condoms to five year olds. He doesn't want cucumber demonstrations as part of show and tell. The legitimate reasonable discussion here is whether the federal government and/or local school boards should get involved in providing these five year olds information about inappropriate touching or should it be left up to families only."
Predictably, such considerations haven't occurred - or just don't matter - to McCain, who has clearly made children's issues one of his lowest priorities. For any involved, concerned parent, Senator Obama is the obvious choice.
If any of you managed to make it all the way through this dry, boring diary, thank you and congratulations. As a reward, I now present to you several adorable pictures of our candidates with cute little babies. Please, I know it's tough, but try not to faint from an overload of cuteness. I will not be responsible for any injuries you may incur from falling out of your computer chair.
Oh, dear. Is it just me, or do McCain and the baby look a little frightened?
As a Clinton supporter, I think I had it wrong for a long time.
I heard Obama supporters talking about a new kind of politics - a kind which incorporated hope and change. For some reason, I decided this was a silly notion; I scoffed at Barack Obama's message: It was too idealistic, too vague. What did "Vote Hope" really mean? How had Obama rallied such a massive base of support around the nebulous concept of "hope"? Maybe that's part of what used to frustrate me - I simply didn't understand. Did his supporters believe his campaign would always stay positive? Every politician has to fight back against the opposition. They all get down in the mud, so didn't that make Obama just another typical politician?
It took me a very long time to formally "come to Obama," and an even longer time to understand his message of hope. I was looking at it the wrong way - I was trying to turn hope into something concrete and measurable, and I'd forgotten that some things can't be clinically analyzed or quantified. Hope isn't a static or tangible thing because it means something different to everyone. I do have hope for a new type of politics and a new kind of president in Barack Obama. I have faith in his ability to win the general election. He believes in the 50-State Strategy, and he perfected and implemented it with remarkable efficacy during the primaries. I have no doubt he'll use similar tactics in the fall as he makes the GOP fight for every stronghold. I have faith in his ability to govern and lead. He built his phenomenal campaign from the ground up and, with the help of his enthusiastic supporters, turned it into an unstoppable force.
He understands the true meaning of modern, people-powered politics. The sum he raised from small donors was unprecedented, and since signing up at his website, I've begun to understand why his supporters always felt so involved in his campaign. The number of emails which arrive in my mailbox from various listservs is staggering. (Of course, that's partially my fault for signing up for multiple groups and selecting the "receive all emails" option.)
Savvy politician though he is, he still isn't of the same mold as most of the other presidential candidates. Obama made a pleasant impression on me at one point during the Nevada debate. When Tim Russert asked him for his greatest weakness, I remember feeling that his answer was almost endearing:
I ask my staff member to hand me paper until two seconds before I need it because I will lose it. And my desk and my office doesn't look good. I've got to have somebody around me who is keeping track of that stuff. And that's not trivial; I need to have good people in place who can make sure that systems run. That's what I've always done, and that's why we run not only a good campaign, but a good U.S. Senate office. - Barack Obama
That was the first time Barack made me laugh - not because his answer was stupid, but because it was so painfully honest. As for my candidate and John Edwards? They gave beauty pagent answers. They each took one of their strengths and carefully crafted them into weaknesses:
I think weakness, I sometimes have a very powerful emotional response to pain that I see around me, when I see a man like Donnie Ingram (ph), who I met a few months ago in South Carolina, who worked for 33 years in the mill, reminded me very much of the kind of people that I grew up with, who's about to lose his job, has no idea where he's going to go, what he's going to do. I mean, his dignity and self-respect is at issue. And I feel that in a really personal way and in a very emotional way. And I think sometimes that can undermine what you need to do. - John Edwards
So I have tried to create opportunities, both on an individual basis, intervening to help people who have no where else to turn, to be their champion. And then to make those changes. And I think I can deliver change. I think I understand how to make it possible for more people to live up to their God-given potential. I get impatient. I get, you know, really frustrated when people don't seem to understand that we can do so much more to help each other. Sometimes I come across that way. I admit that. I get very concerned about, you know, pushing further and faster than perhaps people are ready to go. - Hillary Clinton
Hearing their answers, I experienced just the faintest sense of disappointment. As much as I adored them both, it struck me that their responses were very... old Washington.
Obama created a unique environment at his rallies and events. He created an atmosphere of unity and trust so complete that people were willing to pass their own babies through the crowd to reach him. The first time I heard about it, I was slightly appalled until I saw the gentleness and meticulous care with which his supporters handled other people's children. It's a scene I watched with no small amount of wonder and amazement.
Hillary Clinton inspired me because she showed me that a strong woman can do anything. Barack Obama inspires me because he showed me that the American Dream is still possible, still viable, still within reach. His story is inspiring: A young man, half white, half African American, who was brought up by a single mother who understood the meaning of a financially strapped existence - and yet, he defeated Hillary Clinton in the primary and is poised to become the first African American president of the United States. He has said that his story wouldn't be possible in any other country on earth. He is the ultimate embodiment of the American Dream. By a strange and poignant coincidence, he will be formally nominated on August 28, 2008, the 45th Anniversary Martin Luther King, Jr.'s I Have A Dream speech, and through that nomination, part of Dr. King's dream will become a reality - a reality which will be reinforced when Obama triumphs in November. If a victory like that won't put you on the hope train, I can't imagine what would.
So maybe his candidacy means something slightly different to everyone, and in my case, Barack Obama gives me hope because he is a symbol for those of us who long ago lost faith that the American Dream was still alive. Finally, I think I'm fairly certain I understand what the slogan "Vote Hope" really means.
1. No attacks on posters or other commenters. 2. No thread hijacking is allowed. 3. Foul language is permitted, but language that is demeaning of one's race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and/or gender identity is NOT.
The administrators reserve the right to moderate and/or delete any comments that violate the Terms of Use.
Comments, suggestions, or complaints may be sent to c4oblog@yahoo.com
Posts
