Barack Obama is in!

According to the news there were about 17,000 people there in Springfield braving below freezing temperatures, and they all were caravaning over to Iowa to make his big entrance there later today. The video of his announcement speech at his website is quite impressive too, he's the only candidate who enters to rock star treatment. Entered to U2 of course (I think its some kind of rule now that democratic presidential candidates have to enter their rallies to U2)

There is a definite attempt to replicate the look/feel of the Dean campaign here. They are using "Obama for America" (just like "Dean for America") Maybe they end up using "Barack is in for America" or something. Their blogosophere, as Ben Smith reports over at politico.com, is already quite active. Zephyr Teachout, one time blogmaster of the Dean campaign in Burlington, is on board. Barack Obama was also, as some might recall, a "Dean Dozen" candidate in 2004.

The parallells between Obama and Dean are there. Howard Dean was running against the entrenched powers in the democratic party, and in particular the DLC centerists who had taken control. Both John Edwards and Hillary Clinton are longstanding DLC members/centerists who have keynoted DLC conventions. Obama is not a DLC member. He's an old style new deal liberal who wants to bring the party back to its populist roots.

More than that though, Obama is one of us. His place in power didn't come from being rich or privileged or playing the machine politics game. Barack Obama was a community organizer/political activist, just like we are. He spent years out on the streets in chicago working for local candidates for school boards and city councils and judgeships. He didn't use his Harvard Law degree to become a rich corporate trial lawyer like Edwards, or to sit on the board of WalMart like Hillary. He went back to Chicago, back to the streets and hung up his shingle there to help the poor and underprivileged. He was teaching Consitutional Law at U of Chicago while at the same time doing pro bono legal work for indigents in the housing projects. He was a hero to many of them.

I think Barack Obama is a special candidate, someone whose candidacy can rise above politics as usual and mean more to more people, to regular people, than these other candidates. He can be a Kennedy for a new generation.

This is a campaign to watch! Obama for America!

might be what makes him so much:
a) "a special candidate" and
b) like Kennedy
(suggests this New York Magazine piece from October)--

At some level, possibly the most basic one, the mania surrounding Barack Obama is a simple function of his age—or, as John F. Kennedy would have said, his vigor.

At 45, he’s fifteen years younger than the average senator in the 109th Congress, and he’s thirteen years younger than Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee in 2008. (Al Gore is also 58. And John Kerry is 63.)

Heck, I know a LOT of folks who came of age after sideburns and Simon&Garfunkel. (Does the decade ever really matter at Harvard?)

I don't think McCain is going to get the GOP nomination. His campaign is already floundering. Conservatives don't trust him. He has made too many non-conservative statements in the past.

That said, like it or not, people particularly of younger generations view older candidates who have been around for a long time as being a lot more likely to have sold out. That politics will corrupt anyone sooner or later if they are in the cesspool long enough.

Obama's age (46) and being a relative newcomer to the D.C. scene will thus play to his advantage. As will his looks. Thats just reality. I mean you think Bill Clinton's looks didn't help him? When JFK ran against Nixon, the televised debates showing the young good looking Kennedy standing next to the older, shriveled up Nixon, did make a difference in a very close race.

In the South, it takes a couple of GENERATIONS to be "from" here, not a couple of years as a teenager -- we had a French exchange student longer than that! (sort of - he came and went over time; it never made him American much less Southern though.) Obama wasn't part of Chicago's mean streets before Harvard, not in a couple of years worth of spring break-style partying? If he were to really go "back" to give back, wouldn't that have been back to Honolulu? Or maybe Jakarta -- why not loyally and self-sacrificially go help THEM, with his international relations degree and all those Harvard can-do connections. If his own ambition isn't the point, I mean?

In fact, why was he here on TV etc. announcing for prez this week, while it was flooding and people were dying in Indonesia? Was his own campaign event, coinciding with Lincoln's birthday tomorrow, more important??

Or if he doesn't care about Indonesia, he could at LEAST stay in the US Senate representing good old Chicago, say a term or two until he is in his early fifties! -- where he apparently thought it was important enough to leave those needy streets and represent them in DC, to be the only sitting African-American and a new IL senator putting in time for some seniority that would help the folks back home eventually.

He is still the only African-American senator, right? If he leaves there will be none again. So how did it so *suddenly* --mere months!-- get to be even more important to give back as the only African-American president, ignoring Senate business for years and leaving it altogether if he wins? (Also the D balance of power is razor thin in the Senate - don't all these D candidates care about the next two years of being out of the trail instead of taking care of blue business?)

I'm not picking on Obama, no more than the multitudes of Rs and Ds who would be king (or queen) and say they're doing it all for us little people but give me a break -- so much campaign consultant crap, so little time!

. . .him not coming from privilege??

JAKARTA (Reuters) - The school that U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama attended in a posh, leafy district of Jakarta was founded by Indonesia's former colonial rulers as a school for Europeans and the Indonesian nobility.

A spire, common in Dutch-made churches in Indonesia, still tops its roof.

Parents whose children study at Menteng 01 today include ministers, lawyers and tycoons. Grandchildren of former president Suharto, who still lives in Menteng, attended. . .

Chelsea Clinton grew up and went to school in DC, home of the worst city schools I know -- but she was safe and privileged at Sidwell Friends. When she runs for prez, should we believe that the people of the DC streets are "her" people and she's just giving back?

Thanks for this though - I will grant you "fun, witty and damn good to look at!"
No spin needed to sell that.
:tongue:

give a decent speech this morning. Kind of faded at the end but at least he didn't invoke God to bless us as his signoff.

But I kept thinking he'd make a good VP . . .

Nance

than I like Nancy Pelosi, does that count for anything?

Nance

A friend of mine and Brooklyn politician, Chris Owens, has the following to say about Obama. First, from last month, is Chris' urging of Obama to run. And most recently is his reaction to Obama's announcement.

That's one quality that does come through when listening to Obama -- and Edwards too -- unlike the highly-processed Hillary. And that's what Owens seems to have picked up on too.

Although, a few months ago, I think the word in use was "authentic."

"What do Dems want?" "Someone who is authentic."

Genuine will do.

Nance

P.S. Are we allowed to say black people are "articulate" now. I've got to keep up with my PC rules.

JJ said (Obama wasn't part of Chicago's mean streets before Harvard, not in a couple of years worth of spring break-style partying?)

That statement is highly incorrect and unfair. Read Obama's book, "Dreams From My Father", where the middle section of the book is entirely about his years in Chicago before he left for law school. How Obama left a high paying job on Madison Avenue to move to Chicago and work in the streets as a community organizer for $13,000 a year. The whole time he was there he was organizing, rallying the highly repressed predominantly minority populations of the most blighted areas of the city. There was no "spring break style partying" Such statements are really mean spirited and don't dignify the kind of work he was doing. He was there for three years, working on the streets for three years pushing local candidates and causes, and helping the poor and the indigent fight the highly corrupt Chicago City Hall. Then he left for law school, and after graduating, he came right back and resume doing the work. There was no partying involved.

Nanceconfer said: (But I kept thinking he'd make a good VP . . .)

What makes a good vp? The ability to be a second banana? The ability to bring in the votes of key demographics? Bill Richardson also gets mentioned that way. As if his being hispanic makes him a good vp because he'd bring in the hispanic vote, and Obama makes a good vp because he's black. I think it is insulting to them to talk that way. If either would make a good vp they'd make a good president right? Why would anyone make a better vp than a president?

In fact Obama shouldn't be picked as vp if he's not nominated, because he'll overshadow whoever becomes presidential nominee. The last thing a presidential nominee wants is a runningmate who draws larger crowds than him. If you like Obama, and you are saying he'd make a good vp, you are saying he'd make a good president. Just say it.

Of course not. I am suggesting that some people seem to be more comfortable seeing the likes of Obama and Richardson in subordinate roles than in the headline role. Obama announces for president and what comes out of some people's mouths is "oh, he'd be a great VICE president" Funny now you never hear people saying Hillary or Edwards or Vilsack would make a great VICE president.

Anyway the argument is about the top of the ticket. Lets not concern ourselves with who the next vice president of the u.s. is going to be just yet.

As for Obama, I want to see some specifics. He promises universal health care for all in thirteen months after he'd be elected. Sounds great Barack, tell us how?

Why do you think Obama is underqualified to be president? Do you judge "qualified" based on total number of votes cast? Why do you consider Edwards more qualified? I think "qualifications" include life experience and committment to liberal/progressive ideals. I like the fact that Barack Obama, having lived in Hawaii, Indonesia and other places, and having spent much time in Africa, has been much more exposed to the world than John Edwards living in his mansion all these years in North Carolina. They can't possibly have the same perspective. In one of the moving passages from "Dreams from my Father", Obama mentions coming to NYC and having to sleep on the street the first night (couldn't find his landlord, couldn't afford a hotel, didn't know anybody) He didn't resent sleeping on the street, he saw it as part of the overrall collective of experiences that was going to shape what he did in the future. Obama has been on the streets, he has been on the projects, he has been in places most of these other candidates wouldn't dare go. That gives him a unique perspective to bring to the white house.

I also like Obama's universalist world view, the importance of seeing the good in all people. Its a refreshing change from all these years of Bush, who clearly thinks its more important to look for the evil in all people.

JJ said (where I read about his two or three years as a misfit, unhappy teen in Chicago (wanting to get out??) and how he admitted using marijuana and cocaine, etc. )

Well you had bad sources then. If you had read his book, or any of the more reliable things written about his life, you would read that he did not live in Chicago as a teenager. That his drug experimentation as a teenager was in Hawaii. He moved to Chicago after grad school at Columbia when he was in his mid/late twenties, after leaving a promising career on Madison Avenue to take a huge paycut to work in the Chicago projects. Chicago's been his home for over twenty years. He's not a carpetbagger and he didn't go there to party.

So he was even less "from" Chicago than my Googlefest yesterday left me believing -- not going "back" at all.

So why claim it was, like that was some great debt nobly repaid? Why DIDN'T he go back to Hawaii and/or Indonesia instead (either according to his own version or news stories or preferably both?)

For some perspective that may throw some light on some of what is being discussed here, Salon.com has an interesting article on Obama's development into a "natural."

from the article:
"Politics is not a game of qualifications. It's a game of winning."

That about sums up my whole view!

Barack Obama is actually racist to Hispanic Americans in Illinois!
It can be verified with documented evidence Barrack Obama as an Illinois Senator has been placed on repeated written notice of ongoing illegal race discrimination against American Hispanics. I ,a Hispanic American, have been denied the right to formally officially file race discrimination "IDHR & EEOC" charges against Hormel Foods Corporation and UFCW at the agencies IDHR & EEOC in Illinois since 2004 when in fact other nonHispanics are allowed to file such charges of Race discrimination. Despite Barack Obama and his office having full knowledge and understanding of this serious situation Barrack Obama a civil rights attorney himself has refused to hold anyone at IDHR & EEOC accountable for their actions regarding the issue of IDHR & EEOC discriminating against Hispanic American complainants and to date Barack Obama is not investigating or even asking for any independant third party to investigate this racial discrimination citing only a separation of powers. It is unconscionable for Barack Obama to have used this device as it regards race discrimination which has effectively empowered IDHR & EEOC to maintain their illegal & discriminatory position and with Barack Obama's inaction Barack Obama is in fact discriminating against Hispanic American constituents of Illinois.
American constituents who happen to be Hispanic are being harmed by Barack Obama who to this date continues to condone such illegal and discriminatory misconduct by his inaction.
This information can be verified by any news media so if you want the truth demand they cover this story!