“I realize that passing this budget won’t be easy. Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington. I know that the insurance industry won’t like the idea that they’ll have to bid competitively to continue offering Medicare coverage, but that’s how we’ll help preserve and protect Medicare and lower health care costs for American families. I know that banks and big student lenders won’t like the idea that we’re ending their huge taxpayer subsidies, but that’s how we’ll save taxpayers nearly $50 billion and make college more affordable. I know that oil and gas companies won’t like us ending nearly $30 billion in tax breaks, but that’s how we’ll help fund a renewable energy economy that will create new jobs and new industries. I know these steps won’t sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they’re gearing up for a fight as we speak. My message to them is this:
As a child I was always extremely intrigued and slightly jealous of those who grew up in the 60s. Those who got to say they were there when the struggle for civil rights was being fought for. Those who witnessed the immense changes that were happening in our country. I always wished I could have said I was there. I daydreamed about what I would do in those times.
I always wondered what it was like to be in any watershed moment of our country.
Today, we are witness to one of those events.
It arrives on the back of the 60s, an era in which i was born but just barely. Today this country once again rises up and proves it’s greatness.
And we are witness.
This is a moment that is incredibly hard for me to write about because language is incapable of expressing what I feel. Followers of this blog and my political writing have probably wondered where I’ve been. I’ve been spent. The end of the election felt like winning a 12 round heavyweight title fight. The objective was reached, but the subject was spent. Unable to walk even out of the ring. Engaging in modern day Presidential political discourse is entirely exhausting. The fact that we were able to defeat the vile nature of the attacks launched during this cycle makes me smile. That the Palin Mob’s were overcome by decent Americans despite the candidate’s dark skin and our racial baggage fills me with pride in both the democratic process and our great country.
I’m going to sit and watch Barack HUSSEIN Obama be sworn in with my oldest daughter and know that she now understands how lucky we are to be alive in this moment…in this country. I won’t have to speak a word to communicate this fact. It’s fundamental to the times in which she is living.
Congratulations America.
We ought to all be humbled that we are witnesses to this extraordinary time.
It looks like the trendlines are about the same. If McCain doesn’t narrow the gap soon in PA he may have to shut it down as well. North Carolina might need the resources. Florida for sure does! Together they represent a pickup of 32 EVs over Kerry’s 2004 performance. Both have recently broken hard for Obama.
It seems like a perfectly legitimate question to me and is easily diffused. Release the records. I mean release them without the KGB type rules for viewing them. O’Reilly and the wingnuts are up in arms over it. They are willing to spend MONTHS on conspiracy theories over birth certificates, but are unwilling to take a full look at a candidate’s medical records? That’s one version of “fair and balanced”.
This would not be as big an issue if we weren’t staring down a Sarah Palin Presidency.
Say those last three words 3 times to yourself real slowly.
Then think again about wanting to know more about John’s health.
Details are coming out on the events of the day and it is crystal clear what is going on here. Barack Obama reached out to John McCain to try to work together to calm fears and settle the current economic crisis. John McCain and his Rovian pals tried to play this for political advantage.
It’s going to backfire.
Huge.
Did you catch the details? Obama called McCain at 8:30am to work on a joint statement. McCain calls back at 2:30pm and agrees…then shortly after suspends his campaign, calls on he and Obama to go back to Washington, and wants to delay the debate Friday. All of this before getting a joint statement out, effectively nullifying such.
Immediately after the announcement, White House press secretary Dana Perino released this statement: “We welcome Sen. McCain’s announcement. We are making progress in negotiations on the financial markets rescue legislation, but we have not finished it yet. Bipartisan support from Sens. McCain and Obama would be helpful in driving to a conclusion.”
Immediately. Almost as if planned or scripted. Huh.
I’m glad Obama didn’t bend on the debate and he (more softly) made my “walk and chew crisis” point rather well. No reason they can’t do both. McCain is wanting to portray Obama as unwilling to help. He’s wanting to use this as some sort of “country first” argument. They better not let him get away with it. Let’s see how long the “bi-partisan” nature of their argument takes to wear off.
Here’s an open question to anyone on the right who cares to answer it. Will the same WorldNet Wingnuts who demanded John Kerry open up his records also demand that John McCain sign Standard Form-180 and open up his military records as well? Full scrutiny is, aftterall, very important for the public to get a true sense for the man they may elect President in November. Right?
There are indeed very many questions to be answered. What does John “The Maverick War Hero” McCain have to hide???
The Navy may claim that it already released McCain’s record to the Associated Press on May 7, 2008 in response to the AP’s Freedom of Information Act request. But the McCain file the Navy released contained 19 pages — a two-page overview and 17 pages detailing Awards and Decorations. Each of these 17 pages is stamped with a number. These numbers range from 0069 to 0636. When arranged in ascending order, they precisely track the chronology of McCain’s career. It seems reasonable to ask the Navy whether there are at least 636 pages in McCain’s file, of which 617 weren’t released to the Associated Press.
Apparently, having a Republican heap praise on a Democrat running for President is not so good for another Republican who happens to be running for the same job. Back during the primary, Illinois State Senator Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale) was featured in an Obama ad talking about how the Senator did great work in Illinois getting both sides to work together (ie: get shit done).
John McCain has but the kibosh on any of that kind of talk. The Chicago Tribune is reporting that Dillard has sent a letter to Obama strategist David Axelrod asking him not to use any of the footage shot with him in any ads in the general election. The Obama camp has said they will not.
Not surprisingly, Republicans were pissed back then when Kirk did the honorable thing and told the truth about Barack Obama’s service in the Illinois Senate. His response to these critics is something we should remember:
“I owe it to the American public and my friend, Sen. Obama, to tell the truth, for better or for worse, [about] what were the early years of his elected life in Springfield,” Dillard said recently. “In many ways, because he is the first African-American to have a realistic chance of being the president, I owe it to everyone to not be partisan in my reflections upon what was Sen. Obama’s record in a city in which Abraham Lincoln lived.”
Yes, Senator. You should tell the truth. Thanks for doing so. Took great courage.
I guess the stories of John McCain not getting this new media thing (along with staff) are true. I mean doesn’t the Senator understand that we on teh Interwebs can slice and dice Kirk’s ad spot any way we wish and that if it is desired to be seen it will?
In case there were any feminist outliers who wanted to think about voting for John McCain over Barack Obama due to perceived treatment of Hillary Clinton:
Clayton Williams is a prominent person in Texas politics. Prominent enough to secure the GOP gubernatorial election in 1990. During this election campaign he said various things that decent people find abhorrent, such as joking about rape that “As long as it’s inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it.” These remarks were publicized in Texas and perhaps played a role in Williams’ 1990 loss. But this is a big country, and there are lots of non-decent people out there. Thus, Williams was tapped as a fundraiser for John McCain and put together an event that was going to raise $300,00 for McCain.
Event gets cancelled. 300k is alot. Uncancelled. Bundled. Blah.
If you give two shits about women’s issues you will fervently work to defeat McCain and defend Obama at every turn. If we end up with McCain, we won’t be lying back and taking it, we’ll be bent over…for 4 more years. Think about it.
FLINT, Mich. (AP) — Barack Obama’s campaign envisions a path to the presidency that could include Virginia, Georgia and several Rocky Mountain states, but not necessarily the pair of battlegrounds that decided the last two elections — Florida and Ohio.
In a private pitch late last week to donors and former supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe outlined several alternatives to reaching the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House that runs counter to the conventional wisdom of recent elections.
At a fundraiser held at a Washington brewery Friday, Plouffe told a largely young crowd that the electoral map would be fundamentally different from the one in 2004. Wins in Ohio and Florida would guarantee Obama the presidency if he holds onto the states won by Democrat John Kerry, Plouffe said, but those two battlegrounds aren’t required for victory.
Florida, which has 27 electoral votes this year, gave the presidency to George W. Bush in the disputed election of 2000. Ohio, with its 20 electoral votes, ensured Bush of re-election in 2004 in his race against Kerry.
The presumed Democratic nominee’s electoral math counts on holding onto the states Kerry won, among them Michigan (17 electoral votes), where Obama campaigns on Monday and Tuesday. Plouffe said most of the Kerry states should be reliable for Obama, but three currently look relatively competitive with Republican rival John McCain — Pennsylvania, Michigan and particularly New Hampshire.
Asked about his remarks, Plouffe said Ohio and Florida start out very competitive — but he stressed that they are not tougher than other swing states and said Obama will play “extremely hard” for both. But he said the strategy is not reliant on one or two states.
They’ve changed the electoral math already. No reason for me to believe they won’t continue to. They won a nomination in a way that speaks to this untraditional methodology.
I’m hoping we can deliver Ohio and seal the deal, but it’s nice knowing we may not necessarily LOSE it for him. I think we’ll deliver and you’ll have to stay tuned to learn how. It’s in the works.
Today is the day. After some tough talk from some trusted friends, Hillary has finally decided to read the handwriting that has been on the wall for months. She will suspend her campaign and throw her support behind the presumptive nominee Barack Obama.
About time. I’m an Obama supporter and have been for a long time now, but I say the following as someone who wants real change from the Republican nightmare that got me blogging in the first place. Here is what I want to hear from Hillary:
She should rally her supporters and thank them for their loyal support. Nobody can question their loyalty, which rivaled anything Obama supporters could bring. That’s the reason for the division, this equal loyalty on both sides that was equally as stubborn as well.
She should remind her supporters that they can still honor her and support what she believes in by supporting Barack Obama. She should also tell them in no uncertain terms that any talk of protesting her not getting the nomination by voting for McCain would dishonor her personally. She shouldn’t give some weak “that would be the wrong thing to do” as she has in the past. She needs to make it personal. Tell them they will be offending her personally if they do such a thing.
Her tone in this speech needs to be precisely opposite from her speech after the June 3 contests. She should stand proud, but not be defiant. She should lament a loss, but be hopeful in what an Obama campaign in the general can bring.
She should remind everyone of the danger of not uniting and losing the momentum that has seen Democrats come out in record numbers while Republicans have essentially settled for John McCain. We’ve not settled, we’ve fiercely battled and picked the best candidate in an energetic process that set records. We must continue to set records in taking back this country from a McBush continuation of the George W. Bush nightmare.
Hillary is a political professional. She needs to pull out all the stops and give the speech of her life. it will not only help us in the general election and help to heal divisions and give us a spark going into the Obama-McCain battle, but will enhance her future political ambitions. To do that, she needs to talk just enough about her race and what she accomplished. Her focus, however, should be on what happens now and what her and her supporters should do to help us win.
Obama has given her and her supporters the space they need to do the right thing. It is hard. Thinking of Obama suspending his campaign makes me nauseous. I can completely relate to what some Hillary supporters must be feeling. I’m truly empathetic to that. I know it will take some time and all the right moves by both Hillary and Obama. She can open the door to that process. I expect he’ll continue it in a way that will honor her and her supporters. He has to.
I look forward to a new day of unity and focus on winning in November. It’s the most important contest since I began blogging and those of us on our side of the political spectrum can not take this lightly. We have to win.
Go Hillary. Help bring us together. You do that and I’ll work hard to forgive and forget the primary.
