Sorry I didn’t post this sooner. I should have known to look for it on Inauguration Day!
Tag Archive for 'Obama'
ATF arrests skinheads planning to kill Obama.
The two planned to shoot 88 black people and decapitate another 14, he added. The numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic in the white supremacist community.
“They said that would be their last, final act — that they would attempt to kill Sen. Obama,” Cavanaugh said. “They didn’t believe they would be able to do it, but that they would get killed trying.”
Which jackass from the McCain campaign is going to see this development as a talking point for voting McCain. . . . No one’s trying to shoot our guy, so McCain is a safer bet, even as a repeat skin cancer survivor.
Who knew Commander-in-Chief could be one of the most dangerous jobs in the country, despite the heavy security detail?
People are getting more and more creative with their get out the vote videos as we slide toward election day.
The wonders of new media in 2008 have encouraged creative people to spoof recognized material and remix campaign gaffes.
In this case, the classic approach to the Partnership for a Drug-Free America ads is put in play to publicize the Partnership for a McCain-Free White House (created by MoveOn.org). Parents and grandparents are more apt to be convinced by their kids making a rational argument than the umpteenth attack ad or robocall in their voice mail.
Should your parents show the warning signs that they’ll be voting McPalin, the website prepares you for THE Conversation. A “guide,” much like the more serious site, provides tips as how to approach a conversation with mom/dad, as well as talking points about voting for Obama and links to more information.
As part of CBS’s snap polling of the third debate this evening, respondents were asked if the candidates shared their values. Before the debate, 54% of voters thought Obama shared their values, 63% did afterwards.
A lifetime ago during the Democratic primaries, Obama parried the same smears currently being pressed by the GOP. Despite the invokation of Ayers, Rezko, and Wright, voters kept turning up for Obama. Even with Clinton’s more subtle, he’s not a Muslim “as far as I know,” Obama emerged a nose ahead of Clinton, clinching the nomination.
Since becoming the Democratic nominee, the Obama and his ground team have steadily worked to win households over one at a time. Michelle Obama’s telling of the Obama Family bio marked a shift away from the “angry black” rumor mongering. Americans became increasingly comfortable with the possibility of a mixed race President in the White House and began to see the Obamas like every other family on the block.
The campaign’s continued advertising choices and their endorsements have likely had a positive impact on voters’ ability to relate to Obama as we head toward election day.
Rural voters are a great example of these outreach efforts. This spring when a citizen journalist reported on a fundraiser in San Francisco, Obama’s comments about rural voters caused an uproar.
it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.
Arguably, that comment steepened the uphill climb to convince rural voters to vote Obama instead of McCain this fall.
Yet, he’s likely to win Virginia’s and Pennsylvania’s electoral votes and seems closer, poll after poll, to turning West Virginia and North Carolina blue next month. Obama has been vocal about their issues when stumping through those areas and continues to follow up with relevant localized advertising that features respected and trusted leaders in those communities.
In Virginia, bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley recorded a radio ad supporting a leader that’s “on our side,” mentioning how Obama will cut taxes for working folks, work to make college more affordable and try to bring jobs back to the region. Additionally, he personally vouched for Obama as a man who puts “family first” and is a “father and devoted husband”. That Obama, he shares our family values.
Virginian Senator Jim Webb also lent his voice to a Virginia radio ad detailing his childhood interest in guns that became a lifelong hobby thanks to his dad.
Our family tradition of hunting and shooting are a way of life to me, and no government will ever take that away. . . I am an NRA member and I know that my friend Barack Obama will protect our second amendment rights. So don’t be misled about Barack Obama. I trust Barack Obama. I trust him to protect our right to keep and bear arms. . .
As TPM points out, the word “trust” is reiterated several times as local son Web tells Virginians Obama is a man he trusts, and they should too. These sentiments work to reverse the effects of the the seeds of “difference” and “otherness” that McPalin work to plant in traditionally Red states.
Both ads are a great application of word-of-mouth advertising, since both men are well known and respected in their home states. So an endorsement from Webb or Stanley is more convincing than talking points from a voice-over artist whether in a pro-Obama or attack ad. .
The same localized advertising can be found in the Midwest With his homestate of Illinois securely behind him, Obama has won over farm country in Iowa and remains neck and neck in Missouri, with Ohio leaning Obama. In reaching out to farmers in those areas, they turned to an inspiring mural that bloomed across the side of an Ohio barn.
The Obama launched a web ad, pairing Obama’s thoughts on how the government should serve rural American with the video of the mural coming into existence over several days. Again he focuses on education and the family values that farming families hold dear. He also points to the need to support the next generation of farmers through policy and infrastructure improvements. The notion of community is reinforced by the folks who spend 2 days painting a Campaign for Change mural on the side of a barn.
Time and again, Obama is returning to the values and issues that each region considers important, working to keep voters’ attention on the issues and the ballot box. And it’s paying off.
With each debate more and more Americans are deciding that the Obama-Biden ticket shares their values, and the Obama campaign will do its best to ride that wave of relateability all the way to the White House.
Note: My generalizations about conditions in states are pulled from pollster.com’s electoral map, which is regularly updated as new polling data becomes available.
graphic by dankeezer
I’m voting for Obama. I wrote about that decision a bit back in March. With 1/3 of voters turning in their ballots early, I wanted to reiterate why I’m voting for Obama.
The reality is that candidates put forth a great slate of proposals that are going to be revised, negotiated, and compromised in order to get passed. I like his tax plans, focus on community service, health insurance plan and his ambitious approach to fueling a green tech sector and getting America into rehab for her oil additction, but I realize the final product isn’t going to be exactly like the policies he’s campaigning on. There are always trade-offs.
The intangibles he brings to the Office of the President matter more at this point.
Obama is well-educated and well-informed, and he surrounds himself with others equally prepared to lead in their specialties. I want a President who is smarter than me. (Eight years of the guy “everyone” wants to have a beer with hasn’t worked out so well.)
He’ll be using facts and rational thought not ideology to make decisions, so the guy that thinks prayer is the best cure for PMS isn’t going to be presiding over any committee shaping reproductive health policy here or abroad. Science will guide policy, not religion.
And lobbyists aren’t going to get first dibs on policy after more than 2 million Americans have donated nearly half a billion dollars to the Obama campaign. Obama will be put in office by the people, and you best believe we’ll be holding him and Congress accountable.
I suspect he’ll ensure continued balance on the Supreme Court as 2-4 justices retired over the next few years. It shouldn’t swing far right or far left. Much like he welcomes opinions from all sides, the Supreme Court should be a balanced representation of the people.
In the event you haven’t noticed, the man doesn’t rattle. You need very cool minds prevailing with the economy in upheaval, the education system falling well behind other first world nations, two wars being waged in the Middle East, a global loss of respect thanks to Bush’s incompetence. . . and so on.
At the same time he manages to inspire passion and hope in the people that support his campaign. Over the next four, hopefully eight, years we need a leader that can successfully encourage Americans to pull together and sacrifice for the long term health of our nation.
As a former law professor, Obama values the Constitution, which has essentially been trampled repeatedly throughout the Bush administration. He’ll have a team reviewing every executive order written over the last 8 years to nix the ones that go over the line. An Obama administration will pursue criminal violations made by the Bush administration because “no one is above the law.“ We’ll never turn the page on torture and civil liberties abuses without letting the courts pass judgement on those actions.
Embracing the Constitution will also go a long way to restoring America’s standing in the world, as will embracing diplomacy as the first steps in any international scuffle. We spend more of the federal budget on Defense and Homeland Security than any other program, which is 8x more than France (the silver medalist in military spending). In the 21st century, first world nations focus on soft power (education, cornering jobs in innovative industries, etc), not generating a new arms race. (PS. Even the legendary Petraeus says we need to talk to our enemies.) I want a candidate who openly embraces diplomacy and doesn’t immediately put war on the table should the phone ring at 3am.
Obama is a candidate for the 21st century, and I, for one, want a bridge to the future, not more of the same.
PS. Over at Writes Like She Talks, Jill Miller Zimon is counting down 57 reasons you should vote Obama.
As of the debate last night I no longer have any doubt that Barack Obama will be our next President. That the opposition only has race baiting left as a vote-getting gimmick means they know they’ve lost. McPalin is no longer fighting to win but just fighting to staunch the bleeding from its own party.
Over at the Huffington Post today, Frank Schaeffer, author of Crazy for God posted his thoughts on an Obama Presidency. It’s an eloquent missive about what kind of President we need in these times, and I hope you click through to read it in full.
Nice stories or even unparalleled courage isn’t the only point. The greater point about Obama is that the midst of our worldwide financial meltdown, an expanding (and losing) war in Afghanistan, trying to extricate our country from a wrong and stupidly mistaken ruinously expensive war in Iraq, our mounting and crushing national debt, awaiting the next (and inevitable) al Qaeda attack on our homeland, watching our schools decline to Third World levels of incompetence, facing a general loss of confidence in the government that has been exacerbated by the Republicans doing all they can to undermine our government’s capabilities and programs… President Obama will take on the leadership of our country at a make or break time of historic proportions. He faces not one but dozens of crisis, each big enough to define any presidency in better times…
Obama brings a moral clarity to his leadership reserved for those who have had to work for everything they’ve gotten and had to do twice as well as the person standing next to them because of the color of their skin. His experience of succeeding in spite of his color, social background and prejudice could have been embittering or one that fostered a spiritual rebirth of forgiveness and enlightenment. Obama radiates the calm inner peace of the spirit of forgiveness. . .
Our country has rarely faced more uncertainty. This is the time for greatness. We have a great leader. We must be a great people backing him, fighting for him, sacrificing for a cause greater than ourselves.
This video of Democratic strategist Donna Brazile is making the rounds. She offer a personal anecdote about growing up in the once segregated South and asks that people vote on issues and the political agendas of each candidate, not on the color of his skin.
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