Barack Obama (’04-’08) – Page 27

Showtime | Barack Obama for President.

It’s Super Tuesday. Do you know where your voting station is?

GitM’s endorsement of Barack Obama | GitM’s Obama archives

Why Obama is progressive | Why Clinton is not | A Note for the Boomers

List of over 100 Newspaper Endorsements.

Yes, we can.

Chabon: Fear is the Mindkiller.

“The point of Obama’s candidacy is that the damaged state of American democracy is not the fault of George W. Bush and his minions, the corporate-controlled media, the insurance industry, the oil industry, lobbyists, terrorists, illegal immigrants or Satan. The point is that this mess is our fault. We let in the serpents and liars, we exchanged shining ideals for a handful of nails and some two-by-fours, and we did it by resorting to the simplest, deepest-seated and readiest method we possess as human beings for trying to make sense of the world: through our fear. America has become a phobocracy.“

In the WP, author Michael Chabon makes his case for Obama, and argues we should vote against fear. “Thus in the name of preserving hope do we disdain it. That is how a phobocracy maintains its grip on power. To support Obama, we must permit ourselves to feel hope, to acknowledge the possibility that we can aspire as a nation to be more than merely secure or predominant.”

The Streams Converge?

“‘Barack Obama, like John Edwards, is redefining what is possible and in so doing he’s changing us, each one of us,’ she said in a letter released by Obama’s campaign. ‘Many who had given up on politics are re-engaging. Many who had grown tolerant of the intolerable are now ready to demand more – and not just from themselves but others. And many who had given up believing that the ideals of equality, dignity and justice would ever again be as politically important as money and power, now believe again.’” Former NARAL president Kate Michelman moves from Edwards to Obama (as, it seems, have many high-profile Edwards backers.)

Lake Wobegon for Obama.

“‘I’m happy to support your candidacy, which is so full of promise for our country,’ wrote the best-selling author, who has long backed liberal causes and progressive candidates such as the late-Paul Wellstone. ‘Seven years of a failed presidency is a depressing thing, and the country is pressing for a change and looking for someone with clear vision who is determined to break through the rhetorical logjam and find sensible ways to move our country forward. That’s you, friend.‘” Senator Obama picks up a Minnesota ally in Garrison Keilor.

Pe[e/a]king at the Polls.

As I said before, I don’t want to put too much emphasis on polls anymore — partly because of what happened in New Hampshire, partly because they’re all over the place. Still, it looks like Senators Obama and Clinton may now be tied nationally. (Obama even has a statistical lead in one poll.) And, again, while polls differ — some suggest an Obama lead, some don’t — all seem to indicate the Senator from Illinois is not only surging in California (Thank you, Maria Shriver!), but even threatening Clinton’s tri-state home base in Connecticut and New Jersey(!)

A lot of what happens tomorrow will depend on the ground game, and the race will go on past Super Tuesday in almost any event. Still, if we all get out there and make our voices heard, it looks like there’s an outside chance Obama could emerge the delegate leader tomorrow night. Sure, a sweep would be wondrous, but let’s face it — it’s extremely unlikely. There’s still a lot of game left to play, and — after tomorrow, of course — slow and steady wins the race. Let’s at least get Senator Obama in a good position to move forward. As long as he can keep it close tomorrow, we’re good to go.

Obamaquerque.

“The first-term senator from Illinois has become one of the top two Democratic contenders by the strange tactic of perceiving the widespread disgust with political business as usual and by giving it voice…[B]e positive and vote for Sen. Barack Obama. At worst, he’s guilty of campaigning on the promise of hope.” Following in the footsteps of the Albuquerque Tribune and Santa Fe Mexican, New Mexico’s largest paper, the Albuquerque Journal, endorses Obama for president. In not unrelated news, Clinton and Obama appear to be statistically tied in New Mexico. (Obama’s up 6, but the margin of error is 7.)

American Beauty.

“Would you hear his voice come thru the music, Would you hold it near as it were your own?” The surviving members of the Grateful Dead are reuniting to back Obama. “Mickey Hart, Phil Lesh and Bob Weir will be joined by Jackie Greene, John Molo and Steve Molitz at the concert, which will be simulcast live onto the internet on iclips.net. This will be the first time that the members of the band have performed together since 2004.“

In related news, Jesse Dylan (not his brother Jakob of the Wallflowers, as I earlier reported, but still of the same esteemed lineage) has directed a video for “Yes We Can”, a music-speech hybrid by Senator Obama, the Black-Eyed Peas, John Legend, and a smattering of celebrities. (For her part, Super Obama Girl works alone.)

Hertzberg and Hayes.

“Obama’s Democratic critics worry that his soaring rhetoric of reconciliation is naïve. But, as Mark Schmitt has argued in The American Prospect, Obama’s national-unity pitch should be viewed as a tactic as well as an ideal. It might lengthen his coattails, helping Democratic candidates for the House and the Senate in marginally red districts and states…Hillary Clinton would make a competent, knowledgeable, and responsible President. Barack Obama just might make a transformative one.” The New Yorker‘s Hendrik Hertzberg makes the case for Obama…and against Clinton. “Obama has turned out to have a kind of political magic unseen since the Kennedy brothers of the nineteen-sixties. He has something of Jack’s futuristic, ironic cool, something of Bobby’s earnest, inspiring heat…’The Clintons’ used to be a Republican trope, calculated to make one or the other half of the couple look like a puppet or a victim or a co-conspirator; now it is simply descriptive.“

Meanwhile, in a cover story for The Nation, Christopher Hayes laid out his own reasoning for Obama. “Obama’s diagnosis of the obstacles to progress is twofold. First, that the division of the electorate into the categories created by the right’s culture warriors is the primary means by which the forces of reaction resist change. Progress will be made only by rejecting or transcending those categories…Second, that the reason progressives have failed to achieve our goals over the past several decades is not that we didn’t fight hard enough but that we didn’t have a popular mandate. In other words, the fundamental obstacle is a basic political one: never having the public squarely on our side and never having the votes on the Hill…The candidacy of Barack Obama represents by far the left’s best chance to, in Buchanan’s immortal phrasing, take back the bigger half of the country. It’s a chance we can’t pass up.“

Si se Puede.

“Obama offers an inclusive message of hope that addresses our country’s historic moment. He has a conciliatory style that can reverse the vicious cycle of rancor which has dominated Washington over these past decades and has paralyzed its ability to come together on major decisions. We need a leader today that can inspire and unite America again around its greatest possibilities. Barack Obama is the right leader for the time.” La Opinion, the largest Spanish-language newspaper in the country, endorses Barack Obama for president.

Eisenhower for Obama.

“The biggest barrier to rolling up our sleeves and preparing for a better future is our own apathy, fear or immobility. We have been living in a zero-sum political environment where all heads have been lowered to avert being lopped off by angry, noisy extremists. I am convinced that Barack Obama is the one presidential candidate today who can encourage ordinary Americans to stand straight again; he is a man who can salve our national wounds and both inspire and pursue genuine bipartisan cooperation. Just as important, Obama can assure the world and Americans that this great nation’s impulses are still free, open, fair and broad-minded.“

In the WP, Susan Eisenhower, Ike’s granddaughter, endorses Obama for president. “My grandfather was pursued by both political parties and eventually became the Republican nominee…He went on to win the presidency — with the indispensable help of a ‘Democrats for Eisenhower’ movement. These crossover voters were attracted by his pledge to bring change to Washington and by the prospect that he would unify the nation. It is in this great tradition of crossover voters that I support Barack Obama’s candidacy for president. If the Democratic Party chooses Obama as its candidate, this lifelong Republican will work to get him elected and encourage him to seek strategic solutions to meet America’s greatest challenges.”