Vegas

This weekend I traveled to Las Vegas to register voters in one of the most evenly divided states in the country. It was an experience I won't soon forget. Las Vegas is very different from all other cities I have visited in America. Money at a level previously unknown to me and severely impoverished neighborhoods are separated by nothing more than a few blocks and a freeway overpass. Nowhere else in the world can you so frequently find Pink Escalade stretch -limos parked alongside tattered old Cutlass Supremes.

However, in Vegas I did more than observe. I and over 200 other volunteers registered people outside of supermarkets, strip malls, and at the UNLV vs. UNR rivalry football game. Voters at the supermarkets in our area of north-eastern Las Vegas espoused a wide variety of ideologies. Some folks were fervent supporters of either Obama or McCain, but quite often the people we registered were still undecided. Some shoppers were already registered, or claimed to be to avoid talking to me. Others were opposed to voting in general despite the possible deciding role their state could play in the upcoming election. As a result, many people signed up as non-partisan voters that will continue to ponder their choice between McCain and Obama.

I will save the tales from the college football tailgate in the Las Vegas desert for another time. What I will say is that all the talk of college students being tree-hugging, hopeful Obama fanatics should be taken with a grain of salt. I personally talked with many college students last Saturday that are spitting mad at the idea of being led by a Democrat who many believed was a poor military strategist and an inexperienced leader. Sadly, there were also those who believed that among worse things, Barack Obama is a "Flag-burning Muslim."
This trip illustrated in painfully real terms the bitter division among Democrats and Republicans that thrives in many parts of our country.

Voting for President is being confused with Voting for Prom Court

Why does the Republican base like Sarah Palin so much? She is simple. The base of Republican America sees the same qualities in Palin that they saw and liked in Bush in 2000. She shares their lifestyle, their beliefs, their virtues and their flaws. Traditionally elitist Republicans like George Will do not approve of the movement towards simplistic, down-home, anti-establishment candidates for the highest office in the land, and they have good reason.

With regard to the anti-establishment view David Brooks of the New York Times writes, "I would have more sympathy for this view if I hadn’t just lived through the last eight years. For if the Bush administration was anything, it was the anti-establishment attitude put into executive practice. And the problem with this attitude is that, especially in his first term, it made Bush inept at governance. It turns out that governance, the creation and execution of policy, is hard. It requires acquired skills. Most of all, it requires prudence."
Later in this well written column Brooks also mentions how Bush and Palin compensate for their lack of experience with "brashness" and "excessive decisiveness."

The unsuccessfulness of the Bush presidency showed the Washington elite the danger of letting stubborn, inexperienced politicians take over Washington. But small town Republican voters do not evaluate leadership in the same way. They base their votes on instincts; on the likeability and school-of-life knowledge of a candidate. In their minds a quality formal education merits nothing short of disdain.

Before thinking critically about the idea of regular people taking control of Washington I was not so concerned. I thought it was only fair that ordinary citizens be allowed to choose candidates who are most closely connected with them, but I was wrong. We should want better leadership for our country than ourselves. We must trust that although Barack Obama was President of the Harvard Law Review and we never will be, that he knows how to solve our nation's dilemmas with the expedience and prudence beyond that of a simple hockey mom or a rancher. They may embody familiar traits and values, but those qualities are not what we should strive to find in a Commander and Chief. Although Sarah Palin is not running for President, she represents the overarching "anti-elite" chorus that is rising throughout Middle America and scaring prudent Republicans and Liberals alike.

PLEASE READ David Brook's concise column that I referred to in my post
it is well worth your time

One-ups have gone TOO far

Humor me for a moment and consider the campaign trail to be a pot of boiling water. Imagine that the pot is the campaign season itself, and the boiling water inside is the substance; the issues and the rhetoric of the candidates. If so, it seems the current financial crisis, among other things, has effectively vaporized all the water (a.k.a. substance) from both campaigns.
McCain and Obama began their battle for the white house by advertising themselves as the most worthy candidates. They proceeded to highlight their opposition's weaknesses, which in most campaigns is to be expected. However, as of late the candidates have taken their battle to new lows in choosing to accuse their opponent of things that are untrue, tell egregious lies about themselves and their record (maybe this is just Sarah Palin), and by frequently making promises that are impossible to keep.
McCain has built a career on advocating against over-regulation of business, but in light of the current financial crisis he has cried louder for wall street regulation than Karl Marx would have if he were here today!
Obama is promising give money back in tax breaks to nearly all Americans, spend tremendous amounts of money funding his national health care project, lower gas prices, and clean up Washington and clean up wall street and bake everyone in America cakes on their birthdays beginning on inauguration day. Where will all this money come from?
Obama plans to get his by stopping the Iraq War, but we aren't even spending tangible money in Iraq. Stopping the war just means we stop digging ourselves further into debt. McCain says the money will come through the removal of earmarks. New York Times reporter Jackie Calmes said in an interview with Gwen Ifill tonight that in comparison with the $700 Billion proposed bailout of Wall Street, earmark spending amounts to a rounding error. (The way Jackie puts it all together in the interview is really well done, you should check out the link below to listen to it).

Do we really have to listen to this out-of-hand, foundation-less pandering for 41 more days?! The media needs to take a stand and call both candidates out for the bluffs that they are making EVERY SINGLE DAY on the campaign trail. Each crazy promise is one-upped by an even more outlandish one from the opposing camp without so much as a peep from our so-called public watchdogs. With both candidates building their towering campaigns on false promises, we are sure to be let down when one of them actually sits down in the oval office and has no idea what or how to remedy 95 out of the 100 wrongs they promised you and I they would right.

Link to /newhours interview with Jackie Calmes and Amy Walter:
http://www-tc.pbs.org/newshour/rss/media/2008/09/22/20080922_campaign28.mp3

Why Young People are Crazy for Obama

Recently in my politics class we (the students) were asked to explain on behalf of all young people why we are so excited about Barack Obama. On the spot, our responses were nothing short of inane. We spouted off the campaign slogans and talking points from Obama's campaign almost word for word. Hope, change, Mccain=Bush, health care reform, and a host of other things that have relatively ZERO impact on why we (college kids) are so excited about Obama.

After thinking about this question for awhile after class I was able to complile my own set of reasons that explain more honestly why we are excited, and why the talking points mentioned in class are not exciting at all.

First of all, Mccain and Palin were not even on the democratic radar when Obama first declared his cadidacy. I went to a rally in early 2007 for Obama, and I remember how many excited college students made the trip to see him speak. These students were not nearly so excited about going to see Hillary, yet their historic primary battle hadn't even begun and their policies were not nearly different enough to merit such a lack of enthusiasm for Hillary. So why flock to Obama?

1)Obama is a superior orator. He is inspiring, vibrant, and knows how to get his message across.

2)Obama is young. He appeals to young voters simply because he is young for a politician. He talks, moves, and acts with a freshness unique to him amongst a field of political veterans.

3)Obama was against the Iraq war from the start. No other contending politicians in either primary could claim this stance.

4)Obama is different. He is young, half-black, and a brand new face. We as young people have had either a Bush or a Clinton in office since birth. We know nothing else and we are tired of it. Obama doesn't have the gray hair and pasty white face that we are used to seeing in every state of the union and on every dollar bill, and this is enough to get us excited.

5)To close out this short list, I will attempt to articulate one more reason that I think applies to more young people than just myself.
When Obama first spoke at the 2004 convention my parents were in awe. They were so impressed with how well this brand new senator articulated the challenges we faced as a nation. From then on he stuck in all of our minds as a great presidential candidate for the future. However, because my parents are of a different generation, and even though my mom is from India, they along with some of my older democratic relatives believed in Obama only to an extent. They held back the excitement that I readily showed for him because deep down they grudgingly believed that America couldn't yet vote a black man in as president.

Growing up in the 90's in one of the most liberal areas in the country (Portland's East Side), I admit that I have more of a theoretical idea of racism rather than the crudely tangible reality my dad experienced growing up in the 50's and 60's. His generation remembers too well the assassinations of John, Martin, and Bobby and how hope was crushed by the hateful extremists in America. The fact that 40 years later they don't think our country is better than that pushed me further toward Obama. I wanted to prove my parents and everyone of that era wrong. I wanted to make them see that our country has progressed so far that a perfectly qualified man can in fact rise to the vey top without being judged by the color of his skin. Although Hillary had the same type of allure being the first viable woman candidate, it wasn't the same because she was a Clinton, she was the heavy favorite, and because I find that the theoretical hurdle of racism in America is higher than the theoretical hurdle of sexism. This is not meant to discount the problem of sexism, it is simply the conclusion I have derived from living in America all my life.
I was affected by the first 4 reasons I listed as well as the fact that Obama was more liberal than anyone else in the primary (aside from my personal favorite Kuccinich). But on top of those reasons I was no doubt driven further into the Obama camp to show my parents and all those like them the error in their judgement of America. I believe Barack will remind the world of America's true colors when he becomes president, and perhaps most importantly he will show Americans how far their country truly has come in the last 50 years.

Gullible America

Why are negative campaign ads that speak to the educational level of 3-year-olds so important in United State's elections? There are so many key issues that the candidates rarely speak of in their ads, and the media rarely covers. This is because AMERICA DOESN't LISTEN. Americans do not take any time to go out and research for just 20 or 30 minutes on how we got into this finiancial crisis and who is involved. Most people seem content to just watch whatever is on TV that entertains them best and accept whatever election garbage is thrown at them through their favorite entertainment program. This could be Saturday Night Live, Sean Hannity, The View, Bill O'Reilly, and all other rating driven programs that don't tell the important half of any story. If you are to follow any link I post on this blog, follow the one below to a blog written by James Moore that speaks to this point. I encourage you to inform yourself by sifting through conservative, liberal and "unbiased" news and opinion from all over. You can never learn too much about the issues

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-moore/a-nation-of-village-idiot_b_127340.html#postComment

Obama regains lead in polls, should we care?

The Media is constantly pushing polls on projected election outcomes and the American people have developed an unhealthy craving for more. The most recent polls show Obama regaining his overall lead with voters as he pounds John Mccain (who seems to be pounding himself as well) on his lack of economic strategy. As Wall Street continues its unprecedented downward spiral the economy is most likely going to become far and away the most important issue on the table. However, the most recent polls are most likely not a result of Obama's progress in the debate over the economy (that will come later). Sarah Palin's convention-inflated approval ratings are dropping steadily as the media puts her under its stage lights.
But my point is not what is driving these polls, but why we shouldn't care. These national polls are not an indication of what will happen on Novermber 4th; so much more can and will happen before election day that will invalidate them. And most importantly, the election is not based on popular vote. The electoral college will decide the winner of this election, which means that if we are to check polls as progress reports we should look to battleground states like OH, FL, PA, CO, NV, NH and MI among others. These are the states that will decide the election, not polls that include oregon, california, texas, or kansas.

"Charlie"

Sarah Palin said the word, "Charlie" 60 times throughout the course of her interview with Charlie Gibson on ABC this week. To say the least, this is a sign of discomfort with regard to her role as a VP nominee. She came across as quite unprepared, especially when Charlie asked her opinion of the Bush Doctrine and she proved to have minimal knowledge of what it was and failed to formulate any opinion of substance on the post-9/11 foreign policy initiatives laid out by President Bush. It may be that Palin was just jittery about her first full-length national television interview, or it may be that she really is the unprepared, uncultured, passport-less hockey mom that she is leading those of us who are paying attention to believe.

Mccain has gone too far, even for Karl Rove

I almost couldn't believe my ears when I heard it, but on the most recent edition of Fox News Sunday Karl Rove said in so many words that Mccain went too far in his campaign ads. "[They] do not pass the 100-percent truth test," were Rove's words. He also made clear that it was not necessary for the campaigns to attack one another in the manner that they are currently. "They have legitimate points to make about each other," said Rove.

Although Mccain's ads have been deemed more severe and some even complete fabrications of the truth, Obama has engaged in similar tactics by attacking Mccain's age rather than his issues. Their ads seem to be escalating as they attempt to one-up each other's personal attacks. It is the responsibility of the media to chastise this form of campaigning until both camps move away from their no-holds-barred cahracter assaults and get back to the serious issues our country must address immediately! Why have we not yet seen any advertisements or statements involving global warming? For all I know both camps have bought into the Palin stance that global warming is not human-made and is therefore out of our hands... SOMEBODY BRING IT UP.

Stay smooth or get on the attack?

Barack Obama's campaign is at a crossroads. Many of their loyal supporters are getting anxious as the Republican base has been reignited by the addition of Sarah Palin to their ticket. These Democrats are most concerned that Obama is not responding with enough zeal and fire as is being thrown at him from the other side.
The latest advertisements from the Mccain camp are being called dishonest, dishonerable, and even outright lies by some relatively impartial pundits and finally Obama himself. One of the ads accuses Senator Obama of advocating sex education for kindergarten and pre-K, a ressurection of a dirty ad run by Alan Keyes in his 2004 Illinios senatorial campaign against Obama. What Obama truly advocated was coaching young children to be aware of sexual advances by adults.
The choice to run this ad was a risk for Mccain, which I believe he paid for in full when he appeared on the show The View earlier this week. And the reaction from Obama supporters to this ad and others like it (the lipstick on a pig smear) was clear; outrage. This begs the question, will Obama shift strategy and begin attacking Mccain with the same vigor and distortion of facts, or will he continue in his battle to stay truthful, clean and above the dirty game that is Washington politics (or Karl Rove politics).
New York Times columnist David Brooks and syndicated columnist Mark Shields came to a conclusion yesterday on The Newshour, that this election and the issues at hand favor Obama and Biden. They agreed that the Mccain camp has pulled some flashy stunts to keep the race quite close thusfar, but has very little substance to carry it through the next 8 weeks in the battle for the whitehouse. That being said, the Obama camp has little reason to panic and will most likely stick with the strategy that got them this far; appealing calmly and earnestly to the middle class of America with incontrovertible facts, and with the registration of hords of young people in every swing state.

Check out the Newshour broacast of Brooks and Shields from Wednesday night and the NY Times article that speaks to the same issue by following the links below:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/13/us/politics/12cnd-candidates.html

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rss/media/2008/09/12/20080912_shieldsbrooks28.mp3

Distraction Tactics; Baiting Barack

Sarah Palin is dominating media coverage. She is ahead of both John Mccain and Barack Obama in approval rating polls. It is most likely that this is due to her better-than-expected convention speech, which is the only knowledge that most Americans have of her so far. From where it stands currently, her approval rating has nowhere else to go except down (the attractive, Tina-Fey-librarian look can only carry her so far before family values and pork barrel scadals begin to outweigh the former).
What Palin has brought to the table that will remain throughout this election is the issue of experience. Whenever her experience is brought up, consequently Barack Obama's experience is examined. The Obama camp has become aware of this and must continue steering such conversations away from Palin's experience and toward her stance on vital national issues.
Palin may also prove to be bait in a larger sense. By drawing attention away from Mccain in the media she is acting as a buffer for issues of change and freshness. By keeping her at the forefront of media coverage, Mccain is able to use her strengths on certain issues (youth, middle class background, etc.) as cover to hide his own weaknesses in those very categories (being old as the hills and owning too many properties to recall how many in total). It will be interesting to see how much longer Mccain can dodge the spotlight, and in what fashion Barack Obama will respond.

On a side note, does anyone remember who the Democratic VP candidate is? I forgot...

Liar Liar

The republican nominees are avoiding the truth of their own records in order to compete with the Obama ticket in the battle over who will bring necessary "change" to Washington. Sarah Palin is consistently claiming not only to have opposed the "Bridge to Nowhere" but to have been the reason behind the closure of the project. In fact, she was not only very much in favor of this $223 million earmark, but she accepted federal money on behalf of the state as Governor and kept it after the project fell through! And the project was only stopped because the cost projections rose well above their original $223 million dollar estimate (as opposed to Sarah Palin acting as 'maverick' governor and defeating the proposition of her own accord). In actuality, the end of the bridge project came when federal government refused to send over $100 dollars in addition to the previous $223 to Alaska for this bridge to a small island of roughly 100 residents. (a link to Paul Krane's article at Washingtonpost.com which provides further proof, quotations, and background on this subject is given at the bottom of this posting).
The obvious truth is that John Mccain and Sarah Palin are not nearly as different from the current administration as they so vocally expresses they are.
Fact: Seven of John Mccain's campaign advisors are Washington lobbyists working on behalf of corporate interests (the interests of American citizens can wait in line behind them).
How will it be possible for Mccain to go to Washington and shake anything up on behalf of the American people when he already owes loads of political favors to the corporate lobbyists who got him elected? When compared with the fact that Barack Obama has zero lobbyists running his campaign and has refused to accept any campaign financing from lobbyists, it seems clear that Obama is more apt to affect serious changes in Washington on behalf of the American people.
Yet as we see in the campaign stops and television ads, the republicans persist in manipulating the truth in order to portray themselves as agents of change. The Mccain camp must believe they can convince American voters of ideas simply by bombarding the airwaves with empty, foundationless slogans that contradict their own personal records. Are the American people ignorant enough to play into this strategy?


http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/08/stevens_no_action_for_bridge_t.html

We have too much spirit to become discouraged

If you are at all like me, the state of our country hasn't looked much worse than it does now. The dollar is weakening, grocery prices have soared above inflation, gas has roughly tripled in price over the last 5 years, more jobs are being shipped overseas every day and the U.S. is financing an ill advised war with money our unborn children and grandchildren have yet to earn. On the other hand, I am quite young and when your only life experience is the glory days of the 1990's, the problems of today must seem exceptionally daunting by comparison.
The more news I watch, the more appalled I become. I am stunned by the fact that a republican presidential candidate is running neck and neck in the polls with a democrat in the wake of the most unpopular republican presidency ever. I am saddened by the lack of coverage the media gives pertinent policy issues in comparison with their fascination in Obama's choice of lapel pins and Sarah Palin's teen daughter.
But everything about this election hasn't been as negative as John Mccain's campaign ads. Voter turnout in many democratic and some republican primaries broke records. Young people have energized politics with their renewed sense of interest. We saw our first viable female and african-american candidates engage in a history-making primary battle, and we now have our second female VP nominee and our first black presidential nominee. History stands to be made either way in this election, and there is no better way to decide who will bring that change than a record-breaking number of voters (except maybe having the supreme court decide for us).