Lemmings Off a Cliff (Thoughts about last night's debate)

The true Hillary started to appear last night, and it's only going to become more and more apparent as we get closer to the election that there's no there there.

She never answers a question, she never commits to a position. Her answers always go like this:

1. Steal a slogan/campaign line from Obama and try to make it your own.

2. Make reference to your husband and the job he did back in the 1990s.

3. Say that you "appreciate" the work someone ELSE has done on the issue.

4. Blame George Bush and the Republicans...

And then she's out! NO POSITION STATED.

Seriously, how can anyone with a conscience who's a Democrat seriously want this woman to win? She got us into Iraq and now she's given the Bush Administration license to invade Iran.

Where is her judgment? Where is her integrity?

She has piled on more Pentagon earmarks than any other candidate, Democrat OR Republican. She takes money from PACs and lobbyists.

She is not for opennness and accountability in government.

She won't release her earmarks and she won't ask for the White House records that can "show" what kind of so-called experience she has.

She does not believe she has to answer to the American people. She can't even give a straight answer on the debate. I know she's a woman and all, but really, is that reason enough to support a candidate?

AMERICA WAKE UP!!!

We're like lemmings running off the cliff with Hillary Clinton.

Obama and the Butter Cow Lady

This is a must-see. The Butter Cow lady made a special sculpture just for Obama!

Barack Tied with Clinton in Iowa Poll

From Time magazine:

Huckabee Surges, Edwards Fades
By Jay Newton-Small/Washington

The latest still photo from the slow motion, inter-party electoral horse race known as Iowa is in — and it looks like John Edwards is losing steam on the Democratic side while Mike Huckabee is charging at the GOP frontrunners.

The University of Iowa Hawkeye Poll, released at 8 a.m. Monday morning, shows Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in a heated battle on the Democratic side. Clinton leads the poll with 28.9% while Obama garnered 26.6%. John Edwards trails with 20%, a 6-point drop from the last Hawkeye poll in August.

For Edwards, who has basically been living in Iowa (and who parlayed a second place finish there in 2004 into a spot on the Democratic ticket), the results have to be disconcerting. Unlike Obama and Clinton, he has few other strongholds, and a poor showing in Iowa could place his candidacy in serious jeopardy.

On the bright side is that the people who do support Edwards have a history of showing up when it counts. Nearly 76% of Edwards' poll supporters attended the 2004 caucus, while 58% of Clinton's and 55% of Obama's supporters made the trip four years ago. "If we only look at caucus-goers who are almost certain to attend, we find that Edwards makes up the gap with Obama and Clinton, and moves clearly ahead," said David Redlawsk, the poll's director and an associate professor of political science at the University of Iowa. Of course, Bill Clinton skipped the caucuses in 1992, so this is the first time a Clinton is really running in the state, while Obama was an unknown almost everywhere four years ago. Another bad omen for Edwards: only 7.9% of Democrats polled said they are "very likely" to change their minds between now and January 3, when both parties caucus in Iowa.

On the Republican side, the Hawkeye poll showed that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has widened his overall lead by 8 percentage points, to 36.2%. But Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, has gained ground despite spending just $1.7 million compared to Romney's $53.6 million. Huckabee is up from less than 2 % in the same poll in August to 12.8%, putting him in a statistical tie for second place with Rudy Giuliani who garnered 13.1%. Giuliani had spent $30.2 million as of September 30, according to Federal Election Commission reports.

"If Huckabee can motivate religious conservatives to attend the caucuses in large numbers, he may well threaten Romney and close some of the overall gap," said Redlawsk. About 44% of Iowa Republican caucus-goers consider themselves Evangelical or born again.

The latest Hawkeye Poll comes less than a week after both parties set their caucus dates for January 3, the earliest presidential tests ever. The truncated schedule means that candidates will have to finalize their pitches before the holiday season. It also makes candidates vulnerable to any last-minute news events or surprises since they will not have time to respond after the holidays. And given the how long the race has already gone on, many Iowans have begun to make up their minds: overall, less than 10 % remain undecided.

This doesn't bode well for those outside the top tier. On the Democratic side, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson's support declined from 9.4 % in August to 7.2% while Delaware Senator Joe Biden was the only other candidate to break the 2% threshold. On the Republican side, Fred Thompson stands fourth with 11.4% followed by Arizona Senator John McCain with 6%.

The poll of 285 likely Republican caucus goers and 306 likely Democratic caucus goers was conducted October 17 to 24. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.8 percentage points on the Republican side and 5.5 percentage points on the Democratic side.

Barack on MTV/MySpace Dialogue Today

Check out the MTV/MySpace dialogue with Barack today at 10:30 am PST

You can watch the event live here:

http://www.myspace.com/election2008

Barack on Ellen Degeneres Show Today

Barack Obama will be on the Ellen Degeneres Show today.

Here’s the link for more info and for show times:

http://ellen.warnerbros.com/

Obama to Contront Clinton on Her Flipflops

This is what we've been waiting for! From the New York Times

Obama Promises a Forceful Stand Against Clinton

By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JEFF ZELENY

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Oct. 27 — Senator Barack Obama said he would start confronting Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton more directly and forcefully, saying Friday that she had not been candid in describing her views on critical policy issues, as he tries to address mounting alarm among supporters that his lack of assertiveness so far has allowed her to dominate the presidential race.

Mr. Obama’s vow to go on the offensive comes just over two months before the first votes are cast for the Democratic nomination, and after a long period in which his aides, donors and other supporters have battled — and in some cases shared — the perception that he has not exhibited the aggressiveness demanded by presidential politics.

In an interview on Friday that was initiated by his campaign to signal the change of course, Mr. Obama said “now is the time” for him to distinguish himself from Mrs. Clinton. While he said that he was not out to “kneecap the front-runner, because I don’t think that’s what the country is looking for,” he said she was deliberately obscuring her positions for political gain and was less likely than he was to win back the White House for Democrats.

Asked in the interview on Friday if Mrs. Clinton had been fully truthful with voters about what she would do as president, Mr. Obama replied, “No.”

“I don’t think people know what her agenda exactly is,” Mr. Obama continued, citing Social Security, Iraq and Iran as issues on which he said she had not been fully forthcoming. “Now it’s been very deft politically, but one of the things that I firmly believe is that we’ve got to be clear with the American people right now about the important choices that we’re going to need to make in order to get a mandate for change, not to try to obfuscate and avoid being a target in the general election and then find yourself governing without any support for any bold propositions.”

For months, Democrats, including some within his campaign, have questioned whether his promise to pursue a brand of politics that transcended partisanship had so handcuffed him that he could not compete in the most partisan of arenas.

Alan D. Solomont, a former contributor to both Clintons who is now raising money for Mr. Obama in Boston, said there was a growing consensus that Mr. Obama had to ratchet up his intensity and draw sharper distinctions with Mrs. Clinton, of New York, and other rivals.

“The only way that he’s going to be able to be clear with the American people,” Mr. Solomont said in an interview, “is to draw a distinction between his candidacy and his ideas about change and those of other candidates. It’s fair to say that he is beginning to do that, but he hasn’t done enough yet.”

In the interview, Mr. Obama acknowledged that he had held back until now, though he asserted it was a calculated decision to introduce himself in early voting states before engaging opponents. He said he regularly took lines out of speeches prepared by his campaign that he felt were “stretching the truth.”

But Mr. Obama, of Illinois, said the plan had always been for him to begin taking on Mrs. Clinton more directly in the fall. And he glared and responded no when asked if he lacked the stomach for confrontational politics. “It is absolutely true that we have to make these distinctions clearer,” he said. “And I will not shy away from doing that.”

The interview came amid growing signs that Mr. Obama was looking for a fresh start for his campaign after nine months in which his aides said they were startled by the effectiveness of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, and worried that her support was not as brittle as they had once believed.

Mr. Obama has built up his campaign war room, started frequently traveling with a speechwriter — reflecting concern of his aides that his public speeches tend to be long-winded — and begun spending more money on television advertising in Iowa and New Hampshire.

His senior aides said they were now spending much of their day fielding calls from concerned donors and other supporters asking why Mr. Obama was not challenging Mrs. Clinton more forcefully and warning that he could cede the role of the main anti-Clinton candidate to former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, who is running an aggressive campaign in Iowa. Typically, one aide said, the supporter asks some version of the same question: “What happened to the Obama we saw at the 2004 Democratic convention?”

At the same time, aides said there was disagreement in the campaign about whether he should now begin investing all his time in Iowa, where polls show him to be running neck-and-neck with Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Edwards, hoping that a victory there would give him a lift in New Hampshire, where polls show him trailing.

Morale at his Chicago headquarters, aides said, has been dragged down by the perception that Mrs. Clinton is lapping Mr. Obama. And aides said that they had been struggling for weeks for a balance between offering a contrast with Mrs. Clinton and avoiding the anger that they said had marked Mr. Edwards’s candidacy.

In a 53-minute interview over breakfast aboard a chartered jet that brought him here from Chicago, Mr. Obama said Mrs. Clinton had been untruthful or misleading in describing her positions on problems facing the nation. He accused her of “straddling between the Giuliani, Romney side of the foreign policy equation and the Barack Obama side of the equation.” He said that she was trying to “sound or vote” like a Republican on national security issues and that that was “bad for the country and ultimately bad for Democrats.”

Mr. Obama suggested that she was too divisive to win a general election and that if she won, she would be unable to bring together competing factions in Washington to accomplish anything.

“There is a legacy that is both an enormous advantage to her in a Democratic primary, but also a disadvantage to her in a general election,” he said. “I don’t think anybody would claim that Senator Clinton is going to inspire a horde of new voters,” he said. “I don’t think it’s realistic that she is going to get a whole bunch of Republicans to think differently about her.”

Asked about Mr. Obama’s remarks, Mrs. Clinton’s spokesman, Howard Wolfson, said: “Senator Obama once promised Americans a politics of hope. But now that his campaign has stalled he is abandoning that strategy and is engaging in the same old-style personal attacks that he once rejected. We are confident that voters will reject this strategy, especially from a candidate who told us he would do better.”

Mr. Obama said he was not concerned by a repeated spate of national polls showing lopsided support for Mrs. Clinton. “The national press for the last three months has written glowingly about her and not so much about me, so it’s not surprising,” he said. He described himself as an “underdog” running against a campaign that has “a 20-year head start when it comes to managing the spin of the national politics.”

Many people are only beginning to focus on the race now, and early front-runners can easily stumble when the voting starts. But the Obama campaign has faced a political narrative in recent weeks that even Mr. Obama’s aides have described, in no small part because of a succession of polls, as establishing Mrs. Clinton as the front-runner. In one small example, a member of Mr. Obama’s national finance committee, Robert Farmer, told the campaign last week that he was formally switching allegiances to the Clinton campaign. Mr. Farmer contributed money to five Democratic presidential candidates this year, including the maximum amount allowed to Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Edwards.

Though Mr. Obama’s criticisms of Mrs. Clinton were sharper than he has voiced during this campaign, they were, nonetheless, still somewhat restrained, certainly when compared with the criticisms that have been voiced of Mrs. Clinton by Mr. Edwards and much of the Republican field.

Mr. Obama rejected the suggestion that he had been constrained in taking on Mrs. Clinton more forcefully because of his promise, at the start of the campaign, to avoid the bitter partisanship of past campaigns. Mr. Obama, who aides suggested might be spending too much time reading blogs and newspaper clippings about the campaign, dismissively noted how the Clinton campaign regularly raised that line against him.

“I’ve been amused by seeing some of the commentary out of the Clinton camp, where every time we point out a difference between me and her, they say, ‘What happened to the politics of hope?’ which is just silly,” he said, laughing.

Asked why it was silly, he responded: “The notion that somehow changing the tone means simply that we let them say whatever they want to say or that there are no disagreements and that we’re all holding hands and singing ‘Kumbaya’ is obviously not what I had in mind and not how I function. And anybody who thinks I have, hasn’t been paying attention.”

That said, Mr. Obama and his campaign have until now frequently avoided potential confrontations. Mr. Obama’s aides said, for example, that they had declined an invitation from some networks to appear on Sunday morning talk shows after Mrs. Clinton the day she appeared on five in one day to talk about her health care plan.

Hope and Respect on the Campaign Trail

This is a piece that is all about the importance of getting out there and knocking on doors to spread the word about Barack Obama. It's part of the Huffington Post's "Off the Bus" project. Here's the link to the article.

Hope And Respect On The Campaign Trail

It was the national day of canvassing for the Barack Obama campaign. We met at a local coffeehouse in Altadena, California, on a morning that began with pouring rain that luckily had stopped by the time we started walking. "Time to Turn the Page on Iraq" boasted the hefty box of pamphlets and flyers we were given to pass out. I opened one to see what we were handing out: information about Barack's position on the war, some of his basic policy outlines, healthcare. It all sported a nice glossy color printing. We were good to go.

My intrepid fellow canvasser Laura has had previous experience with local elections, having run a city council campaign. So I mostly followed her lead. "I love canvassing," she said. "It's here that the votes are really won."

The goal: a lower-income neighborhood in Altadena, a neighborhood that was traditionally African-American but had experienced a steady influx of Latino residents. I am African-American, Laura is of Chinese/Anglo ancestry but looks as though she might be Latina, so we are a pretty nonthreatening duo for this street.

It's not necessarily my idea of a good time to go knocking on the doors of potentially unfriendly strangers while being grilled on tough policy questions. But I feel so strongly about my candidate that I decided to get over myself. Besides, Laura knows how to handle herself in the political arena and was a good foil for any problem customers.

The statistics show that door-to-door contact is the single most effective way to reach voters. The only thing is, when you go knocking on people's doors, they want to talk. It can be a time-consuming process and takes a large number of volunteers to get the word out.

We got into Laura's car (easy to recognize with the not one, but two Barack Obama stickers on the bumper!) and drove to our assigned street. At first glance, I guessed it to be a fairly stable neighborhood. There were some very nice houses that showed evidence of recent renovations mixed in with some ramshackle bungalows.

We had a walk list provided by the campaign that indicated the Democrats and Undeclareds we were to try to reach. (Since Republicans can't vote in the California Democratic primary, it's a more efficient use of our time to focus our message on party voters.)

Laura is the initiator in our canvassing dynamic. I provide backup. I'm always in awe at the way she just strides up to houses and knocks on the door. I sort of hang back, sizing up the situation first.

One of the first houses we approached had vicious-looking pit bulls surrounded by a flimsy chain-link fence next door. Great!

As we walked up to the house, the pit bulls snarled and spewed spittle. I'm a dog lover, but really, enough's enough! I was ready to turn back, but Laura walked right past and knocked on the front door. An older heavyset black woman answered. We told her about Obama and why we supported him. She said she was a supporter too and took our pamphlet. We asked if she'd like to volunteer for the campaign. She responded that she worked full-time, but as we were leaving she yelled to her daughter, "Hey, you want to work on the Obama campaign?" We waited expectantly. The mom listened for a moment and then told us "Naw. She's too busy with school. She's in college."

Ok, next.

A few doors down was our next house. To say it was dilapidated would be too polite. On the sagging front porch sat a skinny elderly black man wearing scratched-up glasses, sitting on a beat-up couch, talking to his friend, another black man perhaps in his late 30s or early 40s standing in front of him. Both of them were swigging 40 ounces. It was 11 o'clock in the morning. Great.

Laura walked right on the porch, asking them if they were supporters of Barack Obama. The elderly man shook his head slowly. "I don't vote," he said. "I don't vote either," said his friend. They kept on swigging their 40s. I was getting the vibe they wanted us to leave so they could continue their conversation.

"Well, why not?" I asked. "I'm curious to know why you don't vote. Are you guys registered?" The older man said: "Oh, I'm registered. My wife isn't though, she won't get registered to vote. I don't know why." He called out to his wife inside the house. The screen door was open. "You want to vote for Barack Obama?" he asked. She slammed the door shut, "Leave me alone!"

I decided to press the issue. Laura looked at me nodding, as if to say "Go on, black woman!" I continued, "Well, I'm black," The men sort of perked up and paid more attention. (I sometimes have to tell people when I want to pull out my black credentials because I look racially "other.") "And don't you know that the Ku Klux Klan was formed to keep black people from the polls?... and now we are voluntarily not voting?"

The older man said knowingly, "I'm from Georgia. I know about that [swig]... Maybe I'll vote this time." Laura asked if he would like information about Barack Obama. He said he would and took a pamphlet.

His friend wouldn't look me in the eye when he said, "I've been incarcerated. I can't vote."

That took the wind out of my sails for a moment. How to respond? This feels so huge, like it's beyond what I can help with. Reading the recent statistic that there are more black men in jail cells than in dorm rooms struck me deeply. I know something needs to change.

I held out a pamphlet. "Well, maybe you can't vote. But you can still help the campaign by telling people about Barack Obama. And just imagine what a good role model he would be for black children. That they can imagine themselves as President of the United States."

He had an indecipherable expression on his face as he took the pamphlet from me. Did he think I was nuts... on drugs? He took it, opened it and pored over it very, very carefully. He was reading slowly, but he was reading it. I was proud that the cover showed Barack Obama's picture and that the Senator looked strong and in charge. That fellow looked at that pamphlet front, back and sideways, turning it around, examining it from all angles.

We thanked them for their time and moved on. Did we just rock their world, or what? They were just hanging out drinking their morning 40, and then these Barack Obama ladies show up!

A few more houses. More friendly faces. More people took pamphlets. People were pretty open and mostly hadn't made up their minds.

We climbed the stairs to a second-story apartment building and knocked on the door. A young white man, maybe in his late 20s, opened the door. He was dressed in shorts, t-shirt, and flip-flops. Out popped a little child wearing a purple feline-type costume. "Is this the Purple Panther?" I asked. The father introduced his son, Andrew. "Andrew is a kitty cat. He's four years old," The dad explained. Andrew gave a big meow.

Andrew's mom, a pleasant-looking young white woman with a round freckled face, came out to see what was happening. We explained we were here to talk about Barack Obama. She laughed and said she was online at that moment filling out a political survey. She would come back in a moment when she finished. "Just skew it in our direction," we called after her.

Laura gave her opener about why she supported Barack Obama. We talked about Barack's early stance against the war, back when it was unpopular to do so, how he has called for accountability in government, and has a workable and practical healthcare plan. The father said that healthcare was very important to them.

Andrew has a genetic disorder that requires very expensive treatment. The treatment can run up to a million dollars a year but it can mean the difference between life and death for their child. The wife came back from completing the survey. She has the same disorder and passed it down to her son. The couple was afraid that if her husband ever needed to change his job, they wouldn't be able to qualify for private insurance because of their expensive, pre-existing condition.

They had such specific questions that I told them I would put them in contact with another Obama supporter who was a retired pediatrician. She would be better able to help them.

We left their apartment feeling that we'd had a very deep conversation with this young couple and with a better understanding as to how crucial some of this "abstract" policy is on people's lives.

I thought about little Andrew as we walked down the stairs. I know that the Republicans often say that to solve America's uninsured health crisis we should "let the free market decide." But why would the free market ever decide to help someone who is in need of regular, expensive treatment? The free market would decide that it couldn't support the cost.

On the walk we talked to a woman who was Indian-American and a community college professor. She said all her colleagues were Barack Obama supporters. She lived with her 90-year-old parents in a nicely renovated two-story farmhouse. Her father had answered the door dressed in his traditional robes. He asked us to come inside and sit, saying that Indian custom wouldn't allow him to let two guests stand outside on the front porch. Unfortunately we didn't have time and had many more on our walk lists.

We knocked on the door of a small bungalow that was part of a courtyard. The driveway was unpaved and stretched to the back, where there were three other houses. Two little boys were playing in the driveway. No one was home. The two boys, who looked Mexican and had accents, said "No one's home." They offered to help us knock on all the doors in the courtyard. We gave them some Barack Obama stickers. One of the doors to the bungalows was open. Spanish-language radio blared out. This house wasn't on our walk list, but we knocked on the door anyway. A shy dark-eyed girl looked out through the screen. Her father came to the door. He was a young man, strongly built, with a friendly smile. We explained that we were Barack Obama supporters. "No voting" he said cheerily. Since neither Laura nor I speak Spanish, the visit was brief.

I wanted to tell them of Obama's support of the Dream Act, which would help illegal immigrants go to college, but I didn't want to presume.

The next house was a Latina woman who was a registered voter. She said she was born in this country. She said that she was veering between Hillary and Obama. She liked that Obama cared about minorities. She liked that Hillary was a woman, but she didn't have any questions. We gave her some information and were turning to leave. Almost like an afterthought, she blurted out: "What about Obama and immigration? Where does he stand on immigration?" She explained that she had family members who were here illegally, and she felt that they were in a very difficult position, particularly because it is hard for them to get drivers' licenses. So when people get in accidents, because they don't have licenses, they're more likely to leave the scene, which is dangerous for all drivers.

Neither Laura or I knew where he stood on the license issue. But we did tell her that he stood for securing the border, while ensuring that we make the path to legal immigration and citizenship more accessible. We also told her of his support of the Dream Act. She seemed happy to hear about that.

There was the old Trinidadian man who said he wouldn't support Hillary because he didn't want a woman ruling over him. "We rule in the household, though" I quipped back. There was the 50-something white woman with cropped gray hair who said she wasn't interested and brusquely slammed the door. "Hillary supporter" we whispered to each other as we left. "That's her demographic."

There was the massive black man with cornrows and sweat stains on his gray t-shirt who was full of media conspiracy theories: "Did you know that in the computer voting machines there's a bug that will change your vote?... it doesn't matter which way you vote, they're going to change it." He wasn't interested in talking about anything else. So our response to him was: "Yeah, and the media wants you to think that Hillary is inevitable too." He nodded his head in agreement.

We finished our day of canvassing tired, hungry, but better understanding about what makes this election tick. And it really isn't media spin, who's ahead in what poll, or debating policy minutiae. The online world is meaningless to most people. Older people barely used their computers or only had a rudimentary knowledge of how to use them. Most people had really specific questions about what mattered to them most. And I know we got some votes for Barack Obama because we bothered to put on our walking shoes that day and make personal face-to-face contact. As Laura had said earlier, "This is where votes are won."

Barack on Tavis Smiley

For those of you who missed this interview, it's a must-see! This interview feels like two friends having a conversation. Barack talks candidly about race, the polls, and why Iowa is so important.

Oprah interview with Michelle Obama

Here is Oprah's interview with Michelle Obama. It will be featured in the November issue of O magazine. It talks about Michelle's childhood and the kind of values she was raised with. Michelle would make an excellent First Lady.

Here's the link.

History Repeating Itself

This Youtube video makes the point with just a few images. We have to vote for change!

Obama's Urban Agenda

Here are some highlights of Obama's urban agenda from the campaign.

TALKING POINTS- URBAN AGENDA: Changing the Odds for Urban America

In this country, no child’s destiny should be determined before he takes his first step. No little girl’s future should be confined just because of the neighborhood she was born into or because her family can’t afford to write thousand-dollar campaign checks to make their voices heard. Our government cannot guarantee success and happiness in life, but what we can do as a nation is ensure that every American who wants to work is prepared to work, able to find a job, and able to stay out of poverty.

Poverty is not an issue I just discovered for the purposes of a campaign, it is the cause that led me to a life of public service almost twenty-five years ago. I was just two years out of college when I first moved to the South Side of Chicago to become a community organizer. I was hired by a group of churches that were trying to deal with steel plant closures that had devastated the surrounding neighborhoods.

What I learned back then is that there are no easy answers or perfect arguments. Hope is found in what works. Hope is found in the Harlem Children’s Zone – an all-encompassing, all-hands-on-deck anti-poverty effort that is literally saving a generation of children in a neighborhood where they were never supposed to have a chance. The philosophy behind the project is simple – if poverty is a disease that infects an entire community in the form of unemployment and violence; failing schools and broken homes, then we can’t just treat those symptoms in isolation. We have to heal that entire community.

And it’s working. Parents in Harlem are actually reading more to their children. Their kids are staying in school and passing statewide tests at higher rates than other children in New York City. They’re going to college in a place where it was once unheard of.

And there’s no reason this program should stop at the end of those blocks in Harlem. That’s why when I’m President, the first part of my plan to combat urban poverty will be to invest a few billion dollars to replicate the Harlem Children’s Zone in twenty cities across the country.

The second part of my plan will provide families the support they need to raise their children. I’ll pass the plan I outlined last year that will provide more financial support to fathers who make the responsible choice to help raise their children and crack down on the fathers who don’t. And we’ll help new mothers with their new responsibilities by expanding a pioneering program known as the Nurse-Family Partnership that offers home visits by trained registered nurses to low-income mothers and mothers-to-be.

The third part of my plan for urban America is to help people find work and make that work pay. I will invest $1 billion over five years in innovative transitional jobs programs that have been highly successful at placing the unemployed into temporary jobs and then training them for permanent ones. And to make work pay, I will triple the Earned Income Tax Credit for full-time workers making the minimum wage.

The fourth part of my plan will be to help bring businesses back to our inner-cities. When I’m President, I’ll make sure that every community has the access to the capital and resources it needs to create a stronger business climate by providing more loans to small businesses and setting up the financial institutions that can help get them started.

The final part of my plan is to ensure that more Americans have access to safe, affordable housing. As President, I’ll create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund that would add as many as 112,000 new affordable units in mixed income neighborhoods. And we’ll do more to protect homeowners from mortgage fraud and subprime lending by passing my plan to provide counseling to tenants, homeowners, and other consumers so they get the advice and guidance they need before buying a house and support if they get in to trouble down the road.

Doing all this will require the sustained commitment of the President of the United States, and that is why I will also appoint a new director of Urban Policy who will cut through the disorganized bureaucracy that currently exists and report directly to me on how these efforts are going; on what’s working and what’s not.

What this agenda attempts to do is not easy, and it will not happen overnight. Changing the odds in our cities will require humility in what we can accomplish and patience with our progress. But I’m hopeful that if we can all join together to get it done, this is a challenge we can meet.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick to Endorse Obama

This is really good news. Because Gov. Patrick can help with the campaign's efforts in S. Carolina.

Patrick chose Obama because the governor believes the country is hungry for a fresh leadership style, one that stirs up strong voter enthusiasm, Patrick administration officials said.

The most immediate advantage for Obama is Patrick's ability to dispatch volunteers, who were a major factor in his gubernatorial victory last year, to New Hampshire to campaign. Patrick sent e-mail last night to 40,000 workers and supporters, informing them of his decision...

...Patrick's endorsement could count highly in southern New Hampshire communities that are oriented to Massachusetts and, in particular, Boston-based media. Those areas have a large population of voters who could be open to a pro-Obama message, Scala said.

Patrick is expected to argue in the coming weeks that Obama can lead a "generational call," a rally to inspire young voters to rebuild the country and restore its standing around the world. Patrick feels that the issue of Obama's relative inexperience is overblown, administration officials said.

Jeffrey Berry, a political science professor at Tufts University, said Patrick's endorsement will be significant because it will reinforce Obama's most potent weapon: his broad-based appeal to voters.

"For Obama, a Patrick endorsement is another sign there is a new, young generation of dynamic black leaders who can appeal across racial and partisan lines," Berry said.

Patrick and Obama have traveled similar personal and career paths. Both have roots in Chicago, hold Harvard law degrees, and have emerged in the past several years as the principal figures in a new generation of African-American political leaders. Both have passionate grass-roots support.

Read more here

Obama on The Tonight Show

Here is Obama appearing on last night's Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

http://www.breitbart.tv/html/6885.html

Another Hillary Flip-Flop (Iran this time... more to come!!!)

Black Voters Torn Between Barack and Hillary... Not!!!

I've just been out there in the streets, knocking on doors in a mostly African-American neighborhood. Today was a national canvassing day for Barack.

And I did not meet one Hillary supporter. All the black people I spoke with were voting for Barack.

There was a young woman talking on her cell phone on the porch and she asked us what we wanted. Since she was busy, we asked if we could leave her some literature.

She said that she'd already made up her mind (for Barack), but we could leave her something. We gave her the pamphlet and turned to leave. She called after us and said, "Hey, can I have two more of those? I want to give it to my mother and my friend"?

Then as we left her house, we heard her on her cell phone: "Girl, I'm voting for Barack Obama. I'm sick of Hillary Clinton!"

We gave her the thumb's up sign as we left.

Campaign Fights Back against Clinton Flip-Flops

Obama's campaign is fighting back and coming out swinging and calling Hillary out on her flip-flops (which are too numerous to mention). This is a campaign memo sent to Marc Ambinder's blog on The Atlantic:

TO: Interested Parties

FR: The Obama Campaign

RE: Quasi-incumbent finally gets scrutiny and stumbles

DA: 10/12/07

It is clear that just as voters are becoming more engaged in the campaign in the early primary states that Senator Clinton and her campaign have abandoned the politics of “let’s have a conversation,” in favor of purely tactical posturing.
Questioning and challenging what principles, if any, each candidate is standing on when they take a position or change that position is the normal part of the political process. Our campaign regularly fields questions on significant policy issues, even as we did when Hillary Clinton attacked Barack by calling him naïve and irresponsible for a position which she has agreed with him on 2 of the 3 occasions she has addressed it.

Our campaign will continue to speak openly and honestly about the challenges facing Americans and on our nation on issues as vital as Social Security, torture and international diplomacy and Barack Obama will continue tell Americans not just what they want to hear, but he believes they need to hear as well. Granted, we can see why she and her campaign might continue to get irritated by tough questions about her changing positions – they must be very tough to answer.

On Social Security, Clinton had been saying that nothing was on the table in terms of how to repair and strengthen Social Security. But in a conversation with a voter that the AP overheard, it appears to be clear that raising taxes is on the table in a very real way. [AP, 10/11/07]

When it comes to diplomacy, Clinton moved from thinking it “irresponsible and, frankly, naïve” for a president to offer a meeting with someone we don’t agree with to saying: “Here’s what I would do as president: I would engage in negotiations with Iran, with no conditions.” In all fairness, that was the position she seemed to have before launching her attack on Obama for his commonsense policy of not fearing meetings with anyone. [MSNBC,”Countdown with Keith Olberman,” 1/23/07; Clinton, YouTube Debate, 7/23/07; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAlyYtJxaio; Clinton Event, Canterbury, NH, 10/11/07; WP 10/10/07]

On her torture position, first she was for some forms of torture then she opposed all forms, then she refused to tell the Washington Post whether the administration’s policy was one she would continue. [Statement, 9/28/06; New York Post, 10/21/06; NY Daily News, 9/27/07; New York Daily News, 9/27/07]

And then, of course, she did hedge her bet on the pledge she made to the early primary states. It hasn’t been exactly popular in the states with early contests for Clinton to break her word to them. [DiStaso column, Union Leader, 10/10/07]

And, in response to some of the rather breathless political assertions in their memo today, we would make the following points

· In the one state where the race is engaged, Iowa, the last four public polls show a race within the margin of error between Obama and Clinton, with Edwards in third. This is not because it’s the one state in the union immune to Senator Clinton’s appeal. It is because the voters are paying close attention, they know the most about Barack Obama and are responding to his message. As other early states get more engaged, we will see a much closer race.

· We just started advertising in New Hampshire two weeks ago. Even before that, Obama has a solid vote foundation of 20%. We will build on that in the coming weeks thru additional advertising and candidate visits, like the trip this week where Barack unveiled his energy plan.

· South Carolina is a very close two way contest between Obama and Clinton already. We have a solid base and will expand on that as the election draws nearer.

· We have the strongest precinct organization in Nevada, which will be paramount. Organization will win the Nevada caucus. There is no existing list of prior caucus goers at the precinct level and turnout estimates vary wildly.


Senator Clinton in all these states is the quasi-incumbent. In Iowa, where the race is most developed, over 70% of the electorate is not choosing her, producing a dangerously low ceiling.


And let’s be clear: Hillary Clinton must win every contest. They forcefulness with which they embrace the aura of inevitability will make it shatter if she does not win in every single state. Inevitability does not come with state exceptions. Early setbacks will fundamentally alter the race, especially given our campaign’s financial and organizational strength that will allow us to capitalize fully on early momentum on February 5, where we already have much more developed campaign organizations than the Clinton campaign.


The Clinton operation is the greatest money machine in the history of American politics. The fact that Barack Obama, who has been on the national scene only briefly and who had no national fundraising network in place, has outraised Clinton by $12 million dollars this year and has a huge lead in the number of donors speaks to the hunger for change and an alternative to the frontrunner.


So, while the Clinton campaign attempts to duck legitimate questions on their way to their believed coronation, we will stay focused on telling the American people not just what they want to hear but what the need to hear, continue to build a grassroots movement for change and stay focused on measuring our progress in the early states, the only barometer that matters right now

Obama Ad about Iraq

Barack is speaking out against Hillary and her vote that gave President Bush authority to invade Iran.

Sen. Barack Obama on Thursday criticized a recent vote by Democratic presidential rival Sen. Hillary Clinton as helping to give President Bush a "blank check" to take military action against Iran.
"We know in the past that the president has used some of the flimsiest excuses to try to move his agenda regardless of what Congress says," Obama said in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer...

... Clinton's 2002 vote shows a clear difference in judgment between the two of them, Obama said. Video Watch as Obama questions Clinton's judgment »

"I don't think it disqualified her, but I think it speaks to her judgment and it speaks to my judgment," Obama said. "It speaks to how we will make decisions going forward.

"I think her judgment was flawed on this issue."

Check out this new ad about our vote to enter into Iraq:

Chris Matthews Refutes Bill Clinton's Criticism of Obama

Go Chris!!!

Hillary Flip-Flops on Baby Bonds (Surprise!!!)

Well, folks, another Clinton flip-flop.

When she spoke last month before the Congessional Black Caucus, she said that she thought that every American baby should be given a $5,000 "baby bond." Here are her exact words from Associated Press:

"I like the idea of giving every baby born in America a $5,000 account that will grow over time, so that when that young person turns 18 if they have finished high school they will be able to access it to go to college or maybe they will be able to make that downpayment on their first home," she said.

Well, obviously, that didn't go over well with Republicans, and the outcry was immediate.

"It's a quick way of trying to buy votes, which is irresponsible when it comes to the economic future of the nation," said New York Conservative Party chief Mike Long, adding that the White House would have to raise taxes to finance the plan.

and...

Repulican National Committee Communications Director Danny Diaz said Clinton's "budget-busting proposals" totaled $615 billion dollars in new spending so far.

"If enacted into law, Hillary Clinton's reckless spending proposals would result in devastating tax hikes on hard-working families and grow the size of government at a massive rate," Diaz said.

and...

“I think that almost all Republican voters saw this plan as so outrageous that we had hoped that Hillary would not be challenged on this by any of our candidates, as it will be a great talking point during the general election battle,” said Rick Beltram, the Republican Party chairman in Spartanburg County, S.C. Beltram added, “We are so hopeful that she will be the Democratic nominee.”

(read more here)

Well, once again. When Hillary sees which way the political winds were blowing, guess what happened?

Reporters on the trail with Sen. Hillary Clinton are reporting that she has dropped her “baby bond” idea, the notion that the federal government would give each baby at birth $5,000 to be used later for college or to help purchase a first home.

Clinton, the front runner in national and many state polls among Democrats seeking the presidential nomination, caught a lot of flak from former Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and others for the idea, which her campaign is saying was only a concept, not a policy position.

How can we in good faith vote for a candidate when we have no idea what her position or stance will be? I can say I agree with Hillary on certain policies today, but then she might change her position tomorrow.

I need a candidate who is consistent, honest, and is calling for accountability in Washington. This is why I am supporting Barack Obama.

Hillary's Flip-Flops Captured!

Ok, this is hilarious (and a little scary, too!). Here from Lovingj1 is a YouTube compilation of many (not all, too many to count) of Hillary's recent campaign flip-flops, all of which are on the record. (Click on the link if you want to read more.)

The video was made one month ago, and missed one of her most recent flip-flops where she said that she would NEVER authorize torture.

Here's the video:

Top 10 Reasons to Vote for Obama

This list was compiled by grassroots volunteer Todd Smyth. Here's the link to the page. It has nice graphics and is easy to print out and distribute:


Top 10 Reasons to Vote for Barack Obama

1. Barack Obama has personal experience with poverty and the growing income gap, having grown up abroad in Indonesia and working as a community organizer in the south side of Chicago.

2. After graduating Harvard Law, Magna Cum Laude and president of the Harvard Law Review, Obama could have become a wealthy corporate or trial lawyer but returned to Chicago to practice civil rights law.

3. He also taught Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago, so he knows how our government is supposed to work.

4. He has the most experience as an elected official and legislator with over 10 years in state and federal public service. He is the only top Democratic candidate who understands both state and federal government as an elected legislator.

5. He opposed the Iraq war before it started and has a specific plan for redeploying all combat troops by March 31, 2008.

6. He has received an A+ score from the Genocide Intervention Network for being a "champion" and taking crucial action to end the genocide in Darfur, co-sponsoring and voting for all significant Darfur legislation.

7. Barack Obama is committed to universal health care by the end of his first term.

8. He has sponsored, co-sponsored and advocated for significant and realistic legislation to end global warming by capturing and safely disposing carbon dioxide, raising vehicle fuel economy standards and replacing petroleum with home-grown biofuels like cellulosic ethanol.

9. He has the broadest base of supporters, has not accepted PAC money and is the least compromised by big money special interests.

10. Barack Obama has the intellect, natural talent and charisma to communicate effectively to the entire world, bring people together, change the status quo and move our country forward.

New Campaign Ad from New Hampshire

Barack talks about our addiction to oil and the need to tell the American people the truth about the effects of our energy policies.

Must-Read Huffington Post Piece

This is a great Huffington Post piece written by Obama supporter Linda Hansen.

It describes a rally she attended in Rock Hill, South Carolina and is so inspiring -- you should read it.

I don't want to post it here, because I want you to go to the site and leave comments.

Here's the link

Is Obama Ready for the Presidency?....Yes!!!

I remember when Bill Clinton was running for president, I thought: who the hell is he? Why should we vote for the governer of ARKANSAS to be president of the United States? He's from some backwater southern state... how can he have the experience of running a country as complicated and diverse as the United States?

Then, when I learned more about who he was, and mostly his intellect. How he thought about things, the fact that he was a Rhodes Scholar. The fact that he had a personal background of struggle and being raised by a single mother showed me that he had to overcome a lot in order to be who he was.

I was sold and voted for him.

Sound familiar?

From Ruben Navarrette Jr. of the San Diego Union Tribune:

San Diego Union Tribune - Is Obama ready for presidency?

Ruben Navarrette Jr.

UNION-TRIBUNE

When did Bill Clinton put away the saxophone and become such an old fuddy-duddy?

It was surreal to see one of America's most famous baby boomers – the man who, despite youth and inexperience, broke the World War II generation's grip on the presidency – try to argue that Barack Obama is too young and inexperienced for the job.

As it happens, Obama is the same age that Clinton was when the former president was elected in 1992. Apparently, for the Clintonistas, 46 isn't as mature as it used to be.

“There is a difference,” Clinton said last week in an interview with Al Hunt of Bloomberg Television. “I was the senior governor in America,” the former president said. “I had been head of any number of national organizations that were related to the major issue of the day, which is how to restore America's economic strength.”

In other words, now that baby boomers have decided that “60” is the new “40,” it must follow that “46” is the new “26.” And 26 is too young to be president. The immensely self-important generation that once warned us not to trust anyone over 30 now warns us not to entrust the presidency to anyone under 50.

In fact, Clinton said condescendingly, Obama reminds him of what he was like back in 1988, when the then-governor of Arkansas decided against running because he didn't think that he “knew enough and had served enough, and done enough to run.”

Pul-eeze. Politicians rarely hold back from running for the presidency because they lack experience. Most of them are too ambitious for that. It's almost always because they lack money.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich demonstrated that recently when he decided to forgo a run at the presidency this time around because, he said, it would be too difficult to raise enough money in accordance with campaign finance laws.

And so, one might argue that Bill Clinton sat out the 1988 race because he wasn't sure he could come up with the cash. That's where the comparison with Obama comes to a screeching halt. Just this week, the Obama campaign announced that it raised another $20 million in the third quarter. That brings Obama's fundraising total for the entire campaign to $80 million.

And while Hillary Clinton raised $27 million in the same quarter, Obama has put together enough money from enough individual donors to give the Clinton campaign reason to worry – and to go on the attack. And it's letting Bill deliver the jabs.

But when you challenge an opponent, it helps to be consistent. And this line of attack isn't. Fifteen years ago, some in the World War II generation accused Bill Clinton of being too green and unprepared to assume the presidency. Now Clinton is trying to make the case that Obama is even greener and less prepared. In 1992, Clinton was often referred to as a young man in a hurry. Now, his refrain to Barack Obama comes off as: “Hey young man, what's your hurry?”

Meanwhile, Obama fired back as one would expect him to – by quoting Bill Clinton to rebut Bill Clinton.

“I remember what was said years ago by a candidate running for president,” Obama said in a statement. “He said, 'The same old experience is not relevant. You can have the right kind of experience and the wrong kind of experience.' Well that candidate was Bill Clinton. And I think he was absolutely right.”

Obama then insisted that he “may not have the experience Washington likes” but that he has “the experience America needs – the ability to bring people together, stand up to the special interests, and tell the truth to the American people. . . . ”

This episode brings back bad memories of what was one of Bill Clinton's major liabilities – that his principles were flexible and that he would say whatever you wanted to hear and whatever suited his objective at any given time. And then when the objective changed, he'd simply change his views – such as the time he broke his promise to allow gays to serve openly in the military.

Since Hillary Clinton shares the current objective – to get herself elected president – one wonders if she shares the same tendency to break promises and adjust her views when it suits her purpose. If so, that should worry her supporters – especially on contentious issues such as the Iraq war and immigration reform.

It might even prompt them to take a second look at yet another young man in a hurry.

Obama Proposes 35% Cut in Use of Foreign Oil by 2030

From Bloomberg News:

Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, saying the U.S. faces an ``energy crisis,'' is calling for the U.S. to reduce its dependence on foreign oil 35 percent by 2030.

Obama, in excerpts of a speech prepared for delivery today in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, laid out a plan to combat global climate change, reduce dependence on oil, and create jobs by investing in ``climate-friendly'' industries.

``Our energy problem has become an energy crisis because no matter how well intentioned the promise, no matter how bold the proposal, they all fall victim to the same Washington politics that has only become more divided and dishonest,'' said Obama, 46, an Illinois senator.

Obama proposed investing $150 billion over the next 10 years to develop and produce climate-friendly energy supplies and create millions of jobs while protecting the U.S. manufacturing base.

Michelle Obama Visits Philly

FYI..

Michelle Obama will be in Philadelphia on October 29th for a Luncheon at the Loews Hotel. The invitation has a webpage link so that you can forward this to RSVP online.

Here is the link: http://www.phillyforobama.com/Michelle_Obama_Event.pdf.

Those who prefer can RSVP to co-chair Peter Buttenwieser at (215) 242-6901 or plbuttenweiser@worldnet.att.net

Michelle Addresses SC Baptist Church

Here is Michelle Obama speaking at Brookland Baptist Church's annual Womens' Day in South Carolina.

Obama Unveils Bold New Energy Plan

From the campaign:

Obama Unveils Bold Energy Plan

Portsmouth, NH | October 08, 2007

Portsmouth, NH - In a major policy address today, Barack Obama will announce a visionary plan to make America a global leader on energy. After years of broken promises and unfulfilled plans that have fallen victim to the Washington status quo, Obama will pledge to provide real leadership on the issue by challenging conventional thinking and loosening the grip of special interests. Obama's plan lays out bold steps to combat global climate change, free America from the tyranny of oil, and create millions of new jobs and entire new industries here in America.

Senator Obama has been a proven leader on energy with a strong record of fighting to invest in renewable fuels and raise fuel economy standards. Obama has been honest in telling the defenders of the status quo that when he's President, the same failures won't do.

Senator Obama's plan to make America a global leader on energy includes:

- Implementing an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the level recommended by top scientists to avoid calamitous impacts

- Investing $150 billion over the next ten years to develop and deploy climate friendly energy supplies, protect our existing manufacturing base and create millions of new jobs

- Dramatically improving energy efficiency to reduce energy intensity of our economy by 50 percent by 2030

- Reducing our dependence on foreign oil and reducing oil consumption overall by at least 35 percent, or 10 million barrels of oil, by 2030

- Leading a new international global warming partnership
The plan can be viewed in full HERE.

Utah Dems: Obama by a Mile!

Utah is a majority Republican state, and the front-runner for that party is (no surprise) Mormon Mitt Romney. However, on the Democratic ticket, Obama is the clear favorite. From the Deseret Morning News:

The state's Democrats, meanwhile, strongly favored Barack Obama. The Illinois senator had the support of 42 percent of Utah Democrats who said they planned to vote, compared to 18 percent who said they would vote for former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina and 16 percent for Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York.

...Obama's popularity here didn't surprise Utah for Obama's Nikki Norton, especially after a hastily organized rally near Park City this past August attracted hundreds of Utahns who wanted to hear from the candidate.

"Obama is showing he can reach out to people who aren't normally part of the process, like Utah Democrats," Norton said. "That he took the time to stop and speak to Utahns ... It shows he listens."

Read more here

Barack on Tyra Banks Show

Here are some links to Barack's appearance on the Tyra Banks show. (It's divided into seven parts).

Added note: I watched this interview after posting it, and I have to say that Obama is one of the most charming presidential candidates I've seen in a long time. He wins the likeability factor hands-down. Tyra was gushing (well, ok, she's always gushing), and it was obvious that he swept her and a lot of the female audience off their feet.

The fact that he's married to such a strong, beautiful and intelligent woman only makes him that much better. And it's so refreshing to hear him speak so openly and fondly about his wife. We really believe that he is a good husband. (Or as Tyra would say, "I see goodness in your eyes.")

He and Michelle Obama could be the black Kennedys in that they would bring grace, manners and style back to the White House.

Enough of my gushing. Get this man on talk shows... NOW!!!

Tyra Banks Interview of Obama Parts 1-7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6L6c9AsOzI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poHbIy-MVrI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOUuWYvMmDE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxH0cjsU5qw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNWxSC0r3U0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOkCmkwj7So
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLpDSLRBoVI

Growing Up Without a Father

After reading this and watching the Tyra Banks interview, I have to say that we want to see more of the personal Obama. He is such an interesting person and his life story explains so much about his personal and political choices. Here he talks about how growing up without a father affected him. From the New York Times Caucus blog:

Obama Talks About Growing Up Without His Father

By Jeff Zeleny

WASHINGTON, Iowa – By now, the stump speeches delivered by presidential candidates have become routine, at least to many of the politically inclined voters of Iowa and New Hampshire. So the most interesting moments at campaign appearances often are inspired from those seated in the audience.

Near the end of a stop here today, Senator Barack Obama was asked this question from a man seated in the crowd at the Washington County fairgrounds: “What would you say is the most painful and character-building experience of your life that puts you in a position to make important decisions of life and death and the well being of our country?”

For a moment or two, Mr. Obama paused. It was far different from the string of questions posed on policies and issues. Finally, he said: “It’s a terrific question.”

And here, in its entirety, is his answer:

“I would say the fact that I grew up without a father in the home. What that meant was that I had to learn very early on to figure out what was important and what wasn’t, and exercise my own judgment and in some ways to raise myself.

My mother was wonderful and was a foundation of love for me, but as a young man growing up, I didn’t have a lot of role models and I made a lot of mistakes, but I learned to figure out that there are certain values that were important to me that I had to be true to.

Nobody was going to force me to be honest. Nobody was going to force me to work hard. Nobody was going to force me to have drive and ambition. Nobody was going to force me to have empathy for other people. But if I really thought those values were important, I had to live them out.

That’s why it’s so important for me now, both as a United States senator and as a president candidate, but also as a father and a husband to wake up every morning and ask myself, am I living up to those values that I say are important? Because if I’m not, then I shouldn’t be president.”

Obama Calls for Elimination of World's Nuclear Weapons

Barack Obama is at the forefront of the call to eliminate nuclear weapons. From New York Times:

Obama to Urge Elimination of Nuclear Weapons

By JEFF ZELENY

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 — Senator Barack Obama will propose on Tuesday setting a goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons in the world, saying the United States should greatly reduce its stockpiles to lower the threat of nuclear terrorism, aides say.

In a speech at DePaul University in Chicago, Mr. Obama will add his voice to a plan endorsed earlier this year by a bipartisan group of former government officials from the cold war era who say the United States must begin building a global consensus to reverse a reliance on nuclear weapons that have become “increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective.”

Mr. Obama, according to details provided by his campaign Monday, also will call for pursuing vigorous diplomatic efforts aimed at a global ban on the development, production and deployment of intermediate-range missiles.

“In 2009, we will have a window of opportunity to renew our global leadership and bring our nation together,” Mr. Obama is planning to say, according to an excerpt of remarks provided by his aides. “If we don’t seize that moment, we may not get another.”

His speech was to come one day after an announcement by the Bush administration that it had tripled the rate of dismantling nuclear weapons over the last year, putting the United States on track to reducing its stockpile of weapons by half by 2012.

Read more here

Speech by Barack Obama at DePaul University

This is a speech that was given today by Barack Obama at DePaul University.

A New Beginning
DePaul University
October 2, 2007

Thank you, Ted. Ted Sorensen has been counselor to a President in some of our toughest moments, and he has helped define our national purpose at pivotal turning points. Let me also welcome all of the elected officials from Illinois who are with us. Let me give a special welcome to all of the organizers and speakers who joined me to rally against going to war in Iraq five years ago. And I want to thank DePaul University and DePaul’s students for hosting this event.
We come together at a time of renewal for DePaul. A new academic year has begun. Professors are learning the names of new students, and students are reminded that you actually do have to attend class. That cold is beginning to creep into the Chicago air. The season is changing.
DePaul is now filled with students who have not spent a single day on campus without the reality of a war in Iraq. Four classes have matriculated and four classes have graduated since this war began. And we are reminded that America’s sons and daughters in uniform, and their families, bear the heavy burden. The wife of one soldier from Illinois wrote to me and said that her husband “feels like he’s stationed in Iraq and deploys home.” That’s a tragic statement. And it could be echoed by families across our country who have seen loved ones deployed to tour after tour of duty.
You are students. And the great responsibility of students is to question the world around you, to question things that don’t add up. With Iraq, we must ask the question: how did we go so wrong?
There are those who offer up easy answers. They will assert that Iraq is George Bush’s war, it’s all his fault. Or that Iraq was botched by the arrogance and incompetence of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. Or that we would have gotten Iraq right if we went in with more troops, or if we had a different proconsul instead of Paul Bremer, or if only there were a stronger Iraqi Prime Minister.
These are the easy answers. And like most easy answers, they are partially true. But they don’t tell the whole truth, because they overlook a harder and more fundamental truth. The hard truth is that the war in Iraq is not about a catalog of many mistakes – it is about one big mistake. The war in Iraq should never have been fought.
Five years ago today, I was asked to speak at a rally against going to war in Iraq. The vote to authorize the war in Congress was less than ten days away and I was a candidate for the United States Senate. Some friends of mine advised me to keep quiet. Going to war in Iraq, they pointed out, was popular. All the other major candidates were supporting the war at the time. If the war goes well, they said, you’ll have thrown your political career away.
But I didn’t see how Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat. I was convinced that a war would distract us from Afghanistan and the real threat from al Qaeda. I worried that Iraq’s history of sectarian rivalry could leave us bogged down in a bloody conflict. And I believed the war would fan the flames of extremism and lead to new terrorism. So I went to the rally. And I
argued against a “rash war” – a “war based not on reason, but on politics” – “an occupation of undetermined length, with undetermined costs, and undetermined consequences.”
I was not alone. Though not a majority, millions of Americans opposed giving the President the authority to wage war in Iraq. Twenty-three Senators, including the leader of the Senate Intelligence Committee, shared my concerns and resisted the march to war. For us, the war defied common sense. After all, the people who hit us on 9/11 were in Afghanistan, not Iraq.
But the conventional thinking in Washington has a way of buying into stories that make political sense even if they don’t make practical sense. We were told that the only way to prevent Iraq from getting nuclear weapons was with military force. Some leading Democrats echoed the Administration’s erroneous line that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. We were counseled by some of the most experienced voices in Washington that the only way for Democrats to look tough was to talk, act and vote like a Republican.
As Ted Sorensen’s old boss President Kennedy once said – “the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war – and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears.” In the fall of 2002, those deaf ears were in Washington. They belonged to a President who didn’t tell the whole truth to the American people; who disdained diplomacy and bullied allies; and who squandered our unity and the support of the world after 9/11.
But it doesn’t end there. Because the American people weren’t just failed by a President – they were failed by much of Washington. By a media that too often reported spin instead of facts. By a foreign policy elite that largely boarded the bandwagon for war. And most of all by the majority of a Congress – a coequal branch of government – that voted to give the President the open-ended authority to wage war that he uses to this day. Let’s be clear: without that vote, there would be no war.
Some seek to rewrite history. They argue that they weren’t really voting for war, they were voting for inspectors, or for diplomacy. But the Congress, the Administration, the media, and the American people all understood what we were debating in the fall of 2002. This was a vote about whether or not to go to war. That’s the truth as we all understood it then, and as we need to understand it now. And we need to ask those who voted for the war: how can you give the President a blank check and then act surprised when he cashes it?
With all that we know about what’s gone wrong in Iraq, even today’s debate is divorced from reality. We’ve got a surge that is somehow declared a success even though it has failed to enable the political reconciliation that was its stated purpose. The fact that violence today is only as horrific as in 2006 is held up as progress. Washington politicians and pundits trip over each other to debate a newspaper advertisement while our troops fight and die in Iraq.
And the conventional thinking today is just as entrenched as it was in 2002. This is the conventional thinking that measures experience only by the years you’ve been in Washington, not by your time spent serving in the wider world. This is the conventional thinking that has turned against the war, but not against the habits that got us into the war in the first place – the outdated assumptions and the refusal to talk openly to the American people.
Well I’m not running for President to conform to Washington’s conventional thinking – I’m running to challenge it. I’m not running to join the kind of Washington groupthink that led us to war in Iraq – I’m running to change our politics and our policy so we can leave the world a better place than our generation has found it.
So there is a choice that has emerged in this campaign, one that the American people need to understand. They should ask themselves: who got the single most important foreign policy decision since the end of the Cold War right, and who got it wrong. This is not just a matter of debating the past. It’s about who has the best judgment to make the critical decisions of the future. Because you might think that Washington would learn from Iraq. But we’ve seen in this campaign just how bent out of shape Washington gets when you challenge its assumptions.
When I said that as President I would lead direct diplomacy with our adversaries, I was called naïve and irresponsible. But how are we going to turn the page on the failed Bush-Cheney policy of not talking to our adversaries if we don’t have a President who will lead that diplomacy?
When I said that we should take out high-level terrorists like Osama bin Laden if we have actionable intelligence about their whereabouts, I was lectured by legions of Iraq War supporters. They said we can’t take out bin Laden if the country he’s hiding in won’t. A few weeks later, the co-chairmen of the 9/11 Commission – Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton – agreed with my position. But few in Washington seemed to notice.
Some people made a different argument on this issue. They said we can take out bin Laden, we just can’t say that we will. I reject this. I am a candidate for President of the United States, and I believe that the American people have a right to know where I stand.
And when I said that we can rule out the use of nuclear weapons to take out a terrorist training camp, it was immediately branded a “gaffe” because I did not recite the conventional Washington-speak. But is there any military planner in the world who believes that we need to drop a nuclear bomb on a terrorist training camp?
We need to question the world around us. When we have a debate about experience, we can’t just debate who has the most experience scoring political points. When we have a debate about experience, we can’t just talk about who fought yesterday’s battles – we have to focus on who can face the challenges and seize the opportunities of tomorrow. Because no matter what we think about George Bush, he’s going to be gone in January 2009. He’s not on the ballot. This election is about ending the Iraq War, but even more it’s about moving beyond it. And we’re not going be safe in a world of unconventional threats with the same old conventional thinking that got us into Iraq. We’re not going to unify a divided America to confront these threats with the same old conventional politics of just trying to beat the other side.
In 2009, we will have a window of opportunity to renew our global leadership and bring our nation together. If we don’t seize that moment, we may not get another. This election is a turning point. The American people get to decide: are we going to turn back the clock, or turn the page?
I want to be straight with you. If you want conventional Washington thinking, I’m not your man. If you want rigid ideology, I’m not your man. If you think that fundamental change can wait, I’m definitely not your man. But if you want to bring this country together, if you want experience that’s broader than just learning the ways of Washington, if you think that the global challenges we face are too urgent to wait, and if you think that America must offer the world a new and hopeful face, then I offer a different choice in this race and a different vision for our future.
The first thing we have to do is end this war. And the right person to end it is someone who had the judgment to oppose it from the beginning. There is no military solution in Iraq, and there never was. I will begin to remove our troops from Iraq immediately. I will remove one or two brigades a month, and get all of our combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months. The only troops I will keep in Iraq will perform the limited missions of protecting our diplomats and carrying out targeted strikes on al Qaeda. And I will launch the diplomatic and humanitarian initiatives that are so badly needed. Let there be no doubt: I will end this war.
But it's also time to learn the lessons of Iraq. We're not going to defeat the threats of the 21st century on a conventional battlefield. We cannot win a fight for hearts and minds when we outsource critical missions to unaccountable contractors. We’re not going to win a battle of ideas with bullets alone.
Make no mistake: we must always be prepared to use force to protect America. But the best way to keep America safe is not to threaten terrorists with nuclear weapons – it’s to keep nuclear weapons and nuclear materials away from terrorists. That’s why I’ve worked with Republican Senator Dick Lugar to pass a law accelerating our pursuit of loose nuclear materials. And that’s why I’ll lead a global effort to secure all loose nuclear materials during my first term in office.
But we need to do much more. We need to change our nuclear policy and our posture, which is still focused on deterring the Soviet Union – a country that doesn’t exist. Meanwhile, India and Pakistan and North Korea have joined the club of nuclear-armed nations, and Iran is knocking on the door. More nuclear weapons and more nuclear-armed nations mean more danger to us all.
Here’s what I’ll say as President: America seeks a world in which there are no nuclear weapons.
We will not pursue unilateral disarmament. As long as nuclear weapons exist, we’ll retain a strong nuclear deterrent. But we’ll keep our commitment under the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty on the long road towards eliminating nuclear weapons. We’ll work with Russia to take U.S. and Russian ballistic missiles off hair-trigger alert, and to dramatically reduce the stockpiles of our nuclear weapons and material. We’ll start by seeking a global ban on the production of fissile material for weapons. And we’ll set a goal to expand the U.S.-Russian ban on intermediate-range missiles so that the agreement is global.
As we do this, we’ll be in a better position to lead the world in enforcing the rules of the road if we firmly abide by those rules. It’s time to stop giving countries like Iran and North Korea an excuse. It’s time for America to lead. When I’m President, we’ll strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty so that nations that don’t comply will automatically face strong international sanctions.
This will require a new era of American diplomacy. To signal the dawn of that era, we need a President who is willing to talk to all nations, friend and foe. I’m not afraid that America will lose a propaganda battle with a petty tyrant – we need to go before the world and win those battles. If we take the attitude that the President just parachutes in for a photo-op after an agreement has already been reached, then we’re only going to reach agreements with our friends. That’s not the way to protect the American people. That’s not the way to advance our interests.
Just look at our history. Kennedy had a direct line to Khrushchev. Nixon met with Mao. Carter did the hard work of negotiating the Camp David Accords. Reagan was negotiating arms agreements with Gorbachev even as he called on him to “tear down this wall.”
It’s time to make diplomacy a top priority. Instead of shuttering consulates, we need to open them in the tough and hopeless corners of the world. Instead of having more Americans serving in military bands than the diplomatic corps, we need to grow our foreign service. Instead of retreating from the world, I will personally lead a new chapter of American engagement.
It is time to offer the world a message of hope to counter the prophets of hate. My experience has brought me to the hopeless places. As a boy, I lived in Indonesia and played barefoot with children who could not dream the same dreams that I did. As an adult, I’ve returned to be with my family in their small village in Kenya, where the promise of America is still an inspiration. As a community organizer, I worked in South Side neighborhoods that had been left behind by global change. As a Senator, I’ve been to refugee camps in Chad where proud and dignified people can’t hope for anything beyond the next handout.
In the 21st century, progress must mean more than a vote at the ballot box – it must mean freedom from fear and freedom from want. We cannot stand for the freedom of anarchy. Nor can we support the globalization of the empty stomach. We need new approaches to help people to help themselves. The United Nations has embraced the Millennium Development Goals, which aim to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015. When I’m President, they will be America’s goals. The Bush Administration tried to keep the UN from proclaiming these goals; the Obama Administration will double foreign assistance to $50 billion to lead the world to achieve them.
In the 21st century, we cannot stand up before the world and say that there’s one set of rules for America and another for everyone else. To lead the world, we must lead by example. We must be willing to acknowledge our failings, not just trumpet our victories. And when I’m President, we’ll reject torture – without exception or equivocation; we’ll close Guantanamo; we’ll be the country that credibly tells the dissidents in the prison camps around the world that America is your voice, America is your dream, America is your light of justice.
We cannot – we must not – let the promotion of our values be a casualty of the Iraq War. But we cannot secure America and show our best face to the world unless we change how we do business in Washington.
We all know what Iraq has cost us abroad. But these last few years we’ve seen an unacceptable abuse of power at home. We face real threats. Any President needs the latitude to confront them
swiftly and surely. But we’ve paid a heavy price for having a President whose priority is expanding his own power. The Constitution is treated like a nuisance. Matters of war and peace are used as political tools to bludgeon the other side. We get subjected to endless spin to keep our troops at war, but we don’t get to see the flag-draped coffins of our heroes coming home. We get secret task forces, secret budgeting, slanted intelligence, and the shameful smearing of people who speak out against the President’s policies.
All of this has left us where we are today: more divided, more distrusted, more in debt, and mired in an endless war. A war to disarm a dictator has become an open-ended occupation of a foreign country. This is not America. This is not who we are. It’s time for us to stand up and tell George Bush that the government in this country is not based on the whims of one person, the government is of the people, by the people and for the people.
We thought we learned this lesson. After Vietnam, Congress swore it would never again be duped into war, and even wrote a new law -- the War Powers Act -- to ensure it would not repeat its mistakes. But no law can force a Congress to stand up to the President. No law can make Senators read the intelligence that showed the President was overstating the case for war. No law can give Congress a backbone if it refuses to stand up as the co-equal branch the Constitution made it.
That is why it is not enough to change parties. It is time to change our politics. We don’t need another President who puts politics and loyalty over candor. We don’t need another President who thinks big but doesn’t feel the need to tell the American people what they think. We don’t need another President who shuts the door on the American people when they make policy. The American people are not the problem in this country – they are the answer. And it’s time we had a President who acted like that.
I will always tell the American people the truth. I will always tell you where I stand. It’s what I’m doing in this campaign. It’s what I’ll do as President. I’ll lead a new era of openness. I’ll give an annual “State of the World” address to the American people in which I lay out our national security policy. I’ll draw on the legacy of one our greatest Presidents – Franklin Roosevelt – and give regular “fireside webcasts,” and I’ll have members of my national security team do the same.
I’ll turn the page on a growing empire of classified information, and restore the balance we’ve lost between the necessarily secret and the necessity of openness in a democratic society by creating a new National Declassification Center. We’ll protect sources and methods, but we won’t use sources and methods as pretexts to hide the truth. Our history doesn’t belong to Washington, it belongs to America.
I’ll use the intelligence that I do receive to make good policy – I won’t manipulate it to sell a bad policy. We don’t need any more officials who tell the President what they want to hear. I will make the Director of National Intelligence an official with a fixed term, like the Chairman of the Federal Reserve – not someone who can be fired by the President. We need consistency and integrity at the top of our intelligence agencies. We don’t need politics. My test won’t be loyalty – it will be the truth.
And I’ll turn the page on the imperial presidency that treats national security as a partisan issue – not an American issue. I will call for a standing, bipartisan Consultative Group of congressional leaders on national security. I will meet with this Consultative Group every month, and consult with them before taking major military action. The buck will stop with me. But these discussions have to take place on a bipartisan basis, and support for these decisions will be stronger if they draw on bipartisan counsel. We’re not going to secure this country unless we turn the page on the conventional thinking that says politics is just about beating the other side.
It’s time to unite America, because we are at an urgent and pivotal moment.
There are those who suggest that there are easy answers to the challenges we face. We can look, they say, to Washington experience – the same experience that got us into this war. Or we can turn the page to something new, to unite this country and to seize this moment.
I am not a perfect man and I won’t be a perfect President. But my own American story tells me that this country moves forward when we cast off our doubts and seek new beginnings.
It’s what brought my father across an ocean in search of a dream. It’s what I saw in the eyes of men and women and children in Indonesia who heard the word “America” and thought of the possibility beyond the horizon. It’s what I saw in the streets of the South Side, when people who had every reason to give in decided to pick themselves up. It’s what I’ve seen in the United States Senate when Republicans and Democrats of good will do come together to take on tough issues. And it’s what I’ve seen in this campaign, when over half a million Americans have come together to seek the change this country needs.
Now I know that some will shake their heads. It’s easy to be cynical. When it comes to our foreign policy, you get it from all sides. Some folks on the right will tell you that you don’t love your country if you don’t support the war in Iraq. Some folks on the left will tell you that America can do no right in the world. Some shrug their shoulders because Washington says, “trust us, we’ll take care of it.” And we know happened the last time they said that.
Yes, it’s easy to be cynical. But right now, somewhere in Iraq, there’s someone about your age. He’s maybe on his second or third tour. It’s hot. He would rather be at home. But he’s in his uniform, got his combat gear on. He’s getting in a Humvee. He’s going out on patrol. He’s lost a buddy in this war, maybe more. He risked his life yesterday, he’s risking his life today, and he’s going to risk it tomorrow.
So why do we reject the cynicism? We reject it because of men and women like him. We reject it because the legacy of their sacrifice must be a better America. We reject it because they embody the spirit of those who fought to free the slaves and free a continent from a madman; who rebuilt Europe and sent Peace Corps volunteers around the globe; because they are fighting for a better America and a better world.
And I reject it because I wouldn’t be on this stage if, throughout our history, America had not made the right choice over the easy choice, the ambitious choice over the cautious choice. I
wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think we were ready to move past the fights of the 1960s and the 1990s. I wouldn’t be here if, time and again, the torch had not been passed to a new generation – to unite this country at home, to show a new face of this country to the world. I’m running for the presidency of the United States of America so that together we can do the hard work to seek a new dawn of peace and prosperity for our children, and for the children of the world.